MightyBands, home gym system

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Technique First, Power Later

It's been said time and time again, technique first, power comes later. I'm constantly reminded in class that training timing, positioning, angles, and proper structure/stance is key before we can think about delivering power into our hits.

When you train with a lot of strength and "power" in the hits, the training not only becomes ridiculously sloppy, but the lessons taught in the drill are gone, egos flair up, chance of injury increases and, ultimately, proper power delivery won't happen.

Well, I was reminded again this morning about this as the boxing trainer happen to see me working on the punch bag.

He told me not to even worry about punching hard. Just work on technique. i was dropping my hands too much. He showed me the pace and power of which I should train. The take home lesson, just work at a steady pace, work on repetition and proper weight transfer and technique. The bag shouldn't move that much.

Point taken...again.

Until then.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Training On Your Own

Over the last week or so, I've been battling some kind of mild flu..that's managed to knock me down on my butt and had to stay at home a couple days.

I've been quite weak, stopped all exercise and couldn't eat much..just liquids and some light carbs. anything more than that would set me in a daze of nausea ...not fun.

But as I slowwwlly recovered..I was becoming quite restless and decided to get on my feet and start some wing tsun training to get my body going again. It was not exhaustive by any means as I was easily winded..but...i still found it to be quite a learning experience.

What did I do?

Obviously, form training - siu nim tao.

Foot work - my Sifu emphasizes this so much, so i started incorporating this.

I looked back at the teachings from my last class and there was a huge emphasis on keeping the elbows and hands low and heavy.

To exercise this, I actually ended up "chi-saoing" the air..closing my eyes and imagine my partner before me..and both of us working on chi-sao drills, but with the emphasis of me keeping my elbows low. The exercise was relatively slow. It was quite an interesting drill. Keeping my eyes closed during this visualization exercise, I started going through the motions and really feeling how my body is reacting.

The drill was actually very intense, not only physically, but also mentally.

I found much value in this drill and I want you to try it.

In your own training space, close your eyes and imagine you're at your kwoon practicing chi-sao with a partner of your choice. Imagine the partner throwing an attack..any attack and now you have to react..but, using the power of imagination, slow things down like into bullet time and react with your whole body. Do this for 15 minutes.

Tell me what you think!

Until then.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Boxer vs. Wing Chun Guy

This clip was forwarded to me last week or so. it's a boxer versus a wing chun guy.

What are your thoughts on this?

There are so many things one could say and so many interpretations of what should have or could have happened....especially in terms of either the boxer or wing chun fighter's skill level..or lack thereof if that's what you see.

What do I see?

i see a lot of space for both fighters to move back.

There's a lot of room to retreat, to circle, to side-step. All annoying to the wing chun fighter who likes to get in close.

Of course, there are tactics to help minimize the attacker moving away, but at the same time, that's very very difficult to make happen especially at someone at my average skill level.

At one point, I thought the wing chun guy could've had a chance if only he committed fully and since the boxer was going quite easy (hands down, didn't really take wing chun guy too seriously). If the WC guy just ran right through him once, I think that would've set the tone.

Anyway, what are your thoughts?

Until then.

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