Art Reviews

He was one of the greatest kung-fu masters in the world, a direct descendant of the creator of tai chi, and he was asking me to show him a punch. It was an exciting moment but also nerve-wracking. Trying not to be nervous, I settled into the posture and prepared to show him internal power. Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang stood in front of me, watching carefully.

Trying to remain relaxed, I shifted my weight from my right to my left leg and my right fist shot out, fast, relaxed, and powerful. At the same time, my left elbow thrust backward and my left hand stopped at my ribcage.

Grandmaster Chen was not impressed. He took my right hand in his left, my left hand in his right and told me to relax. Before I knew what was happening, he jerked the right hand out and pushed the left hand backward. I wasn’t quite relaxed enough and almost suffered whiplash in my neck.

Relax, he told me again, and once again he jerked my arms — hard — forcing one to punch and the other to return to my ribcage. For a minute, I was like a rag doll, completely limp as he repeatedly demonstrated how relaxed I was supposed to be when performing fa-jing.

It’s amazing how the internal arts of China — Tai Chi, Hsing-I and Bagua — have been distorted by teachers who take what they have read too literally. The subject of fa-jing (pronounced “fah-zhing”) is one example of how a simple concept is misunderstood and misinterpreted.

Fa-jing means “issuing energy.” Unfortunately, the people who desperately need to believe in the supernatural think that in doing fa-jing, you are shooting chi out of your hands or body. They take it literally.

It’s not magical or mystical. It’s a matter of physics, and in the internal arts, it’s a matter of body mechanics.

Boxers issue energy anytime they deliver a jab, a hook, or an uppercut. If you’re into karate, you issue energy when you break a board with your foot, and if you’re into MMA, energy is issued when you drive a knee into an opponent’s face.

In the internal arts, fa-jing — issuing energy — is more complex, but the end result is the same. You knock someone into next week.

Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang, whose ancestor,Chen Wangting created Tai Chi 11 generations ago, teaches that fa-jing is a matter of proper body structure (posture) and good internal movement. From there, he says you simply “step on the gas.” He likes using automobile metaphors. In other words, if you use good structure and mechanics and then add speed, you will create the unique relaxed power of the internal arts.

I’ve studied other martial arts and have found the body mechanics of the internal arts far more difficult and complex. For high-quality tai chi you must maintain ground strength, peng jin, whole-body movement, silk-reeling (spiraling movement through the body), dan t’ien rotation and opening/closing the kua. You must connect all of these skills through the body as you deliver the strike with speed, power, and relaxation.

It takes years to learn how to do this from an internal perspective, because we all bring bad habits to the internal arts and it takes years to learn the above-mentioned skills and learn to maintain the whole-body connection as you move. It takes years for us to lose the muscular tension that we’ve developed all of our lives.

When Grandmaster Chen worked with me on the punch, I didn’t have it the first few times I did the punch and he corrected me each time. Suddenly I understood, and the next time I punched I connected the relaxed power from my foot, through my body and out my hand, exploding and shifting my weight at the same time.

“Ahh!” he said, his face lighting up. “Good.”

As a martial artist, few things are better than getting a “good” from Chen Xiaowang.

A short time later, he astonished those of us attending his Washington, D.C. workshop by doing a series of fa-jing strikes.C. With each strike, it seemed his uniform was exploding in all directions. That type of power comes from being connected and relaxing — and from a lifetime of practice. When he does fa-jing, you can almost feel the energy even standing halfway across a room. It reminded me of being on the floor right behind the basketball hoop during a University of Iowa game. When the big players were slamming into each other beneath the hoop, you could feel the body heat and almost feel the energy as they collided. I’ll never forget it, and being close to Chen Xiaowang when he does fa-jing is very similar.

There are two myths about tai chi that all martial artists should put aside. One is that tai chi is a slow motion health and meditation exercise. In truth, it’s a powerful martial art that is practiced slowly so students can learn the body mechanics and later can speed up the movements and deliver amazing power without a lot of obvious effort to the untrained observer.

The other myth people should forget is about chi. Fa-jing has nothing to do with shooting energy out of your body. Instead of focusing on chi, which has never been proven exist in independent scientific studies and which is too often the focus of tai chi teachers, you should focus on proper posture and body mechanics. Do this and you’ll be closer to developing the relaxed power of fa-jing.

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Ken Gullette has practiced martial arts for 36 years and is best known for his high-quality instructional DVDs, his online internal arts school and his internal arts blog. He is dedicated to dispelling the myths surrounding tai chi, hsing-i and bagua, showing that the skills required for the internal arts are physical, not metaphysical.

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Whether you intend to get into shape or your desire to sharpen your martial arts skills, a good punching bag is a great way to start off. While working with punching bags, you could opt to work with a heavy bag (these take in the beating while offering resistance) or you could opt for lighter bags or maybe frees standing punching bags if you intend to focus more on the movements rather than the vigor. Irrespective of what you work on, a BOB punching bag is an ideal way to start training in mixed martial arts skills, also known as MMA skills. These Body-Opponent-Bags (BOB) turn out to be one of the best ways to begin your training in martial arts.

But often trainees complain of boredom; throwing in your entire strength and vigor on the bag in the form of punches and kicks for about 20-50 minutes could get really tedious and monotonous. Some people combine punching with workouts and in those cases, they spend only about 5-10 minutes on the bags. But hardcore trainers to whom the punching bag is the only training equipment for the moment, it could be made entertaining!

Better Ways To Enjoy Your Workout

If you have ever been to a disc or nightclub, you would have noticed that the moment you enter the place, the music beats race your heartbeat and force your feet to dance! It certainly lift energy levels to the next step; these beats inspire you to get into action and you get to choose the kind of action! Turn on some of those pumping beats, put on your Bag Gloves and go for it! People normally adopt music that is designed for fitness regimes, they are beautifully composed to force your punches and kicks straight into the bag; if it doesnt suit your type, choose any music that charges you into some heavy-duty action.

An internal blissful advantage of playing pumping music is that one stars associating the joy of those beats to your act of working out. This way your workout would seem more pleasant and you would long for it; this would ensure that your daily workout routine is not hampered.

Make Your Workout Fun

Mere blowing of jabs and crosses on your BOB Punching Bag could get too repetitive and boring as well. In that case, you could create a freestyle form composed of mixed kicks and punches to make it fun while workout strenuously! You could make a list of moves you would follow in a regular pattern such as jab, knee, spinning of back fist, a round kick and a cross punch! Creating lists as such and keeping up to them makes workouts much more thrilling; you would rather yearn for your workout sessions sooner!

Amidst all this, it is vital to note that a good punching bag helps you get through your targets better. Ask your trainer for the right kind of BOB meant for your type of workout; it could be a sparring body opponent bag or just a body opponent bag top! Training could be so much helpful and so much more fun with the help of these little tips!

Training for martial arts is an intense experience and varies greatly from discipline to discipline. It is important for you to understand the strenuous physical demands as well as the complicated movement patterns which goes along with it. For each specific discipline, a training program can be put together for each specific discipline you are working in. After all, not every exercise and training regimen is suitable for every one training in the martial artists.

When it comes to mixed martial arts, the technique goes hand in hand with the conditioning. The better conditioned your body is, you can perform crisp techniques and maneuvers much longer with more strength behind them. When your martial arts techniques are sharper, you tend to waste less of your energy which is important in matches. The problems is many martial arts student waste precious time with their conditioning workouts, sticking to routines that have nothing to do with the training they need.
Suicide sprints – Be prepared to run! First off you’ll begin by dividing up the field you’re running in into two equal in length sections. Now that you’ve done that, start off at the far end of the field and then sprint as fast as you can to the first checkpoint, touching the ground as you do so. You’ll then sprint back to where you started. You then will either run to the next checkpoint or to the end the field, depending on how you marked it, touch the ground again, and sprint back to the beginning. Congratulations. You’ve just completed one full rep. Now try to do anywhere between 2 and 5 reps. Suicide sprints work your cardiovascular endurance, leg strength, speed and agility.

Squat jumps – Begin by positioning your legs so that your your feet are slightly apart. Now, bending your knees, you squat down and then jump up with as much effort as you can. After land back on the ground, you need to immediately do the same thing again. You don’t want to have any pauses between your jumping motions. It should be continuous and smooth. Aim for about between 10 and 30 jumps. Everyone you do should be done with intensely as you try to jump as high as possible. Squat jumps develop explosive leg strength and work your fast twitch muscle fibers.

Pushups – I’m sure you’ve heard of or have at least seen someone do a pushup. Get in a normal pushup position. Well as a review of how to do one, start off by bending your elbows as your body lays flat on the ground. Then forcefully push your whole body up off the ground causing your hands to leave the ground. Once your hands hit the ground again, lower your body down again and repeat the pushup process. You don’t want to pause between motions and continue this exercise for about 20 to 30 reps. Pushups are great for developing strength and power in your chest, arms, upper back and shoulders.

Walking lunges – You’re back working out on the same field you used for those suicide springs. Stand at the end of it with your feet together. Next, make one one large step forward, and as you’re doing that, you’ll want to lower your body into a lunge with both knees at a 90 degree angle. Your back knee will be only a few inches from the ground but keep it from touching. Repeat this with your opposite leg as you continue lunging down the field. Walking lunges work to strengthen muscular endurance in the legs as well as aiding stability and balance.