Dr. Yang leading the way

[Formosa Neijia]

Meh. If it was all about fitness, then every crossfitter should be a monster fighter.

<sigh> who mentioned crossfit? Does what Dr. Yang is having students do in the clip that started the thread look like crossfit?!? Does crossfit talk about stuff like this below?

We took legal secretaries and small, weak men and improved them right down to the bone. And I mean that literally: look at the bone structure of the people in the first clip and then the second. Xishuijing (bone marrow washing), anyone? Training the muscles directly impacts the bones, improving nearly all aspects of health. That's why this stuff is good for osteoporosis. And they aren't tense, this is power based on contraction and relaxation. The contraction and relaxation cycle moves qi and blood like nothing else. And it builds the breath, a vital component that is never talked about. How do people think you increase your capacity for qi? By increasing your aerobic capacity! You have to get the heart rate UP to do that. A vital part of qi is breath but just breathing softly and slowly doesn't increase lung capacity. Likewise, being soft and flimsy in the body doesn't build power. Contracting and then relaxing not only builds power, it sends blood to the extremities and then back to the body.

If that sounds like crossfit to you then you must have a very good one near your location.

As far as the idea that sport fighting is the ultimate measure of fighting utility, why does it come down to conditioning? If you have to beat on someone for so long that you yourself get utterly exhausted before putting them down, then to put it bluntly, you're not very good at damaging people.

Sport fighting has nothing to do with it. Have you ever had your life or someone else's on the line? Have you ever had to physically put down someone on drugs? I can assure you, it isn't as easy as you seem to think. You don't just hit people and they fall down. Your heartrate shoots to nearly 200 and all that high level skill goes poof. Base fitness levels and basic technique ingrained (or in many cases NOT INGRAINED) are all that's left. Learning to work with a high HR doesn't just build the qi up, it allows you to get used to working at that high HR so you don't gas immediately as you WILL DO without that kind of training.

My point is that your thesis is invalid, Formosa. Those exercises may give you something but that something is not necessary for high level taijiquan ability or self defense...It may be critical for putting on a good show for the ticket holders, may be a good idea for general fitness, but it adds nothing to legitimate taijiquan skills.

Well people like Adam Hsu, Dr. Fish, Dr. Yang, etc. all say it's good and nearly every leitai fighter now famous for IMAs from Taiwan back in the day all did it so I think I'll stick with these cards. And I have 10 years of experience teaching these methods of my own so I think the point is valid. Again, i don't see making people take a step as "high level" in anyway but to each his own. We're not training for the same goals, obviously.

[Formosa Neijia]

Sorry to hear your gym closed.
Thought it was quite innovative and beneficial to the members,
creating your own niche market not an easy thing to do...
Best of luck in getting things back up and running...

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah creating a niche market was difficult then and now it's even harder. It's been a shock to the system going from having 2 locations, 10 trainers working for me, and having 100s of gym members and students to working out alone in my garage. But it could have been worse, we got out just in time. There were 15-20 gyms in Taipei when i started and over 350 when we closed but most of them didn't survive COVID. If we didn't sell when we did, we would have lost it all. Now trying to figure out this brave, new world but many people have it much harder than us so we feel fortunate

[C.J.W.]

IMO, what sets quality jibengong training apart from just any plain old exercise is that not only should it improve one's level of fitness, but ALSO tie in directly with the specific style one practices.

So going back to Dr. Yang's videos, I think what he's doing is fine as long as he can clearly show students how the physical attributes developed through those drills are applied in the arts he teaches.

However, I do take issue with unqualified instructors who simply use those types of drills as "busywork" to keep students occupied and feel like they are getting their money's worth, and disguise the fact that they have nothing of value to teach.

[nicklinjm]

On the topic of jibengong which directly trains attributes / strength required for the art, wouldn't the Tian Gan sets of Gao style bagua be a good example of that? Have only had fleeting contact with people from that style but from what I've seen the 64 Hou Tian straight line sets seem to directly train the power, structure and ROM (range of motion) needed for their fighting techniques.

[wayne hansen]

I have spent the last week looking at the tien kan
Been practicing them since 73 and the keep getting richer
A lot of people just don’t seem to get what they are about
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6XH ... ur4hV6V58R

[Bhassler]

Meh. If it was all about fitness, then every crossfitter should be a monster fighter.

<sigh> who mentioned crossfit? Does what Dr. Yang is having students do in the clip that started the thread look like crossfit?!? Does crossfit talk about stuff like this below?

We took legal secretaries and small, weak men and improved them right down to the bone. And I mean that literally: look at the bone structure of the people in the first clip and then the second. Xishuijing (bone marrow washing), anyone? Training the muscles directly impacts the bones, improving nearly all aspects of health. That's why this stuff is good for osteoporosis. And they aren't tense, this is power based on contraction and relaxation. The contraction and relaxation cycle moves qi and blood like nothing else. And it builds the breath, a vital component that is never talked about. How do people think you increase your capacity for qi? By increasing your aerobic capacity! You have to get the heart rate UP to do that. A vital part of qi is breath but just breathing softly and slowly doesn't increase lung capacity. Likewise, being soft and flimsy in the body doesn't build power. Contracting and then relaxing not only builds power, it sends blood to the extremities and then back to the body.

If that sounds like crossfit to you then you must have a very good one near your location.

As far as the idea that sport fighting is the ultimate measure of fighting utility, why does it come down to conditioning? If you have to beat on someone for so long that you yourself get utterly exhausted before putting them down, then to put it bluntly, you're not very good at damaging people.

Sport fighting has nothing to do with it. Have you ever had your life or someone else's on the line? Have you ever had to physically put down someone on drugs? I can assure you, it isn't as easy as you seem to think. You don't just hit people and they fall down. Your heartrate shoots to nearly 200 and all that high level skill goes poof. Base fitness levels and basic technique ingrained (or in many cases NOT INGRAINED) are all that's left. Learning to work with a high HR doesn't just build the qi up, it allows you to get used to working at that high HR so you don't gas immediately as you WILL DO without that kind of training.

I think we could go down a lot of different rabbit holes if I responded to each point individually. To restate things more simply, building strength without technique is just as much of a waste as building technique without strength. Part of my criteria for a "good" system is that everything it does should train both together, all of the time. I can't speak to Dr. Yang's systems, but for what I practice, things like swinging from ropes, running and jumping with a weight vest, etc. don't accomplish those goals. They may or may not be valuable in their own right, but in my world would be a totally separate activity from martial arts practice. Note that this means that "silk reeling" exercises (or whatever) that don't directly build gong li are excluded from practice in the same way that heavy bench press (or whatever) would be. They just don't fit.

[C.J.W.]

On the topic of jibengong which directly trains attributes / strength required for the art, wouldn't the Tian Gan sets of Gao style bagua be a good example of that? Have only had fleeting contact with people from that style but from what I've seen the 64 Hou Tian straight line sets seem to directly train the power, structure and ROM (range of motion) needed for their fighting techniques.

Absolutely.

On an interesting sidenote, Tian Gan was actually passed down to Zhang Zhunfeng by Wu Mengxia as opposed to Gao style founder Gao Yisheng. Wu had studied under other XY and BG masters prior to Gao, and most likely to have either gotten it from them or created it himself. As far as I know, with the exception of Zhang and Wu, none of Gao's other students practice or teach Tian Gan.

[C.J.W.]

I have spent the last week looking at the tien kan
Been practicing them since 73 and the keep getting richer
A lot of people just don’t seem to get what they are about

Have you seen this old school Tian Gan video from the 70s~80s? Thought you might enjoy it.

[wayne hansen]

Yes that’s how I first learnt then
HSU hong chi changed them around 78

[wayne hansen]

I quite like this guy

https://youtu.be/1MxFm2VyZMk

[wayne hansen]

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6XH ... YAVjWMrm99

[Finny]

Absolutely.

On an interesting sidenote, Tian Gan was actually passed down to Zhang Zhunfeng by Wu Mengxia as opposed to Gao style founder Gao Yisheng. Wu had studied under other XY and BG masters prior to Gao, and most likely to have either gotten it from them or created it himself. As far as I know, with the exception of Zhang and Wu, none of Gao's other students practice or teach Tian Gan.

I've always been interested in the Tian Gan - I remember Dr Fish writing once that they are in fact a quite common Tianjin area thing, rather than being style specific to BGZ, they were/are practised by a variety of groups in or around that area. Apologies if I've misremembered any.

[wayne hansen]

I have taught them to people doing many styles and they all got the benifit

[Formosa Neijia]

Tian gan is a good set but they aren't sufficient to build martial power or a jibengong foundation. If they were, the tangshoudao classes wouldn't have lasted 3 hours long with the first hour consisting of 100s of pushups, body weight squats, crawling across the floor, etc. The amount of effort those guys put in created champions and now all people want to do is wave their hands in the air.

They also don't provide sufficient conditioning or i wouldn't have been told about running. Either people don't know about this kind of stuff or they simply don't care.
The fuhugong will be relegated to a museum because I guess the tian gan and form practice is all you need.

[Formosa Neijia]

So now that I figured out how to make images work, I'm going to pour some salt in the wounds. As I said before, Adam Hsu talks about doing jibengong on his Secret Files of Bagua DVDs. I've been reading articles from him since I was in high school in the mid-80's so I would think his reputation would be established even if his material isn't your cup of tea. But I mentioned him recommending pistol squats and not one comment was made so I'm going to pour gasoline on the fire.
On the DVD he recommends 3 jibengong exercises for baguazhang to be done as daily warmups: 1. bat stamping floor, 2. water wheel, 3.centipede drilling wall
1. bat stamping floor is series of jumps done on the balls of both feet in multiple directions, then done in a full squat position, then done up and down stairs.

2. water wheel is a series of pistol squats to the front and squats with the leg extended out the back

3. centipede drilling wall is basically the fanyao (overturning waist) exercise from wushu adapted to bagua. You can't do overturning body palm without this.


Please note: NONE of these are qigong exercises where you wave your hands in the air, none of them are zhanzhuang, none of them are forms, none of them are crossfit, none of them are "strength training without technique."

Here is an advanced pistol by the famous Fu Su-yun, graduate of the Nanjing Guoshu Academy. Apparently she is wasting her time and knows nothing about the internal and would have been better off just doing qigong and forms.