What you put in you get out.
Stay the course.
You don’t know what you don’t know.
If you can get hit and keep rolling with it, life doesn’t pack such a punch.
Learn the lesson and then let it go.
You can find moments of personal glory somewhere between seeing stars and black eyes.
If you need an excuse to throw techniques like jabs, crosses, hooks and uppercuts -
simply play your forms,
and where you find palm strikes,
turn them into fists.
Stolen from Ross.
Dear Boss,
I hate you. I hate that you have me up so early in the morning the sun isn’t even awake. You drive me so hard, working long hours in a day and by the time the week is finished I’m spent. All I’m able to do is eat and sleep – I don’t even get to go to the boxing gym anymore over lunch as there’s work to be done. My training is slipping in favour of your insatiable goal of reaping the mighty dollar and for what? Because you have everyone coming after you for money? That’s not my problem.
However, perhaps I should be grateful that I even have a job in today’s world with the economy the way it is. I should be happy with all I have. Still, I wonder if there’s someway you can change that hectic schedule of mine to include more of the one thing I have such a strong love-hate relationship with…sorry…my bad…back to work I go…
Sincerely,
Self-employed
Today’s gym advice is brought to you by my coach, Bunny:
“If you can’t do three minute rounds today, you’re f*ckin’ doing three minute rounds.”
“Always take your rest.”
Showed up at the ‘new’ gym. My coach left training the local pro and went to train at Warrior ABC. My friend Ken invited me down. For Ken, the gym is like family. It’s seen him through his first fight, a divorce and helped him stay on the wagon for the most part. He calls our coach almost every night to chat. He’s brought all his friends and business contacts to the new gym and I joked that he was our coach’s booking agent.
The gym is like family. Upon my return, I heard pro fighter Steve say in the dressing room, “Man! Everyone’s here now.”
It’s good to be ’everyone.’ It’s good to be back, in a good facility and surrounded by good people, whilst being punched in the face.
Martial artist Tony Blauer once updated his Facebook status to the tune of (paraphrasing), “I can go into any Crossfit gym across the country, join right in and everybody welcomes me.”
I responded, “It’s just like how we wanted the world of martial arts to be.”
The gym. Like family.
CTK
http://www.twincities.com/ci_20551535/st-olaf-professor-can-ponder-and-he-can
” ‘Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them.’ Isn’t that good? Isn’t that good?” he recently told a classroom, leading them in a close, line-by-line reading of a Camus essay on how to respond to the absurdity of life. ” ‘A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself!’ Oh, man. That’s unbelievable. C’mon. That’s an amazing image.”
In the gym, he’s equally insistent on detail and focus. Attention must be paid to the slightest movements of the head, hands and feet.
“Hands up! Hands up!” he shouts to fighters in a sparring session. “Don’t stand in front of him. Work. Work.”
The Circle of Discipline, a place full of boxers of all levels hitting bags and each other, is noisy, crowded, intensely kinetic, but orderly. For Marino, it isn’t a crucible, but a refuge.
“This gym is a very special place,” he said. “There’s such a feeling of family.”
MrMLSI commented on an old blog post, asking many a good question.
My answers are italicized.
CTK,
So what ever happen here? Did you ever change your approach to Wing Chun training? Did you make it more ‘applicable’ making slight modifications here and there? Did you do as rageholic mention, change and personalize it to a point where it can be recognize as a new stand alone branch of Wing Chun?
I think all I have been looking for is a way to break out of the shackles traditional martial arts create. My own freedom of expression through a system. So, in part, I have worked hard to do what Rageholic suggested and personalize my Chun.
I haven’t made any ‘modifications’ to the system, per se – just the way I now approach it. I have changed my solo training to reflect what I want to become. Time is precious, so I make sure that I get my biggest bang for my buck when I train.
What I’ve done is taken the training regime of the boxing and overlayed it onto the Chun. Cardio/conditioning is a big part of my training, instead of just sitting in YJKYM for hours practicing patty-cake drills. Heavy-bag and sprints make up a good part of my workout as well.
A few more questions.
When you say the Wing Chun you know cannot stand up against Boxers do you mean with/without gloves and rules, or does it even make a difference at all?
To me, it doesn’t make much difference. Pressure testing is pressure testing. What I was getting at in the previous post, specifically, was how the training methods differ and therefore the training outcomes differ.
So what was your answer to your last question?
I assume you’re asking me about what I’ve done with all those Wing Chun techniques. First, I’ve streamlined my ‘teaching’ process. When someone asks to train with me, I don’t show them all the rhetoric and try not to talk too much (Wing Chun folk tend to run their mouths a lot – especially when explaining techniques or writing responses to questions on a blog).
Second, going back to personalizing my Chun, something His Dark Side and I have talked about at length, I am constantly in the process of creating my own ‘mini-system’ within the system.
Lastly, I’ve been looking at all the similarities instead of the differences – bringing all ‘techniques’ together into one common goal: hit the guy while minimizing damage.
Sorry for so many questions! I’m looking forward to your response.
No problem. I sincerely hope you got something out of my responses.
CTK
Intrigued by this concept, I spent some time pondering the meaning of the phrase. The word “sweet” has many confectionery and feminine connotations, but in this context it means “winning and persuasive.” The word “science” is defined as “knowledge and skill.”
Putting the two words together has a truly artful meaning: “a winning and persuasive knowledge or skill that is accumulated and established over time.”
-White Collar Boxing by John Oden, Pg. 18-19
Took almost the entire week off work and was happy that PF could come over so I could spar a bit.
Warmed up with Chi Sau.
Moved on to Chair Sparring. Starts off a bit like Rock’em Sock’em but teaches upper body evasion and it’s a lot of fun. Kept having to scoot my chair forward so I eventually put PF’s chair-back against the wall.
Moved on to some boxing. Cooled down with some more Chi Sau.
Was a good time had by all. Gave some, took some, learned some.
CTK
Had some time at lunch so I went across the bridge to find the new boxing gym. I think I had mentioned that the previous one closed because the non-for-profit wasn’t making enough money.
I couldn’t find it. I walked around the industrial-type building and went into the office spaces. I saw a Five Animal kung-fu school and asked the Sifu, who was sitting with a girl, if he knew where the gym was. “In a bay. You go outside and turn right – it’s right there.” “Okay, thanks,” I replied.
As I walked down the hall I heard the young woman cry out to me, “But Kung-Fu is better!”
CTK
c/o RealPolitik
Peace, CTK
Peace, CTK
(Can I say that? Haha.)
But, seriously, it did. Let me tell you why.
1. Other than His Dark Side coaching me to keep my head forward, boxing has taught me to keep my head forward and chin tucked. Keeping my head forward and chin tucked keeps the balance when I’m in YJKYM. If I perform the ever-so-common lean back (and consequently put my head back), I’m uprooted very easily.
2. I’m all about less pigeon-toe now. Power comes from the ground no matter what endeavour I chose, so the way I used to do things is wrong. If it doesn’t work, it’s wrong. If I perform the normal pigeon-toe stance, my triangle is too small. When I ‘open up’ my stance, my triangle (therefore my ‘base’) gets bigger. But there’s a catch…I can only open it so much before it becomes no longer a triangle or eventually a backwards triangle. Boxing has shown me what a mobile and stable stance should look like – and more importantly feel like.
3. “Think wrestling with punching,” was what I once was told at the gym in regards to ‘sinking’ into my stance. I was told I was too upright. So eventually I fixed the problem and got lower in my boxing stance. From it, I gained faster evasiveness and incredible punching power. I first noticed the lowering of my Wing Chun stance when practicing the Wooden Dummy. I thought it was perhaps just an off-chance that I was incredibly powerful and stable while practicing all the movements. But after having the opportunity to practice Chi Sau with a partner, I can safely say that my stance has been lowered for the better.
Today’s brief Chi Sau session created the canvas for me to realize that things from Western Boxing have improved my Wing Chun. It got me thinking about what they were specifically so I wrote them down. …perhaps they might help you, too.
Best,
CTKWingChun
When I close my eyes, they’re still there. They look like flashing blue square-type stars. It started last night. They’re slowly fading away, however.
I gave myself some self-acupuncture (a colleague of mine calls it autopuncture) to help increase the energy and blood flow between the body and the head. This has helped with the whiplash that I endured.
What really shocks me is how my power gets zapped. It’s like my body now has to expend extra energy to reboot my system. I find this fascinating. Takes me a good minute to get back up to speed. A lot can happen in that minute.
But I AM getting better. I can feel it. I can feel the understanding of it all creeping into my bones – my soul. It’s like a dance – so foreign of the energy typical of a Wing Chun exchange, however. Wing Chun feels like two trains on the same track continually crashing into each other. This feels like a give and take. Split seconds of opportunity to make something out of the moment before the partner is gone.
Chin down, shoulders up, gloves to cheek, punch and return faster, watch where I’m punching.
They broke me.
Now before you go off and say that it’s because I’ve never been pushed hard enough in the past – let me tell you something. I’m a machine. I’m 30 years old and I have more in the tank than these 18-year-old punks at the gym. They try to run past me sprinting on the straight-aways, but I push back and leave ‘em in the dust.
And before you say that I’m bragging and boasting, I’m actually quite humble when it comes to my training. I’m always pushing myself harder and harder. I’d never met the wall – until yesterday at the gym.
My cardio/conditioning coach had us start off with the usual sprints, plyometric stair jumps, push-ups, burpees and medicine ball throws. I opted to stay and work on more cardio while the others went to piddle away at the heavy bags. More sprints, more medicine ball throws. Then he told me 25 high jumping knees. I said no. I sat my sorry ass down and hung my dizzy head over the trash can. …and I sat…for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only 5 minutes. Craig told me I was done…don’t worry about it. But I was worrying about it. I stood up, banged out the 25 high knees and went to hit the heavy bag.
It took me another 10 minutes of light bag work to get back to my usual self. Then Craig and I did some light sparring for 30 minutes thereafter.
No bruising from the sparring, though. My ego is slightly, however.
Lo Lieh
I see you. You look younger, faster, sleeker. You’re the nail sticking out, waiting to be hammered down.
I sit in the back, quietly watching. Hunting. Today, I will model you and you will pace me. You see, I have age, experience and some wisdom on my side. And when you least expect it, I will dash past you, push harder and go farther. For I have more in the tank and you are the hunted.
I am the hunter.
Jesse Owens – 1936 Berlin Olympics
