Post by myles on Jan 23, 2015 6:22:23 GMT
I have turned seriously, with focus on minimum direction changes, for an hour in lion, dragon, bear, and rooster. All of which I've done until an hour was comfortable, or relatively comfortable in the case of bear. Bear is the worst, but I kind of like it. Not so much turning dragon, my mind wanders too much. Rooster and lion were both awful to start and then got less so as more time is spent getting accustom to the postures. Bear does seem pretty bad still after several months of consistently turning an hour at a time on most every day. I have noticed turning lion seems to bring my attention up into the hands and it's hard to focus on the legs, where as rooster I found far easier to focus on the legs. Bear turning looking off into space is quite different.
The longest I've ever turned the circle was for two hours. This was turning dragon, and incorrectly I might add. I was changing direction far too frequently for it to really be considered turning in my current view/understanding. My current understanding is that turning is turning and changing is changing. So forms and turning are differentiated. When turning focus is on on turning, changing directions as little as possible. When training forms you needn't turn many rotations of the circle between sides. I feel I spent my first few years training YSB without really ever putting time in to seriously turning. 'Standing once is better than turning 100 times, turning once is better than training strikes for an hour, and training strikes is better than training forms for _____ amount of time'--or at least that's the gist of it. This is somewhere in my pages and pages of notes, I could find a more direct quote but that would take a while.
So in reality, the longest I've ever really turned was a little over an hour. Maybe an hr and 15-30 mins, in lion. Eric put forth the idea of turning every other day for two hours. The idea has now been rolling around in my head, and it's picking up momentum. I have in my notes something that I feel is also relative to this situation, 'do not forever continue to practice in the same way, this can lead to stagnation' In addition to hearing JB thinks three hours of turning is best, I recently read someone's notes that put forth a challenge: turn 3 hours every day for a week. This was very humbling to read. I'm pretty sure I'm not ready for that.
However, I have resolved to try to get my turning bear to two hours. I choose bear because I am currently acclimated to an hour of turning bear and to change to rooster or lion, I would have to start building up from below the hr mark. Plus bear is pretty beastly. I find two hrs of turning to be pretty impressive and turning bear for two hours sounds that much more so. Currently I have a timer set to buzz once every 15 mins or 20 mins for the hour while I turn, letting me know to change my focus. I am going to start adding time to it. I think 15 mins is not too big a jump to start with. I will then gauge how often will be appropriate to add more time. Maybe 5 min's a week, or 15 min's every two weeks.
Speaking of the timer and focus, lately I've been trying to focus on different aspects of turning. The legs and stepping, the torso and breath, and the upper body and arms. I then also try to merge them. I have been starting with focus on the legs, turning in posture, but thinking about the footwork and stepping, concentrating on the feet, knees and hips. Then after 15-20 mins, depending on the timer setting, I move my focus to the breath, the dantien, the pelvis, lifting at hunyin (spelling?) etc..Sometimes I will try to hold focus of the legs and add in the torso, sometimes I just move on to focusing mainly on the torso. While focusing on the legs or torso I'm still holding the hands in posture, but being slightly less strict than when I move focus to the arms and head. Once focus has been on the arms, head, and upper body for a while I try to merge everything and focus more broadly on all requirements. For a long time I just went through a checklist of postural requirements, so again changing the way I'm training. Keeping it interesting.
The longest I've ever turned the circle was for two hours. This was turning dragon, and incorrectly I might add. I was changing direction far too frequently for it to really be considered turning in my current view/understanding. My current understanding is that turning is turning and changing is changing. So forms and turning are differentiated. When turning focus is on on turning, changing directions as little as possible. When training forms you needn't turn many rotations of the circle between sides. I feel I spent my first few years training YSB without really ever putting time in to seriously turning. 'Standing once is better than turning 100 times, turning once is better than training strikes for an hour, and training strikes is better than training forms for _____ amount of time'--or at least that's the gist of it. This is somewhere in my pages and pages of notes, I could find a more direct quote but that would take a while.
So in reality, the longest I've ever really turned was a little over an hour. Maybe an hr and 15-30 mins, in lion. Eric put forth the idea of turning every other day for two hours. The idea has now been rolling around in my head, and it's picking up momentum. I have in my notes something that I feel is also relative to this situation, 'do not forever continue to practice in the same way, this can lead to stagnation' In addition to hearing JB thinks three hours of turning is best, I recently read someone's notes that put forth a challenge: turn 3 hours every day for a week. This was very humbling to read. I'm pretty sure I'm not ready for that.
However, I have resolved to try to get my turning bear to two hours. I choose bear because I am currently acclimated to an hour of turning bear and to change to rooster or lion, I would have to start building up from below the hr mark. Plus bear is pretty beastly. I find two hrs of turning to be pretty impressive and turning bear for two hours sounds that much more so. Currently I have a timer set to buzz once every 15 mins or 20 mins for the hour while I turn, letting me know to change my focus. I am going to start adding time to it. I think 15 mins is not too big a jump to start with. I will then gauge how often will be appropriate to add more time. Maybe 5 min's a week, or 15 min's every two weeks.
Speaking of the timer and focus, lately I've been trying to focus on different aspects of turning. The legs and stepping, the torso and breath, and the upper body and arms. I then also try to merge them. I have been starting with focus on the legs, turning in posture, but thinking about the footwork and stepping, concentrating on the feet, knees and hips. Then after 15-20 mins, depending on the timer setting, I move my focus to the breath, the dantien, the pelvis, lifting at hunyin (spelling?) etc..Sometimes I will try to hold focus of the legs and add in the torso, sometimes I just move on to focusing mainly on the torso. While focusing on the legs or torso I'm still holding the hands in posture, but being slightly less strict than when I move focus to the arms and head. Once focus has been on the arms, head, and upper body for a while I try to merge everything and focus more broadly on all requirements. For a long time I just went through a checklist of postural requirements, so again changing the way I'm training. Keeping it interesting.
