INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby Trick on Sat Jan 18, 2020 7:04 am

GrahamB wrote:Image

Image

Boxer Rebellion.

And so many want to blame and says that the ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ was the power that squeezed the Qi out of CMA in China , when in fact it was they who truly brought it up to the surface again after the foreign powers with guns and drugs almost managed to kill Kung-Fu....
Those posters are telling...And haven’t we seen one of those flags recently on the streets of Hong Kong too....they’re on it again............... 8-)
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby Trick on Sat Jan 18, 2020 7:23 am

Bao wrote: the cultural revolution (when TCMA practice became illegal).

Yes the Gang of Four ten year rampage tried but did not succeed. Deng Xiaoping brought it all back on the right course.....
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby everything on Sat Jan 18, 2020 8:35 am

littlepanda wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNn1KAUJuKI



so-o-o-o-o-o .... back to the original topic, did anyone actually try out his tips yet?
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby robert on Sat Jan 18, 2020 1:31 pm

everything wrote:so-o-o-o-o-o .... back to the original topic, did anyone actually try out his tips yet?

I'm not sure what you mean by tips, he just covered a couple basics of IMAs.

1 relax the shoulders
2 settle the wrists
3 take small steps
4 don't take too many steps
5 step empty (cat step)
6 stay relaxed

Here's an article by Liang Shouyu. I think it's more clear and covers more ground. FWIW stepping was the first thing I learned in taiji. I've learned stepping in xingyi and bagua as well.

LSY wrote:To successfully learn taijiquan (tai chi chuan), you will need to understand some of the principles and guidelines that have accumulated over the centuries by masters of this ancient art. These principles and guidelines are the foundation of taijiquan.

To achieve the maximum benefit from taijiquan practice, it is said that you should practice taijiquan twenty-four hours a day. This doesn't mean that you need to do the taijiquan sequence all the time, but you need to make taijiquan a way of life. The practice of taijiquan will not only provide a whole body workout, but it will also cultivate the energy within your body, increase your mental awareness and centering, and build good habits for proper body alignment.

When you have accomplished these goals in practice, you will automatically carry these good habits into your daily life. You will gain a greater awareness of yourself, keeping your physical body properly aligned while sitting, standing, driving, eating, watching TV, working, typing, brushing your teeth, and everything else you do regularly. This is what is meant by practicing taijiquan twenty-four hours a day and making taijiquan a way of life.
Guidelines for Body Movements

These guidelines are used for both performing taijiquan as a health exercise but also for martial arts.


Head: Vitality of Spirit Leads to the Top of the Head (Xu Ling Ding Jin)
"Vitality of spirit leads to the top of the head" implies the energizing of your head by a slight lifted feeling. When your head is slightly lifted, it will be upright, with the neck relaxed, and you will appear to have a sense of vitality. With your head upright, it will be easier to keep your balance. To have a suspended feeling, imagine that the baihui cavity on top of your head is being suspended by a thread.

Eyes: Eyes Focus with Concentration (Yan Shen Zhu Shi)
Your eyes are generally the first to move when you generate intent with your mind. When practicing taijiquan for health, your eyes correspond with the arm or leg performing the most important movement at the time. When your eyes are focused in the direction of your primary limb, you express the intent of the movement. This way your movements are alive, have a pleasing, artistic appeal, and express the vitality of your spirit.
On the other hand, the martial arts focus is quite different—it is primarily to show a sense of enemy and to raise the vitality of your spirit. In applying the posture as a martial technique, your eyes should focus in the direction of your opponent, not the movement of your limbs.

Mouth: Tongue Gently Touches the Roof of the Mouth (She Qing Ding Shan Ge)
After a hard day, you may find yourself with your teeth clenched unintentionally. Any tension in the mouth can restrict your breathing. Pay attention to your jaw, making sure it is not tensed. During practice, keep your mouth closed, with your lips lightly touching each other. Then touch the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth. With your tongue touching the roof of your mouth, saliva will be generated. Your saliva is not only an excellent digestive juice, but it is also an excellent "moisturizer" and "coolant" for your body during taijiquan practice.
Energetically, your tongue connects the conception vessel and the governing vessel. The conception vessel has its primary energy path from your mouth down along the centerline of your throat, chest, and abdomen to your perineum area. The governing vessel has its primary energy path from your perineum up along the midline of your spine to your neck, and it loops over your head to your mouth. Your tongue serves as a bridge to connect the two vessels, providing a complete circuit for a smooth energy transition between the two vessels.

Torso: Body Centered and Upright (Shen Ti Zhong Zheng)
Unnecessary tension in your muscles and joints is generated when your body leans or twists excessively. Over the years, certain work conditions may help develop habits that put your body under undue stress, due to improper alignment. All these misalignments need to be corrected before permanent damage occurs. This guideline sets the criteria for proper torso alignment. It allows the body to be relaxed, prevents undue tension, and improves smooth circulation for blood and qi.
The human spine has three natural curves: one at the cervical vertebrae, one at the thoracic vertebrae, and one at the lumbar vertebrae. Keeping the body centered and upright implies that the torso be naturally upright. It doesn't mean the spine should be completely straight, which in reality is not possible. To prevent your body from leaning, it is necessary to tuck your sacrum in slightly. By tucking in your sacrum, you can lessen the stress on your lower back and allow your waist to move more freely. The guideline, sacrum centered and upright (we ilu zhong zheng), is often used in conjunction with the guideline, body centered and upright. Of course, if your head is not upright, your torso will be affected. Therefore, the guideline, vitality of spirit leads to the top of the head, must also be followed to keep the body centered and upright.

Chest and Back: Arc Your Chest and Round Your Back (Han Xiong Ba Bei)
With your chest naturally relaxed and arced in slightly, reducing the pressure on your lungs, you allow deeper and more relaxed breathing. The slight movements of your chest provide direct stimulation and exercise to your organs. It is like a gentle massage, loosening up whatever stagnation there may be in the fasciae layers surrounding your organs. The slight arcing of your chest makes the back slightly rounded with a slightly lifted feeling. When training taijiquan as a fighting art, the chest is arced in farther with the back more rounded. The reason for this is to create the potential for power release.

Waist and Hips: Loosen Your Waist and Hips (Song Yao Song Kua)
The 206 bones in our bodies are "threaded" together for weight bearing and for a variety of movements. The waist, which connects your upper body and lower body, has a significant influence on the movements of the entire body. Through the connecting ligaments, once the waist moves, the other joints in the body are affected.
Located around your waist area are your dan tian and your kidneys. According to Chinese acupuncture, residing in the kidneys is one of the original essences (yuan jing). By exercising your waist, you will be stimulating the kidneys—keeping them healthy and functioning properly. It is said by the Chinese that with strong kidneys, your original essence will be sufficient, your qi will be abundant, your spirit will be clear, and your eyes will be bright.
From a martial arts standpoint, the waist is capable of increasing your power and the speed of your techniques. When your waist is loose, the power generated by your legs can easily be transmitted to your arms. Adding the power that can be generated by your waist, your martial potential will be highly improved. On the other hand, if your waist is stiff, then power from your legs will be restricted by your waist, lessening your power manifestation. According to taijiquan theory, the root is at your feet; power is generated by your legs and directed by your waist, and then expressed through your fingers. To adhere to this principle, your upper body must be upright and your stance must be comfortable.

Arms and Shoulders: Sink the Shoulders and Drop the Elbows (Chen Jian Chui Zhou)
Sink the shoulders (chen jian) requires that the shoulder joints be loose. Let your arms hang down naturally. Drop the elbows (chui zhou) implies the lowering of your elbows. People involved in stress-related work often find themselves with their shoulders raised. When this happens, the lungs are constricted from the tension caused by the shoulders. This will restrict breathing and prevent the smooth circulation of blood and qi. Also, if the shoulders are not relaxed and the elbows are not dropped, it will make the guideline "arc your chest and round your back" impossible.
From a martial arts standpoint, drop the elbows is a protective strategy. If your shoulders are raised, your elbows will also be lifted. Also, when your elbows are too high, it will tense up your shoulders. When your shoulders are up, it is easier for your opponent to lift up your elbow, leaving the vital areas of your body exposed and vulnerable to an attack.

Wrist and Hand: Extend the Fingers and Settle the Wrist (Zuo Wan Shen Zhi)
Extend the fingers and settle the wrist is a hand and wrist exercise. In settle the wrist, you are flexing your wrist by extending the base of your palm forward while leaving your fingertips suspended in place. Every time you settle your wrist and extend your fingers, the joints are being gently stretched and loosened. Energetically, the small motion of your wrist and hand helps bring your attention to your fingers, assisting your mind in leading the qi to your fingers.
From a martial arts standpoint, in a palm strike, the settling movement of your wrist increases the speed of your strike, which in turn increases the penetrating power of your strike. For example, if you were to throw a baseball at 50 mph, riding in the back of a pickup truck moving at 40 mph, neglecting air and all other resistance, the speed of the ball would be 90 mph (50 mph + 40 mph). This is the case with your arm thrusting forward (pickup speed) and settling your wrist (baseball speed) right before contacting your target.

Legs: Distinguish Substantial and Insubstantial (Fen Qing Xu Shi)
Distinguish substantial and insubstantial is a guideline for the entire body. With regard to the leg movements, it is a guideline to achieve agility and smoothness in shifting weight from one leg to another. Substantial (shi) literally means "solid," implying firmness and stability, not rigidity. Insubstantial (xu) literally means "empty," implying the ability to change, not lifelessness.
Beginners often have the problem of falling into a stance, creating an abrupt change in movement and making balancing difficult. To prevent this from happening when stepping, do not step too wide or too far. Also, when your feet are too far apart, it will be very difficult for you to change stances. After touching down with your stepping foot, shift your weight forward gradually, paying attention to the weight transfer from the substantial leg to the insubstantial leg.

Entire Body: Upper and Lower Body Follow Each Other (Shang Xia Xiang Sui)
This guideline stresses the importance of integrating the entire body for good rooting, balance, and centering. When one part of your body moves, all other parts also move, providing a total body exercise.
It is said in taijiquan that when there is an upward movement, then there is also a downward movement; when there is a forward movement, then there is also a backward movement; and when there is a left movement, then there is also a right movement. Energetically, your mind is aware of the movement of your entire body, balancing your body and qi in all directions, achieving total equilibrium of mind and body.

https://ymaa.com/articles/2014/05/guidelines-for-taijiquan-practice

Why does he make such a big deal about settle the wrists? Why does he consider that esoteric? Why does he think they don't teach that in yiquan?

Yao ChengRong wrote:Visualize imaginary springs between your wrists and connecting your wrists to your neck. Visualize sitting on a high stool with a string pulling the top of your head upward. Tuck in your chin as if holding a small balloon between the chin and the neck. Visualize directing a small force in your front knee forward and upward and a small force in your rear hip backward and downward; the forces below the knees push slightly inwards and above the knees push slightly outwards. With your palms facing inwards, your lead left hand is over your left foot, slightly higher than shoulder level and your guarding right hand is at shoulder level. Visualize holding a large balloon between your chest and arms. Prop your elbows outwards, round your back and hollow your chest to maintain “fullness” in your “frame” while relaxing your shoulders and elbows. Establish proper internal isometrics by visualizing these opposing force pairs (Zheng Li) between different elements in your body. Maintain optimal body alignment, connectedness, whole-body integration, perfect balance and a relaxation/tension state that allows for gentle and supple movement with alertness and readiness for action.
The method of practicing this boxing art is nothing more than opening and closing, passive and active. The subtlety of the art is based entirely upon their alternations. Chen Xin
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby everything on Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:08 pm

I think he says at the very beginning something like "yeah this seems all basic and you've heard it 1000x before but ..." then emphasizes what he keeps calling "charge" and otherwise this is a waste of time. so I'm just wondering what people make of that, not the beginner going through the motions stuff.
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby Overlord on Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:19 pm

Old Wang did include friction walk in his curriculum ~
His method emphasis foot surface remained parallel to the floor surface.
Anyway from my experience it feels like there is a layer of mud so before your foot landed there is a increase of resistance and when you try to lift the foot up there is a suction force.
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby everything on Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:30 pm

really interesting, thanks.
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby Trick on Sun Jan 19, 2020 7:05 am

robert wrote:
everything wrote:so-o-o-o-o-o .... back to the original topic, did anyone actually try out his tips yet?

I'm not sure what you mean by tips, he just covered a couple basics of IMAs.

1 relax the shoulders
2 settle the wrists
3 take small steps
4 don't take too many steps
5 step empty (cat step)
6 stay relaxed

Didn’t see the vid cause I cant. But if this is his teaching of Mocabu then he don’t know how to Mocabu, and from that it’s clear he has not even learned basic YiQuan ZZ.
As China is just a couple of hours away from where any of you stay then just go there and seek up an qualified teacher and learn the right methods .....
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby Trick on Sun Jan 19, 2020 7:17 am

Overlord wrote:Old Wang did include friction walk in his curriculum ~
His method emphasis foot surface remained parallel to the floor surface.
Anyway from my experience it feels like there is a layer of mud so before your foot landed there is a increase of resistance and when you try to lift the foot up there is a suction force.

Mocabu is not only in the feet, it’s an whole body(/mind) exercise .....Again if one has learned YiQuan ZZ and Shili one knows.....
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby everything on Sun Jan 19, 2020 1:45 pm

Hmm. I don't think you'd really disagree with what he said. He's talking about bringing "charge" up through whole body, with a disclaimer he doesn't teach yiquan, and his material is more from tai chi. Loosely paraphrasing from memory. I don't think any of us are really disagreeing with you, either. But personally I am interested in people's experience of the feeling of the feet (without ignoring whole body/mind).
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby Trick on Mon Jan 20, 2020 7:54 am

I didn’t know who this meredith was so I looked on the net, he claim to study YiQuan, in the thread it say’s he is supposed to have mentioned Wang Xiangzhai’s teachings, and the headline of the thread is friction step, although some poster goes into mud step which is another thing.....I comment on mocabu which usually in YiQuan comes into practice after learned ZZ and shili, then one will know the friction step is not solely in the sole of the foot, the understanding of it comes quickly...
If one try by experimenting to figure out how to mocabu without proper ZZ and shili basics in the back one will fail....And this is what I think meredith is doing, taking stuff from his ZMQ Taiji to come up with an home brewed mocabu exercise...
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby everything on Mon Jan 20, 2020 8:13 pm

I believe he is taking from his own experience and made a disclaimer about it to the effect that he's not teaching yiquan (and is teaching some kind of homebrew thing), yes. It's too bad you can't see the video, but it'd be good to talk about either his homebrew thing or actual yiquan. I may have been the one to emphasize feet, due to some prehab/rehab I'm doing.
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby everything on Tue Jan 21, 2020 11:44 am

Connor’s friend Billy R!!!
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby jjy5016 on Sat Feb 15, 2020 1:20 pm

He studied for "a couple of summers" with Yao and he's qualified to make improvements on mo cha bo practice. Oh boy....

At least he had the decency to say not to think of it as yiquan.
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Re: INTERNAL Friction stepping - Scott meredith

Postby Taste of Death on Thu Jul 29, 2021 2:56 pm

Trick wrote:I didn’t know who this meredith was so I looked on the net, he claim to study YiQuan, in the thread it say’s he is supposed to have mentioned Wang Xiangzhai’s teachings, and the headline of the thread is friction step, although some poster goes into mud step which is another thing.....I comment on mocabu which usually in YiQuan comes into practice after learned ZZ and shili, then one will know the friction step is not solely in the sole of the foot, the understanding of it comes quickly...
If one try by experimenting to figure out how to mocabu without proper ZZ and shili basics in the back one will fail....And this is what I think meredith is doing, taking stuff from his ZMQ Taiji to come up with an home brewed mocabu exercise...


The whole body is involved in every aspect of yiquan. The mocabu (friction stepping) is not just about the sole of the foot although that is an important aspect. The foot that is moving should be lightly scraping the ground. Try training on gravel. The small rocks should roll under the foot as it "steps". On grass, the sole of the foot should stroke each blade of grass. I have discussed this with students of Yao's lineage (I don't know if they trained directly with the Yaos) and they disagree and claim the moving foot should not touch the ground. It is true that the foot hovers but it always should remain in contact with the ground. In Han Shi Yi Quan we move by lifting the knees and sitting. Rather than pushing off the back foot, we lead with the knee of the front leg, sliding the back foot out rather than lifting it when we move. What type of surface one trains on and what type of shoe one wears are factors in how well the body responds to mocabu. Tennis hard courts and brick are the most difficult surfaces to train on. But they make one better at mocabu because there is little room for error. Like most people who wear Feiyue kung fu shoes (as I do mostly) they will wear out quickly doing mocabu on tennis courts and brick. Also concrete with little pebbles embedded in it are rough on the shoe soles. If one only practices on dirt and grass and then gets in a fight on the street, one's feet might get stuck. One of the benefits of mocabu is that by sliding the foot one can step further than if one "stepped" the traditional way.
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