AJG wrote:My brother in law attends a local boxing gym. He says to me the other day "in boxing you need to sink all your tension down into your legs and have no tension in the upper body if you want to hit hard"
Good for him that he understand what it's all about and knows how to verbalise it. In twenty years here on the board I've heard people say that "boxers can be internal too." I know that some good boxers have similar methods and philosophy as in the "internal arts". But all this time I have never heard any quote or explanations before from boxers (except for Dempsey's book), or from those who claims this, that shows any real understanding of the
mechanics behind it.
wayne hansen wrote:Most people don't understand about dropping all your strength...
Agreed. IME, there's a strong psychology here. People just don't want to give up their usual strength because it makes them feel weak. They want to feel strong. Most people don't even want to give this method a shot because it feels uncomfortable not feeling strong. And also, it's extremely hard to teach people to not tense up. It's a natural reflex, hard to get rid of.
When you finally achieve total loss of strength a new type of strength is born ... Not in a spiritual way but truly physically.
Yes, this is obviously jin. This is why we speak about li and jin, and that jin does not come from using the muscles. It feels very different.
AJG wrote:I always use the idea that when striking while tense it only feels more powerful because you are trying much harder. Its a bit of an illusion.
You feel the strength when you tense up because the movement/energy/strength is stuck in your own body. When your body is open and all of it flows freely and don't get stuck, all your striking and punching will feel completely effortless. The less you feel it, the stronger the
jin.