Formosa Fitness

I mentioned this in my review of Scott Sonnon's Kettlebell Foundation DVD but didn't describe it much. Basically, when you use the kettlebell or most anything else for high volume work, you're packing stress into the body. You then MUST find a way to get that stress out. It's  like wringing a towel and then leaving it in that condition rather than letting it unwind. Or think of a rubber band that's wound up and then not released.

Kettlebell training isn't alone in this regard. I often got this feeling from training baguazhang simply because in that art, you're constantly coiled. You coil one way towards the center of the circle while walking one palm change and you want to wring the tissues in that direction -- maximum coiling. You then unwind with the next palm change but use the momentum to wind in the opposite direction. What's happens is that you're constantly wound up and the more you practice without a compensatory component, the worse you might possible feel -- especially in the back and knees. Those areas don't take winding too kindly.

Kettlebell training works in a similar fashion with it's high volume training. The forearms and back are in constant use while training the kettlebell. If you don't then release that underlying tension, you're asking for overuse injuries.

I've had similar results from over-training the tiger form in hung gar (hongquan). It used a type of constant tension that taichi didn't release. Only closed chain kinetic releases would have worked but I knew nothing of that then.

When I was doing the escalating density training hard and heavy in July, I was packing stress into my body and not really releasing it. Just the name "escalating density" hints at that. The result was that my elbows were feeling pulled apart. Tendonitis was starting to set in. But releasing that tension with compensatory motions as in Sonnon's DVD is getting it out.

These motions are the key to long term practice of these various arts IMO. They are the best antidote to overuse injuries that I know. And as a teacher, I now make at least a few of them a part of every class I teach.

Avoid them at your peril if you're working hard on this stuff.

Short review: absolutely essential material

This video by Scott Sonnon was the most talked about so far on my blog. There's obviously interest in his kettlebell material so here's a review of his Kettlebell Foundation DVD set. The set is comprised of three DVDs: one for KB techniques, one for warmup, and one for cool down.

The first disc is dedicated to competition techniques -- making it the only DVD set to my knowledge to cover this material. Starting to see why I say this set is essential? The competition methodology is growing ever popular but no one has bothered to put anything out on it until now. So if this style appeals to you, this is your only resource so far. Lucky for us, it's a really good one.

The second disc is warmup material but honestly it's more open kinetic chain compensatory movement rather than actual warmup material. In other words, you would benefit from doing some of it to warmup in the form of joint mobility, but you'd still need other movements to raise your core temperature -- a key component of a warmup, obviously.

This disc is based on Intu-flow and I thought that since I had the Intu-flow DVD, I didn't need this one. But I was very wrong. The material is about 75% new, although you can tell it's based on that type of movement. The cool thing is that you can really tell Sonnon adapted the material to meet the specific needs of kettlebellers. This is not a haphazard mish-mash of various joint mobility drills. They really are the movements you'd need to compensate for the rigors of kettlebell training. I found it much more useful material than the generic Intu-flow set for my kettlebell class.

The same applies to the Prasara yoga inspired third disc. I thought that since I also have the stand alone Prasara DVD, I didn't need this one. Wrong again. He doesn't give you a full blown series of flows as in Prasara yoga, but takes single movements from that system and uses them to compensate for the physical rigors of the KB training. The fact that they aren't flows makes this type of movement much more accessible, although some complexity is there on some moves. Also, as with the warmup DVD, what's shown isn't as much a cool down as closed kinetic chain compensatory movements. But that's fine for a cool down. No need to add anything here.

All the techniques are clear and the material well filmed. Repeat viewings should be no problem.

This set is really a complete system. The fact that it's self-contained and complete makes it a great bargain.

I feel that this style of lifting would greatly appeal to all IMA guys and gals out there. Sonnon is super smooth in execution and the inclusion of sections on breathing and two DVDs dedicated to joint mobility reinforce that aspect.

Even if you're more inclined to a harder style, the compensatory movements will be critical to your use of the kettlebell. I'm finding that I must have them in my training to avoid overuse injuries, specifically to elbows in my case. You only find this stuff here.

Highly recommended.

Here's an IKFF clip showing the Chinese influence on the system. In CIMA terms, what's happening here is called han xiong ba bei -- rounding the back and sinking the chest. Notice that this isn't a permanent position that is to be held -- a bizarre belief still held in many areas of the CIMA world -- but a position to be moved into and out of as the technique requires.

For one, this shows why I talk more about kettlebells these days than CIMA. I'm training a lot of the same body mechanics with kettlebells and doing so adds a fantastic way to develop martial power. It should be oh so blantantly obvious to anyone willing to at least take a look that the shenfa is there. If people can't see it, then I don't know what to say. And training this material in a kettlebell format is much simpler for average folks, and allows them to lose weight and get strong at the same time. It's just a win-win situation.

Second, this isn't just called "han xiong" but is also an example of "suck in, spit out" and contraction/expansion. It's also working the spine bow from the Yang family theory of the five bows. Even more specifically, it works the upper spine bow, which Dr. Yang Jwing-ming believes to be a sixth bow. The thoracic area can generate it's own power without much movement of the lumbar spine. Dr. Yang is one of the few I've heard talk about this sixth bow, but here it is in execution.

Finally, I want to caution people in using this principle. This type of movement is all over the taiji I teach. "Dragon back," "spinal whip," and all the other names I've given you for it in this post are all accurate and show how important it is for CIMA. But you must be very careful in developing it. If your thoracic spine is tight, you can overdo the movement very quickly. If you go up in weight or volume too fast, you add too much shearing force on the spine. I've seen this specifically in long staff work that uses the spine and I feel it when I do the kettlebells with this type movement too much. You want to build volume slowly on this. The compensatory movements shown in Scott Sonnon's Kettlebell Foundation DVD set would also be crucial for removing the residual tension that long sets done in this style create.

Train hard, but smart.

How about a few martial arts posts? We haven't done those in a while.

Many people have weapons forms but nothing else. How to put meat into your weapons practice?

The chances of you finding someone with usage knowledge is slim to none. Here in Taiwan, I've found only a few people that were really knowledgable about weapons usage. I was happy to get what I got from one or two of them.

Fortunately, Dr. Yang Jwing-ming has done all of us a great service by putting out three DVDs based on application and weapon drills to fill out your weapons knowledge.

You can get all of these DVDs here:

http://www.ymaa.com/publishing/dvd/weapons-collection

What I liked about them is that Yang gives you a ton of stuff that is useful no matter what style you do. Most people don't know this, but CMA weapons knowledge all has a common basis. The individualization that you see in weapons today is a relatively recent thing -- especially since weapons fell out of actual use. Weapons are now taught as vehicles to further knowledge of the style rather than for usage. But the basic use of the common weapons was fairly standard in the old days and Dr. Yang was smart to stick to that in these DVDs. So what you get is useful across the wide spectrum of Chinese styles.

What surprised me though was the amount of material he gives for the price. YMAA products were pretty good in the past, but these days their DVDs are running into hours long presentations giving you a ton of value for the money. For example, I owned the old YMAA taiji push hands tapes back in the day and thought they were very good. I looked at their re-release set this morning and they've reshot the footage, making it into a 6+ hour DVD set. You can't beat that.

So if you're looking for great fundamental weapons knowledge to add to your practice, start here. Train hard.

This is Ding Shui-de doing his Yang style and it's still one of my favorite taiji clips. Maybe it isn't the best out there, maybe he isn't the most famous person on earth, maybe others have deeper taiji. None of that matters to me. If I could attain his level in my lifetime, I'd be happy.

I really enjoy practicing a style like the Chen Pan-ling form. The more I do it, the better I like it. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that other styles have but as i get older, none of that matters any more. Constantly wanting more seems like a young man's thing to me. At this point, I've forgotten too much already to want more. Just getting some of it back would be good. Enjoy ding's performance.

This is a news segment introducing REAL kettlebell lifting to the general public -- competition style. Interesting that the weight loss/fitness aspects of that style are being used to promote it here. The clip is good but full of cringe-worthy moments, "Oh, so it combines strength training AND cardio, "Oh look at the pink bell!," etc. So please remember this is pitched at the gen pop. The reporter is interesting because it's obvious she's never picked up anything other than a pink dumbbell in her entire life. I wish they'd pick someone with at least SOME workout experience to do these segments. Much more interesting that way.

Still, it's nice to see real training being introduced to the public, although I'm not sure what they'll make of it. Showing them comp style -- snatches, jerks, etc. -- is probably too much of a stretch for them. I would have focused on swings, squats, and other basic that are shown more towards the end of the clip.

But having attractive (yet real) women that have actually gotten good results with real training is a great marketing move for the kettlebell community. What's not to love?

Just curious as to what people think of the tunes? I'm trying to provide a new take that differs from the usual metal stuff people attach to kettlebell vids. "Chorus of the anvils" seemed very fitting. And "Die Fledermaus" is a favorite.

I'm experimenting with music that people might enjoy while doing the exercise along with me in the clip. It's cool also because you can also just leave the vid playing in the background and enjoy the music while answering email. Trying to provide a different experience/impression.

Thoughts?

Charles Staley has a couple of great articles on this topic.

Think about it for a minute: isn't there a difference between constantly wanting to lose weight and get in shape versus just doing the activity because you love it? Sure there is, and yet so many of us get caught looking constantly at the scale and pinching our waists.

The exerciser is always looking for a goal outside of training -- training is done for an external purpose.

The athlete trains to compete and win but many keep training and competing because they love it. The activity itself becomes it's own reward.

The endless obsession with how we look should often take a back seat to just enjoying ourselves. Enjoy the way your body feels when you move. Enjoy the physical challenge of getting through a tough workout. Enjoy being slightly better next week than you are now.

I really wish more people would consider themselves athletes instead of exercisers. Just exercising can become mindless and eventually pointless. Always looking for external motivation in how we look shuts us off from how we feel, and isn't feeling good more important?

Funny how when you accept that you might have an athletic body type, the desire to be model perfect can go away, too.

The only part of the athletic paradigm I wouldn't want people to adopt is the athletic drive for performance at the expense of health. That's not the way to go long term.

But working out for the sake of working out and feeling good is IMO the way to go.

The final problem I see with the exerciser mindset is usually the non-awareness that fitness will have to be maintained. Imagine you achieved those external fitness goals. What then? Maintaining them when you don't really love what you're doing is mentally draining.

Why not just love what you do and get the benefits for a lifetime?

Silk reeling was mentioned on a message board and below are my thoughts on it.

These movements are helpful for taichi but there's another take on the jins -- chousijin. It means pulling silk instead of reeling silk. Yang style uses more pulling and Chen uses more reeling. The pulling silk doesn't use overt winding in expressing the powers so the moves look straighter. You usually start with either one of these and then advance to the other one. Just mentioning this because over the years i've seen Yang style get trashed as worthless because they aren't using obvious chousijin like Chen style in the clip.  

As for chansijin being a complete JM program, I doubt that. Sonnon et al. have actually added quite a bit of value to JM in two areas:
1. the RMAX stuff is organized and targeted at specific areas. You know what you're doing specifically for each joint and there's both a clear regression to easier exercises and a clear progression to harder, more sophisticated exercises. Sonnon has done a great job with this.

2. Sonnon's system leads clearly from open to closed kinetic chain material. Sonnon takes the Intu-flow and moves it through a progression into Flowfit and then Prasara yoga, etc. Doing the closed kinetic chain movements that use the ground allow for a greater range of movement and more stretching as you get more advanced. Chinese systems rarely have this. When they do, it's almost always been taken from yoga.

Of the two, I find Sonnon's stuff more complete.

I did a ton of silk reeling in my training and found it vital to understanding CIMA. But it also has the limitations mentioned above. I actually am doing more of Sonnon's material now and getting more out of it. But maybe that's also because I already did silk reeling.

At first I was dead set against using gloves in class. "You should improve your technique" and all that was my usual answer. But I've slowly changed my mind on this. Couple of reasons.

First of all, I'm seeing women that want to do the kettlebells more but their hands are starting to slow them down. Some want to come 4 days a week. With them, hand conditioning is an issue. If the only thing holding them back is their hands, then I'm going to bend on the no glove thing.

Second, when I push myself in terms of numbers or time I inevitably run into hand issues. Of course the natural response is I should improve my technique and I'm trying. But pushing yourself on timed sets means you will confront hand issues. There's no way around it. And looking around the KB community, I feel this issue is being ignored a bit. Tearing up your hands seems to be the norm. No thanks. It's gets in the way of teaching for me. I can't teach with torn up hands.

I'm thinking of adding some dumbbell sets as assistance to my protocols because my dumbbells have padded handles. It helps to build numbers and time. But adding gloves every now and then might help me too.

One student told me about New Grips in the clip above and the clip put some of my fears to rest. This might be the product to get.

So IMO if you need the glove to improve number while technique catches up then maybe it's okay.

P.S. Yes, i have the articles on hand conditioning over at DD, etc. so no need to remind me of them. I think they cover part of the problem but not completely.