NaamKyun.com Discussion Forum

Any idea how to reconcile the practice of forms with conditioning and streght training?
I find myself in trouble, because my workouts last a long time. When I work on my strength should work with the forms? And it's good working on the forms every day? It's better doing high reps of forms or intense low reps? Or a lot of very intense repetitions?
I'm following the routines and advices of Ross Emanait's Books, but I would reconcile it with my kung fu training.
Thanks for your attention.

I don't know what kind of forms you practice or how you learned them, but for any type of Gung Fu at all, you'll need to practice it every day. If you want the strength this offers, then slower is better.

So far as those books are concerned, material like that, you can work on afterward, or at a different time.

I'm assuming that you're doing this under qualified supervision?

Well I practice Hung Gar and an Hung Gar based Nanquan (traditional, not wushu). About Hung Gar I know the first part of gung gee fook fu kuen, then moi fa kuen and other forms without e specific name (we call them with generic names like di yi tao chuan and so on).
Yes I have a SiFu that follow me.

um, which is it Manderin or Cantonese. I'm confused.

Well I don't know which of them are manderin or cantonese.
The generic names of our forms (di yi tao chuan for example) mean "the first form" and so on...

That will be mandarin.

patch, be careful with strength training and gung fu. training gung fu, espcially if your going hard.

if your trying to build up your body you have to consider everything not just your muslces or how you feel, alot of guys like hard gainers and strength buffs dont realise the damage they do to the heart

ontop of that if your also doing alot of gung fu at a high intensity regularly your setting yourself up for disaster not only in your near future but definately when you are older..thus negating the effects of the gung fu every day

Thank you everybody for your tips.

Something we practise at our Kwoon, that comes directly from our si-gung, Chan Hon Chung, is to perform every form in 4 directions of the compass, if you are used to facing one way while performing a form this method opens the mind a little bit.

Changing directions does change things (in my opinion). Being primarily visual oriented people, moving to the other side of the room and performing the set facing 'backwards' makes you concentrate on the movements as they are are, not reaching a point and saying - I am facing the weapons rack, need to turn to the left here. Same idea with doing a form in low/no light conditions, disco strobe and loud music going on, etc.

My Hung Gar Sifu made us do this. I think it was to laugh at us for looking clumsy

I have used the technique in other arts I have studied - always seems to help me.

If you train in a kwoon, not at home, traditionally you should face the altar when you salute and start a form, so when you face a new direction to begin a form (especially with Gung Gee, Fu Hok, and the later forms, where you change direction in the form itself frequently) this can confuse the brain, this is why I said it opens the mind.

Again, thank you all for your tips. It's beautiful find people for talking about martial training.
I'm in the school of Sifu Chiu Chi Ling, italy branch, under Sifu Luigi Martone. Well, really it's my Sifu that is a disciple of Sifu Luigi Martone.

Oh okay, that makes sense then. Personally I don't train in a kwoon, so I'm always changing the environment I guess. I do practice the forms on both sides, though I do it the traditional way more.

We used to have to do Kung-Tze to the eight corners for the "left-brained" reason mentioned above(thats to all 8 compass points... no stops, no breaks. Enough to make ya puke. I did.. a time or two).