Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Some Riding Punches

Did an evening session at Sensei Taka Kinjo's gohakukai dojo last night, where the absurdity of sports combat was discussed in some depth. Ended up getting to bed fairly late, so allowed myself to sleep in this morning in order to compensate, and this meant less time than usual at the park before work. Feeling a bit weary as it was, I pretty much just fed the ring-billed gulls, stretched and did some stance work, both static and moving

I've been watching some initial videos Sifu sent me links to, really thorough introductions to basic postures and how to understand their functions in relation to fighting postures. Of these, I've never really worked with the cross stance, and so this is some new learning for me, which is good. Also, I'm getting a taste of the techniques component of the Zen Martial Arts curriculum Sifu has put together, and I really appreciate the level of instruction

One of the practices I'm familiar with is moving in straight lines with the stances, and combining them with basic punches and kicks. This morning, I played with moving in several directions, more freestyle, mixing through the stances, weaving around my cluster of trees at the park, etc. It was kind of awkward, owing in part to the patches of slippery mud at the base of each tree (they'd just watered before I got there), but also to my inexperience just trying different ways of flowing between them. So I"m going to play with that a bit, and hopefully put something up eventually when it looks half-way pretty. In the meantime, thought I'd at least post a couple minutes of riding punches I taped today. This is good evidence of where my flexibility and leg-strength is at right now, having recently taken such a long break. Not way far off the mark, but definitely needs some work as well...

 

7 comments:

  1. Ryan,
    Your scenic choices of nature to train in are amazing. I also admire the commitment to training early in the morning. You have a solid horse stance, even more power can be generated by sinking into your horse stance simultaneously as you punch. Your breath out should be at the same time as your punch reaches its target and as you lower into your hs at the level you are comfortable striking from.
    Search on the fmk youtube any of the choy le fut (clf) form videos. keep up the commitment to yourself :)
    -shunyuan

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  2. Hey Ryan, one more great report from youn thanks for taking the time to share !
    I do also workout in the morning and it's funny that you raise the problem of lack of sleep. I must have slept like 4-5 hours this night because I had a little infection on my toe and it hurst terribly. Still I felt the need to train and, taking the advantage of the positive energy you guys are spreading, trained kickboxing for 1 hour and a half !
    Moving several directions, like Shi Zu advocates, will definitely free our inner energy.
    Keep up the good work, and thanks for the inspiration !
    Todai Ling

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  3. See... this is why I wanted to be a part of this whole thing:

    Positive energy from everybody

    Good advice from people with various background of experience and exposure to different styles

    Mutual inspiration

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  4. Listen to Shunyuan's feedback, in addition slightly put your hip into it & relax the hands after contact. If you do it right with the right energy, you should be pretty tired after a few reps, go for more of a dynamic motion for each rep & you will not have to do as many. Make sure you do not completely lock out your elbow, keep it slightly bent for all punches, this will prevent hyperextention. Your bow looks pretty good. The scenery is amazing. This is definately Zen Martial Arts.

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  5. Just noticed I kind of mucked up the FMK bow... will have to get that straight for future demonstrations

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  6. In addition, the bow should start off with closed fists to the side, this represents Body, then the closed fist & palm, which represents, Mind, & finally the palm to palm, which represents, spirit.

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  7. Yeah, the closed fists was the component I noticed missing on review. I'll fix that up for the future, and work on all the recommendations above. Thanks for the feedback

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