"minimum effective dose"

[origami_itto]

What is it you're trying to get? Maybe I can help you find it.

this is mostly just idle chit chat, but maximum effect from minimum dose.

the other issue we tend to overlook in these discussions is the talent input. if you ask john lennon after few to zero hours of any kind of instruction, he'll probably output a better song than you (the asker) could. if you ask me, after many hours of instruction, my song will still be absolute non-sensical garbage.

when I coached futbol to little kids, I tried to give them all the same training as much as I could. there is probably a "minimum effective dose" of certain kinds of inputs (controlling the ball) because everyone improved a lot. relative to other teams not doing this "dose", i'd say our kids improved way more due to that "dose", but the kids with incredible talent improved to an extraordinary degree (and learned on their own). they would come back after a few days and show me technique variations i never showed them and that i couldn't personally do. but we cannot really control the "god given talent" we have, so we just have to accept it.

in an art that's less well understood (and people here don't even agree on the "it" or the "what"), it seems things may have to be more variable. I think charles' anecdotes on some different timings are quite interesting. 20 min in a week doesn't seem like enough for anything. 4 hours per day might not be viable for a lot of people with other duties.

Oh that was for the other guy there who has been at it 50 years and is still searching. I do hope he finds it some day.

[everything]

oh lol my bad, didn't read through very well

[Bao]

IMO, it's important to train diligently the first few years, and practice with focus and try to get into a good routine.
However...

One hour today won't be the same as one hour tomorrow.

The more you learn, the better understand your art and the better you become at doing things right, the more efficient the training will become.
The more you internalize your art, the more you will carry it with you in daily life.

[origami_itto]

I dunno man, I just think you need to do it because you love it, not because you're after something. It's just what you do and you do it and you work at getting better at it.

Of course, a lot of folks get real insecure about it, FOMO, LARP, lost in the fantasy novels, pretending to some noble secret... *YAWN*.

The question, as always, is what are you trying to achieve?

[D_Glenn]

People often compare the time professional athletes put into their training to time spent training by martial artists, but even then, things are not so simple. Take the example of Nedo Nadi and Edoardo Mangiarotti, two of the greatest fencers of the twentieth century. In his book, "By the Sword", Richard Cohen describes how both men were trained by their fathers, who were also fencers of some skill. While Nado was made to train two, then three sessions daily, always fencing against the senior fencers of the club, Mangiarotti's training was far more relaxed - he rarely trained more than a couple of hours a day. Both men went on to win many Olympic and world championship medals, with Mangiarotti following on from Nadi as the leading competition fencer of his day.

I’m not sure what the message here is, except that it is not as easy to train effectively as one would like, and time is not always an accurate measure of effectiveness.

Graculus
https://ichijoji.blogspot.com

In Daoism there’s the concept of Zhen Ren. This is a person who has cultivated both their highest mental and physical abilities. Some people are born Zhen Ren and excel at every endeavor they do. They are at a pro level in multiple sports. They have the mental and physical discipline to train, but everything comes easy to them. Maybe Mangiarotti was born a Zhen Ren, while Nado had to work at it.

In the CIMA the Daoist cultivation practices that can help normal people become Zhen Ren are the major part of them, but they’re both martial and cultivating, unlike what the Daoists practice. It’s a gradual process, but the more you do the cultivation the easier the technical martial parts will become. Dong Haichuan only had one student who was a naturally born Zhen Ren. But DHC preferred students who were the farthest away from being, or accessing their Zhen Ren because he wanted to prove that his system worked.

So there are minimum times for these martial/ cultivation practices, because as you make progress, the purely martial practices will become easier to develop skill in. I have found my minimum amount of time required in my Zhan Zhuang and Xing Zhuang (Circle Walking). Any less than that and I don’t see progress. As far as the martial parts, it’s as much as you can reasonably do. But over time, as long as you are doing the minimum cultivation, that time will lessen. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t get to do your martial practices everyday but do feel guilty if you don’t practice your Zhuang exercises everyday.

.

[G. Matthew Webb]

... Dong Haichuan only had one student who was a naturally born Zhen Ren. But DHC preferred students who were the farthest away from being, or accessing their Zhen Ren because he wanted to prove that his system worked...

D_Glenn, who was that one student in your understanding and why did DHC accept him as a student?

[D_Glenn]

who was that one student in your understanding and why did DHC accept him as a student?

It was Ma Weiqi, who, in the Daoist circles would probably not be considered a Zhen Ren because he lacked all virtue and was a narcissist. So DHC accepted him to try and make him into a good man.

[everything]

I dunno man, I just think you need to do it because you love it, not because you're after something. It's just what you do and you do it and you work at getting better at it.

Of course, a lot of folks get real insecure about it, FOMO, LARP, lost in the fantasy novels, pretending to some noble secret... *YAWN*.

The question, as always, is what are you trying to achieve?

Sure do whatever because you love it.

But at minimum, normally you like to improve.

[Trick]

1 h is enough for the grownup hobbyist(that we all are), pushing oneself further in hope reaching of some sort of enlightenment goal is a dead end.
Just truly enjoying the daily 1h is enough it may easily spin of into 2h.
The taiji forms are very practical in many ways, one for example is that one can throw away any worry about the clock since the forms hold their own somewhat set frame of time.

The 8h a day of actual training is just a fantasy steaming from misunderstanding of old times “indoor” students tales.

[wayne hansen]

One hour a day is heaps plus auxiliaries
By auxiliaries I mean those little things you do outside of training
Short blasts of basic training
Nothing I'm trying to get after years of training I just listen to where it takes me
It's not how much u train but how u train
As they say in computing
Shit in shit out
Saying that there certainly is a minimum you can do and still get something back
I remember the surgeon general saying that to achieve fitness you needed to train 20 minutes 3 times a week
I advocate daily training and have not seen anyone achieve anything without it
A casual approach for a casual reward is fine but there are much easier ways to get it like IWT
If you want a martial reward let's hope you are not training in too haphazard a way or you may have a shock coming

[Trick]

Sure - riding the bus do it standing keep balance, down in crowded rush hour subways station, push open a door, pull open a door….and so on

[Bao]

I dunno man, I just think you need to do it because you love it, not because you're after something. It's just what you do and you do it and you work at getting better at it.

You should do what you love.

But you should also have a clear goal of what you want to achieve. Always. If you don't, you might practice much today, a little tomorrow and eventually lose track of it and stop practicing.

When I started practicing I wanted to become better than my first teacher. When I had surpassed him I followed other goals. I have always had very strong and clear goals and I made effort figuring out exact methods to reach them. Nowadays I know exactly what I need to practice and how to achieve what I want to achieve.

[Shinobi]

who was that one student in your understanding and why did DHC accept him as a student?

It was Ma Weiqi, who, in the Daoist circles would probably not be considered a Zhen Ren because he lacked all virtue and was a narcissist. So DHC accepted him to try and make him into a good man.

What about Ma Gui? I've heard a lot of good things about him, that he was every bit as good as Yin Fu and loved by Dong Haichuan.

[D_Glenn]

Ma Gui was originally Yin Fu’s student but when he introduced him to DHC he also wanted to teach him. So ge got to study with both of them. Ma Gui was the opposite of Ma Weiqi because he had dwarfism but with full blooded Manchurian parents he wasn’t noticeably shorter in the Han community, but he did have the shorter limbs. He had to train twice as hard as everyone else and specialized in low basin where he could use his arms to attack the legs of his opponents. Men Baozhen let my teacher Xie Peiqi, study with Ma Gui and learn as much as he could from him. Men Baozhen was about 6’4. Xie was about 5’7, and Ma was about 5’4” but he always wore those suede leather Shaolin boots and he could pack almost 4 inches of cloth below his feet and make himself almost 5’8”. My teacher said that alone showed how good of a martial artist he was, because he could still be rooted and nimble on his feet. He taught my teacher some of the harder conditioning drills that DHC had taught Ma Gui. Various hardening and stretching exercises like one for the Achilles tendons. Wrist flexibility and hardening by spending a long time holding planks on his wrists. Ma Gui was famous for his wrist bone striking (called Backfist). Basically bending the hand inward past 90 degrees and then straight punching with just the wrist. If you know the importance of Lao Gong point in open palm strikes, this gets that out of the way and direct to the source. My teacher was demonstrating it on me and it’s scary. It’s also a counter Qinna if someone tries to grab your fingers. Ma Gui didn’t really know his own power so he got in trouble a lot by accidentally hurting students.

.

[Shinobi]

Ma Gui was originally Yin Fu’s student but when he introduced him to DHC he also wanted to teach him. So ge got to study with both of them. Ma Gui was the opposite of Ma Weiqi because he had dwarfism but with full blooded Manchurian parents he wasn’t noticeably shorter in the Han community, but he did have the shorter limbs. He had to train twice as hard as everyone else and specialized in low basin where he could use his arms to attack the legs of his opponents. Men Baozhen let my teacher Xie Peiqi, study with Ma Gui and learn as much as he could from him. Men Baozhen was about 6’4. Xie was about 5’7, and Ma was about 5’4” but he always wore those suede leather Shaolin boots and he could pack almost 4 inches of cloth below his feet and make himself almost 5’8”. My teacher said that alone showed how good of a martial artist he was, because he could still be rooted and nimble on his feet. He taught my teacher some of the harder conditioning drills that DHC had taught Ma Gui. Various hardening and stretching exercises like one for the Achilles tendons. Wrist flexibility and hardening by spending a long time holding planks on his wrists. Ma Gui was famous for his wrist bone striking (called Backfist). Basically bending the hand inward past 90 degrees and then straight punching with just the wrist. If you know the importance of Lao Gong point in open palm strikes, this gets that out of the way and direct to the source. My teacher was demonstrating it on me and it’s scary. It’s also a counter Qinna if someone tries to grab your fingers. Ma Gui didn’t really know his own power so he got in trouble a lot by accidentally hurting students.

.

Thanks. I knew he was small but I didn't know he had actual dwarfism! Just shows how much hard work he must've put in to get the reputation he had.