Friday, 24 January 5 mins shadowboxing and 5 mins footwork drill. I'm going to try to do this every day, because my punching form needs work and I really appreciate good footwork. 38 mins bagwork. Kicks once again, because they also need a lot of work. The roundhouse kick is particularly eluding me; unfortunately my shins are a bit tender to really lay into the bag right now .
Saturday, 25 January 6 mins shadowboxing, 0 mins footwork. I'll do it later. Did some padwork with my brother. I didn't time it, so I'll just say 20 mins. That should do :thinking: Edit : did my 5 mins footwork with an hour to spare. End of week 3 (yay). Total time: 2:47 + 4:57 = 7:38
Sunday, 26 January 5 mins shadowboxing 5 mins footwork. 21 mins pair drills. It started raining halfway through, which was nice
Monday, 27 January After discovering Simon's skipping thread (http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118919) I decided to try skipping again as a warm up. Anyhow: 5 mins shadowboxing, 5 mins footwork. 16 mins form, pair drills and line drills. Spent most time working on my Tay Sou. It's the second technique in Sarm Bo Gin, the one where he raises his arms, by the way: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBMj9NuhiKI&feature=player_detailpage"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBMj9NuhiKI&feature=player_detailpage[/ame]
Tuesday, 28 January 5 mins shadowboxing. Had class tonight, now I'm bushed. The footwork can do itself :zzz: Edit: Got bored, did the footwork anyway :dunno: 5 mins.
When you shadowbox, do you actually use a mirror or a back light? There are big benefits to shadowboxing in front of a mirror or being literally able to see your own projected shadow. It is very effective for improving your form and timing when striking. Some of the best boxers I have trained with do it all the time, but for some reason a lot of kung fu guys dismiss this as if it were an ego thing, like a narcissist staring at his pecs in the gym mirror. A shadowboxer can literally practice trying to catch their own shadow, but of course they never can. But you get faster and better at trying, nonetheless, so that when the target is not a shadow but a real person, there is little difference. NOW, you have a target you can actually hit. Your shadow/mirror image has trained you well... It's like Rocky trying to catch the chicken. Or, like Patches O' Hoolihan said, "if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball".
I have a floor length mirror in my bedroom, which is what I use when I do my shadowboxing. This involves practicing punches I'm learning in goshin jitsu, which is basically goju ryu karate. Although at the moment I'm sticking mainly to the jab/cross, since that's all I'm confident doing on my own. What I've learned in kung fu relies on being able to grab and manipulate my opponent I tend to use imaginary opponents who can move as required rather than my reflection which stubbornly insists on mirroring my actions. This sort of training I usually refer to as pair drills. Actually, reading your post has made me think that I should be trying to get more use out of my mirror, so cheers
Hey Heraclius, is your place in the Red Zone? I hope everything goes ok up Townsville way over the next few days and you and yours stay safe.
Thanks, much appreciated. Yup, we're getting cyclone warnings. Looking at the BOM site now they're forecasting it to get pretty close. Should be fun; my first cyclone (although technically it isn't)! We're stocking up today, tomorrow will probably be spent battening down the hatches. It doesn't seem like it'll be too bad, but we'll see how it develops.
Good luck! My cousins are in Mackay and Airlie Beach so shouldn't get it too bad, but I'll be thinking of you all up there over the next few days.
Wednesday, 29 January 4 mins shadowboxing. Stomach was feeling a little lurchy, so I decided to cut it a bit short. 6 mins footwork. 23 mins form, kicks, single hand techniques (the special "kung fu" name my school has for line drills). Kicks are a lot harder to do in the air. Also, I need a lot more hip flexibility for my roundhouse kicks. I recon I've gone as far as I can with my kung fu on my own. Hopefully classes will be back next week, barring cyclone damage, and I can find out all of the things I've been doing wrong
Thursday, 30 January 6 mins shadowboxing. 5 mins footwork. 15 mins form, single hand technique and pair drills. It was cool and wet today, as the cyclone closes in, which makes it more fun training outside . Also got to see my reflection as I did this training, which was nice. It's much better feedback, being able to see your body rather than just "feeling" it as you train.
The cyclone has a name now (Dylan), and is apparently up to a category 2. Looks like your cousins will be getting a bit of it too, especially in Airlie Beach: looks like they'll be getting the "strong gale force winds" pretty soon, if it's not reached them already. Best of luck to them. Hopefully we'll not get anything too bad, but if I don't post anything in the next few days you'll know that the power's out in Townsville .
Cheers. Actually it was a bit of a let down, the storm seems to have missed me completely. Looking at the map it diverted much further south than expected. Hopefully Melbgoju's cousins got through alright, they're much closer to the path of the storm than me.
Saturday, 1 February There is a bit of a thunderstorm going on at the moment, a proper monsoonal downpour. So, I took the opportunity to do a bit of rain training . Our rain is warm, so I'm quite comfortable standing around without a shirt on, getting drenched. Anyways, I did: 9 mins rain training, consisting of form (once), some pair drills and some kicks thrown in. All in all lots of fun. Besides this I did: 5 mins footwork, 5 mins shadowboxing. 11 mins form, once normal, once slowly and once trying to visualise the intent of the techniques more fully. 13 minutes pair drills. Again with the imaginary partner, who I can't wait to replace. End of week 4 (yay). Total time: 3:00+ 7:38 = 10:38
Sunday, 2 February Did my workout again, really should try and do it more regularly. It rained on on my way back and I got soaked. 5 mins shadowboxing. 5 mins footwork.
Monday, 3 February For a warm-up I did 10(ish) mins of (attempted) skipping, then a few bear crawls (picked up from SoKKlab's log. The number of training techniques that can be found in MAP training logs is really phenomenal.) This one I might stick with, as I find them very fun to do. 14 minutes Sarn Bo Gin. It's always hard not to fall into the trap of going through the form automatically, which of course defeats the whole point of doing it! So I work through slowly and deliberately a couple of times. 25 mins bagwork. Some of my SPM techniques. My palms are sore, so I was restricted to hammerfists. Then I worked on my goshin jutsu kicks. I'm forming the opinion that my heavy bag is too hard for shin kicks at the moment.
