How often do you practice?

[Antonius]

I've seen similar threads on other forums, but I think we have a slightly different perspective here. I think (or I hope) most of us here have already learned an important lesson, i.e. that practicing every day is essential in qigong and internal martial arts.

Personally, I find it interesting how many martial artists and qigong practitioners don't practice daily even though they may practice many hours a week during class. The purpose of this thread is to get a feeling for how often people here practice. Please be honest.

Also, feel free to elaborate on your personal regimen by posting comments in the thread.

[Antonius]

My regimen is pretty simple: I practice at least an hour in the morning, and at least an hour in the evening. I miss my evening practice once in a while, but not very often. I haven't missed a day of Lifting The Sky in 4 years.

When trying to increase my overall practice time, I just add 10-15 minutes to each session. On weekends, I try to add 30 minutes to each session.

Of course, I also try to sneak in some quick practice while I'm at work.

[Quatro Bajina]

My chikung training lasts about 35 minutes. (Mornings and evenings)

What I train:
* Lifting the Sky
* Golden Bridge (My Favorite!)
* One Finger Zen

My Kungfu Training:
* Hsing-I : 30 minutes
* Shuai Chiao: 5-10 minutes (Just a review because I don't do Shuai Chiao anymore)

Hsing-I Training:
* Practice 3 elemental fists (Water, Wood and Fire) with their various applications
* Shadow sparring

Shuai Chiao training:
* Practice single leg takedown and its variations.

For the time being, I don't practice kungfu by myself since I am extremely busy thesedays. I just spar with my Sifu once a week for maintenence only.

I hope I can get back to my kungfu training pretty soon

[Ronan]

I've only recently started training regularly again after quite a sporadic period in the summer, when I was either injured, lazy or just doing summer things.

But certain events have a way of reminding you why you started training in the first place. like a car full of guys pulling up next to me and my girlfriend on the way home and the first thing to go through my mind is "damn! I haven't done any training in two weeks!! .

So after a string of these events, I've started proper training again, not to mention the fact that when I do get around to training, it's the most enjoyable and rewarding part of my day

But at the moment I do,

In the morning: lifting the sky, stance training, leg stretches, 100 kicks, more leg stretches and then usually a 5-10 minute chi flow. that takes on average about 50-60 minutes.

in the evening (between 7:00 or 8:00pm): Lifting the sky, go through various combat sequences either solo, or with a partner.(I sometimes miss these evening sessions depending on what I'm doing)

At Night (between 10:00pm or midnight) lifting the sky, 1 finger zen and leg stretches

at the moment I think force training is more important for me than sparring so if I have to miss a session it will be the sparring

[Tom L]

I do 1-2 practices a day. My favorite exercise if Lifting the Sky. I have wished I didn't go so fast when I first started training one year ago, because I couldn't maintain the very high highs. But that's okay. I'm learning. Sometimes after training for a while twice a day, people like Anthony recommend I go down to one a day. It helps. But I also learned it's not good to go underneath this once a day. You have to keep up the chi resources to keep the health problems away. (please note I am solely speaking of Shaolin Cosmos Chi Kung right now- what I do.) I had a couple times when I consistently missed practices. It wasn't the greatest. Now I have secret weapons to help me out (aka Lifting the Sky variations.)

Maybe someday I'll be ready for Flicking Fingers again...

In the meantime, I love smiling from the heart.



btw,

Hi Ronan! remember me from Brighton last december? I hope to make it again to Europe soon. I was thinking this February but I know Sifu is coming to the US a couple months after that. It's too hard of a decision now!

Hey Antonius, is your cell phone number still the same now that you're in Florida? Could you please send it to me if it's different? Thanks mucho.

[Darryl]

Interesting questions

Nice thread Anthony

One of the biggest problems I had after starting practicing Shaolin Kungfu was "What to train?". I still haven't really solved this question, but all the tension has gone out of it now (making descisions).

My daily morning sessions is for building & storing

* Lifting The Sky (short)
* Stance Training (main)
* Dan Tian Breathing (short)
* Art of Flexible Legs (main)
* One Finger Shooting Zen (intermittant)

My daily form training is

* Practice weekly set (eg Lohan Asks The Way)
* Practice two relevant combat sequences (eg from Seq 1-4)
* Practice specific combat sequence with modification/continuation
* Flowing Breeze, Swaying Willow


And for the evening, I do either of these


My force training is

* Flicking Fingers, or
* Pushing Mountains

My flow training is

* Lifting The Sky, or
* Specific Pattern from the Eighteen Lohan Hands, or
* Eight Pieces of Brocade, 3 times each

[Andrew]

Morning (about 45 minutes):
A dynamic pattern Chi Kung (if needed)
Force training (Golden Bridge or One Finger Zen ... sometimes Pushing Mountains)
Leg stretching

Most days (since a couple of months) :
More leg stretching
100 kicks
If time allows: a set or some combat sequences

Afternoon (about 15-30 minutes):
Combat sequences
Sets
(this is the session that suffers most from my current schedule - in other words has been missed for weeks )

Evening (15-20 minutes):
Either Lifting the Sky or Flicking Fingers (depending on my state at the time)

[cnholmes]

I don't have any choice over how much time I can spend training, I have half an hour morning and half an hour evening free.

So its....

Morning
Lifting The Sky and energy flow.
Sequences - Lohan Asks The Way, sequences 1-16 + swaying in the breeze. I love doing sequences on a morning, and certainly not just as a dance. ok, so this is just practicing sequence, form and force, but it means that when I do get to practise with a partner I can concentrate on the skills rather than trying to remember whats next.

Evening
Lifting The Sky and energy flow
sporadic attempts at stance training, but I frequently miss if I think I'm over training. Sometimes I just feel really exhausted, even after Lifting The Sky.

I'm hoping to start varying it a bit more in future, once I am happy with my stance training and sequences. I'd like to include (possibly in rotation) moving in stances, 100 kicks, Flexible legs, One finger shooting zen, Finger Flicking and Dantian Control. I like the idea of a 'weekly set'.

I do miss training sometimes, but these occasions get less and less as I work out how to fit it in anyway (different room, different time, different practice etc.)

Regards,
Chris.

[Alex]

I practise twice a day at 5pm and 12. I do around 10 repetitions of Lifting the Sky followed by self-manifested chi flow and ended with a minute or two of standing meditation.
I've been practising for two months now since the course with sifu in London. If anyone wants to suggest some changes to my routine, please say, im always thinking about it.

[P. McSweeney]

For the last month I have practiced once a day. Lifting the Sky followed by One Finger Shooting Zen followed by flow followed by Standing Meditation. This takes 15 - 20 minutes.

Before this my training included leg stretching, 100 kicks, sets and combat sequences. I meet up with a sparring partner once or twice a week. I will begin this routine again shortly.

I very rarely miss a days training. Any day I might miss is when I am away travelling.

[subclock]

Nice thread Antonius ,

I practise twice a day . Every now and then I will only practise once a day but lately it has been twice every day .

My morning practise session doesn't exist . I don't know why , but although I want to practise in the morning I just don't feel like it when i wake up . I don't know why that is . I occasionally practise some Straight Sword and Schimitar in the morning but normally I don't .

My evening practise is my Taijiquan practise session, which consists of Eight Pieces Of Brocade ( four repititions each ) , Lifting The Sky , swinging my arms and them slapping against my body ( I still don't know what that is called or if it has a name ) . I then practise the Yang Style Short Form , followed by the Sword Form and the Schimitar Form . I then practise Lifting Water ( 20 repititions ) , followed by the Three Circle Stance . Unfortunately I don't have anyone who lives near me to practise Pushing hands with , so I normally just do pushing hands in class . Although my Sifu said that ,although it wont be as good , I can still practise pushing hands by myself if I want to .

My before bed practise goes : Relax with eyes closed for 1 - 2 minutes , Lifting The Sky , Self Manifested Chi Flow , Standing Meditation . Bed :P

[snowcelt]

Hi Antonius,

it's nice to get an idea of what everybody is doing. I have chopped and changed my routine quite often in the past year or so. At first it was four dynamic patterns, followed by Standing Meditation with occasional induced chi flow. Then I tried some stance training as well, not Zhan Zhuang, just the False leg and Single Leg stances. I found these improved my balance greatly, and helped to gently strengthen my knee after some surgery.
Post chi kung course it seems less is more as my routine is one pattern, either Lifting the Sky, Pushing Mountains, or Carrying the Moon, followed my chi flow and then Standing Meditation. This takes about 15 minutes. I still occasionally practice Dan Tien breathing, but I prefer the dynamic patterns. Practice is once a day, often around midnight or late evening, and between 5-7 days per week.

Kevin.

[Jordan]

Hello Anthony,

I practise when I can - like everyone I guess. I tend to get in about an hour a day in the evening's and usually a little more before I go to bed and at weekends.

Some day's I may do less (like 30 minutes or so) and LTS before I go to bed. But on the whole it's pretty regular.

Jordan.

[TommyC]

Nice thread

I try to ensure that I do something every day, sometimes that means that all I manage is lifting the sky, at other times that has meant consistently training for 2 hours per day.
So long as the aims and objectives are in place I’m less concerned about the amount of time available, loosing sight of them has at times produced haphazardness in my approach as either a loss of balance or loss of focus.

[drunken boxer]

At the minute I practice 2 hours per day, usually 30 mins in the morning and 1hr 30 minutes in the evening.
In my first 2 or weeks of practicing taijiquan I had heard that half an hour a day was necessary. I took this as meaning half an hour on average, and would train anything from 20 minutes up to 1 hour per day. My Master then asked how long I trained and I told him that. His reply was simple, “20 minutes is not enough! If you want to be good you must practice 1 hour per day, but its better to practice 2 hours a day. If there is a day when you are really busy, make sure you at least practice chi kung.”
So I did at least an hour a day for the next few weeks, and 2 hours when I could.
Then after a few weeks I resolved that I would make sure my practice time for each week would work out at an average 2 hours per day, so I would do 2.5 or 3 hours on days when I had time, which compensated for days when I only managed 1 or 1.5 hours.
But on October 15th this year I decided that from that day on I would make every effort to do 2 hours per day every day. I know that my master will only be in this country for a relatively short time, and I realised that I would be an absolute idiot if I didn’t put in the necessary time to practice what he has taught me, so that I can develop faster and learn as much as possible in this time.
I have trained 2 hours every day since then, I hope I can keep disciplined to do this for as long as possible.