December 27, 2007 by george.

This video was put up recently on youtube. I believe it was part of the archives of Robert Smith and I guess this guy got a hold of it and put it up on the web. LUCKY US!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb4eB3j88-s 

Even with his advanced age in this clip, you can see the precision, smoothness and familiarity with which he executes these drills. Truly inspiring!

They say “shaolin drills” but I wonder whether or not they are IMA line drills. All of these look like something out of our houtian lines. And they certainly show similarity to Taiji and Xingyi as well…?

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December 27, 2007 by george.

Here’s a video from a school nephew of mine, Hanan. He has trained extensively with a senior of mine under Luo Dexiu Laoshi, Zeev Foux, in Israel. Hanan also spent time training in Tianjin, China under Han Fengrui.

It was posted up for comments at Emptyflower.net and I thought I should post it here as well so some of my students can see how they do Yizong in Israel!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3NWcKZApYQ

Posted in Baguazhang | 3 Comments »

December 26, 2007 by jleeger.

Go to class tonight!  That’s all!

Posted in Training | 1 Comment »

December 25, 2007 by jleeger.

Sorry!  I missed Sunday and yesterday…been busy hanging out with the family on the holidays.

Tuesday is officially a Max Strength Lower Body day.  If you’re still up out there on the East Coast, and want to burn off some of that Christmas dinner, do this:

5 sets of 5 Squats, with the heaviest weight you can manage

4 sets of 8 RDL, same as above

20 Side Planks, 20 Bicycle Situps, 20 Supermans

Wall sit for time

Rest 2-3 minutes between sets, and practice your houtian during that time.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Posted in Training | 1 Comment »

December 22, 2007 by jleeger.

Go to class today!  If you didn’t make it, practice on your own at home…no workouts.  If you feel like you need extra work, aren’t sore, and have the energy, work on the most challenging exercise for yourself.

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December 21, 2007 by jleeger.

Max Strength Upper Body Day

1-arm Pushups - 2-5 sets of 3, 2-3 minutes rest - Do one warmup set of regular pushups, rest 2-3 minutes, do  one set of side-to-side pushups, rest, and then do two to five sets of one-arm pushups.  You can make them easier by giving yourself a leverage advantage (do them on a chair seat, or step, etc…).

Chinups - 3 sets of max, 2-3 minutes rest - chinups have your palms facing you.  If you don’t have anyplace to do chinups, do the Chair Rows that Steve Cotter does in the video George posted.

Handstands - 3 sets of max (reps or time), 2-3 minutes rest

Biceps/Triceps Superset - 3 sets of max reps, no rest - Use a band, dumbbell, kettlebell, etc, to do biceps curls, as soon as you’re done, do overhead triceps extensions.

Core - again, you should have done your core stability work in your warmup.  Add three sets of 20 each of these - side planks for reps,  superman reps, v-ups

foam roll, stretch…get ready for class tonight!

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December 20, 2007 by jleeger.

Lower body explosive day…sorry it’s out so late!  I don’t advise doing this workout on Friday or Saturday if you’re planning on going to class those days.  Class can be explosive enough without adding to it.  Wait till you have a day between the workout and class.  Sunday will do.

Here it is:

Warmup (I don’t include a specific one, but have gone over the concept in a past post)

5 sets of 3 each - Box Jump, Vertical Leap, Long Jump - record your best distance for each.  Take 2 minutes of rest between each set of three.  During your rest period, practice one Houtian form for 1  minute, and rest for the other minute.

1-Leg Rear Lunge with Knee Lift - 3 sets of 10, 1 minute rest - get some kind of weight to make this challenging.  Your standing leg should be on a step.  A stair in the house will do (it’s what I use).  Step back off the step with the moving leg and go down into your lunge.  Keep your body upright.  As you step up, bring the back leg all the way up, bringing the knee as high as you can in front of you.  Don’t put the foot back down till you go back into your next lunge.

Band Pullthroughs, or Straight-leg DL - 3 sets of 12 - 1 minute rest- - if you have a band that gives you enough resistance, wrap it around the handle of a dumbbell and put the dumbbell on the other side of a SECURELY closed door.  Pull the band through your legs and up.  You can bend your knees a little, but try to rely on your hamstrings, glutes, and lower back for this exercise.  Similar to a kettlebell swing, which is a good replacement, if you have one of those handy…

Weighted Abs - do 3 sets of 15 of your favorite weighted abs exercise.  Remember - you should already have done your core stabilization work in the warmup!

Cool down, foam roll, and stretch….

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December 19, 2007 by jleeger.

Wednesday is a day off.  Practice your Bagua!

Posted in Training | 2 Comments »

December 18, 2007 by jleeger.

Alright, Tuesday is here, and hopefully George didn’t kick your butt too hard last night.  As promised, tonight is Max Strength for the lower body.  The trick to building max strength is using a weight that you can only lift 1-5 (or 6) times.  For most, 1-leg squats should do the trick.  Check out Steve Maxwell’s form on the YouTube vids George posted.

Superset the two adjacent exercises in the list below.  Do 4 sets of as many as you can of each, with 1-2 minutes of rest beween supersets.

1-Leg Squats and

1-Leg Hip Raise, foot on a chair or bench (if you have a stability ball at home, do it like this: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.oxygenmag.com/content/oxy53/ham_curls.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.oxygenmag.com/main.php%3Fpage%3D1%26id%3D282&h=448&w=247&sz=25&hl=en&start=35&um=1&tbnid=Ah5oh55uYnWXgM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=70&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhamstring%2Bcurl%2Bexercise%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN)

Odd-Object Rear Lunge, front foot elevated - Put your front foot on a platform of some sort.  A step works for me.  Lunge backward with the other foot.  Keep your upper body upright.  Grab anything that’s heavy in your house so you can only get through 5-6 ea. leg.  It’s tough…for me, I have to wear my weight vest and hold both of the 50lb dumbbells I have…

and

1-leg RDL - again, grab something that makes this more challenging from a resistance perspective.

Finish yourself off with wall-sits for time.  Do three sets of as long as you can manage, resting 2 minutes in between sets.  During those two minute rest intervals, you can work your abs.  Do the following three exercises during each rest interval and one more set at the end:

Bicycle Situps - 20 ea.

Sprinter Situps - 20 ea.

Superman - 20

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December 17, 2007 by jleeger.

Monday is here.  Hopefully you’re planning on going to class tonight.  If not, plan on practicing at home.  After your practice, you can do this GPP workout:

20 Burpees  w/ Jump  and Pushup

2 minute wall-sit

1 minute bear-crawl

50 bodyweight squats

10 pullups

repeat 3-5x, depending on your level of fitness.

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December 15, 2007 by jleeger.

Here’s the plan.

From here on out, I’m going to structure workouts the following way:

Mondays = day off, presumably you’re heading to class, and George is going to kick your butt anyway.  No extra workout is needed.

Tuesday = Lower body Max Strength - since Monday with George is usually a GPP-type workout, we can focus on the Max Strength efforts on Tuesday.

Wednesday = Day Off = practice on your own, and go to class

Thursday =  Explosive Lower Body (since we don’t want to do this type of work tomorrow, and 48 hours should be enough recover time from Tues.  If you find that it isn’t, let me know)

Friday =  Upper Body Max Strength Effort

Saturday and Sunday = Practice practice practice

That being said - GO TO CLASS TODAY!  If you didn’t make it, PRACTICE!

Have fun everyone!

Posted in Training | 1 Comment »

December 14, 2007 by george.

Here’s some of the Fu Hu Gong exercises as performed by Steve Cotter, who learned from Mike Patterson, who learned from Xu Hongji, who learned from Hong Yixiang (although it was Xu Hongji who codified them and gave them a name - apparently Hong just taught different things as conditioning exercises without specifying a certain amount as a specific set).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yr75_WwKAc

Posted in General Info | 1 Comment »

December 14, 2007 by george.

Sorry, couldn’t figure out how to embed two videos in one post without it changing the margins of the written posting area…

Here’s the one with the jumping single leg squats to a table and down.

Posted in Training | 2 Comments »

December 14, 2007 by george.

Here are some pretty impressive “feats” of strength performed by Steve Cotter. I have no knowledge of the man other than through the internet, so I’m not trying to promote the guy or anything, but these are some impressive abilities he has gained. Steve Cotter is also an internal martial artist who trains xingyi, bagua and taiji and won a number of full contact competitions with his xingyi skills. Check out the jumping splits on the bosu balls and the jumping pistols from the floor to a table.

Posted in Training | 1 Comment »

December 14, 2007 by george.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUne9Xg55og

Kyuzo Mifune was one of the most technically excellent judo masters of all time. He was the last 10th dan directly promoted to that level by the founder, Jigoro Kano.

I have always admired his technique and dedication to using skill to defeat greater force. He was known as the most technically skilled in the Kodokan. You can see in this video how he was able to continue randori (grappling practice) with his students up through old age. Every student he is grappling with in this video is far younger than him and often far larger and stronger. His dedication to life-long training, skill in technique and ability is always something to strive for.