Fulcrum

[rojcewiczj]

Something that become apparent to me lately in my practice is that one can pivot forward on the back foot (fulcrum) and change the force exerted through the hands when pushing, without
having pushed with the back leg. Also one can pull with very little force on the hand, but by pivoting on the foot in proper relation with what your pulling, the power of on your hand becomes greater.
It seems this points towards a great tension in my mind in regards to being powerful, namely, the conflict in the body between using muscles to generate more force and the use of a fulcrum to apply leverage to the point of resistance. What do you all think of this? For instance when you are pushing hands and you get into the situation where you are pushing with all your strength, the legs pushing into the ground and your arms pushing out, but your opponent matches your strength easily and neither of you can do much to effect each other. I have felt however that it is possible to not try to push harder then what it takes to be tight at the contact point and then to pivot freely on your back foot, thus changing the power of your little force in a way that cant be directly stopped (meaning your opponent cant stop you from pivoting as it doesn't, in itself, cause conflict with the opponent).

It seems to me that the mental aspect is huge, in that wanting to exert yourself more is so much more instinctual than pivoting to apply leverage.