the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

windwalker wrote:What makes it internal

So here is what you do: you stand up vertically in front of a box placed approximately the length of your femurs behind you. The box should be strong enough to support your weight. Then, without allowing your shins to move forward, you stick your butt back. . . waaaaayyyy back, uncomfortably back, suicidally back. Your shoulders should stay in line vertically with your knees. You will land on your bum on the box with your thighs parallel or slightly less.

This takes practice and development. If you think it is easy you are almost definitely doing it wrong. Try it. Use a spotter so that you don’t miss the box. Be sure to have a partner who keeps your knees honest.
To stand up you just reverse the motion. We shift our mass, and the forces that caused the initial rotation switch directions such that we “fall up.” DO NOT shift yourself forward and push linearly into the ground. You will want to. But, that is not Aiki, that is direct opposition and a “normal” squat.

This exercise does three very helpful things. 1) Since it uses the back power train of the body which is usually underdeveloped, yet potentially the most powerful (including the psoas which we will discuss in a later blog) it causes this area to develop, thereby increasing one’s capacity to support one’s mass via balanced tension. 2) This forces the line of your spine, femurs, and lower legs to rotate around a central axis point, thereby creating Aiki #2 (which will lead to creating Aiki #3.) 3) One is forced by the movement to relax the tissues in the area of the inguinal fold (or “Kua,” the area where the head of the femur meets the pelvis). It is important to both strengthen (increase the capacity of the tissues to hold mass via tension), increase the range of motion of this area, and decrease as much as possible any contraction of tissues in the area thereby allowing force to travel without hindrance from the legs to the thorax and vice versa. Just strengthening is no good for our purposes. Just increasing the range of motion is no good for our purposes. We want a balance of strength (via tension) and range of motion.

littlepanda wrote:

littlepanda wrote:

windwalker wrote:Got it, seems like writing about a normal squat is what makes it internal.

Who knew

Trick wrote:So another Aiki thread. Your curriculum say you study - taiji, xingyi, xinyi, baguazhang, yiquan, didn't you learn correct posture from these?

wayne hansen wrote:What is that meant to teach