Tendon injury leads to stronger fajing

[Appledog]

A bit of a story here. So when I moved back to Toronto I injured the tendon in my right arm from carrying heavy bags. I think it is some kind of tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis) related from doing exercises like farmer's carries. Let's just say I was lifting and pulling a suitcase which was a bit to heavy, for a bit too long of a time, and then my elbow just wouldn't work anymore.

About two months later I started training and my elbow just couldn't handle the 'fajing' in my chen form, like in hidden hand punch for example. So in order to get around the pain in my elbow, I just didn't 'fajing'. Instead I did everything else, and instead of punching out I just twisted and shifted my weight like normal.

Fast forward another month or two and I've noticed something I've never felt before. There's a very strong squeeze-twist which is now able to move through my arm and into the fist. In fact the feeling is so different I wonder if I was ever really fa-jinging before. I highly suspect that this is a result of me being forced to not use my arm muscles and to rely on the turning of my body when I punched. Now that I have some use of my arm back the move, as well as related moves like strike to the waist, feel so much crisper (fajingy?) than before. In fact I've noticed that during green dragon comes out of the water, the strikes are much, much more relaxed than before. I seem to be able to perform the move much better.

I'm certain i've made some sort of breakthrough and I will be working on this into the future. My question was, had anyone else had a similar experience, where an injury forced to you to relax a part of your body, and it turned out to be a good thing in the end?

[wayne hansen]

How we always train

Don’t put power into the form
Let it arise naturally from the form

[everything]

Various leg tweaks have caused me to emphasize “negative” portion of calf raises and various prehab things for Achilles’ tendons and plantar fascia.

Possibly can kick a ball harder more easily now by springing off the plant foot and so on.

But modern science would say it takes a much longer time and much heavier weight to improve those tendons.

TCM might say neigong would improve them. Don’t think I do enough qigong to do that if so.

But something is improved as they don’t get too hurt or don’t hurt for long. Maybe I just take it easier. It could be one spot of fascia is “released” due to the yoga, foam roller, etc. And so that helps the other portions, too. It would be nice if it were all of the above, but I suspect it’s mainly stretching.

[Quigga]

I like to go with 60-70% super slow, 20-30% medium, 10% fast or super fast. Accessing fascia globally across the body is only possible by disinhibition of safety measures in the brain. The adrenal response and other stuff may then be used in a more conscious, calm manner. The more you drop muscular tension, the more you drop into the fascio-skeletal system. Muscles are classified as a Yin storage organ, not Yang. This is the reason. Then you develop fascial smoothness and connective strength, visceral awareness.

Fascia allows one to go beyond awkwardly shifting weight around. Instead emptying oneself out - not shitting! - creating more space inside. Which means the string is actually tighter the more Sung I am.

Global, universal, from all directions or
Locally focused, pointed, in a singular path of power

[origami_itto]

Chen Man Ching said his skill improved dramatically after he had a dream in which he was pushing hands but had no arms.

One of the best chen guys I've met told me while we were working that he left his arms back in the car and all he brought was his dantien as he tossed me around all over the place.

As I understand it, the arms are just channels for the energy to travel through, they don't add any power of their own. Their focus is the quality of the contact and ting jin so that they're appropriately placed when the power comes through. Empty, passive, transparent. Any tension or noise just gets in the way.

But on the injury question specifically, yes I hyperextended my elbow pretty bad goofing around and it took about a month to go back to normal. I found my form got a lot better because moving incorrectly hurt.

Likewise the ten years I did with no ACL on the right side did wonders for the precision of my footwork.

[everything]

the arms, energy, emptiness, passiveness is exactly what the teacher in the taiji jin and pengjin videos describes as well.

on the injury topic, sometimes injuries seem to make you more able to listen to your body and realize how things should be. maybe that's the silver lining in the cloud. for some reason, my feet are also seemingly not as flat as before. the work must have helped my plantar fascia, which helped with the foot arch shape/strength. Appledog, hope it keeps improving.