Pivoting on the Heel

Since my previous post, I went of vacation for 2 weeks during which time I took a break from training. This was a conscious decision on my part - partly to give my body some time off and partly to give my mind the chance to mull things over in my unconscious for a while. Seems to have worked because, once I returned, it felt like there was a spotlight on a number of sticking points in my practice.

One sticking point was the issue I discussed in my previous post, where I described how to do a weighted pivot (on the left foot) by closing the (left) hip - this allows you to pivot without having to shift your weight back first.

While practicing this movement, I noticed I was still shifting my weight back slightly, although much less than previously and that my balance still felt a bit off. I finally realized that I've been pivoting on the extreme back edge of my heel. Based on my experiences with push-hands/spinning-hands, once your weight is in the back of the heel, you can be pushed right over - if you're weight does move to your heel, it can't move past the center of the heel and I realized this applied to the pivot as well.

I've adjusted my pivots now by moving the pivot point to the center of the heel and it has made things a lot easier. As a bonus, I find that I am also able to move my foot further along the arc of the pivot before torquing my knee, which gives me better mobility.

The Weighted Pivot

In my practice recently, I have been focusing on distributing my weight across my entire foot - while still simultaneously keeping the weight centered in the middle of the foot - which allows me to be more stable. Applying this to the form has meant that I have had to become more aware of the weight transfer as I transition from one posture to the next and allowing that weight to settle into the entire foot.

Where I have found this to be particularly challenging is with weighted pivots. For example, in the first part of the form, when transitioning from 'brush left thigh and press forth right palm' to 'brush right thigh and press forth left palm', you start by pivoting on the left (front) foot.

To do this as a weighted pivot, you first shift the weight in your left foot back to the heel and then twist to the left, pivoting the left foot on the heel and keeping energy in the right foot so that you remain balanced. The net result is that the pivot opens up both hips.

My problem is that, with my weight initially spread across the entire left foot, in order to shift my weight to the heel, I have had to shift my entire body weight back - essentially doing an unweighted pivot. After talking it over with Mike, it turns out that you actually can do this without shifting your weight back - how you do it is during the initial twist to the left, you let your left hip close, which allow you to shift the weight in your left foot to your heel without shifting the rest of your body.

This is an important point because its a manifestation of what we are training in both the form and push-hands - explicitly how the joints work together so that you can redirect your energy/weight where you want it.

Applied Taiji: Hiking in Moab

I recently spent 4 days in Moab, Utah at an offsite for work. It was pretty fantastic - 13 of us went and we went on 3 hikes, each getting longer and harder. Only four of us finished the final hike. it went from 8am to 6pm over 15 miles of up/down in 100+ degree weather - I drank 5.5 liters of water that day and was happy and exhausted at the end of it. Afterwards, a friend of mine asked if I thought that my Taiji training helped with hiking and, after some thought, I realized it had helped in a variety of ways:

• The obvious direct benefit of Taiji is that doing the form every day has improved my muscle strength and endurance - spending 30+ minutes every day in a crouched position has that effect (not to mention the training effect from going to class).
• A less obvious benefit is that, while training the form, I work on relaxing muscles that aren't being used (and only using as much strength as necessary from the ones that are) - we refer to this as 'loosening'. For long hikes where you have to carry a lot in your pack (e.g. 6 liters of water weighs about 14lbs on its own) its easy to burn energy unnecessarily and being mindful of this makes a big difference as the hike wears on.
• Related to the previous point, as I train the form, I practice keeping my center of balance as I transition from one posture to the next. This is an important this skill in hiking particularly as you traverse uphill/downhill terrain - being aware of your balance and knowing how to shift your weight efficiently makes the hiking easier and that pays off as time goes on.
• Finally, towards the end of the 3rd hike, about three miles out, I hit the wall - my legs felt like lead and climbing was a challenge. It's easy to get panicked in such a situation but one of the things we learn in two person training is how to relax, particularly when things are getting bad. In this situation, I focused on the basic principles to relax more and expend the least amount of energy necessary to get the job done. And that did the trick, I managed to finish those final three miles without incident.

And, for those of you that are interested, here are some links to pictures from the hikes:

• Delicate Arch
• Devils Garden
• Canyonlands

The Spring ILC Workshop

Last weekend, I went to an ILC workshop given by Sam Chin at Stillness in Motion in Oakland. Sifu Chin visits every six months to give a workshop and this is the third one I've been to - though the first one I've been to since I started practicing ILC seriously.

The workshop started on Friday (5/18) with a short evening session (6-9) for ILC members. At the beginning of every session, Sifu gives a lecture that addresses the concepts that we're going to be working on. In previous workshops, I found it difficult to make sense of the lectures much less make the connections with the subsequent exercises but, this time, I got a more out of the lectures - as part of my training, I've been studying the ILC principles and doing so added the context I had been missing. Friday evening's exercises really focused on the basic strategies - from the inside, open out and from the outside, close in.  The main takeaway I had from that session was how to move your arm in the frontal plane to neutralize a force coming in on the perpendicular - if you are neutral to begin with, instead of fighting that force, you can neutralize it either by closing (i.e. in and down) or opening (i.e. out and up) in the two dimensions of movement in the frontal plane.

On Saturday the workshop started at 10:30 and was scheduled to end at 6:00 but ended up going on until 9:30.  The main focus of this session was how to use the 3 planes of movement - horizontal, frontal, and sagittal - in order to neutralize external forces. It was an extension of the concepts we had gone over on Friday but with more depth. The particular exercise that I recall was using the horizontal circles to neutralize a force coming from the south - you really have to get all of the body mechanics correct for it to be effective but it gives you a clear idea of the way the horizontal circles work.

Finally, Sunday also started at 10:30 and was scheduled to end at 6:00 but I didn't leave until 7:30 and other folks were still going on with spinning hands practice. On that day, we practiced qin na - joint locking.  We spent a lot of the time going over the 8 different grabs that lead into the actual joint locks.  These grabs follow the basic circle and occur at the primary points (north/south/east/west) - you can grab such that you absorb with the yin muscles (yin grab) or such that you project with the yang muscles (yang grab). Qin na is a more advanced topic and I didn't get as much out of it as I did the first two days but the advanced students seemed to get a lot out of it.

It was a long weekend and I was pretty exhausted afterwards but it was worthwhile.  Just seeing someone of Sifu Chin's skill is inspiring - the first workshop I went to, he spun hands with me for a short time and I felt like I was in an earthquake. My skills have improved since then but, when I touched hands with him again on Saturday, it was still like being in an earthquake - though I am now more aware of where the forces are coming from (even if I can't do anything about them).

The Art of Standing on One Leg

In recent weeks in my Taiji class, we've been going through the second section of the Slow Form, progressing from 'High Pat on Horse' through to 'Twin Mountain Peaks Smash Ears'. I hadn't really noticed before but this section contains a lot of sub-postures that involve standing on one leg - e.g. 'high pat on horse', 'separate foot' and a variety kicks.

As we went through 'high pat on horse', I found that I was still popping-up as I made the transition into the posture. The transition for this particular posture starts from 'single whip' (with your torso facing the south-west corner) and continues by shifting your weight onto the right leg as you twist to the left so that you square off (with your torso facing west). At that point, your left-leg is unweighted and resting lightly on the floor (or just above it) such that you're able to move it easily. As I was twisting left, I was bending at the waist to the right, essentially using my upper body as a counter-balance to force my left foot to come off the ground - this resulted in my left hip being higher than my right and my balance being off - i.e. 'popping-up'.

To do the transition without popping-up, what you need to do is, as you twist left, not to think about lifting the foot off the ground but rather focus on raising the left thigh as you sinking on top of the right leg. This change in focus helps keep the hips even - as you lift the left thigh, your lower back tucks under and the left foot slowly peels off of the ground from the heel to the toes - and, in the end, you are balanced because you're solidly centered over the right foot.

As we continued on in the sequence of postures, I noticed that this general principle applies to all of the kicks in the sequence. In particular, when you kick, you don't think about picking up the foot but rather letting the lower back tuck-under to raise the thigh, with the effect of the foot slowly coming off the ground from heel to toe.

I have subsequently realized that this same principle not only applies to kicking but also any time you have to pick up one leg in order to move it - e.g. ward left, ward right, brush thigh, circle foot to carry the hammer forward, single whip, and almost everything else. I am now working on recalibrating my balance to incorporate this refinement, which means I'm losing my balance all over the place in the form. Again.

Internal Arts Training

I've been visiting New York City for the week and took the opportunity to drop in at Internal Arts Training (IAT), an ILC school in Union Square run by Joshua Craig. I visited them once before when I was in NYC last fall and got a lot out of it, so I thought it would be worthwhile to stop by again.

It's always feels a bit awkward to me dropping in on a school where you really don't know the folks all that well but Joshua and the students were great to work with. I had intended to go for the first hour and maybe stay for part of the second but ended up staying all three hours. If you're ever in the New York metro area, I recommend attending a session at IAT - it will be well worth your time.

The evening I went, one of Sam Chin's advanced students - Jeff - was visiting class and he led us through the 15 basic exercises. He and Joshua worked with me during this time to help refine my form, focusing primarily on:

• Horizontal Plane - My horizontal circles don't stay horizontal - it's a problem Mike has pointed out to me previously and I've worked to improve them but they still aren't right. Joshua suggested placing my arms lightly on a flat surface (e.g. a table or counter top) and to get a feel for doing the circles. Once the circle starts feeling more natural, I can then practice with my arms about 1/2 an inch above that flat surface, which should allow me to develop a feel for the cycle such that I can transition to the basic exercises.
  
  
• The Loop - The transition from concave to convex has always been a bit of a mystery to me. After teaching the 15 basic exercises, Jeff worked with me to demonstrate how this transition works in the sagittal plane.  He explained it by starting with the arm above and the hand in a convex position.  As the arm pivots down, the hand moves into the neutral position at the point that the arm is parallel to the floor - this is where the problem arises - you need to transition from the neutral position to the arm moving down with the hand in a concave position but if you simply try pushing down, it doesn't work. What you need to do is press down while simultaneously pivoting around the point of contact and getting the hand into the convex position - this movement forms a loop. I still don't fully understand the technique but I did get a feel for it while working with Jeff and want to work with Mike and Keith to get a better understanding of it.

After the basic exercises, I did some spinning hands with Rich, one of the other students. We focused primarily on the first circle and particularly on the transitions from south to east (and south to west). Joshua came by frequently, initially explaining the move and subsequently refining it with us. While doing this exercise, I was struck by a number of things:

• Initial Engagement - At IAT they stress engaging your opponent from the initial moment of contact. I have a tendency to let my guard down at this initial point and my fellow students at TToPA are nice enough to me that I get away with it but it's a bad habit that I need to break.
  
  
• Long Stance - At IAT, they take a much wider stance then I typically practice in and the students stand much further apart from each other. This felt awkward at first but I got more used to it over time. The longer stance has the advantage of being more stable but it is harder to hold for long periods of time. Since the students stand further apart, I found myself leaning forward to engage them so I had to adjust my stance and alignment to stop.
  
  
• South-to-East/West - In the transition from South-to-East/West, you need to keep the energy focused on your opponent throughout the movement. Joshua described the transition in the following steps:
  
  
• equalize the point of contact - in the south position, this is on the yin side of your lower arm. He broke the contact point into four quadrants and said to make sure the energy was equal in all for.
• for the actual transition - when first learning - you can think of the inner two quadrants as a hinge the you're pivoting around, rather then spinning your arm around the contact point, you are closing the hinge.
• closing the hinge is a lot like using a screwdriver to tighten a screw - you can't just use rotational force you must also use some forward force otherwise the screwdriver slips out of the slot.

over time, this transition became smoother and it feels more effective then what I've been doing.

Finally, I worked with a different student - Jeffrey - and we continued to practice the first circle but spun a little more freely. Jeffrey was working with me on balancing the energy at both points of contact - basically training my listening skills. He was able to show me at the four basic points how to recognize where I had gaps and how to go about adjusting to re-balance the energy - we worked to together on this for about an hour and, again, it became smoother over the time we worked together and felt noticeably.
 

Refining the Wrecking Ball

Previously, I discussed the pendulum effect that comes about when turning the torso by opening and closing the hips. Since becoming aware of this effect, I've continued to recognize it in more places - most notably in circle palms, single whip, brush knee, and divert & draw - and I've been working to refine my use of it.

First, I'd like to clarify that I called this the 'wrecking ball' not because it's so devastating but rather because I had to completely relax my ab muscles in order to relax my hips enough so that they would open/close easily, without torquing my knees. And with my abs completely relaxed, my belly looks more like a wrecking ball then a pendulum.

Second, in subsequent discussions with Mike and Keith, both note that as the pendulum swings towards an extreme - i.e. a leg - you need to sink that leg down towards the center to absorb the energy/weight shift. If you don't, your weight floats upward and you are easily uprooted. Metaphorically speaking, while it's good fun, it's not really a good idea to go swinging from vine to vine ala Tarzan.

Thinking on this issue has led me to refine this move such that, as I turn from one leg towards the other, the leg I'm turning towards relaxes the hamstring muscle and sinks down into the center of my foot while the leg I'm turning away from lengthens to keep the center that foot connected to the ground. In both cases, of course, I have to focus on keeping the knees properly aligned and on keeping my hips at a level height. Even though I try to keep the leg movements subtle, it does involve more muscle movement - i.e. shortening/lengthening the hamstrings/quads - which makes the overall form more challenging and my legs are pretty sore these days.

On a final note - sometimes, when I'm working on this refinement, I find myself falling back to my original approach of trying to force the torso around with my legs and I get myself confused. When this happens, I find it best to start back with relaxing everything and just opening/closing the hip and then slowly adding on the sinking/extending (absorb/project).