Ian wrote:Leave my pathetic attempts at my training at my low level out of it.
Could you be more disparaging of your own training?
BruceP wrote:Well, despite the self-deprecation, Mark, the clips are really clear on what is being worked at. And so simple even a caveman could do it - or at least understand it.
WVMark wrote:
It isn't disparaging at all. I'm just now starting to get a decent connection from my thighs around to my upper arms. By now, I should be better. Still way too much tension. Nowhere near enough whole body connection. Tight @ss white boy. I suck. But I'm better than I was a year ago.
jaime_g wrote:Dan is NOT teaching this https://vimeo.com/155019097
Mike Sigman
9 hrs
Relaxation and Exaggeration
In the videos that I do, I tend to exaggerate my movements so that the full extent of the twist/turn/coordination of the movement is visible. Also, when starting morning exercises, I tend to start exaggerated and gradually move toward almost imperceptible movement. The reason I always start big is to be sure that I'm engaging all the correct muscles and elastic parts of the body before I aim toward mostly elastic practice without exaggeration.
Ultimately, you don't want to move with exaggeration, but in my opinion, there has to be a stage of exaggeration at first or you'll miss the correct coordination.
One of the main reasons people have trouble learning a lot of CMA's from really good teachers is that the teachers tend to teach without showing in exaggeration exactly what is being done. I've been the victim of the same thing and that's why I tend to espouse using exaggerated movement... so people don't have to go through what I did. And yeah, I'm aware that Dan Harden is saying how non-martial my movements are, but if he doesn't shut up I'll cut off his flow of information from me again and he'll be in even worse straits than he is now. Only guy I've ever seen who steals information, doesn't give credit, and then tries desperately to hamstring the guy he's stealing the information from in order to puff himself up.
So exaggeration is to show (or at least give a better idea of) how the coordination is done. But there is another factor in exaggeration when using jin: the better and purer the use of jin is, the less the physical "structure" is needed (pay attention Dan, one more thing you're unaware of and giving away when you keep saying "his structure is all wrong").
In the few examples I've given about setting up a jin path, I've pointed out the trick of wiggling your hips (and other parts of the body) while maintaining a jin path. The reason for that quick test is to separate a real jin path from a partial-muscle-jin path. In a real jin path, the "qi thingies" are doing almost all the work; in a muscle-jin path, the body structure is doing a lot of the work. Are you trying to build up your qi or build up your structure? Sure, in real life you need optimal structure because it's additive, but in internal strength, your first and main weapon is going to be jin. Work as much as possible on jin as you can; worry about the exact structure, knee alignment, etc., later.
Here's what got me thinking about this topic: Think about the demonstrations where I have someone pushing on my arm or hand, etc., and I hold their push while wiggling my body, my shoulder, or whatever. An outside observer can say, more or less, wow, he is stable but his arms and his body are "relaxed". It's that automatic micro-adjustment of forces that the body/mind/subconscious can do while the rest of the body is doing whatever else it needs to do (like the waiter carrying the tray of drinks while doing the Samba). So the more skilled you are at maintaining a jin-force/line while doing something else, the "stronger your qi/ki is". The worry about "structure" simply shows ignorance of the real topic. The word "relax" now has a focused purpose, doesn't it?
So the next step I was thinking about was "can I take a push from someone and instead of just wiggling my hips can I maybe swivel my knees/legs around in a circle parallel to the ground. Well, yes, I can (even though some halfwit starts worrying about misaligned knees, totally missing the point and showing their ignorance).
But the last step in my thinking was about something that I heard Ben Lo (Luo Pang Jeng) say many years ago. Ben was a student of Cheng Man Ching, although I'm not a fan of Cheng's Taijiquan. Ben was talking about being able to stand and people feeling his legs would feel no muscular tension anywhere in the leg. At the time (back in the 1980's), I thought that was simply nonsense. No tension anywhere in the leg? What's holding him up? However, If I can take muscular areas out of the normal body circuit because I'm using "qi-thingies" to create jin .... maybe if my jin control is good I can do something like that. Maybe not. I just don't know. It's an interesting thought experiment and maybe something to work on. Give it a try.
BTW ... someone who's a member of RSF ... if you don't mind, slip this post into that Kua thread (Harden has no idea what the meaning of Kua usage is) and see if the posters get an oxygen infusion. wink emoticon
Patrick wrote:Very entertaining.
GrahamB wrote:Mike Sigman
9 hrs
Relaxation and Exaggeration
In the videos that I do, I tend to exaggerate my movements so that the full extent of the twist/turn/coordination of the movement is visible. Also, when starting morning exercises, I tend to start exaggerated and gradually move toward almost imperceptible movement. The reason I always start big is to be sure that I'm engaging all the correct muscles and elastic parts of the body before I aim toward mostly elastic practice without exaggeration.
Ultimately, you don't want to move with exaggeration, but in my opinion, there has to be a stage of exaggeration at first or you'll miss the correct coordination.
One of the main reasons people have trouble learning a lot of CMA's from really good teachers is that the teachers tend to teach without showing in exaggeration exactly what is being done. I've been the victim of the same thing and that's why I tend to espouse using exaggerated movement... so people don't have to go through what I did. And yeah, I'm aware that Dan Harden is saying how non-martial my movements are, but if he doesn't shut up I'll cut off his flow of information from me again and he'll be in even worse straits than he is now. Only guy I've ever seen who steals information, doesn't give credit, and then tries desperately to hamstring the guy he's stealing the information from in order to puff himself up.
So exaggeration is to show (or at least give a better idea of) how the coordination is done. But there is another factor in exaggeration when using jin: the better and purer the use of jin is, the less the physical "structure" is needed (pay attention Dan, one more thing you're unaware of and giving away when you keep saying "his structure is all wrong").
In the few examples I've given about setting up a jin path, I've pointed out the trick of wiggling your hips (and other parts of the body) while maintaining a jin path. The reason for that quick test is to separate a real jin path from a partial-muscle-jin path. In a real jin path, the "qi thingies" are doing almost all the work; in a muscle-jin path, the body structure is doing a lot of the work. Are you trying to build up your qi or build up your structure? Sure, in real life you need optimal structure because it's additive, but in internal strength, your first and main weapon is going to be jin. Work as much as possible on jin as you can; worry about the exact structure, knee alignment, etc., later.
Here's what got me thinking about this topic: Think about the demonstrations where I have someone pushing on my arm or hand, etc., and I hold their push while wiggling my body, my shoulder, or whatever. An outside observer can say, more or less, wow, he is stable but his arms and his body are "relaxed". It's that automatic micro-adjustment of forces that the body/mind/subconscious can do while the rest of the body is doing whatever else it needs to do (like the waiter carrying the tray of drinks while doing the Samba). So the more skilled you are at maintaining a jin-force/line while doing something else, the "stronger your qi/ki is". The worry about "structure" simply shows ignorance of the real topic. The word "relax" now has a focused purpose, doesn't it?
So the next step I was thinking about was "can I take a push from someone and instead of just wiggling my hips can I maybe swivel my knees/legs around in a circle parallel to the ground. Well, yes, I can (even though some halfwit starts worrying about misaligned knees, totally missing the point and showing their ignorance).
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