What type of body are you building?

[Juan]

lol...I'll look for a before pic.

The girl in the pic is one of our amateur fighters. This was the MTA fight team for the fight night at team diamond. We all did well except for the guy in the hat who fought a super tough guy and ended up getting knocked out. She's not married but is seriously dating one of our amateur guys in the gym. She's a super cool person and an awesome tattoo artist too.

[Edit] Here's the before pic...this was probably around the peak of my fatness when I was around 195ish. The pre-fight picture I posted I weighed in at 143 now I am at around 155. It's funny because people tell me I'm too skinny but now that I am studying to get certified in personal training I looked at the BMI chart and I'm at the correct weight. If I go up to 160 for my height I am considered over weight.

[Bhassler]

Generally speaking, BMI is a crock of shit. Doesn't really relate to you personally or anything you're saying, but I wanted to weigh in with that little gem of information.

[Chris McKinley]

BMI also does not take into account relative muscularity, it emphasizes bodyfat percentages. One can indeed be too skinny and have an ideal BMI rating. Additionally, one person can have a poor BMI rating and yet be exactly their recommended weight, while another person can exceed their recommended weight by, say, 20-30 lbs., and still have an ideal BMI rating. This latter problem is due to the almost complete non-consideration of relative musculature.

[Dmitri]

Generally speaking, BMI is a crock of shit. Doesn't really relate to you personally or anything you're saying, but I wanted to weigh in with that little gem of information.

+1

[Ian]

I don't understand all the fuss about Juan's pic.

No offfense, Juan - you've obviously put in a lot of consistent hard work to get fit, but WHAT kind of body is "the body you thought you'd never get"?

And are you guys impressed with Juan's progress simply from an aesthetic standpoint (which has nothing to do with martial ability, btw. for example, I have sixpack simply because I'm skinny)...

Or is it because you know what type of body you want and that happens to be it?

I think a more pertinent question for us CMAists is whether we should look at body building from the same perspective as typical athletes? Are well-defined muscles, wash-board stomach, and big biceps conducive to our CMA training?

No, of course not. That's why I asked "what type of body are you building", not "are you body building".

the thing about conditioning or body building is that once you stop doing it, you may lose it.

we all have our limits, and also we do peak at certain age. and no matter what, after that we all go down hill.

--

Right. This topic isn't about looking good or body building.

What type of body I'm building? Old. It takes time, but I'm getting there.

On a serious note, I guess the key criteria for me would be loose, connected and sensitive. Power used to be important but my priorities changed a bit lately...

Not so ironically, really, but I think the end result of your current focus is a lot more power, right?

[Joe L.]

Ian- I was impressed because from what I remember, even about a year ago or so, from what Juan had showed us of himself he wasn't in ''peak'' condition. As compared to what is shown recently, which seems to have come about just from training and a good diet plan, he has something hard earned and seemingly worth the effort (even if it was not the main point of the training). So no, it isn't about the aesthetics of the pic, since I doubt most of us spend much time gazing longingly at ripped gents, but I could be mistaken here

On the other hand, maybe Juan also meant that his body now responds at a much more efficient rate, and preforms in all areas of life to a standard he thought he might never have been able to attain. Health wise I'm sure 50 pounds less he is feeling like a million bucks, energy level and sheer ease of movement wise. Not even looking at his fighting abilities from the training, I'd say those are ''a type of body'' being build with some merit, no?

All that aside, that really not might fall under what you were after when you asked about the type of body one would desire to put together, yet I can't see how it doesn't lend to a base standard that can help whatever specifically he or anyone might be trying to go after.

It would be interesting to hear though the differences between what type of body he hopes his taijiquan training might help him build, as compared to the muay thai, since to my untrained eye they are worlds apart (feel free to correct me here).

[johnwang]

I'll be very happy if I can have:

- broad shoulder
- big arm
- thick chest
- slim waist
- sexy butts
- muscular legs

when I'm 80 years old age.

[Juan]

I don't understand all the fuss about Juan's pic.

No offfense, Juan - you've obviously put in a lot of consistent hard work to get fit, but WHAT kind of body is "the body you thought you'd never get"?

And are you guys impressed with Juan's progress simply from an aesthetic standpoint (which has nothing to do with martial ability, btw. for example, I have sixpack simply because I'm skinny)...

Or is it because you know what type of body you want and that happens to be it?

No offense taken Ian. I honestly thought I would never have the cut up body. I've always been really active, even played a season of semi-professional soccer during college, and I never got cut up. I figured I had bad genes. By the way, when I was in college I probably weighed as much as I did for the fight and did not have a six pack. You don't get six packs just from being skinny.

Martially I believe it does have an impact. I am a hell of alot stronger than I've ever been in the past. My kicks and punches are alot faster and stronger. I can take alot more punishment to the abdominals without folding over. In fact (and I am not trying to brag here, just making a point) a guy at the gym hit me in the stomach just playing around and hurt his wrist when he hit me. He asked me if I had something under my shirt, he honestly thought I had put something solid under my shirt. Being athletic also helps with speed, endurance and even recovery. I can get hit/rocked and I find myself to be able to recover faster than I did in the past.

[bailewen]

It's one thing to be a skinny ripped fuck.

Ton's of those here in China. Their hunched over and look kind of like dehydrated meat actually.

Totally different to come down to that weight from around 200 lb. like Juan did. It's undernourishment vs. bulking up and then clearing out the fat. You could almost (but not quite) say that Juan had a "walking around weight" of 195 (or maybe 180 say even) but he fights at 155. That's completely different from just weighing in at 155.

More to the general topic, I think that most of the answers here have been pretty damn vague. No big deal. I don't think most people really think that hard about it. Somatai's answer useing the classic Xingyi descpription is kind of a non-answer except to himself. What defines those traits is going to vary widely from person to person. He just sort of alluded to where we could go research the answer. "Flexible and open" is kind of cool. Again though, hard to define. ROM? Alexander technique stuff?

I have been thinking about the question lately and am still not completely sure myself. I can definately identify with where Juan's coming from as I think I am heading there myself. I used to be really skinny and flexible. Then I got kind of solid and strong but lost the "skinny" part. I always told myself I wasn't concerned with aesthetics or that apparently I just didn't need certain muscles for what I did. For the most part that's true. . . .for the most part. As I continue to get more serious about my training though, and continue to add more time during the week to train and sacrifice other goals at the alter of kung fu, I am kind of sick of not really looking like an athlete. Last year I also met and sparred with the most incredible kicker I have ever met in my life. Kind of a chubby guy too ironically. Either way, he inspired me to take back by childhood flexibility.

Towards these ends I have, in the past 2 months, added 2 inches to my chest without my weight changing at all. I am also only about 3 inches away from touching my head to my toes with my knee locked on my right leg. I'm swimming daily for about a week now. (the pool near me is only open in the summer) and I'm seriously trying to see how this sort of fantasticly flexible agile body is going to integrate with the Baji ideal of bear+tiger+eagle (and another 5 animals actually but I don't feel like going into the quanpu here)

Hard to describe but freedom of movement is a start. It's a frustrating tension between power and agility. Just trying to get them both together without any sacrifices.

[Ian]

Thanks Juan, Omar, and Derek for the answers. More in line with what I was wondering.

Here's what I wrote to someone in a PM:

-very relaxed body, especially shoulders, hips, and midsection (if you think they're relaxed they're most likely not relaxed enough), unless you choose to add tension. leading to...
-the ability to change between tension and relaxation at will, in a split second. not just in terms of muscles, but also joints, breath etc. the feeling is that sometimes you're working against a ghost, sometimes against sidewinder missiles, sometimes against the cogs of a heavy machine
-the ability to generate force from any part of the body, and at weird angles and short distances
-the ability to connect or totally disconnect body parts; the ability to move everything together or certain parts independently, in isolation
-steel-like joints unimpeded by tension, able to move and maintain strength and flexibility in the joint's full ROM
-fullness
-joints like springs (think trampolines; impact management)
-mobile center (able to move from the dantien to the solar plexus, from left to right, front to back)
-strong legs, strong back, the ability to carry heavy loads for long distances

nothing radically different from any IMA I suppose

PS! I know I'm mostly talking about abilities, but adjectives just don't cut it when talking about the type of body we're developing as fighters, IMO.

[Dmitri]

Not so ironically, really, but I think the end result of your current focus is a lot more power, right?

I dunno, maybe... I mean I know what you mean but there's no way I (or anyone?) can measure something like that.
Those things have always been my focus, I never REALLY WORKED on more power, ever. Some "pole shaking" stuff a few years back but that wasn't really as much for amount of power as it was to try and refine whatever little of it I could produce.
So "power" has always been among "side effects" of the IMA training, for me. Like "better balance", "stronger legs", etc., etc. -- you don't TRY to work on those, i.e. not specifically -- they "just happen", as a side effect of the rest of it...

[somatai]

all of the exceptional ima people that i have met have a thickness and fullness to their flesh and body that is unusual.......my teacher says "bear back tiger shoulders"....cant remember the saying in chinese.....the animal descriptions of the body are quite literal in xylhq

[Bhassler]

I look for skeletal transmission of force. Everything else, including attributes and abilities, is an outcome of that.

[johnwang]

You want your body to be like this:

同天貫日

and not like this:

申田甲由

This is the beauty of the Chinese language. The English language won't be able to express this.