The first few steps of this process is to practice sincerely, respectfully, consistently and with diligence, having a good attitude and putting your heart into the training. Some of the basic and foundational techniques are as follows:
Daily Exercises:
- Stretches have to be performed daily. The sets of upto 24 different stretches for upper and lower body.
- Tai Chi and Taekwondo kata and forms have to be practiced daily: the 24 sets of katas, of Tai Chi and Taekwondo, of the three basic forms, and three Poomsae forms, which are adapted into Tai chi and Taekwondo style. Practice them in forward and reverse engineering styles.
- Flexibility exercises daily to improve structure and better kicks, which is involved in stretching.
- Breathing exercises daily: different types of deep breathing exercises and gentle breathing exercises.
- Practicing kicks daily. Different variety of kicks that I am learning in Taekwondo and which are pretty much, universal to all martial arts. The ones that I’m practicing start by practicing one type of kick, daily. The 7-9 types of kicks with variations of between 10-15 exercises each, making it up to just over a hundred kicks a day and correct the, style, technique, and form of the kicks.
- Character development through integrating martial arts and philosophy and the five animal attributes in Shaolin exercises, which are Tiger, Crane, Snake, Leopard, Dragon, The aspect of adapting each of these five styles according to situational opponents.
- Technique improvement and perfection with repetitive, structured guidance from teachers using the different sensei’s of Taekwondo in Islamabad and then from YouTube, looking at Tai Chi and Shaolin exercises that explain and practice the art of the basics life teachers Shifu Yan-Lei and Shi Heng Yi. Exercises that are easy to incorporate, practice, and replicate because they explain it in good, structured, easy to understand and practice the methods. And then any other technique improvement and perfection has to be done daily.
The weekly variations of martial art exercises are as follows:
Sunday:
Stance training. The horse stance, crane stance, cat stance, empty stance, bow stance, and drop stance. Practicing each of these stances for a total cumulative time of between 40 minutes to an hour.
Monday:
Isometric exercises. This includes the low push-up hold, then four core exercises: the low body hold, bear crawl hold, and reverse low plank hold and the wall sit. Followed by upper body weight, seven-kilogram dumbbell strength conditioning of isometric upper body exercises.
Tuesday:
Iron palm and iron body conditioning. As I have already been practicing these for many months, perhaps once a week or three times a week for 10 to 15 minutes is sufficient.
Wednesday:
Squats, frog jumps, and the monkey walk. Body weight conditioning exercises.
Thursday:
External form body weight, strong exercises. This involves a combination of linear and spiral exercises using body weight and dumbbells for upper body conditioning and grounding.
Friday:
A day of relaxing from high-intensity exercises, focusing only on stretching, Tai Chi, Chi Kung, silk reeling, relaxing deep breath meditation, and stillness of body and mind; nothing too intensive.
Saturday:
High-intensity work on shoulders, arms, and core exercises.
All of the above variations of exercises can be moved around different days yet there must be variations throughout each day and this is to be combined with the daily exercises above of at least stretches, tai chi and taekwondo with shaolin stances, postures and forms to be the main area of physical, emotional and spiritual development that has to be practiced until the last breath taken.