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Old 01-26-2011, 02:38 PM   #324
Erick Mead
 
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Re: Training Internal Strength

Quote:
Budd Yuhasz wrote: View Post
So got delayed more than I expected - but the basic principle around "conditioned pressures" - to take it a step back towards the Asian definitions - is that you are managing the meeting of gravity/heaven and ground/earth inside you.
I'll come back to skill later-- First, let' finish work on the "what" before going to the "how."

The question is what is happening to make these two basic components (tenchi or weight/ground) interact. Some people visualize them as a simple down-arrow of weight and an up-arrow of ground (reaction force). I would take issue with that simple image only slightly, but adding to it in an important way.

If the action/reaction arrows meet head to head you have compression, if they join tail to tail you have tension -- same two forces -- but two different actions/ stresses -- or pressures, if you like. The heaven-gravity part, in your terms, is actually the action of weight suspended, and therefore in tension, while the earth-ground part is the action of weight supported and therefore in compression.

But there is a third, and in some senses much more fundamental and more common orientation of the up and down arrows and that is where the neither the heads nor the tails meet. They are offset from one another. This is (if you think about it) a class of interactions that is vastly more common than the relatively rarer instances when action and reaction meet in a perfect line.

In mechanical terms the two opposed forces out of line in that way are eccentric, and two eccentric forces define a shear. The offset cutting action of scissors is called shearing for this reason. Let us just note that point in passing, for now, and then move on in your terms to look at the "what" of things that are going on in the body.

So let's start at the ground and work our way up the body in stages and see if we agree on some things as we go. Start with the most basic bipedal activity -- walking. We have two legs. To move requires shifting the support from one leg to the other in succession, typically. Unless you are a kangaroo, one leg is always in relative compression and the other is in relative tension, hanging, in a sense from the "frame" and these alternate.

Standing (a la zhanzhuang) this difference of stress depending on how the weight is disposed between the legs can be accentuated by extension or stretching of the tension side, or by driving the weight more firmly onto the weighted side. In fact doing one requires the other and vice versa, which betrays something about the nature of the relationship between these opposing forces, actions or stresses, and how they interact.

But these two lines of opposing force/stress/pressure must meet (obviously) in some manner just above the junction of the legs. and they alternate in moving (or striking, I might add). So an important interaction must happen there.

So, the question, after this long preface, is to you, in your terms: How do you understand the interaction of those two opposing forces at the hara or xia-dantian? I think we agree that is how we call the place where it occurs.

If you prefer to answer that operatively rather than trying to define it -- that's fine. Operation implies a defnition, so we can work back to a definition that you may agree with based on your sense of the operation you use or perceive in controlling or manipulating it.

I would suggest, if that operative approach is your preferred way of addressing it to start with this that you already said, because we are in full agreement on this point:

Quote:
Budd Yuhasz wrote: View Post
The "right" way involves training the legs and middle to fully support the upper body and to act as primary power generators. ... it's an ongoing stretch/release along the large muscles connecting to the fascia to the bones - so that when one part moves - all parts move.
The question between us under discussion being, of course, the "what" that is moving them -- so we are close on the hunt for common meaning, in this, I think

Quote:
Budd Yuhasz wrote: View Post
Erick - do you see how this is different than applied stresses (such as beating the muscles so they don't clench or cut off a visualized "flow")?
I do. And perhaps you mistake my meaning as to "applied stresses" because I am talking about a systemic condition of differing but innately related stresses that connect the whole body, very much in the manner you suggest, though my terms, as you know, differ, though not as much or to the effect that I think you think they do.

Bear with me, and let's see if we continue to close any gaps in our respective meanings.

Last edited by Erick Mead : 01-26-2011 at 02:41 PM.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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