is one hour zhan zhuang a good pedagogy?

[willie]

She Shen Tan Hai is a difficult postion to maintain. One cannot relax in SSTH for long and that would change the focus of the exercise. It could be done as part of a combination of other postures, transitioning through each in a zz state. I consider my entire practice to be zz except for the warm up exercises.[/quote]

Oh boy, not another one of those...
you got a video of yourself.

[Taste of Death]

She Shen Tan Hai is a difficult postion to maintain. One cannot relax in SSTH for long and that would change the focus of the exercise. It could be done as part of a combination of other postures, transitioning through each in a zz state. I consider my entire practice to be zz except for the warm up exercises.

Oh boy, not another one of those...
you got a video of yourself.[/quote]

When you learn how to use the quote button correctly I will consider it. Would you prefer a taiji, yiquan, or one arm one leg push up video? If you are expecting a tutorial it will cost you.

[willie]

Taste of.....K
Your video please.
Then we will discuss the re-training fee's you will need to come up with.
I think I would have let you skate but that racist remark against my half Asian family
is unacceptable. So where did you get your material from that you want to sell me?
LOL!

[Taste of Death]

Taste of.....K
Your video please.
Then we will discuss the re-training fee's you will need to come up with.
I think I would have let you skate but that racist remark against my half Asian family
is unacceptable. So where did you get your material from that you want to sell me?
LOL!

The comment was not racist. You edited my comment to make it look like I have something against Koreans when, like everone else on here, I have something against you. I couldn't afford your training. I limit myself to $100 a month or less for cima. Teachers charge more when they neither like nor respect you. If you want a video of me wearing silk pajamas and groovin' to some tunes on my ipod you will have to wait an eternity.

[willie]

The comment was not racist. You edited my comment to make it look like I have something against Koreans when, like everone else on here, I have something against you. I couldn't afford your training. I limit myself to $100 a month or less for cima. Teachers charge more when they neither like nor respect you. If you want a video of me wearing silk pajamas and groovin' to some tunes on my ipod you will have to wait an eternity.

First off. You should have never involved my family. I did not edit your comment for any other reason then what you said.
So you have something against me because I decided that I have had enough of all the bullshit in ima and went to find
the best material that I could? your funny... Why the hell would I want to watch others do what they can do and never
show how they are doing it? your fucking right I paid the money and it doesn't matter if they hate you or like you, your paying
because the deeper it is the more it cost period. you act like it's some sort of free ride. it's not!


I

[Taste of Death]

The comment was not racist. You edited my comment to make it look like I have something against Koreans when, like everone else on here, I have something against you. I couldn't afford your training. I limit myself to $100 a month or less for cima. Teachers charge more when they neither like nor respect you. If you want a video of me wearing silk pajamas and groovin' to some tunes on my ipod you will have to wait an eternity.

First off. You should have never involved my family. I did not edit your comment for any other reason then what you said.
So you have something against me because I decided that I have had enough of all the bullshit in ima and went to find
the best material that I could? your funny... Why the hell would I want to watch others do what they can do and never
show how they are doing it? your fucking right I paid the money and it doesn't matter if they hate you or like you, your paying
because the deeper it is the more it cost period. you act like it's some sort of free ride. it's not!


I

You brought up your family. You said your son and his beer drinking, grappling buddies (lol, yes, you actually wrote that) were going to come after me and I would have to go on the run. After they got out of the sand pit, of course. Whatever the fuck that means. I'd go find the quote but since you're (not your) trolling every thread I'm on it's hard to keep up.

The rest I care little about.

[willie]

I'd go find the quote but since you're (not your) trolling every thread I'm on it's hard to keep up.

The rest I care little about.

No, your trolling. I'm just an honest guy.

Then don't ask.

[Taste of Death]

I'd go find the quote but since you're (not your) trolling every thread I'm on it's hard to keep up.

The rest I care little about.

No, your trolling. I'm just an honest guy.

Then don't ask.

No, you are illiterate. It is you're as in you are. Not your. Is that how your wife spells it? Or as you would say, you're wife.

[Taste of Death]

Steve James said to use humor when dealing with these assholes. How am I doing?

[Patrick]

If JW exercises should be called "ZZ" or not is irrelevant. But they have a different use than Yi Quan ZZ.

[Taste of Death]

If JW exercises should be called "ZZ" or not is irrelevant. But they have a different use than Yi Quan ZZ.

And it's sad that he doesn't know the difference but it's his thing to troll internal threads. He has staked his reputation on ima not existing.

[jjy5016]

Not sure if this is exactly right place for my zhan zhuang question, but I didn't feel like this is worth its own thread.

How still, or static, should zhan zhuang actually be? 100% stillness is quite impossible and even unpreferred becouse of tension it might cause. I've personally been playing around with tension or feelings of "stuckness" lately during zhan zhuang, and I have two ways I deal them with. First is by doing quite large flexing/twisting movement, which usually causes some cracking and popping sounds from my back/shoulders, and I feel immediately release of these tensed/stuck places and whole body feels smoother afterwards. Another way I've been trying is, by releasing these same feelings of tension just by focusing my mind/awareness on these parts, I feel like this is also releasing the feeling of tension/"stuckness", but not as effectively as physical flexing, if I flex some time after this, it might still cause a sound, but not always.

Anyone got any feedback with this? Should I keep on flexing during zhan zhuang when I encounter these "blocks", or should I try to keep more static, and learn to release the tension with just my mind...?

Hi Beerless,

The flexing/twisting method is what the other Han brother taught my teacher in yiquan. All of the limbs of the arms and legs twist in opposition to stretch the tendons and open up those joint. Shoulders, knees hips, spine all get stretched and occasionally will pop. The flexing should be stretching, not tightening the muscles which can lead to stiffness. That stretching and twisting accomplishes what Wang Xiang Zhai called "stretching the tendons and shrinking / compressing the bones" in his writings on yiquan. He also wrote about some very specific reasons for twisting at the ankles & wrists.

Releasing the tensions in your body using just the mind can also work. Using intent can produce good results but it can't be too strong of an intent. Too much intent can actually cause the opposite effect in the way that drawing 5 amps of current in a circuit that has a 2 amp fuse in it will cause the fuse to blow.

The two stances in sifu Wang's pictures are both great postures for zhan zhuang practice. The key to both of them is finding the balance point in your own body where they are almost effortless and not trying to push yourself to achieve the same results as in someone else's picture of the posture. The longer you can hold them the better regardless of what others may say. Still when beginning to do extreme postures such as these it is better to leave the ego at home and try them out for only a few minutes at first and slowly add more time. Best bet is to find a teacher who has done the postures you want to practice at length and can guide you so you don't get an injury.

There so are many methods and postures that fall under the term zhan zhuang that one can't know them all. Most of have a very specific purpose and are not covered by a "One size fits all" rule so to say that twenty minutes is enough, an hour is too long / not long enough, what is and isn't zhan zhuang is irresponsible and screams of ignorance.

Good luck with your training.

[Strange]

Thanks for sharing

[BeerlessBoxer]

Indeed, thanks for the sharing

I feel like I actually gained some useful info regarding my own training, I will still keep observing the thread too, of course.

I don't follow very exact/strict training regimen at the moment, becouse I don't see my teacher during summer. So I'm just trying to listen my body and doing stuff that I feel I need more practice with. Which currently means doing some zhan zhuang, basic excercies and a bit of form work daily, each day seems to be a bit different.