Tai Chi & Clubbells

[Rick Huse]

My 22 year old son has been studying William Chen's Tai Chi for the last 5 years and is about to be certified by Master Chen within the next few months. He would like to work with Clubbells to improve his conditioning and strengthen his sword form & boxing.

He is 5'7", 125#. My 10# pair of Clubbells seem to be the correct weight for him to work with. I have worked with him in the past with his GPP but the SPP for Tai Chi is not my area of expertise. Any ideas for exercise selections and workout structure that would be best for his needs?

Thanks!

[crubio]

Rick,

Can you give us a bit more info regarding your son's examination. In order to help your son design a CST program using CBs I'll need to know at least the following.

I'm assuming I already know the answer to my first question but let me ask first. Does you son have and pre-existing conditions which would inhibit his performance?

For you son's sword form, what are the required sword movements? Stabbing, vertical strikes, horizontal, diagonal, etc.? Approximately how many times will each movement be demonstrated? Is there punching, jumping and kicking involved?

Is the sword form performed slowly, quickly, or both? Approximately how long does it take to perform the form?

What kind of boxing is he training for, the exam, or for sport? Western Boxing or Chinese? Is it a sparing match or skill demo? If sport when is the matchup?

For his Tai Chi exam itself how long does it last and when is it?

If you can answer at least all that for me I can set up a program for you in short order. You can PM me if you prefer or you can post a reply to this thread. I will be out of town Fri-Sat so if you need the program before then, I am sure one of my CST brothers will be glad to assist.

[Rick Huse]

Chris,

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

1. He has had the Epstein-Barr Virus a few years ago. He will not admit that it is a problem but I watch his work load & recovery anyway.

2. The Sword Form involves all typres of "cuts" and takes about 5 minutes to complete.

3. Movements are performed slowly for the 5 minutes.

4. The boxing form is both Western & Chinese. Part of the exam is sparing and part is skill demo.

5. The final exam lasts 5 hours and will take place in a couple of months. Whole body endurance is needed to hold the form together for the duration of the test. The student also needs to be mentally sharp because the judging panel will constantly try to trip them up with surprise situations for them to respond creatively and quickly throughout the test. After all the years of study, the solutions are either there or they're not but a fatigued body can affect the outcome.

Chris, once again, thank you for your assistance!

[crubio]

Rick,

What other forms of training is your son doing and how often? How often does he practice MA? How long and frequent are his current practices?

I will be away from a computer until Sunday. But I'll check in later to see if you reply.

Until then I will craft up a program to peak on the test day. Do you prefer a 6 week program or an 8 week

Chris

[Rick Huse]

Chris,

Adam doesn't do very much additional training beyond his Tai Chi practice. I've introduced him to KB's a year ago & Clubbells recently. I have him working on CB form, doing Inward Pendulums, Outward Pendulums, Armpit Casts, Shield Casts & Shoulder Casts but right now he is just "dabbling".

He drives 100 miles, 3 days a week to train with his teacher and his class lasts about 2 hours. He works on his forms daily.

I hope that this information is helpful. Adam and I look forward to your input.

Thank you!

[crubio]

Rick,

I just returned from NC. I need to run a few errands and will get back to you tonight with some input

Chris

[crubio]

Rick,

My recommendation is this. Break the preparation down into 2 cycles. The first for GPP the second for SPP. During the GPP phase, continue the Tai Chi training and start adding volume with the clubbell drills your son has been practicing and has consistently grooved great technique. GPP should include the exercises you have him doing now, plus the exercises I give you at the end of this post.

For the SPP cycle, slowly start to decrease the amount of GPP, performing only my exercise selection, while focusing more on the Tai Chi practice, and so that by the last week he is doing nothing but Tai Chi. Leave one day per week for endurance/toughness training. This is to mimick the length and toughness of the test and should be the same day as the test with situations as close as possible to the test.

I suggest either two 3 week cycles, or a 5 week cycle followed by a 3 week cycle. It is determined by your time frame.

The first cycle should generally be high volume as you want to increase work capacity. Since your son has been dabbling in clubbell work he may already have grooved perfect technique on some of the exercises. It is very important that the perfect groove is acheived before adding volume. I strongly recommend not progressing with the program until a base is established where your son feel he can complete a workout with a RT of 8 or better. The goal of the first cycle is to peak on the last day and try to acheive a 5.5 hour test simulation.

If you do a 5 week cycle for the GPP then after the end of the 5th week, he'll need five days of rest like this

rest,rest, Train moderate, rest, rest.

If you choose 3 weeks as the length of your first cycle, take 3 days rest in between your 1st and 2nd cycle like this

active rest, rest,rest

SO whatever length of time you choose for your first cycle, make sure you have enough time to complete the rest period, as this is very important, and the second cycle finishes on the day of the test.

Regardless of which cycle length of the GPP cycle, make sure that you use the last week of the second cycle (SPP cycle) to taper. So that your last week of the 2nd cycle looks something like this:

Train, Active Recovery, Rest, Rest, Train easy, Train Moderate, Peak.

The second cycle should focus upon attention to detail for the CB moves. Just do the mill and maybe swipes. Add intensity by adding reps and decreasing the number of sets. Going for 5 continuos minutes of high reps. switching arms as little as possible

For the exercise of choice my advice would be to go with the mill. As long as he is not performing any sword movements in this range of motion you should be fine. Avoid any clubbell movements which mimic his sword movements.

I recommend 3 days per week of clubbell training, with some biomechanical exercises from body-flow for the legs. Squat creeps or any of the variations would be my choice here. Perform them in a GTG fashion if w/o time is an issue. That is perform several moderately tough sets spread even throughout the day. If time allows you can perform them after your cb training. Also practice the four corner balance drill to strengthen the knees.

If your style of tai chi requires long time in stances then perform the BME's slow and smooth as possible. Just mimick the same energy systems, but not the same movements, of your style.

Now for the mill. Use the practice exercises (http://www.circularstrengthmag.com/18/sonnon1b.html) from Phase IV for the mill. Namely :
The Sabre Grip Inward Pendulum ( elbow bent at 45 degree angle)
Short Whip ( elbow pit pointed skywards)
Task Master ( elbow pit pointed skyward for cast; elbow in tight to stomach to finish parry cast)
before each mill practice. 2 sets of 10 each will suffice.

Then practice the mill. For GPP use the DT schedule outlined in Scott's Phase IV (http://www.circularstrengthmag.com/18/sonnon1.html) article. Namely start off with 20 sets in 20 minutes and decrease the number of sets each training session as long as the RT is above 8. 1 set per minute though at all times.

I hope this has been some help. If there are any questions or anything you don't understand, please feel free to ask away. I'm here to help.

[Rick Huse]

Chris,

I just got home from dinner with the family and found your post. Thank you very much for your thoughtful effort. I'll go over it with Adam and let you know how it is progressing.

Once again, thank you very much. Train with passion, stay healthy and be at peace.