3 Things

I’ve had three great takeaways this week. The first is all about my elbows. The second is awareness of the weight distribution of my feet as they connect with the ground. And the third is about rethinking what, when and where I focus my intention.

The elbows - Focusing my awareness on my elbows as I work on different sections of my form has provided some interesting and positive results. For instance, with the cannon punches in Mlong Kuen the technique feels a bit more condensed, purposeful and possibly more dragon like when I bring awareness to the elbows. I've applied the focus of my elbows in other sections with similar results. The best way I can describe it, is feeling like my energy bubble is closer to my body and I have more control.

Weight distribution of my feet - Working on stability in the Goju Ryu stance helped create more awareness when it comes to weight distribution of my feet. From there it naturally began to transfer over into other areas. I'm finding it to be very helpful in both Tai Chi and my sword form. As soon as I check in and adjust the weight distribution of my feet, I can feel how it also corrects my posture. With that I feel a sense of sinking/settling into my stance. As my body shifts forward I'm better able to retain stability, have greater control and less chance of my knees moving past the toes. I'm thinking this will also help with timing. I've been able to experiment with this a bit in Mlong Kuen and plan to continue playing with it some more.

The third takeaway is a bit harder to describe, but it’s a matter of rethinking where my focus or intention is directed towards when I’m doing a technique. This came about after a one on one with Sifu Rybak and trying to understand and fix some of the chunkiness I was feeling in a section of 3 moves. I realized I'm skipping ahead to what I perceive as the main event. For example: elbow into a palm heel strike. I realized I was only marginally focused on the opposite supporting hand and most of my focus and intent was on the palm heel strike. As soon as I directed my focus to the supportive hand that was clearing, it set the stage for the palm heel strike which then connected just a tad quicker and helped with the overall flow. It was a very small change but enough to make a difference.