making training natural

[Jeice]

"Make your fighting stance your everyday stance, and your everyday stance your fighting stance."
~Miyamoto Musashi.

[Walk the Torque]

Does anyone practice the concept of being nonchalante (sp?) or completely natural when training your forms?
For instance, just trying to create the feeling that the movement you are doing is completely natural for your body to do and trying to create a feeling of freedom in your mind to convey to your body a sense of effortlessness?

I'm just experimenting with this by taking a walk around my neighbourhood for about 20 minutes every day. The only difference is that instead of heal toe walking, I am mudwalking. I'm hoping that eventually I can get to the point where mudwalking feels like normal walking with the same spirit of effortlessness and ease.

Whatever it takes to relax is a good idea IMO. I would have thought though that, given social conditioning, that mud stepping around the place would set up obstructions to letting go, if only because of the overtness of the action. What I would say though is that you could go along way with shorter mud stepping in your forms (if you do long ones) so that you don't try to operate at full stretch; as this is how these steps are more likely to surface in application. I don't think the stretching/reaching out is practicable for fighting, but I do think the practice of keeping the feet flat from a to b is very useful and, when practiced extensively will assist in stability and fleet footed-ness. Heaps of martial arts keep there soles hidden, they just don't call it mud-stepping.

I use the skills gained from mud step in sparring so I am not sure why there are others who say it is only an exercise. It is not as pronounced as the classic mud stepping but it is there none the less. What is important to note though, is that in order to use this skill freely, you can not move while trying too hard to protect your root; meaning that the center is not always held directly under you foot. Sometimes we "fall" from place to place. Sometimes it appears as if we are adjusting the feet a couple of inch's, even though the practiced internal mechanisms are going towards using the step to generate power.

any how, you need to try and use it during partner work to really let it feel natural.

[mixjourneyman]

wtt: thanks. Lots of good advice in there.

[Ba-men]

Does anyone practice the concept of being nonchalant (sp?) or completely natural when training your forms?
For instance, just trying to create the feeling that the movement you are doing is completely natural for your body to do and trying to create a feeling of freedom in your mind to convey to your body a sense of effortlessness?

This is one of the main reasons I've always stuck with YCF Taijiquan. Over the years ( having real shizu (i.e. qualified teachers) helped too) I internalized the art. When stressed, I respond in a conditioned manner according to what I was taught. The form is "my form" now, and it is as natural as walking to the gas station for a pop. I've tried other arts...but they seem less than natural.... I think "the naturalness: that you refer to is the gauge that one uses to conclude if one has a solid grasp of the art they are practicing. If what you do does not feel natural and when stress your conditioned responses (i.e. reflexes) don't reflect the strategies and tactics of the art, then one has work to do.....

[lazyboxer]

Here is an excerpt from Castiglione's Book of the Courtier (1528) setting forth his concept of 'sprezzatura', or nonchalance. He also introduced the idea that a gentleman should combine classical learning with his martial skills.

"Anyone who wants to be a good pupil must not only do things well but must also make a constant effort to imitate and if possible, exactly reproduce his master. And when he feels he has made some progress it is very profitable for him to observe different kinds of courtiers and, ruled by the good judgement that must always be his guide, take various qualities now from one man and now from another. Just as in the summer fields the bees wing their way among the plants from one flower to the next, so the courtier must acquire this grace from those who appear to possess it and take from each one the quality that seems most commendable. And he should certainly not act like a friend of ours, whom you all know, who thought that he greatly resembled King Ferdinand the Younger of Aragon, but had not tried to imitate him except in the way he raised his head and twisted a corner of his mouth, a habit which the King had acquired through illness. There are many like this, who think they are marvellous if they can simply resemble great man in some one thing; and often they seize on the only defect he has. However, having already thought a great deal about how this grace is acquired, and leaving aside those who are endowed with it by their stars, I have discovered a universal rule which seems to apply more than any other in all human actions or words: namely, to avoid affectation at all costs, as if it were a rough and dangerous reef, and to practise in all things a certain nonchalance which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless. I am sure that grace springs especially from this, since everyone knows how difficult it is to accomplish some unusual feat perfectly, and so facility in such things excites the greatest wonder; whereas, in contrast, to labour at what one is doing and, as we say, to make bones over it, shows an extreme lack of grace and causes everything, whatever its worth, to be discounted. So we can truthfully say that true art is what does not seem to be art; and the most important thing is to conceal it, because if it is revealed this discredits a man completely and ruins his reputation. I remember once having read of certain outstanding orators of the ancient world who, among the other things they did, tried hard to make everyone believe that they were ignorant of letters; and, dissembling their knowledge, they made their speeches appear to have been composed very simply and according to the promptings of Nature and truth rather than effort and artifice. For if the people had known of their skills, they would have been frightened of being deceived.

So you see that to reveal intense application and skill robs everything of grace. Who is there among you who doesn't laugh when Pierpaolo dances in that way of his, with those little jumps with his legs stretched on tiptoe, keeping his head motionless, as if he were made of wood, and all so laboured that he seems to be counting every step? Who is so blind that he doesn't see in this the clumsiness of affectation? And in contrast we see in many of the men and women who are with us now, that graceful and nonchalant spontaneity (as it is often called) because of which they seem to be paying little, if any, attention to the way they speak or laugh or hold themselves, so that those who are watching them imagine that they couldn't and wouldn't ever know how to make a mistake."

This may be why I often find wushu so ugly.