Warm up # one

Power of the Instep

Power of the Instep is one of the best methods for training your calf muscle, also your reflexes will become very fast when having to move quickly. When doing a perfect Power of the Instep, from a horse stance, keeping arms to the sides, jump up as high as you can, starting from low horse stance, when you feel you are reaching the highest part of your jump, you slap the soles of your feet together under your groin. This way if ever jumping, your groin will be blocked, plus this exercise will create excellent strength once a student starts to learn Flying kicks, their legs will be ready. However those of you who learn how to do power of the instep, and you leave it never practising it, you will find it hard to do your flying kicks like those who stayed on course. It is never how much you do, it is the quality of your training. If you do a hundred kicks, and the last seventy are sloppy because of fatigue. Someone doing ten kicks, full power and speed properly, will kick ten times better then one who throws kicks out with a sloppy intent. Other times it is not the students fault, they have a teacher that makes the student do to many kicks at the beginning of their training. Again it is not the amount, it is the quality, and a great teacher will know exactly how much a student needs to practise excellent style, form, power, and speed. Remember everyone, train what you know, as exact as you can. Never train what you know, sloppy with out a care for the proper form of the kick, punch, block, and so on, it is like this for everything you do, and yes even your power of the instep. Do not over do it, take care to do as much as you can, not as much as someone beside you. I know some of you in class think that you have to do as much as someone that has been their longer, but that is not the case, plus some students think that others are watching them, when this is all inside of your own head. No one has time to watch you, everyone is looking to hard at what themselves are doing. That is why you should not worry about anyone watching you, please remember this and know that everyone is trying hard, and everyone should only do what they can do, not what someone beside them are doing. I want you all to make sure to understand this, and if not, come and ask me about it.

Sifu Dee

1. Bell blocks

2. Jumping on the spot

3. Body circles

4. Neck circles

5. Calf circles

6. Knee circles

7. Arm circles

8. Finger flicks

9. Bending the fingers

10 Bending forward

11. Bending backward put hands on kidneys

12. Neck stretch back and forth

13. Neck stretch side to side - slowly

14. Neck stretch look over shoulder exhale slowly

15. Calf exercise

16. Finger stretch

17. Neck exercise

18. Duck walk

19. Butterfly breathing

20. Leg raises

21. Two man sit ups

22. Jumping jacks

23. Bell blocks again!

24. Biceps pull

25. Sit ups

26. Palm push

27. Normal push ups

28. Knuckle push ups

29. Back of wrist push ups

30. Close in palm push ups

31. Power of instep

32. Finger tip push ups

33. Wide arm push ups

34. Chinese push ups

35. Russian push ups

36. Full leg stretch, make sure to breath properly at all times through this exercise!

37. Side stretch, standing

38. Two man stretching - three different ways

39. Tiger claw circular blocks ( 100 in - 100 out )

40. Forward leg swing

41. Backward leg swing

42. Side leg swing

"Start doing this a little every day, do not push yourself, or be in a rush to start" build up slowly for the best results!

Stretching is always important before doing martial arts

Notice above when Chris comes up to sit, he sits completely straight spine, straight spine when up, straight spine when going down, always remember this for all of your stretching.

Including two person stretching

Look at the stretch above, The Man's name in Black is Chris, he was a student with us for long time, and was a true brother. However look at the way he is bending at the hip, not the back, he is bending at the waist, which is very important, do not try to touch your head to the floor, by curving your spine, yes it is easy, but will also cause your spine to be incorrect. Your spine is to important not to mention this.

Stretching can be for any age, as long as care is taken not to over do it

Another view of two man stretching

There are many types of stretching, these are only a few, make sure you always breath while stretching, the rule of thumb is to always breath out when you go down to touch your knee with your chest. Never pull on your leg and touch your head to your knee, this is doing it in correctly. If you want to stretch properly, make sure to keep your spine straight, and when you start to bend down to try and touch your chest to your leg, you will find that it is almost impossible to even go close. Now to touch your head to your knee, is not only easy, it will cause you to create a bent spine. Because when trying to touch your head to your chest, just look at how curved your back and neck is, you see you have to make sure to have proper posture always. Yes some of the instructors might be stretching wrong, maybe they had a bad day, or maybe they forgot to stretch a certain way, the thing is you should make sure that you are doing it correctly, and if you see others doing it in correctly. Don't say anything while the class is in motion, but as soon as they stop, make sure to tell the student beside you to do the same, and if they do not believe you, tell them to come on the internet and read here for themselves. This is very important to keep your spine straight. Not crocked.

"Chi Kung"

"Breathing Work"

Chi Kung is very good for warm up, once a student is in the advanced warm up class, that is when they can start to learn the advanced methods of warming up. We use many forms of Chi Kung for the advanced warm ups, and in the basic warm ups, we are training our tendons, muscles, bone, body alignments, and strength. In the advanced type of warm up, we still have all of the above, and various Chi Kung exercise that create different types of results. Some of these Chi Kung exercises take a very long time to actually see the results. Others you will feel right away. It truly is a class all on its own which is very important for all westerners. Especially because of the way that we breathe. It is totally different then breathing shallow as most of us do before learning the martial arts.  Once we start to learn how to breathe deep down to our bladders, is when we will start to learn how to massage our internal organs. And each different Chi Kung exercise is very unique and can work to develop many different results. Some for healing, some for self defense.

Sihing Sutton, Sifu Dee looking on

Learning Wing Chun, will blow you away. Very unique system of Chinese Boxing

Sifu Dee standing in background, watching Sihing Sutton doing his one inch Wing Chun center punch. Before and after the regular class times, students should have the time to be able to do some bag work, skip rope, do chin ups, and work on their forms and techniques.

Press me to go home

"Every second day, every few months, try a little harder to do more"

This is one of our physical warm ups, which entails "Chinese Yoga", and basically everything that you need to become physically fit. It has everything that you need, and is one of the best work out programs that you can do every day. At first if you try it, do not do a whole lot of everything, but just do a little of each, then as the weeks go by build up slowly. You will notice that in time you will be able to do more and more and then add to your program that you should write out for yourself every single day in diary form. In fact if you stuck to the program and did it twice a day, with in six months you would be doing full leg splits, 500 push ups and 500 sit ups, in each session daily, but that does not truly matter, how much you do, what matters is that you do it at all. It really does not take long to get somewhere the thing is that most people just do not stick with any program they start. Their minds just seem to wonder, as soon as something else is seen off they go with out finishing the first goal that they had set out to accomplish. This is what is wrong with most martial artists, they have a goal to get somewhere in their art, to them the time is going by slow and they do not seem like they are getting any where, they see something else, quit the program that they were doing and they go on to something else. You have to stick with your goals, accomplish something first then move on, and then and only then start something else.

Sitting meditation is very important, ask your instructor to teach you basic method first

If you stick with your meditations which 99% of all students never do, they always give up before they reach any type of level. Why you ask, because people this day and age, want results right away. Please stick with it, please I ask you all to not give up, to meditate even if only once a day, not longer then twenty minutes, all I can do is promise you that I will have opened up doors for you that you never knew existed. Yes it is that incredible.

We have another type of warm up that we call number two. It is more of a mental and spiritual work out, with mediation techniques, Chi Kung exercises. Soon I will try to have it up so that anyone can try to go along with it also, but with it I will have to put pictures with it because unless you know terms like, Monkey stretch, Peacock stretch, Opening the clouds, Calming the Ocean, Four winds of heaven, holding the tree, then you will find that you will not get anywhere, once you become accustomed to this type of motion however you will see the benefits that this type of work out has compared to the first one. Both are very good, and each one is not better then the other, in fact there are some schools of martial arts that would only do the first one and neglect to do the second, or not know it at all never being taught these things. And there are other schools that would never ever do the first work out because they would say that it is not good for you to work so hard, also saying that push ups are no good for you. This is so ridiculous, I find that both camps are nuts, in the sense that I was so lucky that I had both, and not just one way. The first one would be considered the external methods in some systems, and the second one would be known as the internal training. One is more physical, and the other is more mental, with deep breathing and with meditation techniques.

More to come

Sifu Dee

 

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Last modified: 10/30/07