A Step Back

I think I have came up against a block. After pushing hands today, somehow, I felt tired in my arms. Which means I must have been using brute force. Otherwise, why would my upper arms be tired? But I was trying my best to relax... yet, I end up using force. Why? I was trying to peng away my opponent's force. I was trying to shift my weight, and through that, turn my kua and from there turn away my opponent's force. But somehow, the force generated by me trying to turn my kua just doesn't get translated to my arms. So in the end, I still end up using brute force to turn away my opponent's force. So the more force he uses, the more force I had to use to turn it away.

So how do I transfer the force generated at my kua up to my arms? I wished I know... guess it means a lot more practise with my forms. I must admit that I have been lax in my practice of late, because I was down with a cold and also because of work. Somehow, that must have shown today when I was pushing hands. The force generated just wasn't being used. And I end up doing what I tell others not to do - use brute force. I tell others to relax, yet I myself was unable to do so.

Big and Small Circles

Just thought I wanted to bring up something that my teacher talked about the other day.

A key to taiji is in drawing circles. And those circles do not stand alone. Using the kua, small circles drawn through shifting the weight from leg to leg (and turning the kua) are translated into big circles drawn by the arms. The small movements (circles) at the lower body translates into big movements (circles) at the upper body. And key to that is using the kua.

Observing my teacher, he is able to move his legs very slightly, yet translate his power to his arms to generate a big circle. For us, we shift our weight back and forth between our legs, with very big/obvious movements at the lower body. But most of the power generated is not translated to our upper body, and we end up drawing smaller circles. And smaller circles mean less power.