This is a really good article on the importance and technique of standing post, goes into a quite detailed but easy to understand explanation using western terminology.
http://www.yiquan.org.uk/art-pom1.html
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Tuesday, February 3
Friday, January 30
Taking the centre
by
Adam
on Fri 30 Jan 2009 03:27 PM GMT
One of the 'party tricks' of Tai-Chi is a seemingly impossibly powerful push that sends someone flying with seemingly minimal effort. When you first see it it can appear almost magical, but when you break it down it's just the application of certain principles done in a subtle and clever way. Looking at examples of this on youtube it's possible to break down some of the ways this power is generated and used.
If we first look at a clip of Chen-Man Ching used on an old UK TV programme on martial arts. The man being interviewed in the clip is Robert Smith, now in case you're thinking 'he's let himself go a bit' this Robert Smith is not the lead singer of popular 80's miserablists The Cure, rather he's an old school Martial Artist well known for popularizing Chinese martial arts in general and Cheng Man Ching in particular in the west. The bit of the video we're interested in for this article is at about 1.07. You see Cheng Man Ching doing some push hands patterens with a student who he then suddenly sends flying. If you watch the slow motion replay carefully you'll see a couple of important points. Firstly the timing, just before he pushes he steps in between the guys legs, so that as the guy pushes he's 'stolen his root' or dropped his centre of gravity slightly lower than the students so that he has control of it. Secondly he uses his right arm in the classic 'ward off' position firstly as a way of hiding his movement (with his arm relaxed the student can't feel him close the gap slightly with a step) and secondly it gives him the space he needs to fold inwards with the push allowing the kinetic to compress his muscles and then release with an explosive force (the arm has to be relaxed, tension would give away any movement and give a lever to the rest of the body). In essence he is storing the energy of the attack in his body and then releasing it back as a push. Another clip here is of some Spanish Tai-Chi players running through some similar exercises, note again on most occasions before the other guy is sent flying the teacher will slightly move in to take the students centre. Another thing to note is that he will first move in one direction to load the movement before releasing in the other (so he'll move down before he goes up or back before he goes forward, sometimes only very slightly). Finally to see some of these principles in a more un -cooprative environment this is footage of a push hands competition in Tiawan. Notice how the guys in the white t-shirts (who are quite frankly kicking everyone elses arse) position their feet and use similar techniques to the other clips to take their oppoents centre of gravity before throwing them. As a PS none of the above should be mistaken for the clip below which is just the product of suggestable students and a deluded or manipulative teacher. Monday, December 15
The Hips
by
Adam
on Mon 15 Dec 2008 10:58 AM GMT
If you come to any of my classes, I will at some point start banging my drum about the hips and how to use them. They are for me one of the most important parts of the body when it comes to Tai-Chi, mostly because they are effectively the bridge between the upper and lower body and any tensions or imbalances there will radiate out into the whole of our posture. If we want to begin to develop the whole body useage that is the cornerstone of Tai-Chi practice then we really need to develop an experiential understanding of this area.
The article linked to below is by Tai-Chi teacher Sam Masich, it's a really concise and well written article which describes in layman's terms how the hip works and why it's important to not just Tai-Chi but correct body use in general. http://www.sammasich.com/index.php?content_id=1128&main_menu_id=2 The bits that stand out for me are: The hips should always move as a natural consequence of actions initiated in the legs. Since they have no mechanism by which to move in and of themselves, it is an error to think that we move from our hips. Like a tree being swayed by the wind, the hips are caused to move and Movement through the hip-track will carry the waist and the upper body passively leaving them free to undertake other actions with the security of a solid base. The range of movement is quite conservative and is accurate only when the joints are possessed of real relaxation. (emphasis mine) Friday, December 12
Standing Post
by
Adam
on Fri 12 Dec 2008 11:45 AM GMT
If you come to one of my classes one of the first things we'll do after some gentle warm up is stand still in postures know as Zhan Zhuang or Standing Post. For a culture that equates exercise to sweating a lot standing still with our knees bent and our arms in the air may seem a tad strange, however most traditional martial arts have some kind of stance based training within there basic repertoire.
Standing post works on many levels. Firstly there is the physical, by removing all other distractions and movement and by giving clear rules for posture the exercise allows the student to begin to form an understanding of what a balanced posture feels like and how to achieve it. Simultaneously by holding the arms in certain raised positions and breathing using the whole of the rib cage (in breath begins with the expansion of the belly and ends at the collar bones then reverses on the out breath) we are working the core postural muscles through dynamic tension. Finally in the physical sense we are strengthening the legs and developing a whole body sense of 'root', a core Tai-Chi principle where we can use our body alignment to absorb force into, or express force out of the ground. Secondly there is the mental side, standing post is boring and if you hold it for long periods of time it hurts! These two things tend to make us do one of two things, we either grit our teeth and bear it (tensing the body and fighting the discomfort in an attempt to muscle it out) or we run from it (mentally not physically, in the sense we start thinking this will be over soon, daydreaming we are somewhere else or imagining nasty things happening to the teacher for making you do this stupid exercise!). Neither of these two options are useful as they are both examples of what the martial artist Tim Cartmell calls 'conscious conflict', where the mind is divided against itself, fighting or running from the current situation as opposed to embracing and accepting it. Instead what we are doing with the Standing Post is trying to cultivate an open and accepting awareness of sensation, we are learning to live with pain and discomfort in a controlled setting (because ultimately it up to the individual when we choose to stop) and becoming comfortable with it's presence, learning from it instead of running from it. Finally here are two clips giving examples of some of the things I've mentioned above. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH8zd28lM5E (can't embed this one). Thursday, December 11
Mike Martello
by
Adam
on Thu 11 Dec 2008 06:13 PM GMT
I like this guys stuff on Youtube, the application is a little contrivied but you can see in this and his other videos that he has amazing body mechanics, plus when you compare his size to that ot the students he's practising with it's pretty impressive.
Though it may be hard to understand how he can get the guy to fly through the air with seemingly little effort he's not using any mystical energy, Tai-Chi practice builds plyometric strength that gives: "The
ability to convert
strength to speed in
a very short time allows for athletic movements
beyond what
raw strength will allow"
Wednesday, December 10
Finding the Edge
by
Adam
on Wed 10 Dec 2008 01:12 PM GMT
One of the Yoga teachers I've trained with over the years, Peter Blackaby, uses the term 'finding the edge' when talking about postures. This is a important concept to grasp when talking about the learning of any skill, but is especially important when we talk about a physical one.
The edge in question is that thin grey area in practice where we are just pushing the limit of our comfort zone but we haven't gone so far as to lose the integrity of what we are practicing, so we are learning our limit and pushing it but we are not overextending our capabilities and damaging ourselves physically. However the problem most of us have is that firstly we don't know where the edge is and secondly we wouldn't notice it if it came and bit us on the backside. Even if we think Cartesian Dualism is an Eastern European heavy metal band we have grown up in a culture saturated in its concepts. Here the mind is king and the communication between it and the body is one way, we are so used to telling the body what to do that it will go out of it's way to accommodate our commands without regard for its own safety. So the first task is to start listening, listening to the messages that your muscles are sending, often noticing their stiffness and unresponsive nature for the first time, and gradually forming a mental picture through the feedback of the movement as to which parts of the body are helping, which are hindering and which are just plain not there. This is why Tai-Chi and Yoga can seem very slow at the start, we take everything down to very small integrated movements and we gradually build from the bottom up, making sure our movements are built on foundations of stone and not sand. Gradually increasing speed, adding complexity and upping intensity until we can still feel the same bodily unity while moving quickly that we can when performing the most basic exercise. This is why in my classes I try to emphasize the underlying principles and not just learning the rote moves of the form, pretty hand waving is nothing but pretty hand waving if you don't gradually build an understanding with firm foundations. Our practice is the gradual process of finding the edge of the each movement and incrementally pushing it back. |
Welcome to the blog of Adam Lammiman. I teach Tai-Chi in the Minehead area of West Somerset, I'm also a yoga teacher with the British Wheel of yoga, practicing in a style heavily influenced by the teaching of Vanda Scaravelli and finally I'm qualified in Hollistic Massage with the Bristol School of Massage and Bodywork a member of the MTI. The aim of this blog is share my passion for Tai-Chi, Martial Arts, Yoga and Bodywork. This will include links to stuff I think people will find interesting as well as my own writing. I did keep an earlier blog here: http://www.donotthinkofablueelephant.co.uk/ but I've let that fall by the wayside. Feel free to have a look around there though some of my opinions have changed (which they tend to do if you keep growing) but I still like some of the content. |
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