the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

He takes a lot of heat but the level of jibengong/conditioning his guys are showing here is amazing.

Note the 50lbs weight vest and shin guards when jumping up the short brick wall and how that leads him to clearing the high railing later on. In other vids, he says the slamball they use is 20lbs, just a bit more than the hollow taiji ball many people pose with.
Some details on the training:


Here they are walking across trees suspended in air.

This level of athleticism rivals what I saw while training muay thai in the Thai training camps and I think Dr. Yang should be commended for it. He took all the money from selling his books and DVDs and put it to good use with that training camp of his.

Ok... relative newb question... Is this done using internal dynamics, or is the intention to train/develop those with these methods? Maybe some of both? It's impressive from an external perspective in any case, but assuming these are IMA practitioners, I'm curious how this training fits into their overall curriculum. I do hope they yelled "hardcore parkour!" when walking between the trees and log piles.

Also I am ignorant of the drama - why would he take heat?

Demanding jibengong is perfectly ok, especially for younger practitioners. (The very few capable CMA fighters I've met all went through this sort of vigorous training in their youth, and it is actually the old-school way.)

However, I am more interested in seeing how Dr. Yang ties these drills in with the arts and applications he teaches.

YMAA Retreat Center closed down for good in October and the property is now for sale.
https://ymaaretreatcenter.org/

I met him a while back, right before his 65th birthday. That was when he talked about plans to start a retreat. He wanted students to commit to 10 years of study. I'm not sure how it worked out, but he might be in his 80s now, and his desire was/is to produce high quality students who'd leave.

Afa internal, I don't think he limited what he did to internal arts. His tcc (ime) emphasized qinna, and he's very good at it.

snowpanda wrote:Ok... relative newb question... Is this done using internal dynamics, or is the intention to train/develop those with these methods? Maybe some of both? It's impressive from an external perspective in any case, but assuming these are IMA practitioners, I'm curious how this training fits into their overall curriculum. I do hope they yelled "hardcore parkour!" when walking between the trees and log piles.

Also I am ignorant of the drama - why would he take heat?

From my experience with a handful of people that studied with him, they're been very strong but relatively easy to neutralize and push out, though they wore me out very quickly and I had to take breaks.

snowpanda wrote:Also I am ignorant of the drama - why would he take heat?

His primary art is white crane, and there are some who feel that his taiji shenfa and applications come from that, and that, essentially, his taiji is just there to cash in on the relative popularity of the art.

I have known Dr Yang Jwing Ming since 1985, primarily through repeated contacts at Chinese martial arts competitions. He is a highly skilled martial artist and a very competent teacher. His students have consistently performed well in open competition.

His personal interpretation and stylistic expression of the arts he practices and teaches are uniquely his own, with obvious cross pollination between the White Crane and Tai Chi Chuan impacting the physical performance of both styles. It appears to be producing good results on many levels. As an engineer, he has an excellent eye for details which most students probably wouldn't see on their own.

In my personal interactions with him, he has always been a polite and respectful gentleman, as well as an amiable and good natured friend. He was born in 1946 and is currently 75 years of age. I was sorry to learn that his retreat training program didn't survive the troubled times of the past two years.

Sad to hear it closed down and is for sale. Not a bad price for 243 off-grid acres in Cali but i bet the property taxes are sky high. But it's really cool that he did it in the first place because now he has a bunch of high level dudes to carry on his teaching.

snowpanda wrote:Ok... relative newb question... Is this done using internal dynamics, or is the intention to train/develop those with these methods? Maybe some of both? It's impressive from an external perspective in any case, but assuming these are IMA practitioners, I'm curious how this training fits into their overall curriculum. I do hope they yelled "hardcore parkour!" when walking between the trees and log piles.

If I were to give you some advice as a newby it would be to throw out all concerns about "internal dynamics" and get Dr. Yang's DVDs where he covers what his students are doing here. "Internal dynamics" has no real meaning but what you see in that clip is solid. Don't waste years of your life chasing unicorns when solid, connected movement can be picked up. Laying the proper physical foundation for this stuff is a lost art so better to get it while you can.

Formosa Neijia wrote:If I were to give you some advice as a newby it would be to throw out all concerns about "internal dynamics"

The subheading of this forum is "Internal Martial Arts Forum".

snowpanda wrote:

Formosa Neijia wrote:If I were to give you some advice as a newby it would be to throw out all concerns about "internal dynamics"

The subheading of this forum is "Internal Martial Arts Forum".

The day we stop talking about internal/external cannot come soon enough.

I trained with James McNeil, and he emphasized physical conditioning, such as running, push ups, sit ups etc. before we did anything else. Paul Whitrod Sifu liked to push me during my private classes with him. I can remember sitting in the car after training waiting for my limbs to stop shaking. I had a two hour drive home, and multiple reps of snake, dragon, and swallow (xing yi quan), followed by kicks from the dragon form on Thai pads would leave me with very shaky legs. Isn't the whole point of kung fu 'hard work'?

I only know of Dr. Yang from his books, but I like what he was doing in the retreat.

Being tired after training - or being so physically exhausted, so you can't even stand or feel like passing out - is quite normal in a lot of martial arts out there. Isn't it strange that it's so unusual in IMA

phil b wrote:

snowpanda wrote:

Formosa Neijia wrote:If I were to give you some advice as a newby it would be to throw out all concerns about "internal dynamics"

The subheading of this forum is "Internal Martial Arts Forum".

The day we stop talking about internal/external cannot come soon enough.

Thanks for the warm welcome.

phil b wrote:The day we stop talking about internal/external cannot come soon enough.

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