A word about speed

[kenneth fish]

Xingyi (and just about every other martial art) should, IMO be practiced and trained at full speed, at least some of the time. The first time I saw Xingyi was in the very early 1970's. The person demonstrating had basically had the system beaten into him by his grandfather. He demonstrated the linked 5 elements form, and moved so quickly that with each move there was an audible "swoosh" as his arms moved through the air.

[johnwang]

moved so quickly that with each move there was an audible "swoosh" as his arms moved through the air.

I could do that just after 6 months of my long fist training (drill 60 punches daily). I assume that was just a very basic level of the TCMA training requirement. Back then, if your punch and kick could not make "swoosh" sound, you were not even considered as an average student. Today, I only punch on my heavy bag (or my striking dummy) and I no longer punch into the thin air. Without the physical contact, I can't get the satisfaction that I'm looking for.

If you can

- punch on your heavy bag, why do you want to punch into the thin air?
- throw your throwing dummy, why do you want to throw an imaginary opponent?
- make love to your love one, why do you want to play with yourself?

[Bhassler]

If you can

- punch on your heavy bag, why do you want to punch into the thin air?
- throw your throwing dummy, why do you want to throw an imaginary opponent?
- make love to your love one, why do you want to play with yourself?

My answer to all three is the same: "Less crying."

[johnwang]

My answer to all three is the same: "Less crying."

"Less crying"?

It's pretty sad that if you still have to play with yourself when you have a wife.

[kenneth fish]

John, you miss the point. The point is that a great many Xingyi students and teachers move at less than full speed in their training, and thus never build and increase their striking, blocking, slipping, and stepping speed to approach useful levels.

[greytowhite]

One thing I really valued about learning Chen first was that we had very slow movement for understanding the posture and then very fast movement to be able to use in fighting. I just started doing our xingyi quickly and trying to maintain the proper mechanics is challenging at times. If I try to improvise something it seems metal comes out more than anything.

[johnwang]

John, you miss the point. The point is that a great many Xingyi students and teachers move at less than full speed in their training, and thus never build and increase their striking, blocking, slipping, and stepping speed to approach useful levels.

I understand your point. I don't believe in "slow training" either. The "striking into the thin air" vs. "hit on the heavy bag" may not have anything to do with this thread discussion. It's just something I feel very strongly about effective training.

[MaartenSFS]

I have learned to appreciate fighting the air and striking/kicking leaves. This develops speed that can be used in fighting, whereas striking only bags and trees can inhibit this. I have met scary bastards that have hardly touched a bag in their lives.

[Bao]

John, you miss the point. The point is that a great many Xingyi students and teachers move at less than full speed in their training, and thus never build and increase their striking, blocking, slipping, and stepping speed to approach useful levels.

Well, nowadays XY is mostly practiced in an IMA environment... which means that the practitioners believe more in qi than in speed. Sometimes people practice very slow and relax, so they can build qi that presumably can do the fighting part..

Or, jokes aside, it might be that people regard the coordination and technique to be more important than speed. There are too much rules about harmony here, harmony there. If a person is serious about his training, he wants to get everything right first. It's easy to fail to see that you can approach a problem from different sides at the same time. Again, IMA teachers are not the best at this, i.e. approach a problem by using speed. The environment that XY is usually practiced, at least here in the west, does not encourage this.

I understand your point. I don't believe in "slow training" either. The "striking into the thin air" vs. "hit on the heavy bag" may not have anything to do with this thread discussion. It's just something I feel very strongly about effective training.

Hit on heavy bag should also be done full speed, right? I think you mean the same thing. The thread could be named differently though, maybe "how to make your XY practice valuable" or something similar. The problem might be to teach the stuff on a level that is useful and practical. Many here in the west martial arts for the cultural tradition or they just want to dress in a fancy shiny pyjama. You won't get this people to your class if you only speak about speed and punching bags. And if you don't, the people that likes speed and punching bags will go for boxing or MMA. The problem is that this second group is often not very interested in TCMA, because they associate it with a practice that is more focused on philosophy and practicing in shiny pyjama.

I have learned to appreciate fighting the air and striking/kicking leaves. This develops speed that can be used in fighting, whereas striking only bags and trees can inhibit this. I have met scary bastards that have hardly touched a bag in their lives.

Well... People can look strong and scary, but they can still punch like girls. Even if your technique is impeccable punching and kicking inte air, and even your in-air-fajin looks scary, it might be weak. If you don't actually practice against something, you won't understand that the balance and use of body mass will be different against a resistance. You really need to practice against a resistance, learning to penetrate something. Otherwise, your scary looking punch and powerful fajin will just hurt the surface of the opponent, it will not have any penetrative power. Personally, I think the best is to punch and strike against someone holding a sturdy kicking protection instead of a bag. Then he can point out when something feels stronger or less strong, when your punch have the most penetrative power. And then you can work together helping each other on getting the details right. There are always small details that you will miss or won't get right, and it's sometimes very hard to understand the difference between doing some small detail good or perfect. When you punch or strike in the air, these details are not important for the "look" of a technique and can be missed. But when you punch someone, the same small detail can mean the difference between hurting an attacker (so he becomes even more mad) or knock him out.

Btw, I like this kind of threads. You really need to drill some basic advice into people. Martial arts are sometimes just too complicated, too big for a common person to approach with a simplistic mind set.

[dspyrido]

Xingyi (and just about every other martial art) should, IMO be practiced and trained at full speed, at least some of the time.

Emphasis on "some" added. I completely agree and I think yin/yang is a great principle. The view I like is to practise the extremes. The wider the extremes practised the better the mix (me) meets in the middle. So when speed is the focus then the fastest possible speed must be trained. But standing is useful in order to attune to tension so as to remove it. This paradoxically I believe improves my speed.

But slow only? This is just bad news. On the flip side fast only seems to only produce clumsy fighters.

[dspyrido]

If you can

- punch on your heavy bag, why do you want to punch into the thin air?
- throw your throwing dummy, why do you want to throw an imaginary opponent?
- make love to your love one, why do you want to play with yourself?

Er ... under that analogy the pad or dummy is equivalent to a sex aid. Better to throw around another person.

[Bao]

.. But standing is useful in order to attune to tension so as to remove it. This paradoxically I believe improves my speed.

No paradox IMHO. More a prerequisite, IMO. The stronger the legs are and the better the root, the more the whole body can relax. If not complete balance is achieved while in movement, the limbs will compensate lack of balance with uncontrolled tension. This is, IME, also why people with very strong stance and rooting can show great movability and footwork. The ability to relax is what builds up and express stability, strength and speed. No paradox IME.

[dspyrido]

No paradox IMHO. More a prerequisite, IMO. The stronger the legs are and the better the root, the more the whole body can relax. If not complete balance is achieved while in movement, the limbs will compensate lack of balance with uncontrolled tension. This is, IME, also why people with very strong stance and rooting can show great movability and footwork. The ability to relax is what builds up and express stability, strength and speed. No paradox IME.

I would not make it a prerequisite in training. Yes some hsing-i schools do but I prefer to not lose focus on speed training. Quick movement emphasis is the foundation IMO so that people don't get too caught up with being "internal" and enabling self deception. With speed being understood then it's a matter of attuning.

[MaartenSFS]

Bao, I didn't say that they look scary. It is their power and arse-kicking capabilities that are scary!

[Pandrews1982]

Having been on the end of quite a bit of criticism for preaching the same kind of philosophy I know that many people practising Xing Yi like to watch old men doing slow movements with absolutely no power or intent rather than really mix things up.

A number of the videos on my channel show footwork emphasis with instruction at slow pace then practice being performed quicker with a sense of "aliveness" in the whole body. Same goes for hand methods. Additionally anytime I show something with some power and speed I get accused of being external, tense, doing some sort of southern style hybrid art etc.

I do believe that in training you need to look at various aspects of the skills and methods, to do this sometimes you need to isolate skills/methods, slow them down, take the power out, etc in order to see the various aspects of the method. But then of course you need to increase the speed, add in the power, perform the skills within context. All things I advocate wholeheartedly and encourage in my students. often we will work on something isolated or slow, speed things up and if I see issues we slow down again and correct then speed up again.