Taiji and Xingyi Heavy Long pole shaking basics for power

[Bob]

This qiang is a tad bit too heavy--notice how he doesn't quite get the full body extension on his trusts--but not bad to build up to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIb2bvZM ... re=related



Many of these and the above forms and drills can be done with slow, articulate movement coordinated with breathing.

[lineofintent]

Good thread annd excellent posts from all.

[jaime_g]

what do you thing about that?

[Wuming]

Hi Tom,
Thanks for the cross post. I am glad you found my post on spear training informative. I also posted in the main RSF discussion forum but I guess it got lost in the shuffle.

Nicklas,
Yes, I agree, looking at these things from an anatomical perspective has really helped me. Thanks for reminding me about the obliques and the transversus. What's your take on the spinal erectors? Last time I was in Tokyo, Akuzawa told me that a key part of doing what he does is to be able to distinguish between the left and right spinal erectors in action.

Jaime,
Regarding the videos, I like the fact that they are testing the skills against resistance. I do think that the helmets they are using run a risk of someone getting a collapsed trachea. This is because the helmets lack a throat guard. I know that in one of the sport eskrima styles, they banned stabs after someone got a collapsed trachea during a match.

Best,
Tim

[nicklas]

Nicklas,
Yes, I agree, looking at these things from an anatomical perspective has really helped me. Thanks for reminding me about the obliques and the transversus. What's your take on the spinal erectors? Last time I was in Tokyo, Akuzawa told me that a key part of doing what he does is to be able to distinguish between the left and right spinal erectors in action.

Your welcome =)
Spinal eructors... I dont know... i personal dont focus my mind on them when i practice even if they are an important part. They need to be strong though, dead-left and squats is my main foundation in strength training.

The spine can be looked at in three parts "lower" (lumbar/pelvic), "middle" (Thoracic) and "upper/neck"(Cervical). The middle part is very rigid and have the support of the ribcage so when i practice i only focus on getting that part more "mobile", the other two more stable.

I think everything starts at the bottom so if you activate the lower abdomen by lifting the pelvic floor everything follows. That together with "elongating the spine" by lifting the crown of the head does the magic, i think.

Why should it be important to distinguish between the left and right spinal erectors? If you stand with you hands on the lower back and move your weight to the left and right you can feel them activating back and forth as you move your weight, and they are an important when you twist your spine (like in a punch) but if you activate "the bottom" doesnt this follows by it self?

[nicklas]

Sorry guys i just cant stop.... I was thinking about heavy weapon, strength training and learning a skill set while browsing a book that i picked up to find a quote for this thread when i came by this section:

From Athletic body in balance:

Research has been done on swinging and rotating with heavy and light implements. A standard example is a weighted baseball bat or weighted golf club. The centrifugal force is greater and the inertia and momentum are different (usually more exaggerated) from the normal device.
Any change in weight should be minute. Don't go overboard with using either heavy or light devices. Remember that weight and velocity have an inverse relationship: as weight goes down, velocity goes up, and as weight goes up, velocity must go down. So an athlete using a weighted implement should not try to swing or even expect to swing at normal speed. It's impossible. Use a weighted baseball bat or golf club or add weight to a sport-specific tool to improve awareness and expose fundamental flaws in mechanics.
Do not play with these implements or train with them for a long period of time. Use them appropriately to find correct swing or turn. The feedback created through the use of weighted devices is going to be more appropriate if the athlete relaxes and uses it as sport-specific warm-up. Swinging a light implement may require a much greater degree of skill and more supervision and coaching, but it will teach the athlete to move faster and get started more quickly.
Using a heavy or light implement can be compared to running up or down a hill. Both can improve speed and technique, but each work differently. Running up a hill, which is like swinging a heavy implement, imposes stress on the body and should reinforce proper fundamentals. It slows things down enough for the runner to feel any flaws in flexibility, weight shift, or overall movements.
Running down a hill, which is like swinging a light object, allows the runner to go faster then normal with the help of gravity. This stimulates the neurological system. It exposes the brain to potential and allows the runner to feel faster movement than naturally felt in regular activity. It's not done for strengthening, but for coordination, timing, and relaxation.

Any thoughts or reflections?

[Teazer]

Any thoughts or reflections?

Well part of training this stuff is to become able to use heavier weapons faster and more controlled with practice. So sure, a lighter weapon's always going to accelerate and change direction faster, but over time the weight of weapon with which you can do such acceleration should increase.

If you only train with a "heavy" implement though, there's a tendency to always move it sluggishly through habit, as well as compensate using muscles inefficiently. Personally I like to alternate between weights to help bring more power to the light ones and more speed to the heavy ones. Including way heavier poles (eg iron)readjusts your scale of "heavy". After training that, you pick up ironwood etc and it feels light as a toothpick.
The downside is after a while some light wood poles snap at your front hand if you shake them too hard and fast

[wushutiger]

Well the Da qiang / Da Gun isnt simply for training with a heavier weapon to get you stronger, but the material it is made from is also important as a training tool. With that, it should have a descent amount of flex to it, and this is not suitable for real combat spears / staffs as they wouldnt be as flexible. This flex is the only way to get the feedback from the weapon that you are doing the technique correctly. You wont get this feeling or feedback from a short staff, and it is this feedback that helps you to do the technque correctly and focus your power in the correct place, and from the correct place. Also, as mentioned already, the Da Qiang / Da Gun shaking forces you to focus on shen fa (bodywork) and the core, as opposed to simply using more force in the motion (ie extremes) when compared to using a smaller weapon.

So with regards to the article posted by Nicklas, there is some relevance to Da Qiang / Da Gun shaking, but alot that is not there either.

[Wuming]

Why should it be important to distinguish between the left and right spinal erectors? If you stand with you hands on the lower back and move your weight to the left and right you can feel them activating back and forth as you move your weight, and they are an important when you twist your spine (like in a punch) but if you activate "the bottom" doesnt this follows by it self?

Hi Nicklas,
I never got around to replying to your post previously.

Articulating the left and right spinal erectors has been important for me in learning to use the winding power. If you look at the "core" learning to articulate the left and right psoas with the left and right spinal erectors is what yields the basis for winding power, in my experience.

[GrandUltimate]

Well, I hope necro-ing threads isn't looked down upon here. I really wanted to talk about this topic and assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that it would be better to add to this thread rather than start my own since this is more than relevant enough.

I noticed people mentioning lan-na-zha. Has anyone here learned the pole or spear through a different (yet similar) set of movements? As a background, one of my main arts is Ving Tsun, but besides my Ving Tsun line, my sigong also was also a disciple of a sifu who specialized in the long pole. I mention this mainly to clarify that what I'm about to say isn't necessarily the Ving Tsun way of training the pole.

I actually didn't learn the names of three foundational techniques, so I just refer to them as circle, slash, and thrust. I can't make a video at this moment, so I guess I'll just try to explain them with pictures and words

1. Circle


This movement is first done in the stance seen above, except that at least for the drill, the back hand and end of the pole are not against the dan tian area but instead a first inches forward and not connected to the body. From here the back hand "draws" the circles that transfer to the front end (this is done in both directions). Beginners usually start with the biggest circles they can and make them smaller and smaller and they improve.

2. Slash
This is where our pole shaking concept starts from. Most of the pole shaking I've seen is done where the person holds the pole with his arms straight out at chest/shoulder height in front of his body and the pole shakes side to side from the dan tian movement. With the "slash" drill. We actually hold the pole somewhat like this:


The arms dont bend. In terms of dan tian, what I understand is that you use a clockwise and counter clockwise rotation to make the pole shake up and down. Once this is understood you can hold the pole at various angles and pole shake from there.

3. Thrust
This is basically the same as what I see people do with zha. Couldn't notice any differences here.

One of my close friends is a student in the Li Tai Liang line, and we were comparing his lan na zha with my three techniques. Interestingly enough, he mentioned pole shaking to his sifu and his sifu said that they dont do that. But that said, his lan and na were def held tight to the body as opposed to my circle drill. However, what he did in lan and na were very similar to two other movements I do known as Tan Gwon and Fook Gwon (considering the terminology, those are most likely from Ving Tsun).

Has anyone else learned the long pole like this or in a way different than starting with lan na zha? When it comes down to it, minus the whole pointy metal end, what else differentiates the way that the long pole and spear are used?

[GrandUltimate]

Just curious, would working out with a smaller pole benefit the structure until one worked his way up to a big pole, sort of like developing in weight training

This is how I'm learning it. First I started with a staff that was my height (about 6ft), then a 7 footer (which is where I'm at now), and then there's the actual long pole and also an extra pole that is heavier and too thick to wrap my hand around (from what I understand, this is mainly just for training).

So all these pole shaking exercises you guys do - are you trying to improve your general power generation and the pole happens to be a convenient tool, or are you trying to train power within the confines of training the pole as a weapon?

It's both for me. Though I also have a special application for the pole shaking. I'm terrified of bugs. I can't explain why, I just am. Sometimes large moths get into my house and it freaks me out trying to kill them or trap them in some room that I'm not using. Once I learned pole shaking, I had an idea. I knew I didn't have the skill to kill a moth mid-air with a pole thrust or "swing." However, I did realize that pole shaking made the tip of the pole move fast and cover area while having power. Long story short: I realized I can kill bugs mid-air with pole shaking. And that has changed my life for the better

[edededed]

There is an almost foot-long moth in Taiwan and part of Okinawa that has been asking for you... But never fear, it doesn't even have a mouth, so it cannot bite you (it's only quest in its short adult life is to mate). The wings are amazing - twin snakes are depicted on them.

As for lan na zha - the wushu way, the bagua way, the taiji way, etc. all seem slightly different, but I guess at heart are the same!

[GrandUltimate]

There is an almost foot-long moth in Taiwan and part of Okinawa that has been asking for you... But never fear, it doesn't even have a mouth, so it cannot bite you (it's only quest in its short adult life is to mate). The wings are amazing - twin snakes are depicted on them.

As for lan na zha - the wushu way, the bagua way, the taiji way, etc. all seem slightly different, but I guess at heart are the same!

haha, I guess I'll have to go with the philosophy that I only kill moths in self defense, though I may take challenges later if I reach a high enough level!

but wow, a foot long moth? I hope that's just referring to one unique moth rather than some specific kind of moth of which there are many, lol.

[edededed]

I think it is just [strike]one*[/strike] (the "atlas moth" if you want to look it up ), but luckily - when they are that big, they don't look that "mothy" anymore to be honest...

*Edit: Oops, there's a whole family of these giant moths. One is even bigger (the "hercules moth"). A separate moth in a different family, the "white witch moth," might be scarier, as it is also around as big, but whiter and mothier ...it even lives in Texas.)

An acquaintance of mine has a fear of moths, too - luckily, he just has his wife kill them for him...

[Andy_S]

Great thread, glad to see it come back from the dead. Excellent comments from Bodywork, D-Glenn and Wushu Tiger which are in line with my experiences, but with far more detail.

I'd agree with Tiger that a long, heavy, flexible pole provides the best feedback for training fajing. My personal opinion is that the long pole should be the first weapon taught in Chen Taiji as it gives such excellent feedback into the power generation but for whatever reason (probably "tradition") it is not.

On the fighting front, I have never been taught combative applications of the pole, but I have heard the below (and it makes some sense):

If you have a really good fajing ability through the pole - gained just through shaking exercises - you will gain one tactical skill. As soon as your poles connect, the vibrational force transmitted from the shaft of your pole to his can be so great that it won't knock his weapon out of its line of defense, but will quite literally split the flesh of his hand (between thumb and forefinger). After that it is going to be extraordinarily painful, if not impossible, for him to hold onto his weapon.

Never tried it, though...

Wushu Tiger:

Did you ever film your teacher shaking his, er, pole? Would be interested in seeing that if the footage was ever filmed. TIA.