GrahamB wrote:If you were advancing slowly through a forest with a drawn bow, not sure where the enemy was.... that's pretty much how you'd step on instinct I think.
GrahamB wrote:If you were advancing slowly through a forest with a drawn bow, not sure where the enemy was.... that's pretty much how you'd step on instinct I think.
...The game changed. Instead of heading the buck off for an ambush, he was now stalking.
As he made his way through the brush, he came to a tangle of low branches between a few trees. Then I saw it. He brought his right foot heel-heel with his left and as he sank on his right leg into a squat, he extended his left beneath the tangle. With his left hand, he fed his bow through the opening along the length of his left leg while leaving his right arm bent back to keep his arrow from snagging until he'd gotten the bow through. Then he shifted his body forward onto his left leg, unweighting his right and pulling himself back to standing on the other side of the tangle. A more perfect snake-creeps-down you will never see. As he crept toward the low brush between himself and the deer, he was careful to step on roots that were available above ground at the bases of any small aspen trees. As he made his way along he would stop in mid-step and half-draw his bow as though he thought maybe he had a clear enough shot. Some very nice golden-roosters, I must say. Nobody taught him those natural movement patterns. They were of necessity
So how do we practice no tilting the hip? By not lifting the heel or the ball of the foot, therefore breaking those linkages. So we practice this walk, this mud step, where the upper body is perfectly upright as if we are sitting in a sedan. With sufficient reinforcement, this will become our habit, what we can do without thinking.
After you have achieved that, even when you lift your heel or toe, you don’t tilt your hips.
Mud step is so named because that’s what this looks like.
And if we are actually on slippery surfaces, we may walk this way. But if not, we don’t absolutely have to walk this way.
Let’s be scientific here, mud stepping is not the fastest way to move around. It’s a special method for dangerous surfaces, discovered by people long before invention of Bagua Zhang. If you are stranded on think ice, or walking along thin ledges on the outside of a building, you will do this naturally without anyone having to teach you first right? There safety is the paramount concern, not speed. That’s why you will see masters do heel toe walking when fighting. If you can do those without upsetting centered neutrality, you have the best of both worlds.
This is like the exercise where people put books on top of their heads to develop good posture. After you achieve the goal of the practice, you can put the book away.
C.J.W. wrote:IMO, it's quite simple if you look at it from the perspective of application.
Cheng style favors mud-stepping because the founder, Cheng Tinhua, was a Shuaijiao guy who would have preferred to maintain contact with the ground at all times when stepping to avoid being swept off his feet or taken down in a fight.
Yin style, on the other hand, uses normal heel-toe (lion) stepping as well as crane stepping (lifting the knees to torso height) due to the ease of making rapid transitions and incorporating devastating low-line kicks.
Combat Glide should supersede slow and methodical Bunker shield styles of walking options, such as The Groucho or The Step and Drag, but is not intended to eliminate individual or natural choices of walking styles. Rather, Combat Glide is intended to combine a natural walking style with sure tactical elements such as smooth, level, balanced, determined, and direct, while advancing, firing and contacting an armed adversary.
The technique incorporates the elements of the stationary position of Combat Shield while adding the next level of on the move. The feet are shoulder width apart; the spine is vertical with a slight forward lean at the hips; the shoulders are raised; the head is down with neck pulled into the body like a turtle; and the main trunk is squared off to the threat while maximizing the ballistic coverage afforded by the shield.
Breathing should be natural and unrestricted. Respiratory efficiency diminishes in direct, inverse proportion to the three ascending levels of motor skills: fine to gross to complex. Adding the influences of major stressors multiplies the breathing deterioration factor. Smooth breathing should thus become a component of Combat Glide.
The body should remain flexible and nonrigid, while the feet should track directly forward, sideward or rearward in a measured, low, full contact, secure, and positive advance.
Steps should be shorter than the standard 30 inch stride, yet not overdoing step range to exaggerate in either giant or baby step extremes. Rather, a comfortable step distance should be achieved; one which feels appropriate to the conditions of the surfaces encountered.
Whether a mission requires a forward, sidestep, reverse step, or any combination of movements, the Combat Glide should be performed so as to reduce, or eliminate, undesirable rocking or motion of the shield and the weapon platform. When moving in any direction, the feet should NOT cross each other.https://policeandsecuritynews.com/2017/ ... bat-glide/
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