Southern Praying Mantis Kung Fu Training Diary / Blog

Training involved racing and breaking a demolition brick cleaning LEGEND! Mwahaha manage to break him into submission in the heat. Glorious moment for us in our trade. I got MUNDO respect on the site and many to come!!! Got the blisters to prove it grrrrr!!!

Qi gong exercises, went through forms, weapons play and physical training (YES AFTER WORK)  AND who said masks??? sounds like a health and safety officer lol! Lord best to stay in your dust free environment mate lol would never hear the end of that although it is a health and safety issue.

I got to the class early to train in on my own in the other hall for an hour. The weather has been hot and when you train it feels hotter. The hall was like an oven and the heat just made me feel lethargic but I trained through it.

I started off with warm ups and stretches for my legs, arms, hands, shoulders, neck and core. I also concentrated on really stretching my hips and hamstrings as I have noticed I am not as flexible as I would like to be in these areas.

Chow Gar Mantis Form Training

Once I had finished stretching I went straight into the Sap Jee Jau Kau Dau Sau (Continuous Cross Hitting Hands) form. I did the form slowly and worked on the techniques so I could work on my foot work, execution of the techinques with power using the waist, ribs and stance, as well as visualise the applications. I concentrated on a section which is called 18 hands and tried to perform the movements quickly but with good form. Kau Dau Sau has 4 main sections each with its own different techniques which include grabs, locks, claws, soc sau’s, elbows, punches aimed at vital points, knees, palms and so on.

The next form I worked on was Mo Ying Sau (NO Shadow Hands). These forms have some great names dont they? Mo Ying Sau is one of the forms that doesnt not start with the Baat Sic (8 initial movements you see in Saam Bo Gin and the other forms). It starts with a Kyn Lai respect and the form is performed fast all the way through with killer intent (well when i do it i try it like that). There is a lovely headbutt in the form which is initiated after you trap the opponents arms and they are brought into you almost. If the form is done correctly there is a section in the form where the hands / arms move fast enough that they become a blur. I did this form twice and repeated movements a number of times that i thought needed work aswell as more use of my waist and better stance work.

The last form I trained was Say Ban Gen Sau (4 way shock power power hands). This has many similar movements to the Lip Kui form performed by Sifu Ip Chee Keung in the clip posted before. The form has 4-5 sections with the first section using a charp sau(straight thrust - using waist and sinking ribs - aimed at bladder I imagine or solar plexus) and 4 movements with the single arm moving upwards, downwards, outwards and inwards (4 ways ). This is a difficult form to do correctly and with the power and sharpness exhibited by Sifu David Ip Chee and Sifu Paul Whitrod.

Foot work, stance and southern mantis kicks

I than trained foot work, stance work and lots of kicks. For footwork I practiced moving and positioning myself in such a way that i could move quickly forward / back / side / around while being stable from any angle. Not easy but learning a lot as i train, spar and get advive from some iron sources and Sifu. I than trained steps with rooting, gripping, locking my stance and compressing the ribs and keeping the centre of balance in my dan tien.

Lastly I trained just low kicks up and down in different stances attack forwards and stepping backwards whilst executing a kick. I did kicks from the front leg and from the back leg. The kicks were front groin kicks, solar plexus kicks - using ball of feet, toes and heel. I also train kicks using inside and outside of foot with shin scrape type movements as well as aiming for the knee, foot tendon and thigh. The last kick I trained was moving out at a 45 degree angle left and right and throwing out a low side kick. This was all tiring in the heat and really made my legs ache. I made sure to keep my arms up protecting my head whilst kicking.

Kalari

After all that I had some time left so I trained kalari forms and techinques. I ran some forms from Master Padmanabhan school and Master Madhavan. I trained with them in India and do the training at class, so always try to train and remember. I trained some of the fighting techniques separately moving and attacking in all 4 directions using natural body movement, good stance and waist to bring power to the chops and punches. My kicks in the forms were a little weak having just tired them out but I carried on as best as i could.

I was sweating and tired but warmed up and ready for the mantis chow gar class.

Fellow southern mantis peeps. Here are the few benefits i get at work! Getting paid to work out my reflexes, endurance coordination and timing.

Thats why masters of old could go home and just train forms and techniques cause if you were in a trade that involved heavy labour that helps build a unique skill or strength, like butchers, carpenters, builders, stone sculptors and the like!

Done 4000 bricks onto pallets today plus i cleaned aprox 2000 bricks at work.

Tonite

finger training, chi kung and my form work.

Below is a clip of the current Grandmaster of Chow Gar Tong Long Pai, Si Gung Ip Chee Keung. In this clip he demonstrates his signature form “Lip Kui” (Killing Bridge) and Sun Sook Gung (raising of the testes). This was another great demonstration performed for Si Gung Yip Shui’s 2002 birthday in Hong Kong.

The Lip Kui form looks very similar to Say Ban Geng Tan (4 way shock power hands) and you can see the power, shock, sharpness and perfection of the techniques which include punches, soc saus, narp sau, cutting hand, pai kui, gok chois and many other techniques aimed at vital points.

The gentleman kicking him in the groin happens to be one of the stars from the film Shaolin Soccer too!

Unfortunately I couldnt make saturdays class today as I had family things to do and that had to come first. I was feeling it though as from 12-4 I train mantis, grappling, sparring, kalari and thai and miss it when I cant make it!

Instead I trained at home in my gym and I more than made up for it by training hard for just under 3 hours non-stop once all the family stuff was out the way and I wasnt need for anything.

Chow Gar Forms

I started with warm ups and stretching and went straight into some of my forms which I did twice each - concentrating on executing the technique well, gripping, using ribs, rounding the back, dropping the shoulders, keeping the elbows in and controlling my breathing. I trained:
saam bo gin
saam jin yui kui
saam bo pai kui (3 step slicing bridge)
saam bo pin kui (3 step level bridge)
yum yearn kum la sau (ying yang seizing hands)
and bic sarn (lift the moutain i think this is called).

Once I had trained these forms I disected some of the techniques from some of them and trained combinations with them whilst stepping and moving quickly using mouse steps, side steps. I than went on to train the power building gungs for the back, waist, ribs and neck - I didnt train these as hard but enough to ache as I had done a lot of it during the week.

I trained the chee sarn garp (mantis press ups) and did them a mixture of slowly with constant tension and when I was getting tired I speeded it up to finish the sets. This was tiring and made my arms burn as well as my stomach! I think it is hard to do this press up with good form after a while but it is still very important like all exercises to keep good form for safety, correct building of the muscles / tendons and because the more you do them correctly the better for you.

With the chee sarn garp in particular you have to keep the elbows tucked in at all times, they dont flare out,when you dive down all the way you body should be straight, when you come back up you have to come up the way you dived down. This means your body doesnt come up - if you imagine you are diving down underneath a bar that is slight above the level you are at once you are parrallel to the ground, when you come back up - you shouldnt touch the bar with you back at all. Then when you perform the 2nd part which is like a normal press up (but elbows are in) your body should be straight and the core is tensed.

After I finished the press ups I decided to do Chy Sau. Now this is a 2 man exercise but I have developed different ways to train chy sau on my own when I dont have a partner. My main way is to use elastic built onto a handle which provides me with a constant tension whilst I do the box shaped chy sau motion. It is still very hard to train like this given that I am dropping my shoulder, extending my arm, keeping my elbow really tucked in, compressing my ribs when I need to and locking my stance. I trained this on both my arms and went for a nice burn, trained past the burn and went until my arms felt like they couldnt do any more. It felt good.

Bag work

I than went on to do bag work with combination drills. I use a heavy thai bag and I worked 6 combination attacks whilst moving around the bag and really trying to put the power into the techniques whilst keeping good form, protecting my head, using my waist and ribs and keeping an eye on my stance / footwork. I trained each combination about 50 times and over (25 on the left and 25 on the right) - I’ve uploaded some video clips and the combinations i trained were:-

chop (chic jeurng), chop, gow choy
http://www.tonglong.co.uk/chic_chic_gow_choy.html

chop, fun sau, gow choy
http://www.tonglong.co.uk/chic_chic_side_gow_choy.html

chop, chop, side gow choy
http://www.tonglong.co.uk/chic_cover_side_gow_choy.html

chop, upward block, phoenix eye low punch (helped condition my phoenix eye hitting the bag)
http://www.tonglong.co.uk/chic_lift_chic1.html

chop low, chop, back fist

side gow choY, palm, gow choy
http://www.tonglong.co.uk/pai_sau_palm_gow_choy.html

punch, punch, gow choy (single / double).

I than trained gow choys using banging the drum motion and kau dau sau movements.

Sand Bag Conditioning

After a little drink of water I went to condition on the sand filled 3 sectional bag. I really gave this a beating today and made an effort to use my waist and ribs on each attack as well as really hit into it.

Double palm slaps (front palm slap flowing into back palm strike) - 100 times each on the left and 100 times on the right.
Palm Strikes with a slight claw grap - 100 times each on left and right hands
Back of wrist strikes - 100 times each on both left and right
Gow Choys - 100 times with each hand.
Pai Kui and phoenix eye punch both sides x 50 - this would be a slicing bridge attack (ie left arm on top) and the phoenix eye punch with the other hand underneath the pai.

Once I had finished conditioning I massaged my hands, fingers and wrists and stretched the joints. I than did the clamping palm form and some qi gung.

Southern Mantis Kicks

I did more bag work but this time I concentrated just on kicking. I trained the mantis kicks and really tried to put the power in this and it gets tiring kicking against a moving bag as you are kicking and pushing against the force and it weight! I trained a few hundred kicks today, I lost count after 200 altogether on boths side and just carried on working through all the sweat. I trained groin kicks on both sides working from leading leg groin kicks and back leg groin kicks. I than did the same for solar plexus kicks, low knee kicks, side step kicks with the outside of the foot (with a slide down imagining scraping a shin) and kicks with the inside of the foot. Again the kicks were trained from chambering with the leading leg and back leg on both left and right stances.

Ground and pound

I was wet with sweat and still had energy left to burn. I did some kalari yoga type warm ups, stretches and exercises and grabbed my other 4 foot heavy-ish punch bag. I put this on the floor mounted it and worked on my ground and pound. I made sure i tried to keep my centre of balance, grip the sides of the bag and keep an eye on how my body was. From here I did 100 normal punches to the bag imagining it was someones head, I than trained single continuous punches with the other arm to the side of the bag and holding the bag like it was someones head (again both arms).

Next I trained hooks from a low position and just pummeled into this bag. I than did 100 gow choys and really pounded down on to who ever this imaginary person was! I than worked elbows on both arms and pummelled again into the bag. Elbows are deadly, you only have to see the way the bag gets pushed in to kinda guess what it would do to someone face. I tried different elbow attacks and really felt the burn in my arms, back, lungs and legs.

To finish off I stood up and did continuous foot stomps with both feet to the head and mid section of the bag and continous low type toe punt kicks with speed and power with both feet - again imagining it was someones head or ribs.

After all that I did some chi gung postures, 18 dark internal power hands, breathing exercises and finished with some stretching…helped calm me down and think less violent things..

I was good aching, drenched with sweat, pumped and mentally happy that i more than made up for missing todays class.

I train in dit ngau tong long pai. And my training methods are very different to others in schools etc. This is because i have the privilege and honour to train one on one with my sifu in his home. So if they are differences in view this maybe the first reason. Im being taught to make the kungfu my own and not to be a carbon copy of my sifu as he refuses to spoon feed me and lets/makes me find my own path. A typical training day for me starts:

This is yesterday ( 13/07/06)

5am - chi kung exercises , stretching, xing yi forms and Stance work.

6pm - Worked on specific techniques and dissected my forms. Footwork, bag work and resistance training

Hopefully ive managed to do so but ive added a video clip of what my work involves. So i dont have to play catch up or have a lot to focus on as far as power and endurance training goes.

The private was tiring but provided me with lots of new information, training exercises to build me up and answered some questions I often have about my training.

We went straight into the gungs and with each one Sifu would explain where the tension was in particular, the breathing, the proper movement / technique and how the gung works with regard to strengthening tendons, joints etc while we both were training them.

Gungs

We did 6-7 gungs on alternate stances up and down the class slowly. As I have said, the gungs are tiring and really build all over and can really ache and burn (in a good way) on where its meant to be working the most. The gungs trained were:-

Iron Neck Gung – building the muscles and tendons in the neck, jaw, temples, head.

Iron Step Gung – which incorporates alternate steps – as you step, you lock the stance, grip the feet, claw the toes, tense the waist / stomach and turn it and also twist and claw the hands while pressing down to compress the ribs.

2 Back Gungs – as mentioned in previous posts with the second building on the waist and opening the ribs against tension.

Rib Gung – I’ve talked about this too

A new dip gwut gung exercise – this uses more motion of the arm and really really concentrates on the rib area – opening and closing of the rib with tension and compression.

The last gung really burned and worked on my traps, claws, ribs and shoulders. It uses a rolling of the shoulders up and down whilst simultaneously really clawing the hands and fingers with a twisting motion and compressing the ribs. We ran a lot of these and it didn’t take long for my traps to feel it and my arms and hands. After all that I was feeling the training big time and had to mentally push on.

Sifu than asked me to do swimming dragons to balance the hard qi gong type exercises and to loosen up. As I did the form and techniques he corrected me. He than explained further about the workings on joints, muscles and how the gungs work and help.

Chy Sau – Variations

Next we worked on Chy Sau we did about 9 different variations of this. My arms were already tired so I felt weak and burned out quickly doing all the variations on one arm continuously and than doing the same on the other. But it was good as some of the different ways build different muscles / joints / tendons so when you go from one to the other you don’t completely burn out – if that makes sense. It still kills though.

I remember posting a list of some of the different chy saus and a brief explanation of them on a forum somewhere but I cant find it! So a brief list of the ones we did include:-

The usual and probably most important box chy sau (clip linked to in previous post)
straight line chy sau
chum kui chy sau (downwards motion – like sawing wood almost) – really hitsr ribs this one
upwards / over chy sau
inside and outside circle mut sao chy sau can also be done with a dao sau arm and hand formation
grabbing arm chy sau
stepping / moving chy sau - hard to explain but it was tiring
yui kui chy sau (seen in the clip from Sifu’s instructional tape)
And the last was like the box chy sau but there is an extra movement where you partner uses his palm to resist as you push your hand back to the original position. Again easier to see than explain.

I was than shown some chi gung postures which help you stretch and allow for the energy / blood to flow. Nice to know on top of the other softer exercises as the gungs, chy sau, doy chong etc can be quite hard sometimes. Have to strike a balance and train right.

Kalari Training

After all that it was time for kalari part of my lesson. We did a very good form which uses a lot of waist movement, kicks, hand attacks, multi-direction facing, chops, grabs. This form was done on both left and right stances. We than did crocodile press ups and snake press ups – these proved very hard as always for me at this time when my arms are dead. I tried my best and did what I could.

The crocodile press ups kill as you are jumping on your hands and toes and going up and down. The snake press ups (im not sure if this is the correct name or term) are also just as hard as it feels like you weight is centered on one side / shoulder as you move from left to right.

Sifu than taught me a new 2 man drill using attack and defense – it’s a nice drill that uses upper cut, chops, stepping back, around the opponent. A good drill which I will work on so I can do it with speed and power and get it right.

Lastly we went over kalari yoga type breathing exercises which massage the internal organs, build the vital energy (pranaya I think this is called), can help vitalise the chakras / energy points, and build the strength in the lungs and stomach area. It wasn’t easy as it requires the pulling of the stomach in (so its trying to touch the spine almost) whilst you have exhaled all of your breath.

Great session that as always has given me tonnes of things to train and remember.

Train hard and train smart my friends.

Ok this is going to be a long post….but lots of information to those that read.

Weapons Class – 6-7pm

I had some work to finish so I couldn’t leave at 530pm but I still managed to get to the weapons class with plenty of time to train and spar with the long poles.

I started off with training the chow gar mantis pole forms of Ng Hung Gwun and Duk Se Gwun – these are nice forms and have a lot of southern pole fighting techniques. I did the forms 3 times each, which can be hard to do back to back using a heavy pole and properly executing the techniques quickly (i.e. shooting and extending the pole fully when you strike, say to the throat, so the pole is being held by the end by both hands with your arms full straight out).

I do most of the training with the heavy poles which are a lot stronger and heavier than the typical white wax wood poles. I think the heavy poles must be made out of oak or a very strong and dense wood. The white poles we use when we do 2 man pole fighting, pole chongs, pole versus sai and so on.

Once I trained this toasty went to get the scaffolding pole which has been filled with cement. The length is probably about 4 foot I think and it’s made of heavy metal and filled with concrete – its weighs a hell of a lot.

A few of us trained the forms with this as best we could and with as best form as possible. The weight of this makes it very hard and difficult to perform techniques such as full length pole thrusts / strikes. In fact after a few moves the arms really burn and the bar just feels like it weighs a ton. Once you pick up the other poles though, they feel like match sticks, lol.

When not being used as a ton weighted pole a few of us use the heavy scaffold to roll up and down the shins or forearms – effective for rolling out bruises and conditioning, but very painful – I like it personally .

I also did the Dit Jek (Sai or iron rulers), 8 cutting knives and yau long gim (swimming dragon straight sword) forms.

Pole Sparring

After this toasty and I went to grab the gear for pole sparring. This is a pair of poles which have padding on just under half of the length, padded gloves, an eskrima full helmet / head gear, and padding for arms and legs – if you decide to use them.

Chas, toasty and I sparred for about 2-3 rounds each – it’s not easy and it got hot very quick – before long we were sweating and breathing heavy. The helmets and gloves aren’t comfortable but its just great fun weapon fighting and going at it with gwuns at someone’s head / body, mu ha ha ha.

I only use the headgear and gloves but I can see why you would want to use the arm pads! On my first round in the first instances toasty got a very well placed hit to the funny bone on my left arm – when that happened I got heavy pins and needles in my left hand and couldn’t move my 2-3 of my fingers – lol. I carried on without thinking but it wasn’t easy to hold the pole well.

It eventually wore off but that bone feels a little sore. I prefer using a shorter length pole and closing in on someone and than using kicks and punches – as toasty said – it really defeats the object of “pole sparring”, haha. It was good and no doubt we will do the same next week.

Southern Chow Gar Mantis Class – 7 - 8.30pm

Class started with warm ups for the legs / knees, hips, stretching and we got straight into doing the first form of Saam Bo Gin. Again with this form I can generally feel if things are connected as one unit or if they feel separate and I have to mentally connect all the parts together.

By this I mean sometimes I get days where everything is sharp, powerful and I do the form and my stance is gripped, my stomach is tensed, my ribs open and close, my elbows are in and shouders down, I am breathing well etc. Sometimes it doesn’t and it doesn’t “feel” as good as it should. This isn’t a bad thing, just my own experiences that I am sharing.

The form felt good last night and doing it properly will make you work – especially when you close each finger with tension slowly, one after the other – in the same process the ribs close, the stomach and back has tension, the legs / feet / toes / buttocks are locked. All the things I have mentioned before!

On the second occasion of doing saam bo gin I didn’t use as much tension but enough to work the joints, muscles. Oh, by tension I don’t mean full out, hard tension, the type that gets your blood pressure up or associated with, say, going all out to finish a very heavy squat. I suppose you have to train in different ways and strike a balance.

Gungs

We than did some strengthing and conditioning gungs as I have spoken about before. The Ji Lik gung with is a constant run of the opening and closing section of saam bo gin using the arms and fingers – this is done a number of times on alternative stances and works your ribs, waist, stance, neck and much much more. We also did the back training gung.

As I have said before these gungs done properly train all over with particular emphasis on a certain part of the body – give you place the right tension in the right place, hold that tension and than work against it – essentially forcing the chi through to it while building the tendons and joints.

Attack combinations and hand attacks

If my memory serves me correct we ran over san sau drills and combination attacks. We also did these at the end of the class with the names being called out in Cantonese so we learn them –
Bao Chong - (cover and attack hands)
Chung - (Elbows) striking forwards on alternate steps and then backward elbow strikes while stepping backwards left and right.
Yui Sau - (shaking off bridge) – emphasis on ribs and shooting arm out
Pai Kui - (slicing bridge – emphasis on striking with a small circular slicing motion and closing the ribs
Deng Choy - (nailing hook punches) – one phoenix eye strikes high to temple the other phoenix eye strikes low – say to the ribs.
Double Soc Sau (grabbing hand) in and out, pai kui, chung, gow choy (hammer fist)
Ying Kum (eagle claw), pull in and punch

And so on…We did a lot of these and it was funny all of us trying to perform the combos being called out in Cantonese and understanding them while stringing them together.

Lim Chung Chong

We than did partner work and 2 man chongs. Lim Chung Chong (elbow picking) and Gow Choy Chong (hammerfist). The first I did with toasty and we put effort into it and were going for each other to make us work the techniques better. Lim chung consists of a :-

Partner A:- Straight phoenix punch to shoulder pressure point (elbows down and in, shoulders down), punch and move as one unit.
Partner B: Gaa Sau (straight up block)

Partner A:- Half clockwise circle to go around the block and attack ribs
Partner B:- Lim Chung – eagle claw to partner a elbow and move across body and than finger strike or phoenix punch to bladder / stomach / ribs

Partner A:- Saw Sao (outside wing block) and simultaneous strike to partner B stomach
Partner B:- Sai Sai (deflecting spring arm) and other hand grab arm while the other goes to gow choy
Partner A:- hold out palm (represents the nose / head I guess and helps conditioning!)

I think its important that when we do two man drills we make them as live and as realistic as we can given the way we are training them – of course this depends on your partner and control. In each movement with toasty I went for him and he did the same and it really made us use out waist more and the techniques better. I may of got hit a few times but with the movement of the waist and arms the techniques power was lessened.

It’s the same for all the chongs we do….Go for your partner! Don’t punch out so you intentionally miss him, don’t punch soft so you don’t work that punch and he doesn’t work his block or technique. Of course be controlled but think about where you are hitting / striking, why the technique is being used, put it under some pressure.

Next was gow choy chong and moving man chong. I don’t have time to explain and break this down right now (but there is a clip on the site of gow choy chong), all I can say is it conditions the arms well and we did this using mouse steps with continuous attacks as well as alternate steps. The moving man chong uses steps in and out quickly while blocking and attacking.

We than had a quick water break and went with partners to work on forms, techniques, drills, sparring – depending on what you want to work on. I partnered up with chas and we conditioned the arms, back of hands, gow choys on palms, legs (we took turns in kicking each other on the thighs and calves). We than went over the 9 hands form and toasty joined in having just trained with Sifu – who gave him a deserved beating with gow choys to his palms and some moving chy sau exercise.

We than finished with some more combination attack drills. All in all another good class and I sweated and got some good training. I felt tired, arms and body was heavy, but I still summoned the energy for my one to one with Sifu.

The clip below is a demonstration by Sifu Lee Teen Loi of the chow gar form which I think is called Tornado Hands. This form was done at Grandmaster Si Gung Ip Sui’s birthday party in Hong Kong 2002. It was at this celebration that the head of the system was passed down to his son Sifu Ip Chee Keung.

The form was amazing to watch as I had never seen it before and the sharpness, speed, energy and power of Sifu Lee Teen Loi showed the high level I would like to attain

I remember watching the form with my kungfu brothers who i travelled with and we talked about that particular form with awe. The clip doesnt really do it justice but I can only say when you are there and seeing all these masters perform…well…its inspiring to see where their dedication and training has taken them.

I have some pictures and clips from my trip and I still have some good memories of it, I may have to write about it if anyones interested .

Monday was a great nights training where I left and really felt like I had a good session and would feel it in the morning.

I try to leave work with enough time to get to the school for 6pm so I can train in the other hall by myself and work on gungs, forms, chi gung and kalari. The main mantis class starts at 7pm so I do extra training before hand and it usually leaves me tired but warmed up and ready for the class. Yesterday evening I worked on strength and conditioning gungs that I had trained in my privates.

Chow Gar Mantis Gungs

The first gung I trained was the iron step gung which works on gripping the stance, clawing the toes, compressing the ribs, locking down, pulling up the buttocks, strengthening the waist, tensioning the neck / head and working the hands by clawing and gripping them with tension. I trained this step on to my left and right stances going up and down the hall.

The next gung was using dip gwut gung (rib bone power) which also builds the stance, body, neck and head. You step left and right and on each stance use your arm to press down while also compressing the ribs. While the ribs are still compressed and the arm is pushing down with locked stance you than resist and pull the arm to your head level - working against the ribs compressing and with tension in the waist. Tiring gung also!

The third gung concentrates on the back. Again stepping left and right stances with tension in the places i mentioned earlier you open the arms up and out with gripped fists and tension. Concentrate on tension in the back and waist - hold the tension and force the arms to your front and cross over. Not the best description but those that do it know what i am on about i hope! Again this makes the body all over stronger and its like hard qi gong i guess.

The last gung incorporates the third and the iron rib gung. This is very tiring but i still ran it up and down the hall. It builds the waist, ribs, arms, stance, legs, neck…..all over! This is done with both arms compressing the ribs (shoulders down and back round of course) and using waist. Than working against the tension in the areas you stretch the ribs, muscles and move the waist. It burned and took a lot out of me.

After this hard qi gung i decided to do some softer forms and so I trained clamping palm and 18 dark internal power hands (saap baat um gen sau). With these forms I tried to remain relaxed, concentrate on my dan tien and deep breathing while focusing on the point in the middle of the palms, soles of my feet and imagine the energy. I could feel the tingling in my hands and the heat.

Next I did some qi gung taught to me by another mantis man incorporating 36 breaths whilst standing with my palms in front and than doing another 36 breaths but pushing my palms in and out in front of my chest on each cycle. Again focus on breathing and the palms.

Lastly I did some standing meditation and deep breathing with my palms in front me like i was holding a ball. I than spent some time in this position concentrating. After all this I finished with kalari drills and forms on both my left and right side and performed the forms with technique and applications in mind.

I was pretty tired after this but nicely warmed up for the next class…

Chow Gar Mantis Class

I sweated in this class. I mean sweat pouring and dripping. At the end my t-shirt was soaked and my hair was wet. I thought it was just me or the heat but almost everyone was getting a good work out. Class started with warms ups for legs, arms, waist we than went straight into steps, cross steps, cross over steps, fast mouse steps, knee raises - on these i tried my best to land, grip and close the ribs and be firm and secure. We than started san sau techniques hard and fast - bao jong-chop-gow choy left and right, ying kum (eagle claw motion coming over the head and grabbing in front of you)-pull in and punch with the opposite hand, yui kui, elbow strikes forward and elbow strikes behind while stepping back. We did a lot of these with no stopping so already we were sweating and breathing hard.

Next came saam bo gin - again doing this form with best form as I could - tension, breathing, gripping, clenching jaw, tension of the neck, elbows in(!!), work the ribs, waist - everything everything everything, i believe we did the form twice slowly. We than did the second form saam bo yui kui. For some reason i started the form in the wrong stance (?!) but I got corrected with a funny look on my face and shake of my head in wander of what i was doing, lol.

Yui Kui uses a single punch which punches out as soon as you step…you use the body as one unit and concentrate your delivery and movement of body. Like first form you have tension in all the areas and can really concentrate on the ribs on the arm that is closing down. The blog earlier on has a clip of grandmaster ip sui demonstrating some of the form and you read about the last techniques that are introduced.

Straight afterwards we performed law suen sao repeatedly fast and strong. By this time i was covered in sweat and arms were tired. Law Suen Sao has 4-5 sections made up of different techniques and they are performed on each stance and going backwards and forwards. The form is quite taxing but has some very good techniques with lots of applications -hammer fists, soc saus, grabbing, elbows, palms, bao chongs, finger strikes. Plenty, i like this form a lot.

Some where in this we also did some of the gungs i mentioned earlier and ji lik - this was hard as i was feeling it from before and my arms were burning out. It was also so hot!

Next came chy sau - grinding arm which i performed slowly and with as much tension as was needed to keep good form and as constant a power as i could - keeping in mind the stance, gripping the toes, breathing, ribs, shoulder down. I think we than spent time with partners working on drills, applications, conditioning etc.

In this I worked on all the 2 man attack and defence drills / combinations with power and speed. The drills incorporated kicks, elbows, take downs, wrist locks, locks, knees, punches, blocks, back fists, hammer fists, moving in and out, limb desctruction. My partner and I than worked on swimming dragons and the applications and tried to free spar using swimming dragon principles. The heat and sweat was still coming on fast and my body was aching and joints burning - love it!

The class finished with conditioning to palms, gow choys, back of hands, fingers and arms - I like my conditioning - pain is my friend and I like to work on conditioning whenever i can all over.

I would have stayed for the grappling and sparring class but i had to get home to work on an important client proposal and meeting that I had today - because i trained i ended up getting home at 1030pm and going to bed at 1am to finish my work. It was worth it and the meeting went well!

train hard everyone.