The Mechanics of IP

[Aged Tiger]

I just found this video we shot in Chinatown from a few years ago. It's a drill I learned early on in yiquan that was supposed to have originated with Guo Yun Shen and mimics him while he was in his prison cell with his hands and feet bound.

http://vimeo.com/9993035

password: medurga

Among other things this is for practicing the rotation of the spine to the left and right while not compromising the stance. Done correctly this teaches one to transfer power from the ground up through the legs, hips etc. just like it says in the taiji classics. The spine is only turning a bit but because of their distance from the spine the movement of the hands is on a larger arc. This is great for learning silk reeling or luo xuan jin as every part of the body engaged for the delivery of connected force.

Notice how the shirt doesn't change as my torso turns.

Jay,

Thanks for posting this drill, am I noticing a slight tuck of the pelvis at the apex of the rotation?

We had a similar drill for Jiang Bagua while practicing hide flower under leaf form a stationary position.

Gwilo Charles

[Chris McKinley]

jjy,

You can also very clearly see the Crossing the Great River principle being kept, as you close lower gua on one side while the opposite side arm opens out to bai, and vice versa.

[jjy5016]

Aged Tiger the answer is yes there is a slight tuck at the end. That's from habit.

If you do the tuck while trying to turn it limits the range of motion.

[Bao]

@jjy5016: Thanks for the vid. Combining these horizontal movements together with vertical, would equal good taiji. It's strange that most taiji is all external arm movements, when it should more resemble the movements you are showing.

BTW, I really dont like the abb "IP". IMA mechanics are about refined movements and good use and coordination of whole body movement.

[Aged Tiger]

Aged Tiger the answer is yes there is a slight tuck at the end. That's from habit.

If you do the tuck while trying to turn it limits the range of motion.

Makes sense, much appreciated.

[middleway]

Nice video thankyou for sharing. I am actually doing a couple of similar exercises daily at the moment. I will post a vid soon.

Glad this thread has opened up a bit.

Cheers
Chris

[Iskendar]

I just found this video we shot in Chinatown from a few years ago. It's a drill I learned early on in yiquan that was supposed to have originated with Guo Yun Shen and mimics him while he was in his prison cell with his hands and feet bound.

http://vimeo.com/9993035

password: medurga

Among other things this is for practicing the rotation of the spine to the left and right while not compromising the stance. Done correctly this teaches one to transfer power from the ground up through the legs, hips etc. just like it says in the taiji classics. The spine is only turning a bit but because of their distance from the spine the movement of the hands is on a larger arc. This is great for learning silk reeling or luo xuan jin as every part of the body engaged for the delivery of connected force.

Notice how the shirt doesn't change as my torso turns.

This is how RSF should work. Thank you, John.

Ok, since nobody else is saying it, let me do it: this is very similar to one of Dan's exercises. With some of the exact same admonitions to boot: knees don't move, shirt doesn't move. Main difference is Dan keeps the hips in place and the range of motion of the turning torso (and therefor also the hands) is bigger. But here too, the shirt shouldn't twist, meaning the torso must move from the waist deep down, not just turning the rib cage.
Note that not locking the hips to the shoulders is not a right-or-wrong issue, it seems to be more of a stylistical/tactical thing, though it obviously results in slightly different power development. One of the interesting things of this IP thing: there's more than one way to do it

Anyway, thx for the vid John!

[Chris McKinley]

Iskendar,

Thank you for providing that insight. I may be misunderstanding something from your description here. You say that with Dan's version, he has you keep the hips in place. I would assume then that he is treating this as more of an isolated exercise to help you develop the waist as independent from the hips. At least that's how I am familiar with it when using that purposeful disconnect. This does, however, take the gua out of the equation and therefore does not incorporate the Cross the Great River principle of opposite-side arm/leg Yang/Yin harmony. That's okay if that's what he's doing, there's nothing wrong with practicing waist movement in isolation for increased development and control...I just want to be sure I'm understanding what you're describing.

Also, you mentioned that with Dan's version, there is a larger range of motion of the turning torso. Here's another point of confusion for me. Without moving the hips, the passive range of motion for the human spine at waist level (that range which is limited by structural factors rather than muscular contraction) is roughly 45 to 60 degrees maximum. The spine itself prevents further rotation than this. Allowing the hips to move will increase this total rotation significantly. In jjy's video, he is already exhibiting a roughly 40 to 45 degree rotation, and that's with some small degree of hip rotation, so I'm not sure what you mean that Dan would have you move the torso in a bigger range of motion than jjy displays, only without any hip rotation. If the total torso rotation in Dan's version is indeed significantly larger, then mechanically, the only way this could physically happen is with the inclusion of rotation of the scapular girdle as well, which jjy does not include to any notable degree, and which would most definitely produce a visually noticeable twisting of the shirt. Would you mind please clarifying these two issues?

[Iskendar]

A bit busy right here, so I'll start with some short answers:
1. No, the kua is always involved in Dan's work, very much so. And this is possibly where his work is special. To put it bluntly: I thought I was using the kua (manipulating the angle between hip and leg plane like a hinge), then I met Dan. I recall Yusuf saying something similar in his review. I showed what he learned me to my physiotherapist buddy, and he said 'oh, illiosacral nutation', but I'd have to check if that's what's going on.
2. Well, he gives 2 apparently contradictory admonitions: turn shoulders 90 deg from hips with hips staying in place, and don't twist the shirt. You aim for both. What happens with the spine exactly I don't know, one way I use to achieve this is sticking my gut out while turning and shifting it as far as possible over the hip I'm turning towards.

[Chris McKinley]

Thank you for taking the time.

1. If the gua are still involved, it would have to be. Nutation and counter-nutation are the Western scientific terms for the Chinese concept of opening and closing the ming men. This is part of the classics of IMA and is a skill that is quite subtle and is considered responsible, along with "dog shaking" of the spine, for the transition from an jin (hidden power) to hua jin (mysterious or changing power) in the internal arts. It should be noted that both types of nutation result in visually noticeable opening and closing of the gua at the inguinal crease.

2. Okay, perhaps we'll have to wait for further clarification in the future. Leaving the shirt out of it for the moment, it is physically impossible to achieve full 90 degree rotation of the shoulders with respect to the hips without involving at least some scapular girdle rotation as well as rotation of the thoracic spine. It is also worth mentioning that achieving such rotation, even with the necessary allowed rotations of the scapular girdle and thoracic spine, both violates the neijia maxim of 'keeping to the middle way' as it relates to the joints and also potentially creates opportunities for joint or vertebral damage or dysfunction. It's not wise to take the spine to full passive rotational limitation with any frequency as the relatively much softer spinal nerves and connective and supportive tissues of the spine can easily be impinged by the spinous processes, the little protrusions on the vertebrae. A great degree of care must be taken with such exercises if they truly involve such extremes of rotation.

[lazyboxer]

Chris,

Re your questions:

1. The cross-body connection (AKA "crossing the great river" principle) is a fundamental element of Dan's method, incorporated into everything from Day One. One way this is trained is through dragon stepping (well-known to me through xingyiquan), including the lower basin work we did last week.

2. Torso and spinal power is informed by maintaining a fixed spatial relationship between shoulders and hips - i.e. "squaring" them. The upper body structure is maintained and directed by the hip muscles, acting on three main axes, all of which pass through the center of the femoral head, resulting in three degrees of freedom and three pairs of principal directions.

IOW, training the kua to function appropriately is of foundational importance, without which further development is well-nigh impossible.

I thought I was using the kua (manipulating the angle between hip and leg plane like a hinge), then I met Dan.
2. Well, he gives 2 apparently contradictory admonitions: turn shoulders 90 deg from hips with hips staying in place, and don't twist the shirt. You aim for both. What happens with the spine exactly I don't know, one way I use to achieve this is sticking my gut out while turning and shifting it as far as possible over the hip I'm turning towards.

Iskendar,

Please see above. Kua isn't a simple hinge joint like the knee or elbow, and is capable of a much wider range of movement. Perhaps I've misunderstood you, and you have already discovered this - in which case, ignore!

Also, I don't know about any 90 deg movement of the shoulders from the hips, which appears to violate one of Dan's fundamental principles. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

The video posted by jjy5016 was very interesting, posted as it was by an yiquan practitioner and ostensibly originating with Guo Yunshen. The body usage demonstrated closely resembles not only Dan's material, but also Sam Chin's i liq chuan and Xie Peiqi's Lion system waist training method, both of which I am familiar with.

Chris, I hope this has helped somewhat, though I have but scratched the surface. There is no spinal rotation in Dan's system, nor, for that matter, should there be any in baguazhang, regardless of what some (many?) people here and elsewhere appear to believe. At least in the form in which it's usually propagated (e.g. the late Robert W. Smith teaching us to twist the spine as far around as possible back in the 1970s), this is a foolish and potentially harmful error, which may have originated as part of a disinformation campaign. Your reservations about such misusage are well-founded.

[Iskendar]

Please see above. Kua isn't a simple hinge joint like the knee or elbow, and is capable of a much wider range of movement. Perhaps I've misunderstood you, and you have already discovered this - in which case, ignore!

Yeah, that's what I said: Dan showed us that there is much more to the kua than that. Which is an important point: yes, everybody knows his stuff already. And yes, everybody is doing it already: using the kua, rotating the dantian, using the bows. Doesn't mean they're doing it correctly, but that's hard to ascertain or discuss online.

Also, I don't know about any 90 deg movement of the shoulders from the hips, which appears to violate one of Dan's fundamental principles. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

Errm...bizarre. In dragon stepping and spiraling, he kept saying "90 degrees" all the time in the past 2 seminars. Something you see in xylh too, btw. Ok, it's an intent thing, I only get to about 60 degrees, but with the natural curvature of the shoulder girdle added to it, it looks like 90 degrees. And you rotate the waist ("rotate the bomb! ), not the shoulders, the shoulders are linked to that. But he certainly did not line up shoulders and hips, that's one of his criticisms of Ark actually, ao because it limits your mobility during weapons work (a KSR thing I guess).

[Chris McKinley]

lazyboxer,

Thank you as well for taking the time to provide insight into the matter. This thread has been the single most useful on the entire forum for me in terms of providing insight into the kind of thing Dan is teaching. Further, it has shed some light on some of the crucial similarities that all truly high quality internal arts practices include. I, too, was taught and still practice/teach a number of methods like the one jjy has shown, including one that is more or less the very same practice. The way I was taught, even basic circle walking is a continuous exercise in manifesting the Yin/Yang pump, heavy/light, empty/full, kou/bai, up/down, left/right, etc. Done strictly, I get more internal work out of one trip around the circle than a lot of guys get in an hour of what is typically shown as circle walking. In fact, I can work up a sweat after just one trip each way.

Bagua certainly doesn't teach or promote a strict squaring of the hips and shoulders in a single plane, and such would violate the Cross the Great River principle for the art whenever kou or bai are being employed, but perhaps I have misunderstood or misread what you meant. For reasons I outlined previously, I'm certainly not a fan of extreme spinal rotation regardless, nor extreme hip pronation or supination for similar reasons. Beside the potential risk of injury in some cases, the biomechanics are such that compound movements are almost always at their structurally strongest when the involved joints are kept within the middle of their ranges of motion, and thus maintaining the principle of keeping to the middle way.

Thanks again for the very specific technical discussion. We may be enjoying a moment of unusually close agreement here, but even when we disagree we may still find some very fascinating and useful exchanges of perspectives and information.

[middleway]

These are some similar exercises I have been doing. I am not getting all the details correct yet and am still very much working Out the body problems.

Cheers

[Chris McKinley]

I showed exactly this same first exercise to someone the last weekend in March just past. It was as an illustration of why just getting the external harmonies right in a passive way like he had been taught in Japanese arts while recently studying in Japan does not yield the full power potential of the body. Cool stuff, Chris. Where is this material coming from in your case?