Dennis’s Xingyiquan Training Routine August 2010

Since the post Wuxingquan is the Root of Xingyiquan published in May 2010, I’ve received quite a number of emails on the question on the amount of effort to put into Wuxingquan (Five-Element-Fist). Well, it’s varies from person to person, for myself, I would spend 50 – 60% of my training on Wuxingquan alone. The following is a typical training logs of August 2010 for your reference:

Morning Session, 5:30am, 7th of August 2010.

Item	Description	Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4
1.0	WuXingQuan
1.1	> PiQuan	Slow x 90m	Medium x 90m	Fast x 90m
1.2	> ZuanQuan	Slow x 90m	Medium x 90m	Fast x 90m
1.3	> BengQuan	Slow x 90m	Medium x 90m	Fast x 90m
1.4	> PaoQuan	Slow x 90m	Medium x 90m	Fast x 90m
1.5	> HengQuan	Slow x 90m	Medium x 90m	Fast x 90m
2.0	Shadow Boxing	Slow x 5min	Fast x 3min	Fast x 3min

Evening Session , 7:00pm, 7th of August 2010.

Item	Description	Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4
1.0	WuXingQuan	Slow x 90m	Medium x 90m
2.0	WuXingDao	Slow x 90m	Medium x 90m
3.0	ShiErXing	Slow x 90m	Medium x 90m
4.0	TaoLu
4.1	> WuXingLianHuan	Slow	Medium
4.2	> DaLianHuan	Medium
5.0	Assistant
5.1	> PiQiang	L/L x 50rep	L/R x 50rep	R/L x 50rep	R/R x 50rep

Notes:

Do bear in mind that my training sessions varies from day to day.

Space. My training space is 15.6 meters in length, therefore to and fro is roughly 30 meters. 90 meters in length would be to and fro 3 times.

Frequency. I usually squeeze in 5 morning sessions and 5 evening sessions per week, excluding workouts with other Sabah Xingyiquan members. Some assistant exercises are done separately from the formal training routine.

Cycle. I do cycle my training, these particular training logs are towards the end of my training cycle. My training cycle usually last for 3 months, started from moderate quantity and slowly built up over the months.

Speed. The speed indicated in the training logs are pretty abstract, medium pace does not mean it is half way between slow and fast. The time lengths of the 90-meter-wuxingquan of evening sessions are roughly as follows:

• Slow = 3.5 minutes
• Medium = 1.5 minutes
• Fast = 1 minutes

The following videos are good indications of my medium pace training:

• Dennis’s Xingyi Wuxing Lianhuanquan July 2010
• Dennis’s Xingyi Wuxingquan March 2010

I must point out that fast in speed does not mean rushing thought the set, it simply means every movement should be done in an explosive and fast manner with a short pause between each movement.

Warm Up. Footwork training (I would like to called it “shifting of body”) is included as part of warm-up routine. Dynamic stretching is followed immediately.

Cool Down. Some static stretching is done during the cooling down phase.

Between Sets. Posture training would be done between each sets. It consists of getting into a Xingyi posture, Tiger-Form as an example, check and fine tune it according to the essence, hold for a few seconds, change posture and repeat the process. I find this posture training method provides better results than the traditional Zhanzhuang (站桩).

Wuxingquan. Five-Element-Fist is my main focus, I solely focus on it at the morning training sessions. I practice Wuxingquan in a linking manner at the everning sessions, a typical 90-meter-Wuxingquan set of evening sessions would look like the followings:

• Piquan x 15m +
• Zuanquan x 15m +
• Bengquan x 15m +
• Paoquan x 15m +
• Hengquan x 15m +
• Piquan x 15m

Shierxing. I’m only focusing on 6 animals out of Twelve-Animal-Form. 1 set of 90-meter-Shierxing would consist of the followings:

• Huxing x 15m +
• Maxing x 15m +
• Jixing x 15m +
• Shexing x 15m +
• Yingxing x 15m +
• Xiongxing x 15m

Wuxingdao. The Five-Element-Saber is also trained in linking sets, detailed as below:

• Pidao x 15m +
• Zuandao x 15m +
• Bengdao x 15m +
• Paodao x 15m +
• Hengquan x 15m +
• Pidao x 15m

Shadow Boxing. Both shadow boxing and taolu (forms) are for the purposes of training the transition from movement to movement (including the transition of energy flow and footwork). My shifu, Zheng Mingxing, and I prefer shadow boxing over taolu.

Taolu. I do not put a lot of emphasis on taolu, I don’t even practice them on most training session, I prefer shadow boxing over pre-set forms. Dalianhuan (Large-Linking-Form) is a taolu composed by my shifu, Zheng Mingxing, for demo purposes, it consists of five elements and most of the animal forms which “fits” into the 14-meter-long competitive wushu carpet.

Assistant Exercise. The assistant exercise for this particular training session was doing Splitting-Spear with a 7-foot-wax wood, this particularly workout included:

• Left stance with Left hand lead x 50rep
• Left stance with Right hand lead x 50rep
• Right stance with Left hand lead x 50rep
• Right stance with Right hand lead x 50rep