I’ve been my own Guinea pig lately with some of the martial arts based classes I’ve been constructing. So far it’s been going well and I have a rough template for each one I want to present to beginner audiences with broad experience with fitness and perhaps limited exposure to martial arts.

The program I tried the other day was for a Kung Fu Boot Camp. The class is designed as a cardio workout that also builds your confidence and spirit. I figured it’d be cool for corporate groups or team building situations where you want a one-off “feel the burn” type of experience. So I definitely had been feeling it during the workout since I’d been mainly doing Ashtanga yoga  lately(also badass and hard, but in a different way). I hadn’t been doing as many explosive jumps, kicks, and strikes — which is a whole nother animal. Woo! So hard. I’ve been feeling it during the last 2 days in my hammies and hips especially.

Anyway, if you’d like to try it out and let me know what you think, that’d be great! Below are the notes for the 60 minute program, but you could easily modify this to 30 minutes and I will also offer some suggestions for a 15 minute program too. Granted the notes below are incomplete in that at the very least, you would want someone to show you the tiger form, but you could always skip that or add your own form to the end. I would also say while I thought this was hard, there are probably some serious athletes who would have no problems with this. And in that case, that’s cool, you’re probably beyond the scope of what I can provide.

Btw, this program below and all my thoughts are just that,guys. You should obviously talk to your doctor and get a good teacher and do all those kinds of things to protect yourself before attempting any of this stuff. You know yourself and your body best.

Put on your favorite high energy music or enjoy the pure sounds of silence/nature/traffic, etc. whatever suits your fancy!

Warm-Up Stretch — hold with micro extensions where possible for 3 breaths each

• Laughing Buddha (cactus arms)

1. back bend
2. Side bends (R & L)
3. Forward bend

• Horse Stance

1. Hands behind head, stretch opposite elbow to outside knee (R & L)

• Bow Stance (warrior)

1. Extend (R & L)

Shake it out

Cardio Warm-up — do this sequence below twice

1. 20 double jump-squats with hands raised above head, then touch down to floor on the bend (as a modification, you could do 20 horse stance flat foot squats)
2. 10 push-ups (modify on knees if needed)
3. 10 alternating bridge kicks

• Lay on back with knees bent and push up hips into bridge while kicking leg out and away, then lower down. Alternate kicking legs.

4. 10 bridge throws

• Push up into bridge position and stretch arm and hand across to opposite shoulder to touch floor as if throwing someone off you. Alternate arm touches.

5. 10 sit-ups with cross punches

• Keep non-punching arm in guard by head for punches. Extend punching arm across outside of  the opposite knee. Alternate to other side.

Second Stretch and Loosening  — hold for 3 breaths on each posture with micro extensions where possible

1. Center splits

• Stretch forward
• Right
• Left

2. Butterfly

Stand for joint mobilizations — 3 full rotations one way and then the opposite direction

1. Hip circles
2. Lift leg rotate hip/leg in circle L
3. Knee circles L
4. Ankle circles L
5. Toe grasp L (like you’re trying to pick up something on the ground with your toes) x 3
6. Repeat 2-5 on the R
7. Shoulder circles L
8. Elbow circles L
9. Wrist circles L
10. Finger grasp L (like squeezing dough) x 3
11. Repeat 7-10 on the R
12. Neck circles
13. Neck No (look R then L like shaking head No)
14. Neck Yes (look up then down, like shaking head Yes)
15. Neck ear to shoulder (bend neck to bring ear to shoulder, alternate)
16. Face

• Roll eyes, look RL/up-down/diagonally up/diagonally down
• Scrunch face , open wide

Shake it out

Striking Practice 

Take a fighting/sparring stance with feet a little more than shoulder width apart front and back, side to side. Knees gently bend. I start with left leg forward. Hands are in guard.

• Jab L x 10
• Cross R x 10
• Jab-Cross X 10
• Hook L x 10
• Uppercut x 10
• Hook-uppercut x 10
• Repeat on opposite side with right leg forward
• Switch back to left leg forward
• Elbow L x 10
• Backfist L x 10
• Elbow-backlist x 10
• Repeat on opposite side

Kicking Practice

• Knees R x 10
• Knees L x 10
• Front Snap on RL, start slow breaking movement into knee and extension x 10, then fast coordinated movements x 10
• Side Thrust x 10 R then L
• Round House x 10 RL, make sure to take a step out at an angle with standing legend throw arm back on same side as kicking leg
• Combo:
• Knee-front kick, knee-side thrust, knee-step-roundhouse x 10
• Repeat on opposite side

Combo Practice

• Jab L, Cross R, crouch/duck, step L, Roundhouse R. Do this slow x 5 and fast x5.
• Switch sides
• 1 minute each side

Intermediate Technique Practice

• Double front snap kick x 10 RL
• To modify without a jump, front snap kick R followed by front snap kick left x 10.
• Change sides.

Break – 1 minute

Form Practice – Tiger

• Start slow move by move
• Modify jumps to kicks if needed
• Repeat and practice broken down combos-sequences
• Put it all together and practice gradually gaining speed

Last cardio blast

• 10 burpees
• Front Snap Kicks x 10
• Alternating Tiger Palm Thrusts in Horse Stance x 50

Cool-Down

• 1 minute deep breathing/visualization

This whole thing should take 60 minutes depending on how long you repeat the tiger form. I would recommend at least 3 times, slow, medium with combos broken down, and then fast. Notes on the form are available in this book, though if you haven’t seen it in person, it’s not going to do much for you. I suppose the same could be said of the striking and kicking. You really do need a good teacher so that you don’t hurt yourself.

If I wasn’t teaching this to total beginners and was doing this for myself, I personally would supplement this with two tiger xingyi fists presented here after finishing this whole program. Not that it matters when you practice internal, but if you were in the mood you could add a 10 minute internal practice that’s sorta tiger related, listed below. I would just keep in mind that while it may look simple it’s actually really advanced and you won’t get internal results if you approach the internal practice below with the same mindset or training goals as the boot camp above. Totally different things. But here’s an idea of something using drills from my teacher’s books.

Some “Tiger-y” Internal Ideas

1. Quiet standing – 1 min
2. Santi inner activation (See Aiki Singularity or Tanden Revolution) R and L – 1 min each side
3. Tiger 1 xingyi (see video linked above) – maybe 4 or 5 steps turn around and do the same thing x 4
4. Tiger 2 yi quan (see this video) – 1 min each side
5. Xingyi tiger’s mouth quiet standing – 1 min
6. Quiet standing with straight wrists – 1 min

This would take about 10 minutes and help you to feel and cultivate internal energy (if you do it the way my teacher lays it out). I really agree with him that you really need to separate in your mind how you approach these two very different practices. Each can teach you something useful, but it’s super different. In fact maybe you don’t want to practice internal forms after doing something so physically inclined like the beginner tiger form referenced above.

But I will say that SOMETIMES, for me personally, because you are so physically tired after doing an intense physical workout when you can fully switch over to “internal mode”, so not using a  lot of physical force or tension and relaxing fully and consciously, I sometimes get a more pronounced internal experience. I’m not sure if this would work for everyone, but a couple students at the old kung fu school did get results that way too. More on that in a future post perhaps. I’d better stop now before I accidentally mislead people!

Anyway, for now, just enjoy the workout program. Probably past students will be able to get the most use out of it. Let me know what you think if you try it and if it is too hard, let me know so I can make modifications.