A New View On Everything

I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I had an epiphany yesterday while I was looking over some of my Bo Staff spinning videos.  While watching them in super slow motion suddenly it just clicked in my head: circles.  Circles are the answer to everything and learning how circles work will change everything.  With the videos in slow motion, the Bo Staff is bent at massive angles and I could see all the potential energy the weapon possessed.  I have been approaching everything wrong or at least closed minded up until that point.  It has made me realize the true importance of balance, it makes me want to pick up my old calculus books and take another look at tangent lines.  It's made me realize how the human body works, how motion works, how power is generated, this one simple thought has literally changed the way I view the world.  I'm seeing angles in everything.

It instantly changed my training.  I didn't know how to hold the weapons before, but now I know.  I was holding everything ineffectively, but now it has all changed.

While holding my three sectional staff with my new realization I struck with such force on my heavy bag that I snapped off one of the chain links, but even upon breaking the section that flew off was still flying straight, which means I hit with the perfect strike.

Good things are happening my friends.  I have made a huge discovery :-)

Training

I haven't been able to post in a bit because our electricity has been off for a few days.  Even that was a blessing in disguise though.  It really made me think about how much time I waste on electronic devices.  I've done nothing but be outside this week and it has been amazing.

My training is progressing incredibly fast.  I feel like the Bo Staff has to absolutely be the most beneficial thing I have ever trained with.  It is helping everything I do.  I'm becoming stronger, faster, more aware of my balance, I'm learning how to generate power with my body in ways I didn't know I could.  My reflexes are increasing rapidly, I'm becoming more confident with other weapons because I'm more aware of how circular motion works.  My timing is improving, I'm finding ways of supplementing the staff I never thought about before.  It is helping me learn balance with my kicks and ensuring that I have a perfect pivot when attempting any full rotational kicks.  Honestly, this staff is the best thing I have ever purchased.  I'm addicted to spinning it, attacking with it, walking with it, it really is becoming and extension of me and I can understand why the samurai felt their swords possessed a warrior soul within them.  I'm activating muscles in my body more efficiently than I ever have before.  Before I started using the staff lifting in the gym was more of my main workout and martial arts was supplementary, but now it is the other way around.  I spend the majority of my time outside working on moves, closing my eyes and developing new techniques, figuring out ways to run and jump while using the staff.  It has opened up my mind to new possibilities and is making me understand angles and leverage much better.  I'm starting to feel like if someone were to throw a punch at me, I would be able to grab their arm and rotate it in the same way I do with my staff to use their own momentum against them.  I can understand how Judo and Aikido came into existence now, because I can feel how they can be so powerful.  Once I began to understand the economies of motion, I feel like it has unlocked so much potential inside of me.  There are so many things that I want to try, so many training aids I want to build.  I need to increase my reaction time slowly over time until I can generate such tremendous speed that people won't even understand how it is possible.

The only potential downside to my love for the Bo Staff is how sore it leaves me.  I wake up everyday with aches in my shoulders and my hands have had some skin ripped off in several places, but the Jow I am using seems to combat most of the aches and pains.  I'm not sure if I would be able to train as consistently as I have been without the use of it, because before I put it on I struggle to even put a shirt on.  Because the Dit Da Jow I have is actually for advanced stages of Iron Palm, I have been diluting one of the bottles so that it won't be so incredibly potent on my muscles.  I know it is a very powerful formula meant for repairing broken bones and healing bruises, so I don't want to abuse it on sore muscles and have some adverse side effects.  Not that I know if it could happen, but I think in this situation it is best to err on the side of caution.

Another positive note about training with the staff is my muscle is becoming much more defined.  I have unlocked my abdominal region and activated it in most of my techniques, so I am starting to see some very real definition in my obliques and my abs are noticeably more solid.  I always tell myself I need to do more ab exercises,  but now that I am training in the way that I am, I feel that typical ab exercises in the gym might no longer be necessary.  Instead I will just use heavy weight on the ab machines in the gym with low reps to actually make them stronger and just continue training outside to see where those results take me.

I've also been training with my three sectional quite a bit lately.  I had a realization while swinging around my nunchaku and ran home to grab my three sectional.  The realization I had was correct and I am very confident using that weapon now.  Like I have said before, I do still feel like there is a misconception about how to actually use the three sectional.  The way I have found makes it much more realistic and practical to use in a real fight.  I will post more to it when I start sectioning things off better on this page.

Day 6: Thoughts

I had a series of interesting dreams last night.  Most likely because I spent so much time with the Bo Staff right before going to bed, but I had extremely vivid dreams about what direction I am headed.  Some of them seemed almost supernatural, which I was fine with.  It was exciting to imagine myself the way my mind obviously decided to imagine me while I was asleep.  In the dream I was spinning a staff and spinning it incredibly fast.  Faster than I ever thought was even possible.  I was able to deflect a blunt arrow shot directly at me and have its trajectory completely thrown off with my staff.  It was really exciting to see.

In another dream I had I was wielding a katana and was on the show mythbusters.  They were conducting an experiment on the human reaction time and shooting a bullet next to me.  The object of the experiment was to chop the bullet in half.  In this dream I managed to chop the bullet in half, but the bullet also shattered the sword I used.  I quickly deflected the shard right by my head with the remains of the katana I was still holding.

What do these dreams mean?  I have no idea.  What I do know is that they allowed me to wake up and feel powerful.  Is it truly possible to do the things I witnessed in my dream?  Who knows.  Logic would tell us that it is impossible for a human being to not only perceive a bullet being shot, but to react and somehow swing a sword along its path would be highly improbable.  Is it possible though?  Why not.

I'm talking about these dreams because they enabled me to have an amazing day in the gym.  Like I said, I woke up feeling powerful and that power continued in me throughout the day.  Don't just ignore your dreams.  Try to remember them.  Who knows if one day they will become a reality?

Day 6: Training

Yesterday was another great day.  I originally slept in and missed my workout time, but fortunately a friend messaged me in the afternoon and I was able to go and help her train at another gym.  The workout was perfect.  For the first time, I really feel like my body is adapting to the strains I put it through on a daily basis.  I taught some elements of my circuit to her and that allowed me to have a perfect workout!

When I got home after the gym, of course I had to pick up my bo staff.  We've been having issues with some of the roommates at my house, so our electricity was shut off for a day, so I had no lighting in my backyard.  Rather than call it a night when the lights went out, I decided to go out to the fields by my house which were lit up from the stadium lights and some lights from the tennis courts.  I spent a good 2 hours spinning my Bo Staff and I have to say, it is still just absolutely amazing.  Everyday I can feel my hands adapt more, my dexterity is increasing, my stamina is increasing, my strength is increasing, my timing is increasing.  It is one thing to say "My goal is to wake up stronger today than I was yesterday." and totally different to act upon it.  I finally feel like I am truly acting upon it.  The progress I have made in such a short amount of time proves testament to that.

Now that I'm grasping the spins more and making them much more fluid, I've been trying to make the whole ordeal more practical.  I've been trying to imagine how I would use my staff if an opponent was standing in front of me.  I believe spinning is mostly for distracting the opponent, as the force generated from the hand positions required to spin efficiently isn't nearly enough to truly damage an opponent.  So rather than spin and spin and spin and then get into my stance and attack, I've been working on spins and fluidly making them into attacks.  Concepts like this are especially difficult to type and further proves that I absolutely need to start adding videos to these posts.  Just bare with me, I promise I will get things more organized and like my training this site too will be more fluid.  Back to my point though.  I believe spinning can be incorporated into attacks as long as it is used for deflective purposes or for distractions, which it appears to do both quite well.  I could only imagine how much more effective the spins would be if there was a spear tip fastened to the staff, it would keep your opponent guessing as to whether or not you are going to strike with the tip.

I've also lately been feeling like staff spins have a supplemental purpose as well.  Although the training can make you spin a staff quite fast, the added bonuses it gives to proper stance and defensive postures seem even more worth it.  I can almost imagine it like the karate kid wax on wax off.  Although I am spinning a staff and becoming quite proficient at it, I can see that if I was bare handed, many of the maneuvers I do with my hands would be effective against an opponents incoming attacks too.  Whether it be a weapon or unarmed combat, I feel that there is potential to block and deflect many different abilities based on the simple principles of spinning.

Soon I will post videos of the transitions I am talking about. Like I say though, what I may show on here isn't necessarily something that should be copied or that is effective.  This is my own training based on how I feel while I hold a weapon.  What works for me, might not necessarily work for you.  Go out and experiment.  Have fun with it!

Day 5: Training

Training the past few days has been mostly dedicated to my Bo Staff.  I have really fallen in love with it, which is strange for me because I normally would hate something that I didn't think was effective.  Training with the Bo Staff has taught me a lot about the weapon, but also a lot about myself.  I had this preconceived notion that this staff was simple and mostly for showmanship, something I would never consider myself interested in, but sure enough it turns out it has been one of my favorite things so far.  Although it is a simple piece of wood, it has so much functionality to it.  It is effective as a weapon, as a support for working on kicks, as a training tool for building fast twitch muscle movements, it has greatly enhanced my forearm training, and the list goes on and on.  It's complex even though its appearance is misleading, which made me stop to think.  It makes me wonder about my past... as a person who used to go around with similar preconceived notions, how many opportunities did I pass up on life?  How many people/experiences did I not give a chance because of my own self disillusions?  It's something I always have thought about, yet something I rarely take the time to really act upon.  Training with the staff has just come to show me that I of course don't know everything and like I said previously with weapons training, you have to approach it with a child like wonder.  Just yesterday I saw two kids laughing hysterically holding a stick and swinging it at a bush, like it was the most fun they had ever had.  While I was sitting in my backyard spinning my Bo Staff and watching and listening to these kids, I realized that while I am training I am doing just that.  I am laughing and loving every minute of it.  I need to approach life in the same way.  Rather than go around thinking I know what I'm talking about and thinking I know how to judge others, I need to approach each opportunity with the same child like wonder.  Who knows what experiences await outside of the normal realm of experiences I have had.

The main things I have been working on with the Bo Staff are spins and attacks.  My spins are coming along extremely fast, which was a little surprising for me.  I feel very confident holding the staff now and just want to keep spinning everything I see!  It really is a great feeling and I highly recommend if you have never used a Bo Staff before, you should consider picking one up and just twirling it around.  It will unlock this feeling inside of you that you might have forgotten!  I'm beginning to increase the velocity of my spins and adding more complex movements to them as well.  The greatest aspect of training with them though is it unlocks some core muscles that don't necessarily normally get activated.  Some of the spins require core and shoulder movement only, while the hands are more of a fulcrum for the staff to spin on.  If you have trouble keeping up with your ab exercise routine, this will help make up for it and perhaps even be able to supplement some of them.  Besides spins, I also came to the conclusion that the Bo Staff hasn't been used as effectively as it could, so part of my experimentation is based on how to strike with it.  Most people hold the staff like a baseball bat and attempt to strike through the target.  The two biggest problems with this mentality are A.) The staff isn't made of a hardwood, so it is flexible and can be broken and B.) The staff doesn't possess all the weight at the striking end, it is equally distributed throughout the staff.  Well, why are these even an issue?  Both of these are issues, because as the velocity of the staff increases it is not solid like a bat, the staff actually bends.  If the staff can be bent while swinging forward, that also means the staff can also be bent by swinging backwards.  That simply means that with proper timing and knowledge of how far the staff can bend, you essentially should be able to reverse direction at the moment before impact and whip all the energy directly into the target.  Doing so would eliminate the probability of breaking the staff and also ensure a more devastating blow.  The reason the staff breaks when it is held like a baseball bat is simply because of the force exerted back onto the staff by the bag/target/person you are attacking.  By channeling all the energy into the bent tip of the staff, there would be no blow back from the target.  If you have a staff, give it a shot.  I see many people make videos about spinning the staff and show basic forms for attacking, but I have yet to read or see anything that describes an attack in the way I have just said.  Once I get my experiments up and running, I will have further proof that what I am saying is true, but until that time you just have to take my word for it. :-)

Although I am making great progress with the Bo Staff, I'm having a hard time applying the same techniques into the 3 sectional staff.  When using it, I am attempting to have all three sections move independently while simultaneously generating cyclical force.  Most people seem to treat the three sectional as a bo staff, but I believe this is a fatal error.  They use similar forms and spins to make the weapon appear fancy, but when it comes to striking they fall into the same issue as the Bo Staff.  I will go more into detail about it as I progress my knowledge of physics and get a better feel for the weapon too.  My greatest issue with the three sectional now though is simply that I am afraid of it.  I try to get it spinning, but every time I am afraid I will hit myself in the head or the shin or some other vulnerable body parts.  I think that is the greatest challenge this weapon possesses.  Controlling it isn't that difficult, but controlling your own fear is always challenging.  Even though I have hit myself in the head at full spin and hit myself in the leg with the recoil off my heavy bag, I still am hesitant as I try to spin it.  I'm sure as I gain more confidence in my Bo Staff spins, that the fear from the three sectional will be overcome by my confidence in my ability.  Once I overcome my fear and begin using the three sectional more effectively, I will discuss the mindset that I have while I spin it, what I think about, how I feel, what I do with my hands.  I will go into great detail about it and how I overcame the problems I just discussed and hopefully that will help someone reading this overcome their fear too!

Strangely enough I have been so focused on my staffs that I haven't really had much time for working on my punches and kicks.  Today I resume my iron palm training, which I will create a section for as well on here, so that should help get me back into the swing of things.  But even though I haven't been working on my punch and kicks, like I have said before I believe if you are using weapons as extensions of yourself, then even without realizing it you are strengthening your forms without even realizing it.  My balance is improving, my form is improving, everything is improving.

The sections are still a little too generalized for my liking, so I am looking into creating more individual blog posts focused on each aspect of my training.  I've also started making some videos of my staff handling and such, so I will be possibly posting them on here too.  I will soon be uploading pictures of my training and once I get my physics experimentation set up I will be creating a section on here to document that too.  I have so much excitement now for everything I am doing, each new thing I learn further increases my passion for doing what I do.  I hope to inspire you to find this feeling as well, no matter how you apply it to your own life.

Day 5: Thoughts

I started writing a blog about how martial arts weapon training has been lost on modern day people, but I decided not to publish it yet as I didn't have all the facts.  Rather than making assumptions, I began studying physics and that's what I have been doing for the past few days.  I've been thinking about the physics that goes into the human body as well as into the weapons that I have been training with.  Although I have a better understanding about the concepts I began describing in my unpublished post, I still don't feel like I have enough information to post my findings.  Therefore I decided to begin experimenting in my backyard so I can prove the most efficient and powerful ways to use my weapons.  From everything I read and see online about different weapons, it's like somehow this basic understanding of how different weapon types work was somehow lost or misinterpreted.  Essentially my goal is to figure out the best way to wield each weapon using the scientific method and prove exactly how powerful certain weapons can be and how many of the traditional training routines can be misleading to a martial artist.

 Moving on from that topic, I've still been working on my handwriting.  It is starting to come along quite well actually.  To be honest, I am surprised how easy it has been to change the way I have been writing since I first learned cursive in 3rd grade.  Just spending 15-30mins a day working on some simple drills has had some dramatic improvements.  I'm starting to feel more of a flow as I write and my hands get less tiresome.

I've been thinking a lot about my training and how I want to approach the mental aspect of it.  Although I intended on making a main section of this blog to be about qi gong training, because I have been oversleeping it has been an issue for me to begin the training.  My first session and experience with it was quite awe inspiring, but since then I have been struggling to accomplish this task in the morning.  Even though I have this mentality where I want to make myself the strongest person  I can, I still lack that early morning motivation.  I feel getting a good morning routine in will really help make a big difference.  The issue is following that routine.  Getting to sleep at the same time should hopefully help make a difference!

That is my objective for today.  Begin planning out my days more efficiently and effectively.  I believe that is the only way I will be able to accomplish all that I have going on in my mind.    

Day 4: Thoughts

I spent most of the day thinking about martial arts and how I can apply how I learn it to other forms of art as well.  I looked up a few videos online about how to improve my penmanship and began working on that quite intensely.  I never thought I could be so focused on something I used to consider so basic, but once I put my mind to it suddenly I gained motivation.  In the video, the author of the lesson talks about how when teaching yourself how to write better, the best way is through writing words that are meaningful to you so that you will not get bored or feel like what you are doing is work.  Of course, me being the person that I am, I instantly took this as an opportunity to improve my Les Miserable addiction even more and began writing some of my favorite songs.  While writing them, I realized even more things.  I realized that how my brain works while writing is very similar to how it works while I train.  Even though I have the songs from Les Miserables memorized word for word, when it came to writing them while I recited them, I soon was making many mistakes.  The harder I thought about every single word, the more I seemed to struggle with producing the words.  Even with the song playing on youtube, I found myself having to continuously loop parts of the song over and over again.  So I had an idea.  Rather than continuously repeat the music over and over again, I would just listen to one word at a time and then try to write as many words I knew after that.  I feel this helped my retention go up quite substantially too.  It is interesting to think about though and why I feel it applies to martial arts too.  Think about it, I am fairly confident that I know every song word for word, but when I am listening to the music playing it is so much easier to recite then when there is nothing but me trying to produce the music in my head.  This tells me that even though I have something memorized, certain indicators can prove beneficial to helping me recite it and perform it 100% accurately.  Certain elements of timing, rhythm, focus, melody, helped my brain activate to the songs I knew it was accustomed to, but take them away and suddenly I am lost.

This can be applied to martial arts in a number of factors.  I may know how to throw a punch perfectly, I have the form down, my body is physically at its highest possible peak for fighting (I wish), and I am conditioned by use of my heavy bag on how to correctly apply angles and timing and force to maximize my damage on the target.  What would happen if the heavy bag was taken away? What if a smaller bag was placed in front of me?  What if a tennis ball was tied from a tree branch on a rope instead?  Would I still throw the perfect punch?  Would I still feel powerful?  This is what I mean by indicators and essentially why sparring becomes such an integral part of training for modern day fighters.  In theory, I might be able to throw the perfect punch, have beautiful form and knockout power, but what happens when another person is standing in front of me.  Suddenly, my instinct kicks in, my sympathetic nervous system takes over and my hands become a foreign object to me.  All theory and practice is thrown out the window.  All that timing and execution is thrown off, this object doesn't move like the bag I'm accustomed to, this object is intent on hurting me, attacking me, possibly killing me.  You have to see an opponent as not an opponent, but as a part of the art.  Without the concept of an opponent, there is no martial arts.  Understanding their timing, their rhythm, size, style, balance, and using your training to overcome that, to find weaknesses, to set the rhythm, that's what fighting is all about.  Just like I couldn't remember the lyrics to my favorite songs without music, I don't believe I would be able to recall my training on a target without the "music" it is a part of. I cannot possibly imagine punching an opponent without sparring.  The more I think about it, the more I feel I need to add sparring into my training.  The only question is, who will I find to spar with?

Alan Watts in one of his audio discussions or books talked about how music isn't beautiful to us because of the sound, it is beautiful because of the pauses in between the sound.  We feel the beauty is in the sound, but in reality the beauty is in the spaces between the sounds and the change in rhythm and timing are what make music tolerable to us.  Take any note and play it without pause and it would sound atrocious, the same I feel then must be applied to other art forms.

Is the power in the punch? the form? the timing? the rhythm? Well my friend, these are all important factors.  But just like the beauty of music and speech comes from pauses, the beauty of fighting comes in its rhythmic changes as well.  Anyone can walk up to a heavy bag and start punching it, we are all born with that innate ability, just like anyone can pick up a guitar and strum it or sit down in front of a piano and strike the keys, but is simply striking the keys or strumming a guitar with no knowledge or training really art?  Without time and effort a musical instrument simply cannot be played effectively, the same thing applies to martial arts.  To make a routine beautiful, one must think of marital arts in just the same way.  When you are sitting in front of that bag, you aren't punching it, you are playing a song, writing poetry, painting a picture, but the pen is your fists, your legs, your very soul is going into it, that is what separates a martial artist from others.  It's not brutal, it's beautiful.  When I see choreographed fights, it takes away from that beauty for me.  It takes away the spontaneity of it all.  But  I can't judge them anymore than a street performing violinist could judge an orchestra.  It is simply the way that these people decided to focus their time and effort.  For me though, being the street performer in this analogy, I see martial arts quite differently.  It's a personal experience, something that is shown not through choreographed dance, but through practical application and technique.  It's showing people that mastery of timing, rhythm, speed, tempo, power, can all be applied to everything I do in my life and the only real way to test that power is through actual competition.  I could sit in my backyard and punch my heavy bag every single day for 20 years, but that doesn't mean I would have the ability to truly fight.

The point I'm trying to make isn't that if you are a pianist that you must go up against another pianist and try to outdo them in performance, that is impractical and foolish, I'm simply stating that for me, martial arts is the ultimate test, the ultimate expression.  It is the ultimate expression of the human body because it applies all the same rules as all other forms of art, but to truly perfect it you have to put your life on the line, awaken the primal forces inside of you and dance with a real opponent.