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Old 05-31-2011, 08:34 AM   #25
HL1978
Dojo: Aunkai
Location: Fairfax, VA
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 429
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Re: playing with weight and a question

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
Hi Hunter:

Just reading that I run into a wall. Add your opponent's weight with your weight and then add even more pressure/weight? Where do you get the last bit? It has to come from somewhere.

Best.

Mike
It would be pretty sweet if I could magically add more weight than the sum of my opponents weight and my own. Of course I doubt I could get 100% percent of my opponents weight either. By using muslces in the pelvic area, it seems like you feel additional pressure on the feet which I am associating with a weighted feeling. Contracting or relaxing a muscle can't add additional mass/weight, but only convey existing weight more clearly. I probably didn't convey the part about the kua/pelvic area on the last section of my previous post.

Alex showed it this way the other day. I had one foot forwards and one foot back. Alex stood on my rear foot and told me to move it forwards. Forrest had us do this exercise at his seminar last year. What most people who try it the first time do is try and pull with the rear leg while leaning forwards and they can't overcome the other persons weight easily. What Forrest showed was of course different.

He said that you would put jin in the front foot to pull the rear up. The front foot basically gets really heavy and it becomes relatively easy to pull the rear foot up at the same time while closing the front leg. I think at the time I was using the quads to pull it up, but I can use the inner thigh and pelvic crease to contract. I still use those muscles now, but not so much contracting them.

Now what do I mean by heavy? Well not just relaxed, but more like this, when I pick my foot off the ground there is no longer any pressure on the bottom of the foot so the foot feels "light". If you walk forwards the way someone typically does, each foot alternates between being "light" and heavy, in part because of the weight shift. Likewise pulling/pushing with the quads, as discussed below makes the foot get light. FYI I have no clue if Akuzawa talks about things going light or heavy, I don't recall. It might be Alex's own definition.

Alex had a different approach. The way that Forrest had us do it, the rear foot winds up getting light while being pulled forwards, or at least thats how I interpreted it during the seminar as it seemed to work for me. Perhaps Forrest explicitly said to keep it in the rear foot as well, but my notes don't reflect that for that specific exercise. I bet Forrest probably was keeping it in the rear from his Radio JIN rule: all jin all the time. Keeping jin at the point of contact with your partner. Alex's approach just reiterates that point, and explicitly tells you to keep it in the rear.

Alex had me keep both feet heavy throughout the entire time. The rear foot felt more pressure of course because I had someone standing on it. Now, like i said above, if i try and push and pull with the quads so that the foot goes off the ground the foot gets light. This could be the result of pushing the foot off the ground, or pulling it off the ground. Either way, despite the assistance of the front leg, you still have the rear leg fighting the weight of the person standing on your foot. In the manner Alex showed, you don't fight the weight (and never do), you keep the foot heavy as it moves forwards, by instead using the pelvic area to push into the ground through an elongation, likewise the rear of the thigh elongating.

This is a bit different from the typical movement where one muscle elongates while the other contracts. By pushing the muscles in the pelvic area down, it elongates and the leg straightens, coupled with the rear of the thigh elongating. Might just be a intent cue, because normaly if we relax a muscle it elongates, but if I was to relax more I would wind up getting lower to the ground.

Now the pressure in my foot seemed to actually increase (getting "heavier") and there was no fighting with my partners weight. I still did the same close with the front as how Forrest indicated. It was substantially easier to move the rear leg up.

Now this mechanic works just as well for the aunkai mabu walking, or Forrest's i dream of genie exercise. It also seems to make for seriously strong kicks when coupled with "falling into" your opponent. I'm trying this with every exercise I do and it is amazing how often my feet get light or heavy if I shift my posture from one direction to another. So for a kick this means that I have my body weight behind the kicking foot, but not IN the kicking foot. Only local muscle and the weight of the leg would be in that kick. Likewise it seems like it makes you a lot harder to unbalance.

It is becoming easier to shift my posture but keep the foot in the opposite direction of my shift to stay heavy.

Last edited by HL1978 : 05-31-2011 at 08:39 AM.
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