Hojo Undo, Iron Fist, and General Strength/conditioning

**Kaze** · Posted On: 1/20/2013 2:31pm

Hey guys, this is my first post so please forgive any n00bish mistakes haha. So onto it.

When I was younger I did shaolin do for a few years and then moved onto Shaolin Kung Fu. I had made it to 1st degree brown belt in Shaolin Kung Fu and only like blue or purple or something in shaolin do, I was very young when I had the SD training. So during this time I ended up breaking my leg, parents did not have the money (due to the bills for the leg) for me to continue my training. Long story short, I fell away from practice and never really got back into it.

It has been a good 6 or 7 years since I have done anything and have packed on a good little bit of weight. I decided that I need to get back into my training and all of that jazz, you know the usual but here is my problem. I live in a relatively rural area and there are no dojo's or schools anywhere near here that are really worth going to. All we have is Shaolin do and a bujinkan school that is 45 miles away from my home. The rest is all UFC and MMA oriented and I am more interested in doing a traditional martial art. (No offense to those who do MMA but I am not really looking for a sport or to be competitive, this is solely about self improvement and discipline.)

So I am trying to come up with some sort of training regimen that I can do from my home coupled with a diet and things and was wondering if anyone here has the same problem and if they had any tips, books and videos or anything that could help me with this.

I am really interested in Hojo Undo and Iron fist. I have been doing Iron fist for about a week and was wondering if anyone had any tips on what days to rest and what days to perform. Can you do iron fist daily or should it be every other day for the rebuilding process?

Also, does anyone know if there is a specific weight you should make a chiishi for hojo undo?

So far my regimen will be this. I have a BMR of 2564 according to some formula I found online so I was thinking about going to a 2000 calorie a day diet so coupled with my exercise I should be burning about 900 or 1000 calories per day (this being based on an article I saw that stated martial arts burn 735 calories per hour) but in all honesty I am not too savy on nutrition and have no idea what I am doing. It's hard to find information that isn't so generalized. Coupled with the diet doing regular stretching and freeweights. Mostly alot of lower weights with multiple reps, and slowly working my way up (trying to keep biceps small dont want to get to slow.) After that doing hojo undo and iron fist. I was thinking about doing this every other day and possibly on my off day's doing a little running.

Is this an ok regimen, will it kill me, or will it not do enough. I need as much feedback as possible because I am clueless when it comes to this stuff, or at least I feel like it.

(Also, I would really like some sources and materials if possible for learning from my home. As stated before we only have shaolin do and a bujinkan, and the bujinkan although I am interested is too far away.. we have just a few little places here and there but most I have been to just seem like money traps and mix chinese with japanese and just don't seem legit to me. I am very interested in Ninjutsu, Wing Chun, Krav Maga, Muay Boran, Krabi Krabong, and others along this style. I am more of a striker and prefer to avoid grappling if possible (not that I do not want to learn it, just that I don't want the art to focus on it.)

So again, sorry if this is one of those repeat posts every n00b here does but.. *tear wells in eye*... I just have no one else.

**CrackFox** · Posted On: 1/20/2013 3:56pm

Why do you think that you will find "self improvement and discipline" in Shaolin-do or ninjitsu, but not in a competition based school?

**Kaze** · Posted On: 1/20/2013 4:09pm

I'm not wanting to learn shaolin-do. I didn't like it, and from what I have read it is complete bull. As far as ninjutsu I am mainly interested in all of the bone and joint techniques, I like the aspects of their conditioning and like most I have always found stealth interesting.

It's not that I think that I won't find Self-Improvement and discipline in MMA, it's more of the fact that we have about 3 or 4 MMA classes here where I live. I have watched a few classes they taught at the gym I used to go to when I was working out and most of the people that were in the class were very young (Im 21 but these kids were like 15 and 16) and most of the people in the class seemed very arrogant and were more focused on beating people up than learning the styles and techniques.

I am not saying this goes on every where by any means, but where I live MMA has taken on a bit of a Fanboy following and it's mostly arrogant people who just want to make a name for themselves and jump on the bandwagon and wear tapout shirts. I'm sure there are a few there that take it seriously but not from the demonstrations I have seen and that's an environment I don't think I could focus appropriately in.

I study alot of languages and cultures as well, so taking a traditional approach and learning one style is more exciting and enveloping to me. It would be easier for me to focus and grasp on to if it wasn't necessarily sport oriented and more on lifestyle and culture.

Trust me, I have no beef with competition based schools, it's the base of followers that they can sometimes generate as well as it's just not really my thing :P. (That and I'm not a huge fan of grappling.)

I have been reading alot about Muay Boran and Wing Chun and these I am very interested in.

**alex** · Posted On: 1/20/2013 7:53pm

Originally Posted by Kaze

Coupled with the diet doing regular stretching and freeweights. Mostly alot of lower weights with multiple reps, and slowly working my way up (trying to keep biceps small dont want to get to slow.)

not really gonna comment on the iron fist training cos i have no idea what that is, but big muscles dont make you slow. have you seen what sprinters look like? this is an opinion only espoused by the uninformed and by those who have no muscle.

Is this an ok regimen, will it kill me, or will it not do enough. I need as much feedback as possible because I am clueless when it comes to this stuff, or at least I feel like it.

well try it and see how you feel. if you are fucked, tone it back. if not, progressively make it harder. you are over thinking.

(Also, I would really like some sources and materials if possible for learning from my home. As stated before we only have shaolin do and a bujinkan, and the bujinkan although I am interested is too far away.. we have just a few little places here and there but most I have been to just seem like money traps and mix chinese with japanese and just don't seem legit to me. I am very interested in Ninjutsu, Wing Chun, Krav Maga, Muay Boran, Krabi Krabong, and others along this style. I am more of a striker and prefer to avoid grappling if possible (not that I do not want to learn it, just that I don't want the art to focus on it.)

So again, sorry if this is one of those repeat posts every n00b here does but.. *tear wells in eye*... I just have no one else.

i would recommend going anywhere except the internet. very hard to learn anything useful by yourself.