You Want To Fight, Well Fight Me!
Mar. 8th, 2008 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Hmmm... that works better when you can actually see the pseudo-dubbed mouth movements from the faux-original language going on underneath. And, as I am somewhat attempting to post relevant(ish) icons for my posts, I realize I don't have one that represents martial arts and workouts and so forth - seeing as the penguin is the peak of the evolution of the fighting machine, I suppose it's the most fitting...
Anywho, my new schedule gives me some more time at home. While I enjoyed the commute time for a few years as a time to listen to music, it's a lot more productive to spend that hour working out instead of sitting there thinking about other things. So Friday, Justin and I started the workout again. He needs time put towards gym, and we both need the physical benefits.
Although we started with some simple stretches and real basics, we touched on Shiatsu practitioner warm ups, Qi Gong, Yoga, Pilates, back exercises given me years ago by a physical therapist, and the core of the whole thing, the 5BX (5 Basic Exercises) from the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Although I had written out some of the steady progress the 5BX plan gives, I'm thinking about restructuring. I had changed it to make it more flexible, but what I find is I push progress on things I'm good at - and don't need so much - and relax too much where I probably need more work. The 5BX plan has a number of charts, each divided into an even larger number of levels (12, I think?). Chart to chart, the exercises morph into harder variants. For example, on the first chart, you might lift your head, see your ankles, and be done with it; on the last chart, you fold yourself in half, feet and hands in the air. The last chart has levels only a professional athlete is supposed to be able to achieve. Another good example is the push-ups: you start off lifting just your upper body - down to the waist - off the ground; on the final chart, you're in a more traditional hands-and-toes push-up position and you push off with your hands, knit a tuque, clap out the entire Canadian anthem using hands and chest, and then put your hands back down before your nose touches the ground.
I've dressed it up a lot with some of the aforementioned stuff - going far beyond the five exercises. The Qi Gong comes in to play as a pure segment on some days; other days we do a Jeet Kune Do practice session, with and without targets. Maybe, someday, we'll get the heavy bag in on it, too.
Anyway, with that in mind, I decided to have some fun and seek out some drunken fist kung fu:
Another great example of the style can be found in Drunken Sword by Pamela.
One of the things I was looking for was some kung fu groundfighting techniques - I had seen an article on them in a magazine about a decade ago, and wanted to find some reference to them. Most people think of groundfighting as wrestling or grappling, but these were kicks and punches as practiced from low and prone stances. Still haven't found exactly what I was looking for, but the Monkey form seems to have an awful lot of applicable techniques. This Monkey Staff routine stays low, for the most part.
This one shows a bit of what I would consider practical - as well as some of the entertaining bits - without the staff:
And, finally, another one with the staff:
Anywho, my new schedule gives me some more time at home. While I enjoyed the commute time for a few years as a time to listen to music, it's a lot more productive to spend that hour working out instead of sitting there thinking about other things. So Friday, Justin and I started the workout again. He needs time put towards gym, and we both need the physical benefits.
Although we started with some simple stretches and real basics, we touched on Shiatsu practitioner warm ups, Qi Gong, Yoga, Pilates, back exercises given me years ago by a physical therapist, and the core of the whole thing, the 5BX (5 Basic Exercises) from the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Although I had written out some of the steady progress the 5BX plan gives, I'm thinking about restructuring. I had changed it to make it more flexible, but what I find is I push progress on things I'm good at - and don't need so much - and relax too much where I probably need more work. The 5BX plan has a number of charts, each divided into an even larger number of levels (12, I think?). Chart to chart, the exercises morph into harder variants. For example, on the first chart, you might lift your head, see your ankles, and be done with it; on the last chart, you fold yourself in half, feet and hands in the air. The last chart has levels only a professional athlete is supposed to be able to achieve. Another good example is the push-ups: you start off lifting just your upper body - down to the waist - off the ground; on the final chart, you're in a more traditional hands-and-toes push-up position and you push off with your hands, knit a tuque, clap out the entire Canadian anthem using hands and chest, and then put your hands back down before your nose touches the ground.
I've dressed it up a lot with some of the aforementioned stuff - going far beyond the five exercises. The Qi Gong comes in to play as a pure segment on some days; other days we do a Jeet Kune Do practice session, with and without targets. Maybe, someday, we'll get the heavy bag in on it, too.
Anyway, with that in mind, I decided to have some fun and seek out some drunken fist kung fu:
Another great example of the style can be found in Drunken Sword by Pamela.
One of the things I was looking for was some kung fu groundfighting techniques - I had seen an article on them in a magazine about a decade ago, and wanted to find some reference to them. Most people think of groundfighting as wrestling or grappling, but these were kicks and punches as practiced from low and prone stances. Still haven't found exactly what I was looking for, but the Monkey form seems to have an awful lot of applicable techniques. This Monkey Staff routine stays low, for the most part.
This one shows a bit of what I would consider practical - as well as some of the entertaining bits - without the staff:
And, finally, another one with the staff: