There are many varied and popular ways to align the body and sensitise one's
awareness to movement. Each technique creates a different image as to what the
properly aligned body should look like. Although there are some common grounds,
each method will evolve a different body.
Exercising and various sport activities emphasise strength, endurance and speed.
Development of muscle control rather than skeletal balance takes precedence.
Gaining speed at the expense of mounting tension, is too often the goal. The
psoas is rarely considered or engaged directly. However, it is possible to work
from a released psoas muscle. First one must slow the body down until one can
follow the quality of movement through one's sensory awareness.
(Liz Koch)
A
different body
Most of your training is concerned with developing a certain way
of moving.
This kind of motion is called 'internal'.
Various drills have been designed as a means of experimenting with how you
use the body.
It takes time for your muscles and nerves to re-grow but they will.
Once you have gained a new body skill, it will remain.
We regard the body as a
conduit
through which energy and motion can be transmitted.
Until your body changes and becomes loose, it will block the flow of energy.
Fa jing will not pass through a stiff body.
Old habits
Your existing habits of local muscular tension will
seriously hamper your progress.
Tensing the muscles contracts the tissue, actually pulling it towards you
rather than away.
If you seek to deliver a strike when tense, it is like accelerating without
removing the handbrake.
You must learn to soften your muscles and yield.
Body skills
The process of changing how your body operates is called
neigong.
Each new quality (or neigong) that your explore, understand and incorporate
will subtly alter the way in which your body works.
Neigong trains your body to move differently.
The individual qualities are not really separate skills but rather parts of a
whole way of moving.
Ultimately, the attributes must consolidate.
Body work
Learning
form
sequences is not our priority.
Developing
body awareness comes first.
There is little point in learning a lengthy choreographed set until the
quality of practice has improved.
You need to feel the way in which your body moves.
You need to be very conscious of your own habits and tension.
Qigong,
neigong, form and self defence cannot address your health in any meaningful
way until you have begun to experience the necessary sensitivity.
Page created 15 February 2001