Monday, December 12, 2011

Getting Rid of Brute Force

I am currently reading Matsuda Ryuchi's (松田隆智) newest book, "拳法極意-発勁と基本拳" (roughly translates into "Secret of Martial Arts - Generating Force and Basics"). In the section on Chen style taiji, he mentioned that one of the key to getting rid of brute force lies in stance training (站桩). An example provided by him is to slowly practise Xingyiquan Piquan (形意拳劈拳) while focusing on how the force is generated by the legs and reaching the hand. It brings me to think about what my teacher used to say about practising the opening move (起式) in taiji. I think it has a similar effect, while practising the opening move to think about how the force is generated from the legs, how it is then transferred through the body to the arms and hands, how that force becomes the energy that moves the rest of the body.

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