Aha Part 2 - Dots Connected

 

Wow! What an amazing IHC class and what an amazing night. The class started out like most and ended with a big finish. My first thoughts are gratitude to Todai Poitras for her engagement and feedback while sitting on the bench. She provided me with some valuable feedback as I practiced my broadsword form and helped me to make some necessary corrections.

Towards the end of class Sifu Hayes had us working on a technique moving from a horse stance into a bow stance with a reverse punch.  My ability to retain my center is usually pretty good so the transition was mostly feeling good and the timing of the heel connecting to the ground as I delivered the punch was bang on. Or so I thought. 

Aha moment #1 - Turns out that I am shifting my body slightly and coming up out of my center. Ok this is great feedback and awareness to have. As I started to apply this feedback I found myself wanting to implement a slide step of sorts with the back foot in order to keep my center. I know this is not necessarily wrong, but it would not be true to the exercise Sifu Hayes was having us do so I continued on until I felt I was making the transition as intended and not coming up out of my center. Keeping the purity of the exercise helped me to feel even a very small amount of upward movement and loss of center. I'm not sure exactly how to describe how I feel when my centered is maintained. The best I can describe it is I feel fractionally lower/weighted to the ground and internally relaxed yet somewhat compressed at the same time.

Aha moment #2 - I continued to work on this after class and had a followup conversation with Sifu Hayes about what I was feeling and noticing. This led to a discussion about the similarities of the slide step forward and punch technique. Sifu then brought up linear and rotational energy into the discussion and talked about the energy going down into the ground and out through the punch. He also then talked about the rotational energy that is needed from the hips. I feel like I am more of a linear person and often have trouble or forget about the rotational energy component so it was great to have that insight and reinforcement.

Aha moment #3 - Sihing Ward and I had a discussion about class at home which led to an old issue I had experienced quite some time ago. Interestingly the issue had been with the slide step forward and punch technique. Hopefully this makes sense: Back around blue belt I was finding that with a slide step forward followed by a punch my hip would rotate towards the back instead of towards the front. For example with a slide step forward followed with a right punch causes my right hip pulls back to help facilitate the connection of the heel to the ground, opposite of what it should be doing. It's almost like a double rotation. Rotate forward and then ricochet back connecting the heel with the ground and the punch.

When Sihing Ward had me do a jab reverse from a bow stance I was doing it correctly. He pointed out the correct hip rotation and then we compared it to a slide step forward and punch which causes issues for me. From a stationary bow stance or even with a projection step my hips move as they should.  It is just the slide step forward and punch that has been an issue. The conversation with Sifu Hayes and then the conversation with Sihing Ward complimented each other and bam!! The dots connected and everything made sense. And an old issue that I never did completely rectify because I wasn't completely understanding concepts or able to make the necessary connections suddenly became very clear. I am looking forward to making the necessary adjustments and seeing/feeling the results.

Aha moment #4 - Read my previous blog titled Aha.