Shaolin Cat Boxing is a training method which mixes self-defense techniques, body conditioning exercises, parkour, recovery movements & meditation. Inspired by Cats & Crows!
Dragons are no longer among us, and sadly tigers may leave us too... And that's because of us, by the way. Ancient people found their inspiration in observing these mysterious animals, I found mine in observing cats. A cat may not be as strong as a tiger due to its reduced size, but everything else besides size that makes a tiger to be a tiger is there in a cat as well. A tiger is just a bigger cat!
Cats can be loving, nurturing, peaceful, inspiring and they can be aggressive, decisive, fearless, brave, almost sadistic some would say. Although, I don't share this point of view. I see no cruelty in a cat traumatizing a mouse - that's her job! On the other hand - our job is not to traumatize tigers or other animals... We are in an even more decadent situation - we, as a species, don't even know our job! We always seek for it, for a purpose, for truth, for peace, for wealth, for health, for something - cats seem to be beyond all this, they just go along with whatever happens to them and never hurry anywhere. They very rarely complain about anything... And to get back to the cat and mouse story - there are cats and dogs stories too, cats and bears stories, cats and alligator stories. They don't always pick up the weak to bully... Not to mention that the mouse has his own training too. He's not necessarily weaker than the cat.
Now, I don't want to scare everybody and make you think that I regard them as Gods or something, but they are, without doubt, teachers, masters, friends!
They know how to run and climb, they know how to fight, they know how to recover from injuries and sicknesses on their own, they know how to love, they know how to enjoy life! This is what inspired me to combine the training this way!
SHAOLIN KUNG FU remains the basis of this training since this is the martial art I have practiced the most and it is the one that I have found to be the most useful for me. Shaolin Kung Fu itself was developed this way - by absorbing and combining whatever was found to be useful in other martial arts, at other people, at other beings. The basics of this martial art can create a strong physical foundation that can allow us to experience further. Unlike cats, we didn't play all day long ever since we were small kids, running and fighting. We had to go to school, we had to do other things - mainly, things that others wanted us to do.
So we first have to regain our bodies, and for this we have to regain our minds. Shaolin Kung Fu and SHAOLIN QIGONG can help with this. If we go straight to Calisthenics we will jump a few steps... Although Calisthenics are as old as the human body, we no longer know a "correct" way to train - anatomically speaking. Shaolin has been successfully tested for more than 1500 years so we can trust it for the beginning. Later on we may develop our own martial arts, but the traditional martial arts have to be respected too! Shaolin can help us to correct our posture and the alignment of our joints, while slowly building up internal health. So we soon can learn just how much to push ourselves so we can go the distance. We don't just want to train to look good this summer...
TAIJI is another important component that can be used both for recovery purposes - physical or psychological, internal or external, and also for self-defense. I haven't studied it as intensively as I have studied Shaolin, but I had the occasion to learn some traditional Yang and Chen Taiji forms and they proved to be of great physioterapeutic help at that time and so I got motivated to keep practicing it and study it further.
BOXING is very simple and easy to learn. Being so simple it is very practical and as far as the self-defense techniques go, it shares a lot of principles with Taiji and Shaolin. It also enables us to decipher the hidden applications embedded in the traditional forms, since we make better connection between regular, "modern, fighting stances and traditional stances, between our way to throw a punch and the ancient way to throw a punch. We all know we are not going to fight using low stances, super flying kicks and fancy techniques. Simple is best!
And most of the time, if we are to talk about self defense, we are not ready. That is actually the problem! We are taken by surprise, we are outnumbered, overwhelmed, and physically we are not even warmed up. Adrenaline kicks in and helps with that a bit, but the blood still didn't have time to travel through all the joints properly. Yes, it does that all the time - traveling through our bodies - but not intensively enough as to prepare us for a fight because that's not why our blood flows in the first place. So, how are we going to do crazy twists and throw high kicks in a street fight without messing up our tendons? Unlike our hips, our arms are warmed up most of the time and are more flexible since we use them more often in our modern life style. As a self-defense tool boxing proves to be highly efficient. Many people think of boxing only in terms of boxing in the ring, but boxing means more than that. It can involve elbow techniques too - like the 52 Blocks Fighting System; and if we are to think about KickBoxing, Thai Boxing or Muay Thai then it involves pretty much all our body.
Also, if we are to refer to the more simple and classical Western Boxing, then sparring that way is really fun! Boxing is very logical, it is not about who is stronger but about who is smarter. Each movement asks for another movement and every time you do a mistake you get hit. It's that simple! If you want to solve a math problem, you may spend hours until you find out you were wrong. In Boxing, you find this out almost instantly! Some of the best things to learn is that you better get out of the way of the circular hits instead of trying to block them since they have more power and you better put yourself in a position from where you can throw hits but you can't get hit. Slipping a punch requires more focus than blocking it. You only block it when you have no other option left. This also gives you the opportunity to counter punch faster or even simultaneously.
PARKOUR is there to teach us how to move, how to make intelligent use of the environment so we can reach a certain destination fast and easy. It is a very beautiful and enjoyable way to train and it trains all your body. And from a self-defense perspective, it is a must know when it comes to street fights. Because most of the time you are either attacked by a bigger guy, or by more guys at once. There are no weight categories on the street, no rules, no referees, no rings, no protection gears. That's why it is best to avoid a direct confrontation on the street - so if you are to run then at least do it nicely and be confident about it! This way you can even trap the ones who chase you or beat them one by one, or you can simply go home and relax.
For body conditioning I have chosen to train without weights, so I do CALISTHENICS or STREET WORKOUT. I consider that my own body mass is a heavy enough weight so I don't need to attach anything else on top of it. Sometimes I use small weights around my ankles and wrists so I can punch and kick faster, but bigger weights would develop a bigger muscle mass and that may just not be necessary. There are tones of different kinds of push ups, squats, chin ups, pull ups, there is running, there is swimming, there is biking, there is carry water and chop wood. There are so many beautiful activities that we can enjoy and that can help us get stronger that lifting weights seems way too boring. I don't want to offend those who do lift weights, it's their choice and if they enjoy it then it's all great, but it depends on what you want to get from your training. Do you want fast, flexible, strong and resistant muscles or do you want muscle mass? Because for a muscle to be fast, flexible, strong and resistant it doesn't necessarily have to be big.
Another very important aspect of Shaolin Cat Boxing is TRAINING OUTDOORS! I can even go that far as to propose a research and test a group of people who do the same training in a gym and another group of people who do the same training in a park or in a forest. I bet that there will be better results for the group training under some trees! We need oxygen first of all! I believe that training outdoors also has a very positive effect on our immune system and on our resistance to cardio workout but that could only be shown in a research like the one I suggest.
Of course, in the meantime we invented air conditioning and gyms too have oxygen, but why not train next to the source if you can? Gyms are great for when there is a blizzard outside, when it rains for weeks in a row, when it snows for weeks in a row, when it's really cold and windy. But that happens only 20-30 % of the time, the rest of the time we should be outside.
This way we become a bit more aware of the fact that we are scared of our own environment, we have destroyed our own environment and we no longer feel comfortable in it. This is a mystery if we are to think of us as a species in comparison to other species on this planet... we alienated ourselves.
To help with all this training, a VEGAN DIET should also be adopted. Quitting animal products and processed foods, as well as alcohol and cigarettes, will have a tremendous impact on boosting your health! You can do this research on your own, I am not going to tell you what to eat and what not to eat and we can train together even if you eat meat and I eat beans, but I ate both of them and I can personally say that I have more energy ever since I eat vegan food. All the nutrients you get from meat, you can get them from fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and cereals! Without the fat, without the growth hormones and antibiotics, and without cholesterol! At the same time, you also stop participating in the top pollutant factor that destroys echo-systems, extincts wild life species, poisons water and air and enslaves and tortures thousands and thousands of farm animals every single second world wide. It is not necessary and it is obviously not nice to treat animals the way we do now!
MEDITATION is to be practiced individually. I don't do group meditations because I am not a meditation master but I have tasted some benefits of it and I do recommend it with all my heart to anybody willing to try it! It is a great medical tool that can help improve your recovery rate, calm down your inner agitation and it offers you a wonderful way to discover more about yourself. It is not a religious ritual, so you can practice it regardless of your own religious beliefs.
This is, briefly, what I mean by SHAOLIN CAT BOXING. It is not a new martial art, it is no discovery, it is just another combination of different types of training, an ever changing combination that served me very well so far and which I really hope to prove to be able to serve as many other people as possible!
Here is a 20 min. long video showing the steps through which I go at one of my most common type of training:
-meditation
-warming up
-running
-shadowboxing
-some basic forms
-stretching
-the 5 basic kicks, 5 basic stances and some calisthenics
-qigong
-forms
-mabu stance
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