# Too old for dynamic tension?



## yak sao (Jan 22, 2018)

Many years ago before I began Wing Tsun I studied some hakka based kung fu. One of the forms was a crane form much like the Okinawan san chin form, so it consisted of dynamic tension throughout the form.
I'm now 55 years old and have been toying around with the idea of training this form again for the exercise.
Am I too old for this? I remember hearing that as you get older that this type of training is bad for the blood pressure.
Anybody here  have some insight?


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## Kung Fu Wang (Jan 22, 2018)

To breath calm and normal is the best way to low your blood pressure. 

- Hold your breath and lift weight,
- Stand upside down,

can increase your eye pressure.


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## hoshin1600 (Jan 23, 2018)

Hey @yak sao
There is nothing wrong with dynamic tension. I am about the same age as you and I have no problems.  There are many Uechi-ryu masters here in the states who are now 70 to 80' with. No problem. 
The issue with blood pressure is when it is done in a certain way with the breath.  I have heard of issues when doing forms the way Goju-ryu does it.  But when done in the more common  Chinese way, I do not think there is an issue.  What style and form are you thinking of? Is there a clip you can post?
I just woke up so I cant give a really in depth answer right now.
My advise is like was mentioned breath easy and natural rather than holding the breath.  There is a breathing qi practice sometimes called "packing breathing" to "pack" the organs where you hold the breath and put pressure in the stomach area. This is what I would avoid.  You don't really need to do this ,you get a lot of benifit from the tension in the limbs and you can tighten the stomach without the internal pressure.


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## _Simon_ (Jan 23, 2018)

hoshin1600 said:


> Hey @yak sao
> There is nothing wrong with dynamic tension. I am about the same age as you and I have no problems.  There are many Uechi-ryu masters here in the states who are now 70 to 80' with. No problem.
> The issue with blood pressure is when it is done in a certain way with the breath.  I have heard of issues when doing forms the way Goju-ryu does it.  But when done in the more common  Chinese way, I do not think there is an issue.  What style and form are you thinking of? Is there a clip you can post?
> I just woke up so I cant give a really in depth answer right now.
> My advise is like was mentioned breath easy and natural rather than holding the breath.  There is a breathing qi practice sometimes called "packing breathing" to "pack" the organs where you hold the breath and put pressure in the stomach area. This is what I would avoid.  You don't really need to do this ,you get a lot of benifit from the tension in the limbs and you can tighten the stomach without the internal pressure.


Yeah I've always wondered about dynamic tension forms and whether they're a good idea.. I already hold too much tension and am pretty not well because of it, so I'll have to work on allowing tension, but not creating that internal stomach/pelvic tension... May have to just practice practice practice.. am also used to the hard ibuki style breathing so I'll try just normal calmer breathing too. Thanks for sharing that


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## hoshin1600 (Jan 23, 2018)

_Simon_ said:


> Yeah I've always wondered about dynamic tension forms and whether they're a good idea.. I already hold too much tension and am pretty not well because of it


the key is proper tension.  if your naturally tense that is completely different than the forms.  this is often why a teacher is needed.  each muscle needs to have a particular amount and type of tension.  a naturally tense person will be tensing the wrong muscles and at the wrong amount. add to that, that the tension is in a state of flux changing from more to less and back again depending on what is happening in the form. its not random tension.  
one important benefit of this training from a self defense view is the stability and grounding.  watch a few video clips of real violent attacks and the victim is often unable to even stand up properly.  fear triggers the flight or fight response and energy is pulled away from many small muscles.  people dont realize that there are many small muscles that are needed for the stabilization of the body to remain upright.  we all know this intuitively that week in the knees feeling. its even portrayed in cartoons with the persons knees knocking together to show fear.
i do not have any scientific data on this but it is said that the contraction and release of muscles and can bring them "back on line" and reduce the atrophy from the chemical dump and calm the person as well.


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 23, 2018)

yak sao said:


> Many years ago before I began Wing Tsun I studied some hakka based kung fu. One of the forms was a crane form much like the Okinawan san chin form, so it consisted of dynamic tension throughout the form.
> I'm now 55 years old and have been toying around with the idea of training this form again for the exercise.
> Am I too old for this? I remember hearing that as you get older that this type of training is bad for the blood pressure.
> Anybody here  have some insight?



Nothing wrong with dynamic tension, as long as you breath properly. And from my perspective in my flavor of Yang Taiji that means natural breathing. 

Or you could work on it without dynamic tension. more along the lines of Siu Nim Tao and see where that takes you


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## _Simon_ (Jan 23, 2018)

hoshin1600 said:


> the key is proper tension.  if your naturally tense that is completely different than the forms.  this is often why a teacher is needed.  each muscle needs to have a particular amount and type of tension.  a naturally tense person will be tensing the wrong muscles and at the wrong amount. add to that, that the tension is in a state of flux changing from more to less and back again depending on what is happening in the form. its not random tension.
> one important benefit of this training from a self defense view is the stability and grounding.  watch a few video clips of real violent attacks and the victim is often unable to even stand up properly.  fear triggers the flight or fight response and energy is pulled away from many small muscles.  people dont realize that there are many small muscles that are needed for the stabilization of the body to remain upright.  we all know this intuitively that week in the knees feeling. its even portrayed in cartoons with the persons knees knocking together to show fear.
> i do not have any scientific data on this but it is said that the contraction and release of muscles and can bring them "back on line" and reduce the atrophy from the chemical dump and calm the person as well.



Awesome, very helpful, thanks hoshin 1600 .

And I guess conscious tension is different from unconscious tension too, so this would be done in a very deliberate way, so that I could work on to firing them 'on' and switching them 'off' (to certain degrees for sure)


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## VPT (Jan 24, 2018)

yak sao said:


> Many years ago before I began Wing Tsun I studied some hakka based kung fu. One of the forms was a crane form much like the Okinawan san chin form, so it consisted of dynamic tension throughout the form.
> I'm now 55 years old and have been toying around with the idea of training this form again for the exercise.
> Am I too old for this? I remember hearing that as you get older that this type of training is bad for the blood pressure.
> Anybody here  have some insight?



I'm interested. Which Hakka style has a Crane form? Since as far as I'm aware of, only Mantis guys have dynamic tension forms (basically just Saam Bou Jin) among Hakka styles and I don't think they have any Crane forms.


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## hoshin1600 (Jan 24, 2018)

VPT said:


> I'm interested. Which Hakka style has a Crane form? Since as far as I'm aware of, only Mantis guys have dynamic tension forms (basically just Saam Bou Jin) among Hakka styles and I don't think they have any Crane forms.


Dynamic tension is very common in many of the Fujian Hakka systems that i have seen but to a lessor or greater degree. and its not necessarily in the strike like it is in Goju-ryu karate but often its more balanced through out the body while the strike would be loose.


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## hoshin1600 (Jan 24, 2018)

this is five ancestor and i think is the closest to the performance of Goju-ryu


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## VPT (Jan 24, 2018)

hoshin1600 said:


> Dynamic tension is very common in many of the Fujian Hakka systems that i have seen but to a lessor or greater degree. and its not necessarily in the strike like it is in Goju-ryu karate but often its more balanced through out the body while the strike would be loose.


This was kind of what I was going for: How can you make the distinction which style from Fujian is by Hakka people and which by Minnan speakers? Generally what is called "Hakka styles" refer to styles of Guangdong Hakka origin. 

It was a trap!


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## hoshin1600 (Jan 24, 2018)

VPT said:


> This was kind of what I was going for: How can you make the distinction which style from Fujian is by Hakka people and which by Minnan speakers? Generally what is called "Hakka styles" refer to styles of Guangdong Hakka origin.
> 
> It was a trap!



i thought something was up...lol   you usually have some real in depth knowledge on this stuff.  it seemed odd for you to be asking the question.  but i took a bite at it anyway.

so can you elaborate on this for me.  are you saying that mantis is the only Hakka style?
  that other styles are not of a Hakka origin?


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## VPT (Jan 24, 2018)

Maybe the first confusion should be made clear before progressing: "Hokkien" is Minnan for "Fujian", Hakka is Hakka (and Cantonese, roughly) for Hakka. They sound a little bit similar and might be mixed accidentally.

My friend, who also teaches me Bak Mei is a Hakka, so everything basically comes from him. Apparently, at least in Guangxi and Guangdong, generally nameless styles of kung fu were transmitted among the male heirs inside families. From this tradition, I presume, comes the habit of naming styles after "gau", or teaching, e.g. Lam Gaa Gau, Liu Gaa Gau, Chu Gaa Gau...

All the Southern mantis is from Guangdong and they are closely related. They are the only ones who do dynamic tension among the styles of the Hakka people: Bak Mei does for instance does not train it in any way.

Now then, AFAIK most Fujian/Hokkien styles are not Hakka origin, although there are indeed Hakka living in the west part of the province bordering Guangdong. Yongchun crane and other styles demonstrating dynamic tension come from geographically diverging origins that makes Hakka connections unlikely. Fuzhou, for example, is in the middle of the Eastern Min linguistic area.

This might've cleared stuff up.


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## hoshin1600 (Jan 24, 2018)

going off memory i thought the Hakka people were a group that moved into the Fujian area from the north. bringing their more northern martial arts into that area.  the small group had several splinter arts evolve over the years thus making most of the arts in the area all related,  but would have at least come from a common ancestor.  different names would have been adopted along the way.  as i understand it many took names of other more famous arts like "white crane" because those other arts were so well known.  my impression was that the area was so dense in different lineages that it becomes a tangled mess of mixed lineages and arts.
is this incorrect then?


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 24, 2018)

hoshin1600 said:


> going off memory i thought the Hakka people were a group that moved into the Fujian area from the north. bringing their more northern martial arts into that area.  the small group had several splinter arts evolve over the years thus making most of the arts in the area all related,  but would have at least come from a common ancestor.  different names would have been adopted along the way.  as i understand it many took names of other more famous arts like "white crane" because those other arts were so well known.  my impression was that the area was so dense in different lineages that it becomes a tangled mess of mixed lineages and arts.
> is this incorrect then?



I believe the Hakka are considered Han Chinese, but it is thought they have been migrating from the north since the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), also at the end of Tang and end of the Northern Song and could have also been migrating south as late as the Qing dynasty (1636–1912). So what they brought with them as it applies to marital arts, could look absolutely nothing like what we see as northern Martial arts today


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## hoshin1600 (Jan 24, 2018)

Xue Sheng said:


> So what they brought with them as it applies to marital arts, could look absolutely nothing like what we see as northern Martial arts today


correct that is what i thought.  
i was under the impression, perhaps incorrectly that there was a short time period when there was a heavy migration for some reason or other.
i also would find it common for most arts to lay claim to being the one "authentic" art.  this usually turns out to be an over simplification and the truth is much more tangled and nuanced.


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## hoshin1600 (Jan 24, 2018)

wiki may not always be the best for accuracy but i thought i would copy and paste this

Hakka Chinese - Wikipedia

The name of the Hakka people who are the predominant original native speakers of the variety literally means "guest families" or "guest people": _Hak_ 客 (Mandarin: _kè_) means "guest", and _ka_ 家 (Mandarin: _jiā_) means "family". Among themselves, Hakka people variously called their language _Hak-ka-fa_ (_-va_) 客家話, _Hak-fa_ (_-va_), 客話, _Tu-gong-dung-fa_ (_-va_) 土廣東話, literally "Native Guangdong language", and _Ngai-fa_ (_-va_) 我話, "My/our language". In Tonggu county (铜鼓县), Jiangxi province, people call their language _Huai-yuan-fa_ 怀远話.


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## hoshin1600 (Jan 24, 2018)

so then my question would be ,, who owns the rights to claim:  sanchin, samchin, samjian, sanzhen...or a form by any similar name  as their own?
is it a Hakka form?  where does it come from?  i was under the impression it is a Hakka form.  if it is Hakka in origin could it be said that all styles who use this from be of the same origin, at least in part?


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## mograph (Jan 24, 2018)

Off-topic?


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## hoshin1600 (Jan 24, 2018)

mograph said:


> Off-topic?


Yes and no,
The OP was asking about the dynamic tension in the sanchin form or a form that is similar to it. If his form is not related then the way it is preformed maybe completely different. And since the op has not come back to comment a little drift may be acceptable in order to differentiate if there are different ways of performing these type of forms.


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## yak sao (Jan 24, 2018)

hoshin1600 said:


> this is five ancestor and i think is the closest to the performance of Goju-ryu



This first form is very similar to the form I had learned.
I  assume Hakka origins as it has the characteristic triangular footwork etc.
Also, a stick form I had learned was known as the Northern Beggar's stick. There were many other indicators from the research I had done but that was 25+ years ago and is all water under the bridge.


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 24, 2018)

yak sao said:


> This first form is very similar to the form I had learned.
> I  assume Hakka origins as it has the characteristic triangular footwork etc.
> Also, a stick form I had learned was known as the Northern Beggar's stick. There were many other indicators from the research I had done but that was 25+ years ago and is all water under the bridge.



Interesting footwork


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## VPT (Jan 25, 2018)

hoshin1600 said:


> going off memory i thought the Hakka people were a group that moved into the Fujian area from the north. bringing their more northern martial arts into that area.  the small group had several splinter arts evolve over the years thus making most of the arts in the area all related,  but would have at least come from a common ancestor.  different names would have been adopted along the way.  as i understand it many took names of other more famous arts like "white crane" because those other arts were so well known.  my impression was that the area was so dense in different lineages that it becomes a tangled mess of mixed lineages and arts.
> is this incorrect then?



There is a website dedicted to Hakka Kungfu: HAKKA KUNG FU 客家功夫 If you look at the teachers there, they are mostly all Hong Kong and Guangdong based. Also my friend does not consider Fujian arts as being Hakka. He's met up with Lee Kong of Hong Kong White Crane fame and did not explicitly mention White Crane as being Hakka.

The majority of Hakka people inhabit the East River area of Guangdong. This is at least where Bak Mei, Lung Ying, Lei Gaa and Lam Gaa come from. Also Meixian, titled the "Hakka Capital of the World", is in this area. The main homeland of the Hakka people in Fujian is Longyan. Yongchun county, the "home of White Crane" is actually in Quanzhou, a different city and linguistic area (Southern Min and its dialects). Even Yongtai county, a mountainous area famous for its many different styles of kungfu is in the eastern part of the province (nowadays administratively under Fuzhou), and they are "Sanzhan based" as well and express similar body language.

This is merely a hunch, but the claimed Northern origins of Hakka kungfu seems like a rhetorical tool of establishing cultural prestige. It is known that the Guoshu movement looked down on the "primitive" Southern styles of fighting, trying to push the privilege of Northern styles. 

It has to be admitted, though, that some of the family-based Hakka styles do have similarities in the postures as with some Fujian styles. But then again, same can be seen in some Zhejiang and even Jiangxi styles.


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