Steve Rowe wrote:I'd say it's difficult to separate them. The abdomen is the ball of manipulating muscle that the spine sits in - which is connected to the rest of the core as defined in Tom Myer's deep front line, this core is rooted at the feet, manipulated heavily at the waist making the spine open, close, stretch, connect, twist and bow sending the power out through the limbs.
agreed that it's all connected and hard to separate. That is what I tried to verbalize but you did it better than me.
Some XY schools use the middle dantian as center for spine movement, so maybe differences are more a matter of what is used as the center of movement, and not what is the center of the body.
Though I don't understand why Myers is very important or special in this context. Fascia is quite easy to understand through anatomy and much of what he does is already found in IMA.
There are thick layers of fascia in both the lower and upper back that cross connect the body. So coiling is a natural way of connecting the body for whole body movement, and twisting and coiling is a way to integrate spinal movement. Chen stylists though tend to only use horizontal turning of the waist for silk reeling and very little vertical movement which I find a bit one dimensional compared to Bagua and Xingyi and in fact a little bit peculiar as it seems natural to utilize vertical movement as well.
BTW, you can use vertical movement to store "energy" (potential kinetic energy) just as you use horizontal movement. If you want more strength to fold down, first bend up and vice versa. Useful for throws and takedowns.