by everything on Sun Oct 15, 2017 9:44 am
Occasionally I try to play goalkeeper in a weird indoor soccer (football) played on a hockey rink-shaped field with smaller goals.
Most of the time you are "standing", trying to stay in an alert but relaxed ready state.
Occasionally you have to very suddenly move from a still posture to a very fast whole body move. I would say from a much more still posture than is typical in MA to a much faster whole body move than is typical in MA. So for illustration purposes, this is really an extreme example (mostly standing around, very rarely suddenly moving with literally whole body motion).
Zhan zhuang is quite helpful to learn to "stand" in the right mix of readiness/alertness/relaxation. You don't want to be "too alert" or "too relaxed". Walking and other forms of training don't really help in this way. Of course, technically, you need certain kinds of movements/jumping/reaching/etc., but those technical practices don't help in this way, either. It's easy to see why zhan zhuang offers something those things do not.
amateur practices til gets right pro til can't get wrong
/ better approx answer to right q than exact answer to wrong q which can be made precise /
“most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. Source of all true art & science