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  • Training in China - faster/better?

    Just wondering about this.. logically if you spend a year in china training 6 hours a day, 6 days a week you should learn a hell of a lot more than you would back home training a couple of evenings a week at your local kung fu club.. but is this really the case?

    I would certainly expect your fitness level to be much higher after a year in china (barring food induced near death experiences) and perhaps you would be better at the stuff you learn there after drilling each move a million times over..

    I see quite a few schools over there that mention a 3 year program.. the implication being that after 3 years you are 'qualified', you 'know your ****' or something.. but I see similar timeframes in local schools where many seem to say 3 years or so to get to 'black belt' or equivalent (in any style, not specific to kung fu). Now of course black belt status earned locally may have no relation to the level of a 3 year trained dude in china but anyway, just seems a common theme.. I have a sneaking suspicion its all commerically driven.. locally and in china.. ie. you want your paying students to be around for as long as possible so no point teaching them all everything you know in one year!

    Of course training in china has other less tangible benefits or attractions.. the whole 'aura' of being in/near shaolin no matter how manufactured it may be now.. its still cool.. I'd be there in a blink of an eye if the opportunity arose!

  • #2
    Well, there's an advantage to training in Shaolin. You become really dedicated towards training all day, and, focusing on what you're doing, because there's really nothing else to do over there. If you want to spend three years of your youth over there doing that, then fine. But, life is short man. You get old faster than you want to imagine. The time flies by. And the end is inevitable and unpredictable. Do you want to spend three years in a harsh environment learning something that's neat but not invaluable?

    Or do you want to learn it over a lifetime, and spend more time chasing women? (and getting a more valuable education doing something else....)


    HMMMM.

    But, in regards to your original question, yes, you can learn one hell of a lot over there, and really improve your physical well being. Let's face it, with the rigors and requirements of everyday daily life in the westen world, it's hard to find the time to train adequately.
    Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

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    • #3
      Well my youth is long gone so its more a question of spending 3 years of my late thirties..

      Doubt I would be able to do 3 years anyway, got bills to pay and life to live back home.. not to mention that it would probably kill me! But 1 year might be doable someday.. would be handy to get a kind of head start like that and then continue training (and chasing women) back home from a higher level.. although I don't know of any shaolin schools on my side of the world so that might not be possible anyway!

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      • #4
        Yeah, three years in a row in China would be a bit much unless you knew exactly what you were getting yourself into. My recommendation is to do what I did: go there for a 'vacation', do some training, make some connections, see what you like. I've gone twice now to train in China (two weeks each time) and I'm starting to get a sense of what I want to do there.

        As for three years for 'qualification', well, that could mean anything. I'd say if you studied traditional gongfu with some sanda on the side, which is perfectly doable in dengfeng, you'd be one hard dude and certainly be able to claim 'knowing your ****'. As for coaching or teaching qualification, dengfeng didn't strike me as the place to get one of those.

        And as far as black belts go in the united states, or anywhere for that matter, they usually don't mean much.
        -Jesse Pasleytm
        "How do I know? Because my sensei told me!"

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        • #5
          3 years does seem like a theme at a lot of places.....

          I think it all depends on your goals, and what you want to convey as a teacher...
          practice wu de

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          • #6
            Originally posted by doc

            Or do you want to learn it over a lifetime, and spend more time chasing women? (and getting a more valuable education doing something else....)


            HMMMM.

            But, in regards to your original question, yes, you can learn one hell of a lot over there, and really improve your physical well being. Let's face it, with the rigors and requirements of everyday daily life in the westen world, it's hard to find the time to train adequately.
            But if you're a woman and you go, you get to train and chase men. kidding, but on the other point, you're right Rich and then the idea of what "adequate training " is changes from place to place and again once you've been there and trained like that, for those of us that have, training takes on a difference. Imho anyway.

            I just went into to a local Muay Thai gym and met up with the trainer there ( who btw is training boys who are holding international belts) and this guy was ( and likely still is :P ) 33 yrs old and trains them for 6 hrs a day - 3 in the morning and 3 at night. Besides turning me down for being a little too female ( although in his defence he gave me a name of someone else more geared to mma as opposed to straight out MT) , this idiot seemed to think that his boys on their 6 hrs training a day, as a whole and sole focus - no other work between or whatever , was just way more than I would deal with and that I would slow his boys down!! Lol......... in fact rflmao @ that because to be frank, if I was training and doing nothing else, 6 hrs would just not cut it for me. Anyway, I think It's got to do with consitution of an av western player vs those that have trained in harsh asian conditions, and also Imo true of trainers and what they're expecting from students. Again like Doc says, having nothing else to do and often little rescource even for much other entertainment, is a factor again.

            I was thinking about Thailand and the recent tsunami , the destruction and what is going to be left in the way of ma schools there and who would still be training, as if they weren't training in difficult circumstances and environment already. So I'm thinking, that for the ones left still training in the areas that have been hit hard, there are going to be some awesome conditions there for some no bs work and constitution raising and deep focus . It sounds a little rough, but I think i'm looking forward to getting there and training it out with them. Alot of folks here will always find it hard to grasp the difference in training under such different conditions and what that hardship often does for your focus and consequentially often your skill, which I think has alot to do with your commitment which in circumstances like this, you end up more than just a little intimate with .........lol........ . Again, this only in my humble experience but I'm buying the asian instruction at home. It's tough to find a good school and tougher to find an instructor who's offering what I'm after! Viva la Sina !!

            BL
            Last edited by blooming tianshi lotus; 01-07-2005, 07:56 AM.

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            • #7
              I think slower is better

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              • #8
                Yeah, if you're just going for the amount of knowlage you can obtain. No reason not to do it at home. I recieved my black sash at my old Gongfu school in No. VA., Yoo's Authentic Martial Arts, in about two years. I learned 1o barehand forms and 7 weapon forms in that time, along with some applications, history / theory, and a lot of basic drilling.

                So is it anything like training in China ? Not at all ! Training in the heat of summer, or the chill of winter here drains you. Not to mention the Chinese idea of drilling is insane. I really don't know where these kids get their stamina from ? If I didn't train for 5 years in America, I would die here. Straight up.

                Is it better ? I say yes. Should you come here for three years. Like it's been said, you would be a hard dude who WILL know your shit. But what will you do with it ? Become a teacher. THat's about your only option. And theres no guarntee you'll be a good teacher.

                That being said, it's great conditioning though. The best I've ever come across in my life ! It's easy to get off the couch when you don't have a couch in the first place.

                Also. Drills here aren't all kicking or punching. Hardly any punching at all. Half of my training consists of attempting to do flips on the crash pads ! I think it's fun as hell, and an increadible exercise. I liken it to doing flips off the diving board at the swimming pool. You just wait in line for your turn and then throw yourself into the air. That's my kind of drill !
                "Winners turn to losers, losers are forgotten..." - A Tribe Called Quest

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                • #9
                  yeah
                  if you decide to get there and make it, practice 5 hours one day to improve your physical everyday daily life .

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                  • #10
                    I'm in China now. First i came for 3 months. that changed to 5. that changed to 8 and that's changed to 10. I frigging love it here! But i have a rounded life. I train only 2-4 hours a day and teach english for about 2.5 hours a day. I have a girlfriend and some really close friends.

                    Having said that, even though i live in a pretty touristy place, Yangshuo, but it can still get pretty boring once you been here for a few months...

                    3 years stuck in a school would drive me mad. I did it for three months and that was enough. While i love the school i'm at and still train there, it wasn't enough for my personal fullfilment. 3 years would be easy man, you just need to have more than martial arts in your life.

                    And as to whether or not i learn more here than i would have in SA... any answer you get here is just going to be an opinion. IMHO it's a resounding yes! There's no way you can compare immmersing yourself in martial arts and doing it a few times a week. living with people who came to china just to study MA, even that changes everything. I mean i'd say about 60% of my conversations are about Tai Chi. I'm not just training a lot i'm thinking about it almost all the time!


                    There are only 10 types of people in this world.
                    Those that understand binary and those that don't.

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                    • #11
                      Without a doubt the immersion does make a difference, in more ways than one. Yangshuo is really a neat place, though it's a bit out of the way. Not that there's a lot to do in Dengfeng either.... But, I think that's part of the charm, and, in a way, part of the training.

                      God I'm getting the urge to return...
                      Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

                      "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

                      (more comments in my User Profile)
                      russbo.com


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                      • #12
                        I'm now at the same school as renato training chen taiji for a month. In theory it's 5 hours training a day but after diner there is absolutely nothing to do if you live at the school and I end up doing 1 or 2 hours at night, even on sunday which is resting day I get so bored I start practising. And there is always someone practicing so you get motivated.

                        I must say I do a lot of hours of training when I'm home also, but here you just can't escape it. It really is 24/7 and if you can take it, that means a lot of training so your body memorizes the moves and probably they will stick a long time. But sometimes i feel like doing other things but there's little to do, especially if it rains all day.

                        As for learning faster. I came here after 7years of shaolin and 4 or 5 years of doing chen taiji at home. so that means I had a good basis and now I 'm correcting and improving my form and that goes amazingly fast.
                        And as renato already said most evenings i'm talking about martial arts and taiji and get a lot of insight into the underlying concepts and that helps a lot too. After 2 weeks here i feel like i made a big progress and have taken my taiji to a new level.
                        Especially on the pushhands i feel made progress even if it has cost me getting two stitches under my right eye from an elbow. So now i'll have a scar to prove taiji is not a dance.

                        But I don't know how it is if you arrive here with no prior experience. For me personally it's not worth the money and the jetlag and diarrhoea and boredom to come here and learn the basics. I think you better get a good foundation where you live with a teacher who speaks your language and can eplain things ckearer then "Zheige, zheige" After that come here to finetune what you learned and maybe some new things and you will make some big improvement.

                        Well that's how see it. I don't feel like being here 3 years and have nothing else to do than taiji or gongfu and having to be away from my real life, girlfriend, friends and family. But a month will give me a nice boost.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Firbolg
                          Just wondering about this.. logically if you spend a year in china training 6 hours a day, 6 days a week you should learn a hell of a lot more than you would back home training a couple of evenings a week at your local kung fu club.. but is this really the case?

                          I would certainly expect your fitness level to be much higher after a year in china (barring food induced near death experiences) and perhaps you would be better at the stuff you learn there after drilling each move a million times over..

                          Im not so sure if its really necessary to train this much to get the wanted results. I mean, training 8-10 hours a day, with a dieet thats not that high on calories, for most people means they dont train a 100% all day. Id say, if you train like 3-4 hours, and have your energy(ATP and stuff, not qi!) supplies more filled up, you can train harder. Also the concept of supercompensation(not sure if this is the correct english term) will work faster.

                          Just a few hours a week at the local club would be inefficient, but im not sure if 8 hours a day is necessary to learn real kungfu.

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                          • #14
                            Also, when you are this exausted, your nerves system will get 'tired' too. This way, it will be harder for your body to learn technique properly. Thats why many martial arts classes are build up wrong. If you want to learn technique, you shouldnt start with a warmup thats more like a stamina-training!

                            I guess this is a difference between sports en MA. In martial arts training the mind is also very important, so we cant always follow the ideal training tactics!

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