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Old 12-17-2010, 07:12 PM   #17
David Orange
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Re: Spear Training for Internal Power

Quote:
Tim Fong wrote: View Post

Static Spear Thrust.
Now that you have identified your psoas, it's time to use it in the spear thrust. You can use a typical 6 foot hardwood staff as your training implement. When you take the spear and sit down into the back leg to prepare the thrust, you should feel the psoas stretch in the front leg. Specifically, you should feel the psoas connecting the spine and the femur. The deeper you sit and the more you twist to be sidways, the more you should feel this.
Just did a bunch of these and got a whole new light on it.

It's the same thing we did in Atlanta with Ark, pushing the other guy back with the bo. I've worked with Jang on this, some, too (not enough), and I've been able to push back some fairly big guys, but doing the same thing with awareness of the connections and the functions you've laid out adds another big dimension to it. It gives me a clue as to how Ark was able to shove me back so far with the same move, done explosively.

I've also done a bit of a kind of thrusting that Rob showed on a video on badongo, I think it was, where the rear arm rises up beside the head and you sort of thrust downward at the end...unless I badly misinterpreted what I thought I saw....the point of the spear doesn't spiral but just rotates as it thrusts forward, while the rear rotates through a big spiral. The important point being not so much the outer movement as the use of the psoas you describe in generating the outer movement.

Quote:
Tim Fong wrote: View Post
Now, you will extend the spear forward. Push off the ground with the back leg, and allow your body to be twisted to face forward. Your pelvis will tilt forward-- this is functionally the same position that is held in the Aunkai stillness training. As you extend your arms in the spear thrust, and pivot to face the front, you will want to feel the psoas tighten on the back leg. Once you have fully extended the spear, you should feel the weigh of the spear actually stressing the psoas on the back leg, specifically toward the top of the femur. You will want to feel the back leg connect to the front hand, and the front leg connect to the back hand. You will want to lift the head and feel the tail bone pulling downwards, even at the full extended position. There is some other stuff going on with the cross (upper chest/shoulder girdle) as well but I'm going to leave that out for now. If you've been doing a lot of jujiko then you can play with that awareness during the thrust as well.
That's a lot.

Quote:
Tim Fong wrote: View Post
You can try to feel like the entire back of your body, from your heels, up the hamstrings to the top of your head, is being stretched by the bo.
That jumped out pretty vividly--not so much a stretch, but awareness through the whole back as you describe. But at least my shoulders tended to stay very relaxed (221 relaxations counted, so far).

Quote:
Tim Fong wrote: View Post
Once you feel like you have hung out long enough, just retract the staff. You can do this by sitting down into your stance, and then allowing your torso to rotate as a result of your pelvis rotating back towards the rear leg. By rotation, I mean rotating with the spine as an axis. If the rear leg psoas is tightened by your thrust, then you will naturally twist back towards the leg anyways. As you twist back and retract the spear, you will tighten the psoas on the front leg again.
Very specific use of a very specific muscle for an exact function.

Quote:
Tim Fong wrote: View Post
...At first just go force on force for a few reps and try to focus on pushing the back leg hard against the ground, and going force on force.
So you're beginning with the back foot pushing the ground. As that moves up the leg, you then begin the psoas contraction? Or even as you're pushing the ground, from the first moment?

Will you come back with more on the shoulder girdle?

I think that, too, would be very helpful.

Thanks.

David

Last edited by David Orange : 12-17-2010 at 07:15 PM.

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