Subtle strengths to develop in Circle Turning stepping
Dec 22, 2014 16:00:35 GMT
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Post by dgh on Dec 22, 2014 16:00:35 GMT
I need to dig up the original Chinese but here's some stuff that Guo Gumin had brought into Liang style Bagua from Yin style. HJB elaborates on them in great depth, which I think might be his own insights or it's written down somewhere. Maybe someone else knows?
In YSB these are in order of easy to difficult, but ultimately you should be doing all 6 at the same time, but to learn them you should just focus on one idea at a time.
#1 is like using a pole to push a raft in a pond our across a river. Which is needing to push from the back heel.
For some reason some of the different Bagua lineages, and later the performance wushu, became fixated on one single concept, or imagining, which is #5 'kicking a stone': like a kid kicking a rock down the street where when you go to kick it you actually step on the rock because your foot is slightly too high and you do the splits, or walking on gravel that's on the street and all the little pebbles also collectively roll-out and you do the splits/ pull a groin, so this imaginary idea is fixed by keeping the toes pressed to the ground or street so that there's no chance for the rock or pebbles to get under the foot; but this is the wrong imagining, it should be the way that when you were a kid kicking rocks down the street that you learned to focus all the power into the kick but stop your foot as soon as you touch the rock to send it skipping further. The rock is hard and jagged, it's not like a round rubbery foot ball that benefits from following through. The front 1 centimeter, or less, of one's shoe is where all the bounce is and as the rock has many faceted sides you don't know how it's going to bounce after it's hit, so it's best to just stop the foot.
These Six all build certain strengths, flexibilities, and have direct applications to fighting but it's subtle, and they're complex to be thinking about while having to also think about everything else that the rest of the body is doing. And it's important to keep them as just imaginations as fixating on them as a true physical thing will likely injure something. Fixate on number 5 and wreck your knees, fixate on #1 and possibly tear your achilles tendon. The most important rule that overrides all others is that nothing in Circle Walking should cause injury to your own body. When it comes to all the parts of your legs you should be extremely careful as it's all under control of your 'Xindi' (Mind-Ground) which is the aspect of your mind that's in control of the lower half of your body, and it's not very bright/ smart. One of the main reasons for doing Circle Walking is to develop one's 'Xindi' and until it gradually improves it's very prone to doing stupid things and getting injured.
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"In each of the six stepping methods one uses the imagination (hence "imagines" in the curious translation):
1. Poling (as in a punt/boat)
2. Walking (as if on thin ice)
3. Rubbing (your feet along a cord laid out in front of you)
4. Wading (as if through knee high mud)
5. Kicking (a stone out of your path with your toes)
6. Stepping (as if on a poisonous snake's tail and head)
The two measures are light and heavy.
He suggests practising each stepping method for two hours a day for three months before moving on to the next
1. Poling (as in a punt/boat)
2. Walking (as if on thin ice)
3. Rubbing (your feet along a cord laid out in front of you)
4. Wading (as if through knee high mud)
5. Kicking (a stone out of your path with your toes)
6. Stepping (as if on a poisonous snake's tail and head)
The two measures are light and heavy.
He suggests practising each stepping method for two hours a day for three months before moving on to the next
In YSB these are in order of easy to difficult, but ultimately you should be doing all 6 at the same time, but to learn them you should just focus on one idea at a time.
#1 is like using a pole to push a raft in a pond our across a river. Which is needing to push from the back heel.
For some reason some of the different Bagua lineages, and later the performance wushu, became fixated on one single concept, or imagining, which is #5 'kicking a stone': like a kid kicking a rock down the street where when you go to kick it you actually step on the rock because your foot is slightly too high and you do the splits, or walking on gravel that's on the street and all the little pebbles also collectively roll-out and you do the splits/ pull a groin, so this imaginary idea is fixed by keeping the toes pressed to the ground or street so that there's no chance for the rock or pebbles to get under the foot; but this is the wrong imagining, it should be the way that when you were a kid kicking rocks down the street that you learned to focus all the power into the kick but stop your foot as soon as you touch the rock to send it skipping further. The rock is hard and jagged, it's not like a round rubbery foot ball that benefits from following through. The front 1 centimeter, or less, of one's shoe is where all the bounce is and as the rock has many faceted sides you don't know how it's going to bounce after it's hit, so it's best to just stop the foot.
These Six all build certain strengths, flexibilities, and have direct applications to fighting but it's subtle, and they're complex to be thinking about while having to also think about everything else that the rest of the body is doing. And it's important to keep them as just imaginations as fixating on them as a true physical thing will likely injure something. Fixate on number 5 and wreck your knees, fixate on #1 and possibly tear your achilles tendon. The most important rule that overrides all others is that nothing in Circle Walking should cause injury to your own body. When it comes to all the parts of your legs you should be extremely careful as it's all under control of your 'Xindi' (Mind-Ground) which is the aspect of your mind that's in control of the lower half of your body, and it's not very bright/ smart. One of the main reasons for doing Circle Walking is to develop one's 'Xindi' and until it gradually improves it's very prone to doing stupid things and getting injured.
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