Moving the Joints

My teacher was talking about peng being turning the wrist and not the whole forearm yesterday, which led to the inkling. I thought a bit about it again today, and remember something that my teacher said before about moving the joints independent of each other. That is, when I want to move my wrist, I don't move my elbow. When I want to move my elbow, I don't move my wrist or my shoulder. Each joint should not move because another joint is moving. That is what relaxing the joints mean. They move independent of each other.

This is important because otherwise, when your opponent is able to move one of your joints, he is able to control the rest of your body. He becomes able to use an action at one part of your body to affect you as a whole, to cause you to move as he wants. If you are able to relax all your joints, when he acts upon a single joint, the action is restricted to that joint and you are still able to control the rest of your body. This is easier said than done, so I guess that is what practice is all about.