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Why spend more time on training?

To acquire most of the advanced skills of 6 Dragons Kung Fu it is a matter of 5-10 minutes each day (read How to acquire special abilities), the problem is that:

It is totally useless to develop a single skill
It is totally useless to develop advanced skills if we do not perfectly manage the basic ones (read Combat skills: what we will learn)
As everything, martial arts do not work without the right preparation (read Why martial arts do not work: 5 reasons)
…

10 minutes for one thing, 10 minutes for another, 10 minutes for another one and it is very easy to reach the canonical 3-4 hours of 6 Dragons Kung Fu (read for example 4 hours individual training session sample).

A note by Master Kongling – A funny story… I remember that when I have met for the first time grandmaster Fung Yip Ko, I confessed to him, taken by an innocent enthusiasm, that (at that time) I used to practice for 4 hours each day, he looked (with an inquisitive look) at me and told me something like: “there are people that, with words, do everything and the opposite of everything…” – Even that was a small lesson, from that moment I did not touch the topic again, it was my actions that demonstrated him what I had said.

How to increase the duration of daily training

Before starting it is important to make a few premises:

When we start training, even 15 minutes a day are good (read How to start practicing 6DKF)
This article is referred to a training routine that is not for competitions, specific skills development or exhibitions
The idea behind this kind of preparation is to be, as much as possible, ready to fight in any moment (read How to always be ready to fight)
…

Said this, let’s see some “tricks” to stretch our training time and get the 6 Dragons Kung Fu daily 3-4 hours as quickly as possible:

Let’s divide the effort – We need to divide the muscular stress over the entire body in a fair (the keywords are alternation and balance, read Intensity of training: depends on what?)
Let’s never decrease the performances – When a muscle begins to lose performance we have to change exercise (read Analysis and improvement of performance)
Let’s avoid useless pain – Let’s be gradual, except for the first approaches, we must never get to experience pain, discomfort, cramps, etc.
Let’s focus on self-discipline – The only thing we have really to go beyond the limits is the discipline, never the body (read Having discipline: do not contradict ourselves)
Let’s perform as many exercises as possible – To avoid repetition, we have to change exercise every 10-20 minutes (read Same exercises, different execution)
Let’s maintain a high concentration – We have to opt for exercises with complex goals, the mind has to be involved as much as the body
Let’s cure our diet – The quality of what we eat and we drink is crucial to have that surplus of energies to train more and better (read Qi and proper nutrition)
Let’s never go beyond our limits – It is completely useless to train as a tiger for 2-3 days and to stop workout for a week to recover
Let’s use motivation – Let’s add music, videos (etc.) to gain that kind of mental energy that sometimes miss (read Workout music: how, when, why)
Let’s involve other people – We must be able to train even alone but sometimes it is important to find someone to share the effort (read 5 effective ways to find a training partner)
Let’s first increase the time, not the effort – The most important thing to stretch our sessions of practice is to cover the time we want to reach starting with low effort exercises
…

A note by Master Kongling – These are tips that have already worked for me and for many of my students, following them with intelligence and adapting them to the various needs we can overcome the typical obstacle of the 2 hours and a half to then reach the goal of not being able to live without training.

How to divide the effort effectively

Broadly we divide our training time in this order and with the following concentrations:

5-10% of the time – Warm-up, stretching and / or defatigation exercises (read How to correctly perform stretching and How to correctly perform warm-up)
20-25% of the time – Average effort exercises (eg. application techniques with a partner, read 5 effective ways to find a training partner)
20-25% of the time – Exercises with intense effort (eg. running with obstacles)
20-25% of the time – Average effort exercises (eg. use of weapons)
20-25% of the time – Exercises with very intense effort (eg. sparring)
15-20% of the time – Continuous non-strenuous exercises (eg. execution of drills)

To deepen this topic read 6 Dragons Kung Fu training sessions’ structure.

A note by Master Kongling – I am not a special practitioner at all, like everyone I approached martial arts through the most common paths (read Who is Master Kongling?) but… there was a moment when I realized that the road I had started would not have brought me where I wanted to go. The point is that if I had followed a normal gym workout (read How to train professionally in martial arts) I would never have come to practice 4-6 hours a day. Never.

Final notes

A few conclusive ideas and thoughts:

Following these tips, we should finish the workout with enough energy for one last battle or to gradually add other 10 minutes (we can add, for example, 10 minutes per week).
The idea is to never be exhausted: after a good training we will sleep well and we will wake up totally refreshed, ready to expand our training times.

In the next article of this series, we will talk about how to train in everyday life (read The constant training in everyday life).

In-depth articles

Practical examples of daily training time subdivision – How to divide the effort and the time of training during our day
Natural talent and martial arts – The real incidence in terms of performance of natural talent in martial arts

Questions

Reply in the comments and share your experience:

What prevents you from prolonging your workout?

Author: Master Kongling

Founder of 6 Dragons Kung Fu.

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