polariswushu.net Blog

Body weight exercises for home

Been laying low…i trained for a smoker fight which the event was cancelled due to not enough interest and competitors. In the 6 weeks of training i managed to get a shin splint from over training.

so just doing some home training and Tai Chi and internal stuff for now….

the leg stuff doing pretty lightly with low repetitions-

Burpies
Push ups
Back bridge
Neck bridge- front and back
Crunches
Hindu squats
Wide push ups
Scissors- (abs)
Bicycles-opposite knee/elbow- (abs)
Side strides
Wall sits (with iron shirt breathing)
Mountain Climbers
T-push ups
Side obliques (abs)
Alternate arm push ups
Supermans
Jump horse stance
Hindu push ups
Leg raises
Belly-ups
Lunges/Sampson stretch
Hamstring curls
Close body fist push ups
V-ups
Punch sit-ups
Clap push ups
Jump switch lunges
Squat kicks
Planks and Side planks
One leg squats
Cherry pickers (abs)
Ankle grabs (abs)
Jack knifes
Knee-elbow jack knife
180 jump horse stance
Box jumps
Bouncy push ups
Seated raises- kick both legs and hips up

Bhassler wrote:Neijia-boxer,
“You come up with some tremendous training lists– how much time do you spend daily, and how do you break it out between skill and conditioning?”

Well like i mentioned, I’m injured right now so i am not doing any weight lifting, track circuits, equipment workouts, or even regular class at the MMA school. I only spend about 2.5 hours on average when I do. one in morning, one in evening with high intensity. usually 5-6 days a week.

my coach had my workout as following pre-fight training schedule:

Sun. Taiji/Bagua in park* , evening- fight team
Mon. – afternoon- Strength and conditioning day
Tues- morning fight team training, evening- optional**
Wed.- morning- boxing, evening- sparring
Thursday- morning- fight team, evening- strength and conditioning
Fri- off/rest
Saturday- morning- taiji in park , afternoon- sparring
*- my MMA teacher didnt schedule Taiji, that was my own choice
**-optional- usually regular Muay Thai or Boxing class.

right now just an hour or so a day usually morning before work and some after job internal training like solo form to rehab the leg. I’m in a meditation phase right now with more prolonged sitting and reading of Buddhist and Taoist texts.

Pre-sparring drills using taijiquan, baguazhang, and boxing concepts

ashe wrote:hey i liked this clip as a “get your feet wet” kind of thing. since i’ve never had the pleasure of training at an mma or thai boxing gym, did you draw on your experiences training there to put together these drills?

the bagua part was unaltered from my bagua teacher. the taiji part draws from my own experience with some fast taiji with another taiji teacher. the boxing part is from 3 different boxing teachers.

so it draws from experience from all, but is inspired by a method at the mma school called “stacking”-

example of “stacking” might be-
drill1- jab slip jab
2- add cross (jab slip jab cross)
3. add knee- (jab slip jab cross knee)
4. add rt elbow (jab slip jab cross knee elbow)

this is something not new and taught alot in bagua if you have a teacher that can show you=

think of yang line ____ is ‘attack’ and yin line __ __ as ‘defense’

so in the bagua is eight symbols, for heaven trigram which is all yang lines- you have= 3 attacks, water trigram which is yin line, yang line, yin line= defense- -attack -defense.

mountain trigram is one yang line and two yin- attack-defense-defense= punch+ retreat+ kick
add two trigrams of heaven and fire= attack+attack+attack+attack+defense+attack= jab+ cross +hook+ uppercut+ duck+ cross

really nothing new, infinite possibilities all from basics.

About Tai Chi Combat training for beginners

sparring and noobs-
1. build confidence in them- re-enforce it with confidence building drills like parrying, catching (things in tai chi form)
2. after teaching solo forms and applications, bring those into a sparring setting

i am having to baby spoon feed these cats so even doing sparring isnt a weekly event, its something that is thrown in ‘here and there’ until they are comfortable enough. My goal is to assist with getting them used to someone aggressive enough to be throwing punches and kicks at them and how to respond appropriately and calmly under pressure.

In tai chi I dare not teach the empty hand form without showing the applications. this way in practicing the form they can use the application intent or ‘yi’. i’ve introduce them to some hsingyi and drills like- heng vs pao drill or pi vs beng drill. I introduce them to circle walking and fan chang change. Then walking drills where one guy does a fan chang change and the other guys needs to react and change on circle. There is always push hands too which is very reactive.

i started as a tai chi guy but was lucky that my first teacher was a martial artist that taught hsingyi and bagua. He also felt neijia had a lack of real cardio so he taught western boxing as well. Neijia was water while boxing was fire…. the fire to burn up and raise the bodys metabolic rate and sweat out toxins and burn up the food/calories for health.

he was able to create many two person combat drills similar to push hands for each of the postures using a sticking approach, leverage, and body mechanics.
my approach is different. as much as i appreciate and have learned many push hands sets- I dont start my drills from a already touching.
example-
1. peng drill- guys throws a punch- bridge it with peng- (practice a few of those) then try grabbing the wrist and yank hard to unbalance them.
2. lu- one guy chases with left or right punch and student needs to train lu to outside on whatever arm partner feeds him
3. ji-using a sticking lu (from above 2.)to get to the outside of opponent and add jump stepping ‘press’ to uproot person or strike kidney.
4. an- angling off an attack by stepping away from opponents line and using peng to stick then attacking with a lifting/push their body from lateral angle.

these are working from a pre-sticking situation into a bridging one, how to blend and move with the opponents stepping, being in the right distance and angling to find line of attack after neutralization.

i am putting my friends at an advantage with boxing drills, as a matter i fact i show them how a MT guy might attack or a bjj might attack or a judo throw might be countered with a throw. its called “know your enemy strengths and weaknesses”

some of the taiji fighting drills and 2 man work I have shown are solo fajin drills using the 8 energies while moving forward, back and to left right, and being centered. good posture is key, this can be standing, and with jump steps when doing the offensive/defensive moves. Later transferring that power into a object like a heavy bag, eventually a moving target like on focus mitts, kick shield, and thai pads.

i like to have them do structured tai chi punches to the belly pad (step-parry-punch is a good example) and work palm strikes to focus mitts (brush knee/fair maiden palm) . we’ll take strikes and kicks from the forms and doing them on thai pads and create simple yet comprehensive combinations using good posture and structure. simulated various attacks like throw a kick to person and have the person do brush knee to stop/catch kick and push the opponent.

it takes some kind of wisdom and intelligence to study IMA especially baguazhang and taijiquan.

we are doing 2 man taiji fighting drills. some are solo movement drills, later they work with a partner on them. paired drills might be using the 8 energies of taiji, 5 elements of xingyiquan, jibenshou fa of baguazhang. we incorporate them with power on martial arts equipment. we sometimes use sections from the 88 “taiji san shou ” two man set as combat drills too. sometimes we do taiji with wrestling/shaui jiao flavor, sometimes we do taiji with qi-na flavor, sometimes we do taiji with combat sport flavor more of a striking with arms (boxing) or striking with arms and legs (kick boxing) and sometimes striking with arms, legs and throws (san shou). all of it is based on who comes to class, where they are in their training, what i want them to learn. Most of the combat stuff is pretty much after warm-ups, stance work, basics- (hand skills, footwork, other), forms, and conditioning. after combat work we do qigong/meditation/mind work.

i can care less to be a dogmatic traditionalist. to me the traditionalist are a joke and just gathering dust. my training is based on 15 years of CMA/IMA and 5 years of MMA training with Pros(boxing, muay thai, wrestling, judo, jujitsu, and cross fit) people with real combat experience. Most CMA/IMA people i know dont come near to having anything remotely close to real combat experience, it really is a rare type to find someone in IMA willing to fight and show it. those that do and have like john wang, wuziyidi, cerebus, ashe, cai longyu, cung le, kenneth fish, luo deixu, mike patterson (and his students) and a rare few others like myself with balls to step in a ring have my respect.

taiji is there for me, i dont have to be there for taiji.

Basics for new sparring students

I’ve been able to get some tai chi people interested in sparring who tend to have a fear of getting hit and want no physical contact other than push hands.

here a good start:

warm-up with jump rope 2x 3 min.- blast high knees or double unders last 30 sec.

shadow boxing with extra defense- circling, covering, bob and weaving, ect 2 x 3min rounds

sparring drills- slipping drills, covering drills, catch/parry drills
1. defense- catch/parry partners jab with rt. and blast jab back
2. defense- parry down partners cross with left and return left hook
3. defense- blocking round kicks drill
3. add rt round kick to drill 1
4. add rt round kick to drill 2
5. jab spar
6. cross spar
7. kick spar
8. jab cross spar
9. jab, cross, round kick sparring
10. changing between all types of sparring (coach will call out method) with different partners.

please note the defense work with catching and parring is a form of sticking, also the kick defense is same as balance stance in Golden rooster on one leg.

remember at #10 there was
10. changing between all types of sparring (coach will call out method) with different partners.

-start adding sticking/pushing/tui shou and bagua rou shou into the mix
example:
a. jab sparring and sticking work
b. cross sparring w/ kicking
c. jab sparring and kicking
d. cross sparring and sticking work
e. jab cross sparring and sticking work
f. kicking sparring with sticking work
g. All- sticking, jab, cross, kicking
h. add throwing
i. jab sparring with sticking and throw
j. cross sparring with sticking and throw
ect

Yang Taijiquan solo fajin and DaLu drills

In response to a fajin threads (response to person who said Chen and Yang taiji didnt have much) I wanted to demonstrate some solo drills that I learned from two Yang style teachers. Chen has a ton of Fajing , here are some yang fajin training drills: (notice the similarity to Xingyiquan, except in a more front weighted taiji stance)

Solo fajing was taught by Weiqi He, disciple of Fu Zhong Wen and solo Da-
Lu was taught by Xianhao Cheng, Jang Yu Keung line. Both Fu Zhong Wen and
Jang Yu Keung were disciples of Yang Chen Fu.

weight lifting for martial arts

i’ve been trying these sets that randy couture uses, each one once a week a few days apart:

Antagonistic Muscle Groups
Heart Periphery

30 reps of each exercise
3 sets

Bench
Low Row
Leg Extension
Leg curl
Military press
Lat pull
Squat
Stiff Legged Deadlift
Bicep curl
Tricep extention

other CIRCUIT

Barbell with 10, 15, 20 pounds
8 reps of each exercise

Once you pick up the bar for a set, do not put it down until all exercises are complete

1. (10lbs)
- Bent Over Row
- Upright Row
- Military Press
- Good Mornings
- Split Squat (Left and Right)
- Squat, then Push Press
- Still Legged Dead Lift

60 secs rest

2. add 5 pounds, Repeat
60 secs rest

3. add 5 pounds, repeat
60 secs rest

4. Same weight, repeat
60 secs rest

5. remove 5 pounds, repeat
60 secs rest

6. remove 5 pounds, repeat

Xingyiquan and Baguazhang

Here is a review of some forms I learned back in Richmond in early 1990’s when training with Weiqi.

Here is basically an outline of what my bagua combatives class looks like:

warm-ups-
1-14. neck, spine bending forward/back, side stretch, heel stretch, waist rotations, wrist and ankles, 8 dan tien kicks left and right, 8 straight leg kicks left and right, 8 cross body kicks left and right, 8 outside stretch kicks left and right, 8 side kicks left and right, 8 back heel kicks left and right, drop stance drill, slap body drill.

solo palm drills-
shaking palm, dragon back, lifting palm, throwing palm, slapping palm, ect.

palm drills on focus mitts
1. individual palm drills on mitts
2. combining palm drills on mitts

stance work without hands-
jump step, full jump step, back step, full back step, pivot step, kou pu bai pu. ba fa gen bu, circle walking and 8 different changes.

add hands-
fan chang/shaking palm strikes

8 bagua kicks
drills on muay thai pads- warm ups- 10 round kicks left and right, 10 push kicks left and right, 10 side kicks left and right
create functional kick combos-
sample- low hook kick, round kick, side kick
front kick, round kick, side kick
double side kicks
low hook kick, side kick, knee to body

adding hands with kicks or kicks with hands-
basic-
2 palm strikes, 2 round kicks.
push kick, round kick, 4 palm strikes
2 palm strikes, 4 clinch knees- push opponent off and round kick

start working with bagua concepts-
fighting from center of circle going out- linear attack
fighting from outside of circle going in- linear attack
fighting on circle and working inward- small circular attack
fighting on circle and working inward- large circular attack

researching applications from forms
1. strikes
2. qi-na
3. throws/takedown
4. finishes

two person drills
1. flow drills
2. attack defense drills- countering
3. ji ben shou fa drills
4. push hands/rou shou (bagua push hands)
5. sparring and san shou

strength conditioning drills
1. techniques for upper body- push ups, clap push ups, hand stand push ups,t-push ups, ect
2. techniques for body core- ab work: v-ups, sit ups, belly ups, crunches.
3. techniques for legs- horse stance, horse stance jumping, burpies, one leg squats, lunge jumps.
4. Iron gong work- forearm conditioning, body hitting, leg hitting, ect.

closing and qigong
-lung training
-tan tien breathing