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I have been practicing Bruce’s TCMP for almost 12 months now and have just completed the complete form .without a teacher although I have had past experience in various martial arts. I practice 1 hour and 15 minutes every day. How long should I rest between each completed form? How many times should I complete the form each day? Am I asking the right questions? I did incorporate I Chuan standing postures for 20 minutes into this routine and my legs and arms were sore for days so I stopped the I Chuan and have had no problems since. My motivation for doing the TCMP was a ballooned disc a lot of pain and endless visits to the chiropractor but to no avail for over 4 years… 10 months later and the TCMP and I am free from pain and my range of movement has increased considerably and I really want to share this knowledge with others.. Thank you Bruce.
Hi Louie,
There isn’t really any way to answer the question “How much should I practice each day?”
It’s like trying to answer the question “How much time should I spend lifting weights at the gym each day?”. It depends. Why are you lifting weights? Is it because you want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger? Is it because you want to make your legs stronger? Are you trying to rehab a knee injury? Are you trying to lose weight?
How quickly do you want to achieve your goals? Is 1 year okay? Or do you want to get there in 3 months?
If you are practicing for more than an hour a day, you’re already doing pretty good!
Janak
Thanks Janak for your reply much appreciated. My motivation was to rehabilitate my back which is well and truly on course. Now I want to teach it and help others who may have similar physical difficulties. Interestingly Bruce has been training for 50 years and I wonder about the mindset that goes with that level of commitment. The timeframe makes goals almost irrelevant or superficial as there is no end. How is your training going I would really like to know what other members are doing?
I have been into Martial Arts and Qi Gong ever since 2000, but I really committed to it in 2003 and been training ever since.
The reason for my committment has been an health issue. Around my 18th year of life I developed severe pain my whole body. Maybe some form of Arthritis, maybe Fibromyalgia, no one knows. I was handed from one doctor to the next, and quickly becoming a cripple. Maybe due to the pain or the painkillers I also developed chronic fatigue. Whereever i sat down, i slept. Really helpful in school. Depression followed.
One day the woman who taught the weekly tai chi class I visited from time to time introduced me to her teacher. A very lively Chinese in his early sixties, looking like forty years old. He asked me if I wanted to learn Kung Fu. I said, that I can’t, I can’t move and the doctors advised me against strainful activity.
He said: “Everybody can do Kung Fu”. And so it was. Been pain free ever since.
Sorry, this was slightly off topic, but I am still so happy.
Ok, back to training. The most important thing in training, especially in energetics ist consitency. Take some core that feels right for you, and practice this every day. Than add on what you can without strain.
In the last 2 years, my jobs did not allow me to train as much as I wanted, but my old schedule was training 2 to 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. Later I added about 30 minutes of meditation before going to sleep. I visited my teacher twice a week – sometimes I deducted classes from my personal trainng, sometimes not, if I had the time on hand.
My training usually began in the mornig with a light warm-up, then physical conditioning, then forms, then relaxation. In the evening (being a night owl) came Qi Gong sets and Iron body conditioning. When my first teacher was no longer available, gradually my training shifted more and more to Weightlifting and Conditioning due to lack of new input. This has changed now.
How often to do forms? Since I learned quite a few, I did each one only once or twice privately. In class, we would repeat the same form for an hour over and over and over!
I know this is not very helpful, but only you and your body can together decide what is needed and how much. Listen to your self. Don’t be afraid to overstep your boundaries once or twice and don’t be afraid to rest a few days if you went to far. Find the golden Spot in the middle – this will be different for everybody.
But, as sign of cameraderie – I am also struggling at the moment how to best integrate the Enery Arts material with my schedule and especially my “old stuff”.
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