DON'T BE STUPID IN YOUR TRAINING

Do you know what it means to master basics? It means that movements must be developed in such a way that they become second-nature, smooth yet quick, soft yet explosive. Instantaneous! And willed from the mind---subconsciously while under pressure and into the targets. These movements must also be natural---healthy for your body so that with their practice will not wear down joints nor injure the muscles over time. Your tandan' breath must be maintained and utilized with the movements. Once this kind of practice is achieved, your spirit will be released; so when you practise with this spirit, then you are truly practising correctly.

Sadly, many crazy styles with their crazy teachers attempt to achieve this spirit with the crazy repetition of crazy movements---which can be so unhealthy for one's body that students often break done losing interest in the art quickly (and the teachers end up disfigured and crippled). The stress on the hard to develop and utilize brute strength should be utterly avoided, unless you're crazy too. Power should be achieved gradually with correct, healthy training. Thus emphasis with these types of retard styles becomes clear, focussing on the muscular rather then focussing on the total play: coordination of mechanics, mind and breath.

The flip side of course, concerns the over emphasis or the sole rehearsal of slow, soft movements. Well, this is better then just focussing on the hard because the hard styles seem to be only concerned with power and speed, nowadays; and never give the mind a chance to slow down to absorb patterns properly. However, this kind of training too, is one-sided, so its practitioner must integrate the speed and power training, but in moderation.

Typically today, TaiChi is incorrectly practiced only slow. In the backward, turbulent times, when uneducated peasants predominated China's populace, TaiChi was a vibrant, powerful system, embracing explosive blows, sticking, conditioning, partner training, weapons, along with the soft, slow training. This totality makes for a well-rounded fighter. This too is how BaGwa should be tackled, in fact, with any martial art. Training must reshape the body, mind and breath, developing chi, thus developing good kung fu and a fighting spirit.

With beginners, or even skilled martial artists who have taken a holiday from regular training, for whatever reason, it's best to ease into a practice routine. Practice daily, perhaps twice daily but with short, light workouts. Twenty minutes is good. For beginners, this is the time to learn movements thus grappling with coordination, and slowly accustoming or developing the body and mind. Breathe naturally. Relax to learn. Learn to relax. The breath will sink with time. Movements beginners are comfortable with, may be practiced faster but not yet full speed (once he or she is warmed-up to refrain from muscular injuries).

But instead of beginning with boring basics, there is nothing wrong with beginning with forms. Because forms consist of basics, basics can be learned from an abundance of form training. Here, though, is where it gets tricky. In order to get well-rounded via form training, you must learn and practise a variety of pre-BaGwa forms building-up to more complicated or difficult patterns. Once a grounding has been achieved, the basics, drills and combinations become easy. And so does your partner training performance. You see? There are several correct approaches in developing skill, all leading to the same place. So do what works for you, be crazy about your training, but don't be crazy in your training!