hojo undo/body conditioning

[brandonmarshall]

For those familiar with the history of non-sportive martial arts training in Okinawa or China: What is your educated guess as to the percentage of training time devoted to hojo undo/body conditioning in pre-contemporary times (say, 1920 and earlier)? I suppose it might be good to qualify the question in terms of "the maximal percentage of time..." in as much as the answer might depend on the students level and experience.

Please: "educated guess" in not the same as "wild guess".

Thank you much!

[brickshooter]

Probably about as much as modern profesional fighting athletes training ouside of fighting - roadwork, weight lifting etc. it was likely more than 50% of their training. Probably a 70-30 conditioning to skill training ratio.

[sensei8]

Ours is intent; we practice hojo undo before, during, and after class. Everything is dependent on ones conditioning across the board, and in that, hojo undo in deeply intertwined with our every coming and going.

Because we do hojo undo so much, I'd say it's 50%.

[lowereastside]

Question? - How much weight are we talking about in the practice of hojo undo/body conditioning. - the reason I ask is that in many styles of kung Fu to much weight/lifting ( 50 lbs or more) is counter productive. Again this only applies to certain Kung fu styles - and karate. And different teacher's ( like mine ) have different points of view on this subject.

[Chunmonchek]

Regarding Okinawan Goju Ryu, my best guess is that it depended on the lineage and each individual Sensei. I believe that the Jundokan/Miyazato/Higaonna lineage placed more emphasis on Hojo Undo, than Meibukan/Yagi and Shoreikan/Toguchi.

We utilize Hoju Undo as supplementary training. I tend to use Hoju Undo to help correct a specific deficiiency or weakness, rather than as a primary training element. IMHO, too much focus on Hoju Undo is counterproductive to the Goju attributes, techniques, and principles that we are trying to cultivate.

I realize that I may somewhat of an odd-man out amongst my Goju Brethren.

[Kusotare]

We utilize Hoju Undo as supplementary training. I tend to use Hoju Undo to help correct a specific deficiiency or weakness, rather than as a primary training element. IMHO, too much focus on Hoju Undo is counterproductive to the Goju attributes, techniques, and principles that we are trying to cultivate.

I'm not a Goju guy, but this is true in most Dojo imo.

In my Koryu dojo we have Suburi (which is practice cutting (often with tanren-bo)), but it doesn't dominate the class. It's something we cover in class but in the most part it is to teach you how to do it (in your own time) outside the Dojo.

K.

[lowereastside]

Kusotare wrote - " but it doesn't dominate the class. It's something we cover in class but in the most part it is to teach you how to do it (in your own time) outside the Dojo. "

The same in my class - a lot of the developmental stuff - I will teach it in class and hope they will do it at home on their own time. I teach 2 x a week - if I was teaching 5 x a week it would be different.

[andym]

This may have some bearing on this subject, and illustrate that the time spent conditioning was relative to the student and related to the job they did. it's a tale from a friend who visited China in the 1990's to train. He was surprised by how little conditioning training many of the students did - even push up's and sit up's etc. Yet one guy spent vastly more time than anyone else at it, he was a school teacher with fairly good English, as luck would have it. This is what he told my friend about the subject. He , as teacher, had a fairly inactive job, so he needed to work on his conditioning. Many of the others had factory jobs or worked the fields, they'ed already done their conditioning at work ! My friend then found out that the working conditions were similar too what we in the west had in the 1950's or before ! Really hard physical labour. Not some thing any of us had expected when he told us. So, if we look back at the volume of Hojo Undo and Jumbi Undo done in the past, this tale may prove valid, the time may be related to how hard a job the student had ?