The following was initially published by Health Promotion England in their “The Health Guide”: Learn to recognise when your muscles are tensed – this is a sign of stress. This simple breathing exercise may help you to combat stressful moments in your life: Calm, controlled breathing helps to release muscular tension and relieve stress. Adopt…
Before training or exercising, it’s important to warm up the body. Specifically, warming up entails exercising the large muscle groups. Doing this will increase the body’s temperature and heart rate. The warm-up should be intensive enough to perhaps cause perspiration but not to cause fatigue. Warming up will increase the blood flow to the working…
By stretching gently our body become’s more pliable and less prone to injury. Stretching develops flexibility but it also helps to reduce muscle tension, making the body feel more relaxed, it increases the range of motion of a joint, promotes circulation, reduces muscle soreness, prepares the body for strenuous exercise and prevents muscle strains. A…
Muscle types There are three general categories of muscle within the body: Cardiac – (involuntary) forms the walls of the heart and pumps blood around the circulatory system Smooth (involuntary) – found in the walls of hollow structures e.g. blood vessels Skeletal (voluntary) – attached to bone This article is concerned with muscle that we…
In July 1999 Master Ip Chun visited the UK to give a series of seminars for his most senior Western student Sifu Shaun Rawcliffe. As part of the Midlands Wing Chun Kuen the Cheltenham branch was once again privileged to be able to host one of these seminars. In actual fact, this was the 5th…
Mai Jiang is best explained by using the first section of Siu Nim Tao (little idea form). The first section of Wing Chun’s form, Siu Nim Tao, contains movements that essentially require the pressing forward of Fuk Sao (controlling/ bridging hand). These three movements as a whole are termed Saam Pai Fut (three/bow/Buddha), meaning “praying…
With Chinese New Year approaching on the 19th February 2015, you may see small red packets being passed from one person to another, or see them hanging over shop doors in Chinese quarters of major cities, and wonder what they are. The red packets are called Lai See and are traditionally passed from elder to junior and contain a…
Most people are familiar with the 5 senses: Hearing, Sight, Smell, Taste and Touch and their importance to us daily. It is possible to live without one or two of these but it does make life a little more difficult. During the middle of the last Century Neurophysiologists added a ‘Sixth Sense’ to the list…
