Am I working enough?

[Pranaman]

I'm 18, not obese, and don't have any problems besides sciatica.

 

This is what I do:

 

my max pullups(done first because of the location of the bar)

 

Stretch

 

isometric pushup for 2mins, 3/4 of the way up.(usually drop thirty secs short and pop 'n lock my elbows for the rest of the time)

 

I rest for 20secs

 

1min 30secs plank

 

I get in medium high horse stance and workout my forearms, fingers, and wrist(still in position).

 

I drop my horse stance to low-med height and try and stay there for 4 mins, (use to do 10mins till I lowered my stance and leaned back) when my intent shys off and my mind wanders I will sometimes rise for a second then push myself back into low stance.

 

4 minutes of yiquan's dragon stance (2min each leg)

 

Then I'm done cause my whole body feels worked.

 

I want to push my horse stance time to an hour within the next few months.

 

Any suggestions?

[Spectrum]

It's enough. Looks like your warming up and doing some conditioning for yi quan practice.

 

I would simply add that after you feel warmed up do some line drills, form work, or dancing hands as your in the smoothest most coordinated at that point. Don't "warmup" to the point of feeling broke down, let the rest of the practice do that, in the most "coordinated" manner you adopt.

 

ps - sciatica go bye bye soon.

Edited December 2, 2008 by Spectrum

[goldisheavy]

Any suggestions?

 

If you ask a question like "Am I working enough?" I have to ask "What are you trying to accomplish?" For example, if you want to go from east coast USA to the west coast, and you travel by car, and you cover say 1000 miles a day, you are doing enough if you want to reach your destination in 3 days, but not enough if you want to reach it in one day, roughly speaking.

 

In other words, whether or not something is enough or not, depends completely on your intent.

[picnic]

I seem to remember Lau Tzu saying he did isometric pushup for 3mins and did not lock his elbows. The buddha did isometric pushup for 20mins but no one got him on film, and he may have been taking red bull intravenously.

[Ryan T.]

I want to push my horse stance time to an hour within the next few months.

 

Any suggestions?

 

If your goal is a longer horse stance then, in my experience, just keep doing your horse stance. Just do it gradually. Best not to push the body too much, too quickly. Besides gaining strong legs and a developed root and such. You will also be developing a good amount of patience. An hour long horse stance, if done properly, is an accomplishment.

[zanshin]

For good health, you might want to do cardio of some sort too, cardiac fitness is more correlated to time to recover from injury than strength or flexibility too.

[Pranaman]

my long-term goal is:

45 min isometric push-up(five 30sec long dynamic pushups followed by 56 regular pushups)

3 hour horse stance

45min per leg in yiquan's dragon stance

5-10min plank

100 pull-ups

100 dips

 

yee ol' sciatica is most of the time not showing itself.

will start sprinting once it doesn't further my injury.

 

sweet.

 

I forgot the dips, I do dips before the pushup.

 

I will additionally climb into the wall starting today and into the future. Than do some drills.

 

Would you say it's a good grounded idea to polish off the whole session and end it in health stance(standing like a post)?

[goldisheavy]

my long-term goal is:

45 min isometric push-up(five 30sec long dynamic pushups followed by 56 regular pushups)

3 hour horse stance

45min per leg in yiquan's dragon stance

5-10min plank

100 pull-ups

100 dips

 

Why do you need to do this? What's the motivation for this?

[Pranaman]

Why do you need to do this? What's the motivation for this?

 

to help arm myself to the T.

 

to enjoy the benefits of the process.

Edited December 2, 2008 by Pranaman

[zanshin]

? If you mean self defense then you need to add plyometrics for explosiveness and speed drills, holding stances for long periods of time and high rep calisthenics don't really apply so well, although I admire the mental discipline involved in that.

[Pranaman]

? If you mean self defense then you need to add plyometrics for explosiveness and speed drills, holding stances for long periods of time and high rep calisthenics don't really apply so well, although I admire the mental discipline involved in that.

 

the drills I mentioned might be plyometrics.....

 

All I know is that the sifu I learned to do these things from is very fast and has very very explosive punches.

[goldisheavy]

to help arm myself to the T.

 

to enjoy the benefits of the process.

 

You need weapons? Are you going to a war? What benefits can be had in a war? Do you expect a physical conflict to occur soon?

Edited December 2, 2008 by goldisheavy

[Pranaman]

You need weapons? Are you going to a war? What benefits can be had in a war? Do you expect a physical conflict to occur soon?

 

of course I don't need weapons, no one needs anything.

 

It is not the weapon that is important, but the byproducts of its assembly. Once you can manifest a martial art, not a martial technique, you know you didn't miss anything along the way.

 

Where is the harm done?

[goldisheavy]

It is not the weapon that is important, but the byproducts of its assembly. Once you can manifest a martial art, not a martial technique, you know you didn't miss anything along the way.

 

Where is the harm done?

 

No harm! I was just asking. So you are doing this to further your wisdom, right? So if I understand correctly, what you want to observe are the principles of the art at work. In that case I think you are doing more than enough and your goals are way too high, IMO, because you can see the principles working much sooner than the time when you can do a 3 hour horse stance. Even a 30 min horse stance would be pretty tremendous. How many Westerners can do a 30 min horse stance? Anyway, it's not about the comparisons, it's about having a useful enough sample for experimentation, introspection, contemplation, meditation, manifestation, etc. Of course you don't have to stop, heck you can just keep going until you can stand all day in the horse stance, but that's another story. If you seek wisdom, then reaching some extreme number is not the goal of practice.

 

My little story... one time I read about a martial artist explaining that to do a finger strike your fingers have to be softer than grass. I was thinking about that, is that true? In the book the guy could sink his whole hand into a dead animal carcass. I believe that completely. Besides I've seen a video of an old Shaolin monk puncturing a bag of sand with his finger, so I am pretty certain it's quite possible. (Not to mention that I believe everything is possible as a fundamental principle, but I mean, even from a mundane perspective it's easily possible).

 

So I set out to find out the truth for myself. I hit a wall with my finger tips. First thing I notice is that my intent is in the wrist. That means from the wrist to the tips of my finger I am relying on bone and ligament strength to "hold up". So my hand is DEAD from the wrist to the finger tip, because my intent stops at the wrist. Do you understand what I mean? In other words, I was excluding my fingers from myself when striking, and this made them brittle. Another thing I noticed was that there was great fear! Before my finger even touched the wall, my hand tickled from fear and there was a mental impulse not to go through with the strike.

 

So then, I put my intent into my finger tip. That means my whole hand up to the very tip has to be alive, it is myself. It's not just dead bone, it is life. So I am not relying on bone and ligament strength anymore, because I hit with the intent at the tip of my finger. My whole finger now both can be and has to be soft, because life is softness and rigidity is death.

 

Now I slap the table as if I am playing a piano. My fingers are lose and it's not really a strike but a slap. There is no fear because it's a gentle slap. Then I gradually make these slaps more energetic. Not so much more forceful, but just more lively slaps. More vibrant slaps. And so on. I practiced this for a while. After about a month I could hit with finger tips so hard that it would easily leave a bruise and I myself couldn't believe what I could do. I could hit walls with great vigor (if not to say force) and no fear and no finger buckling or any bad side-effects. This was enough for me. I am not really a martial artist. I got the point. I got my little bit of wisdom. And that was the end of that experiment. I let the skill lapse and I don't care about it. Now I can't strike like that anymore, but I know how to get back "there" if I need it.

 

So this is what it means to practice for wisdom. It's very different from practicing for self-defense, and yet different from practicing for health, and also yet again different from practicing for killing/offensive situations. I hope this helps.

 

I never intended to dissuade you or anything like that. I just wanted to know your intention so I could provide a better response.

Edited December 3, 2008 by goldisheavy

[seadog]

Reading all this makes me glad I surf

[Mal]

The buddha did isometric pushup for 20mins but no one got him on film, and he may have been taking red bull intravenously.

ROFLMAO

[Spectrum]

why comes after who what when and where

 

i think pranaman is speaking precisely

 

to the T

You need weapons? Are you going to a war? What benefits can be had in a war? Do you expect a physical conflict to occur soon?

You Cee I Am not really concerned with your "concern" about this. Seek natural defense mechanisms.

No harm! I was just asking. So you are doing this to further your wisdom, right?

 

Meridian Washing if I'm not mistaken.

 

Not so much more forceful, but just more lively slaps. More vibrant slaps. And so on. I practiced this for a while. After about a month I could hit with finger tips so hard that it would easily leave a bruise and I myself couldn't believe what I could do. I could hit walls with great vigor (if not to say force) and no fear and no finger buckling or any bad side-effects. This was enough for me. I am not really a martial artist. I got the point. I got my little bit of wisdom. And that was the end of that experiment. I let the skill lapse and I don't care about it. Now I can't strike like that anymore, but I know how to get back "there" if I need it.

 

No end to relaxation into alignment. Sounds like a musician who got to the point.

So this is what it means to practice for wisdom. It's very different from practicing for self-defense, and yet different from practicing for health, and also yet again different from practicing for killing/offensive situations. I hope this helps.

No difference. Perhaps same same. The source of strategy is not war. The source of health is not medicine. The snake intertwines the stave.

Edited December 3, 2008 by Spectrum

[Pranaman]

thank you for your replies.

 

goldisheavy - I enjoyed your experiment with intent.

 

I must explain what my intention in is while I am practicing.

 

The pushup hold, for example.... my intention is for the shaking to shake loose stagnant energy. While this is happening I am observing what my body is doing, and how it is recruiting more and more muscles for the job at task = this helps my body unify, and an improved energetic wiring.... starting from the physical level. At the same time I know that this is strengthening my neuromuscular connection to the muscles used for throwing a punch, if that is ever needed. More is going on that I'm not aware of yet, but I also have heard that extremely long isometric holds cause more mitochondria to be produced as an adaptation to the intense contraction period. I can see from what i've interpreted as being a quality of your character, that you can appreciate the holistic approach.

 

I do this for lower and upper body, for obvious reasons. the only subtle difference between my zhan zhuang and isometrics is that I am intending into the 6 directions, the rest is the same.

 

As far as my set goals...

Someone much older and wiser than I, that has obviously spent a great deal of time learning all that he could, gave me these times to reach for. He gave me further instruction to insure that I wasn't wasting an ounce of energy on something I would not reap benefits from. I hope to be as grounded as him soon.

[Wayfarer64]

obviously none of us are getting enough done -what!? with all the time we spend here!

 

and it is still a high quality experience-

love to all-Pat