Wing Chun and fat sifus!

[Kung Fu Wang]

working with a good personal trainer does so much more for you in terms of health, fitness, and appearance than Wing Chun...

I don't think a 20 years old "person trainer" will know more than a "qualified" MA teacher. I have talked to many young personal trainers. None of them understand what "body unification" means. All they care about is "muscle group isolation".

The human body is like 3 springs. Without training, all 3 springs will be compressed and released independently. With training, all 3 springs can be compressed and released at the same time. Your shoulder should coordinate with your hip, your elbow should coordinate with your knee, your hand should coordinate with your foot. There is no way that any "personal trainer" or "body builder" will be able to show you how to achieve that.

 

[mook jong man]

I don't think a 20 years old "person trainer" will know more than a "qualified" MA teacher. I have talked to many young personal trainers. None of them understand what "body unification" means. All they care about is "muscle group isolation".

The human body is like 3 springs. Without training, all 3 springs will be compressed and released independently. With training, all 3 springs can be compressed and released at the same time. Your shoulder should coordinate with your hip, your elbow should coordinate with your knee, your hand should coordinate with your foot. There is no way that any "personal trainer" or "body builder" will be able to show you how to achieve that.

But he's not talking about generating power etc in Wing Chun is he?
He's talking about general health , fitness and appearance.
Geezer is correct , Wing Chun's compact and efficient movements do not really lend themselves to a very taxing aerobic workout , for that you will have to do other things.

 

[cwk]

I think all martial artists should do a lot of pad/mitt work. It's activity specific and you can make it a hell of a workout if you do intense rounds of say 4-5 minutes with a 1-2 minute rest in between sets. Work say, 3-5 different combos per round using all different parts of the body and have the pad holder throw some shots back at the striker to keep them sharp. Good training and a good workout.
If you want to step it up, have the striker do calisthenics followed by a minutes rest between rounds.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

But he's not talking about generating power etc in Wing Chun is he?
He's talking about general health , fitness and appearance.

If you want to learn fight, fight. If you want to be health, fitness, and appearance, go to modern gym. To spar/wrestle 15 rounds daily will give you health, fitness, and appearance too.

 

[mook jong man]

If you want to learn fight, fight. If you want to be health, fitness, and appearance, go to modern gym. To spar/wrestle 15 rounds daily will give you health, fitness, and appearance too.

My own Sifu used to say to guy's that were starting to get a bit of a gut , that they needed to do really really fast chi sau.
He was right to a certain extent , it will burn calories , as will the methods you mentioned.

But they are also extremely inefficient time wise , in 10 minutes you can do a very intense circuit with kettle bells , chin up bar and bodyweight training that will have you throwing up your lunch and will raise your metabolism for hours afterwards.

 

[mook jong man]

I think all martial artists should do a lot of pad/mitt work. It's activity specific and you can make it a hell of a workout if you do intense rounds of say 4-5 minutes with a 1-2 minute rest in between sets. Work say, 3-5 different combos per round using all different parts of the body and have the pad holder throw some shots back at the striker to keep them sharp. Good training and a good workout.
If you want to step it up, have the striker do calisthenics followed by a minutes rest between rounds.

Pad work is very good and can really get the heart rate sky rocketing.
But you have to have someone that knows how to feed the pads properly , which is an art in itself.

 

[cwk]

Pad work is very good and can really get the heart rate sky rocketing.
But you have to have someone that knows how to feed the pads properly , which is an art in itself.

Very true. When the person holding the pads doesn't know what he/she's doing, it gets old fast. especially if their timing is making you over extend and risks damaging your elbow.

 

[mook jong man]

Very true. When the person holding the pads doesn't know what he/she's doing, it gets old fast. especially if their timing is making you over extend and risks damaging your elbow.

Or they hold the pads at the wrong angle , too far apart etc.
And you have to keep stopping to adjust the pad positions for them.
A good pad holder is worth their weight in gold that's for sure.

 

[Transk53]

Or they hold the pads at the wrong angle , too far apart etc.
And you have to keep stopping to adjust the pad positions for them.
A good pad holder is worth their weight in gold that's for sure.

Very true for whatever art/training.

 

[geezer]

Very true. When the person holding the pads doesn't know what he/she's doing, it gets old fast. especially if their timing is making you over extend and risks damaging your elbow.

Distance and timing are always a major concern, although over-extending the elbow has never been an issue in the type of WC I practice. In fact, when "air punching", we let our punches extend completely. This points up another problem; namely that pad work for WC has to be aproached a bit differently than for an art where you use techniques similar to western boxing.

If anybody has any good clips of how they like to hold the pads for WC, I'd really appreciate it if you could post them.

 

[cwk]

I'll try to get one made this weekend Steve.
I have a clip of me doing pads with my thai trainer on my facebook page if anyone wants to take a look.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152653907939896&set=vb.716919895&type=2&theater

It's easy to create wing combos that work on the pads/mitts. Personally I'd try to leave out any trapping type movements and work on moving in and landing clean, heavy shots. You can work trapping and stuff in different drills.