by Wushuer » Wed Mar 24, 2004 4:49 pm
RVC_VE,
I'm glad it works for you. I hope it's not really doing the harm I fear it is.
That said, I still have to follow the advice I have been given and the experiences I have had.
You say "following the principals", which principals are you talking about?
The TCC principals I follow clearly contradict training in these ways. Which principal in TCC theory tells you to jar your body with repeated impacts of an aerobic nature, shorten and tear your tendons and ligaments and tighten your muscles with weight training, which restricts the flow of grand circulation chi, expends vital energy for little purpose, increases your heart rate and produces adrenelin consistently?
Remember, these are not MY theories or points of view. I get these directly from the Wu family, specifically Sifu Ma Yueh-liangs writings though the exact same sentiments have been expressed to me in writing and verbally by Si Kung Wu Yan Hsia (Auntie Wu), Si Kung Wu Tai Sin and Sifu Wu Kwong (Eddie) Wu.
I have given you all direction to one of the texts written by one of Si Kung Wu Chien Chuan's own disciples, his own son-in-law, which clearly contradicts this type of training for TCC excellence. There are others as well, this is just the most readily available.
My own experience has been that tightening my muscles, tendons and ligaments makes me stiff and unresponsive. When I began to train with the Wu family my Sifu clearly told me "You will have to chose. These two types of training contradict each other completely."
I remember those words well, since it was immediately after I stopped the power lifting and daily jarring jogging that my TCC began to show marked improvement. My double weighting quickly became a thing of the past once I relaxed my body enough to take advantage of the movements and principals of TCC.
I am not against exercise, quite the contrary, I exercise daily. I start with Chi Kung, breath work, I then stretch out every muscle in my body with a combination of Wu family warm ups and the warm ups I have learned from my YCF coach. Then I do three long forms (alternating Wu and Yang forms), one to warm up, one to clear my mind, one to set the postures. Sometimes, if I'm sufficiently loose and relaxed after those three sets and still have about five to six minutes left, I then do a Wu style fast form, this is about twice a week, just to keep up the "agility" aspect of that form (as in the five character formulas, one set for slow forms {calmness, lightness, slowness, exactness and perserverance} one for the fast forms {calmness, lightness, agility, exactness and perserverance}, but I'm sure you all knew that, sorry).
I follow these with a set of tiger crawls and then I do some falling and tumbling work. I finish up with a Yang 13 posture form, regardless of which days form work I'm on, as a cooling down period, heck sometimes I do it two or three times.
Later in the day I do twenty flights of stair walking using all the principals of TCC, including waist integration (it looks weird, but what the hey). I usually do about for or five 13 posture forms during my breaks through the day as well. My wife and I walk for a half hour four nights a week also. During clement weather I also ride my bike regularly of the evenings.
I do not raise my heart rate for these exercises, as this produces adrenelin, I do not jar my tendons, ligaments or joint, I do not tense my muscles any more than is necessary for movement, and yet I seem to accrue all the benefits associated with "western" style health exercise.
My resting heart rate is a consistent 46 to 48, sometimes as low as 42. My blood ox levels are consistently at 99% and I can maintain a rate of 92% even if I hold my breath for as long as I possibly can.
My doctors are consistently amazed at my low heart rate, my extremely low cholestorol count despite the fact that my entire family has extremely high cholestorol (only me, my mother and my oldest brother [who are both Wu family disciples] have low cholestorol levels) and yet a staple of my diet is bacon and eggs just about every day for breakfast, with biscuits and butter (man, do I love bacon and eggs).
I can stretch farther, move faster and am more agile than anyone my physical therapist has ever met. I recover from illness in about a quarter the time of others with the same symptoms. I recover from physical injuries more quickly than my physicians or PT's can account for in their experience, in fact my PT now recommends TCC training to all of his patients for recovery from illness or injury.
All these things became possible for me after I gave up the more traditional "western" fitness training regimines.
I'm glad this is working for you now, but I fear it's a short term fix only. For my part I believe you are injuring yourself repeatedly for a short term gain and will regret these things later.
Will you still be able to do these things when you are sixty? Seventy? Eighty? Ninety? More?
That is my goal, as I would think that it would be most anyones. Longevity as well as long term health during it.
Am I wrong here? Isn't that the idea? Didn't Chang San-feng in his "treatise" say TCC was for the heroes to maintain health and longevity as well as martial excellence?
Certainly these western style exercises give you a short term "fix". You become stronger, faster (in one sense), your resting heart rate is lowered, your blood pressure drops, you overall "health" by these standards does improve in the short term. However it's the sublimation of "internal" health, long term TCC principaled "health" that suffers from these things for all the above stated reasons.
And here's why I say "short term".
These "healthy" side effects that I've mentioned occur at the expense of temporarily raising your heart rate, tearing your ligaments, tendons and muscles and shocking your bones and joints. These things take time to heal, stiffen up your muscles, shorten your ligaments and tendons and cause your body to produce extreme amounts of adrenelin which shock your nervous system. In the long run you are destroying your body for the sake of a short term "fix". This temporary state of increased "health" does not stay with you.
What happens to your health when you have finally broken down your heart and it can no longer take the pounding? What happens to your health in thirty, forty years when you no longer have the muscle power to lift those weights?
What happens to those people who have spent their entire lives constantly abusing their bodies for the short term "health" benefits accrued through these types of exercises?
I'll tell you what is happening more and more across the world. They are learning TCC to try to offset some of the damage they have done to themselves for that short term health "fix".
No one needs to agree with me now. I'll check back in with you all who practice these things in about thirty to forty years and see how many of you are still lifting weights and running marathons, and how many of you are still practicing TCC to fix the effects of all those years of doing those things.
I made my decision nearly sixteen years ago when it became clear to me what I was doing to myself, I've never regretted it.
As for training with heavy spears and weapons, of course. I do these things, or more accurately I used to since I haven't in a few years. You nailed the idea on the head, they do it AFTER a long time in training proper movement theory. Once you know how to move a light spear or weapon properly and have integrated the theories of TCC movement principal into your everyday life you will not do the damage to your body as you perform these feats. You will be moving correctly so as to avoid the damage to your body.
I trained with spears, staffs and Manchu broadswords for years and years (I still train the broadsword and do my spear warm ups a couple of times a week, but nothing like I used to).
This is possible because you are now moving in a manner consistent with the principals, so you keep the same health benefit while increasing "strength" if that's what you wish to call it. I see it as more "skill" because you're moving these heavy objects in such a way that you're not really building up solid muscle mass, so you're not abusing your body while you do it.
Gotta run. Outta time for now.
I cannot convince anyone, I know this. All I can do is put this out there. Think about it, do some research.
One thing, I've never met a muscle bound TCC player I could not offset during push hands or defeat during free style sparring.
I have a brother who is six feet seven inches tall and weighs in at over 300 pounds. He will not cross hands with me or our eldest brother anymore. He got tired of being bounced around by both of his "little" brothers after we learned TCC. He's the "strongest" guy I know, I make him look like a rag doll when I play with his "strength".
I no longer worry about being "stronger", I'd rather be "smarter". That's what TCC is, a way to overcome strength with intelligence and skill.
[This message has been edited by Wushuer (edited 03-24-2004).]
