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I think it is all about how you visualize the centre or the centre moving within you. So yes you could say that mentally the centre might move first.
This visualization is hard to describe and the effects we are having are even harder.
We have made great progress over the last years or so and you reach a point where small gains are what you come to expect. You no longer think there are concepts that might make great leaps and bounds.
However, recently getting deeply into release over doing we made great leaps. And now this visualization is having a profound effect that we are just exploring.
I have looked at a lot of things over my martial art journey but these two things are beyond anything or any principle of other systems I have looked at.
I will try to post more as I can.
I will try and do video but it is going to be really odd because there is nothing that is apparent physically when you enact this visualization. The difference in what the partner is encountering should be very visible.
We’ll see what can be done.
We use the imagery that works for us.
I have used the gears/levers successfully before too – that is a solid one.
This imagery is having surprising and rather astounding results for us.
So Tuesday night Rav, Stan, Yazeed and I spent the night working with this visualization and taking it to new places.
Zazeed is a young very athletic fellow training with us. He started training a while before covid so he had not had all that much chance to do what we do. And as he just started back with us we also he has a very open mind nd very talented. I thought this might just be beyond him because, as I said, he was just getting to move his centre and release but NO he did exceptionally well. Many baffled looks (like the rest of us to be honest) when it worked – actually when it worked startlingly well. AND then when we were throwing slow strikes at each other and seeing how well things worked against us using various adaptions of visualizing our centre (particularly stretching it and using that elasticity because it did work so very well) we decided to up the anti or rather Stan did. 🙂 when we threw the strikes we threw them using this method of using the centre visualizing it extending through the striking arm anchored to its base and that changed everything. Where before when only the receiving partner was using it we were shockingly easy to manipulate (we are not easy at all), but now faced with our enhanced structure being countered by THEIR enhanced structure then it became a game of chess again as to who could apply what better and faster than it could be countered.
We have to do this and release until it is what we do all the time every time!
I think I will post them here as I get them done and if anyone has a read you can tell me if the write ups make sense.
I think I will post them here as I get them done and if anyone has a read you can tell me if the write ups make sense.
I have trained in a few traditional arts and taught one. In all my years training in those traditional arts all they ever said was only use this to protect yourself or others and THAT was the extend of the training in the Plea of Self Defence AND for a long time in my teaching of Karate I was just as guilty as my previous teachers.
There are two extremes on the view of self defence one being if you are a good and solid citizen and the body on the ground is a known dirt bag then you should not have much trouble and the truth is most of the time in that situation you won’t. BUT we have seen how the media can take a criminal and show pictures of him back when he was a child and have interviews of his family saying what a great and peaceful person he was ignoring the FB pictures posted of him making gang signs and with weapons. Ignoring all the criminal convictions. Suddenly this dirt bag’s history is washed clean and there is an uproar to have someone pay – that someone being you. And once the clean up is done then nothing will change the public’s mind. So the other extreme is to know the plea of self defence well enough to stay within the bounds so well even a lynch mob cannot touch you.
Adding a section after feedback from Rick B.
You will find the new section after this paragraph (I will edit the main post.):
Once you can feel even the slightest imbalance begin to create the imbalance as you rotate your torso. Learn to feel the imbalance as your torso moves. ALWAYS remember to come back and find that reset to implant that as the desired position. It is fine if you can feel an imbalance but not fine if your body doesn’t know what is that you would rather do.
Adding:
The above is my take on how to imbalance yourself for the Balance Drill. Rick B. actually does it slightly differently. You can do all the same steps as above but instead of leaning forward as far as you can go without toppling over (as in how I do it), Rick B. would have you move center forward while retaining verticality. In essence you are moving your centre off your base to create the imbalance, but you are retaining your verticality over your centre. Try this too. It can teach you to retain verticality even when you are off balance – a very good skill.
THIS is the foundation for everything that will come so work it and work it. Nothing in martial arts and self defence comes without the work.
How to learn the difference between “Doing” and “Allowing.”
Stand in a neutral stance feet shoulder width apart or a little wider.
BEND your right knee until you tip a fair way over.
UNBEND your right knee back to neutral stance.
Repeat a few times and repeat with your left knee.
THIS IS DOING. You are using your muscles to bend the knee.
Stand in a neutral stance feet shoulder width or a little wider.
COLLAPSE your right leg (release the muscles of your right leg that are holding you up). Catch yourself before you fall right over. Notice your right knee is bent.
Come back to neutral stance.
Repeat a few times and repeat collapsing your left leg.
THIS IS ALLOWING. The release of the muscles holding your right leg in place allowed you to collapse the knee (bend it.)
When you release, particularly at the start there should be a clear sense of falling as you felt when you let your leg collapse to allow the knee to bend.
You can take this same drill into learning to catch and use the elasticity – next post.
“For example don’t use muscle , is really use the least amount of muscle”
HArd to describe in words what we are feeling…..
Noticed a common flaw with some is that they think emptying the foot means picking it up off the ground but if you do that you are using muscles – the opposite of what we want. No need for it to come off the ground BUT when you empty often the spring from the remaining foot lifts it off the ground.
Part Three
Once you begin to get the release and move you need to feel the elasticity that is being created and used. When one-foot releases then all your mass drops on the other foot compressing it and if done properly accesses that spring.
When you move and land you compress once again accessing the elasticity of the body which can be immediately used.
As Rick B says once you begin to properly empty the foot you can tap into the elasticity of the body.
When you release and pivot the heels you should feel the compression on the landing and be immediately able to “bounce” or “spring” off into your next move.
Play with this and feel it.
Make accessing that elasticity what you do.
It is vital that you make release and elasticity what you do every time you move. It is not a technique to be pulled out here and there. If you really want to use it then you must use it all the time. This is something still in the works for me.
Part Two
My main fear is that people watching the videos see the rotation of the feet and think that is what I am talking about, that is what is important. NO.
The important thing is what initiates and creates that rotation of the feet.
If you think oh, I rotate my feet then you are thinking of it as a technique. This is not what I am after. The muscles holding the leg in place are released allowing gravity to move the leg creating momentum. You do engage the muscles that guide the heel or toe in a rotation. This can take some practice.
You can certainly rotate the feet using muscle and make gains, but this is not what I am after because anything done by muscle can give tells where allowing the move does not give much away.
Most important thing is the release of muscles to engage gravity and initiate movement to gain momentum and kinetic energy.
The Qigong exercise of standing meditation is related to the balance drill because to remain standing in one position for a long time requires the releasing of any unnecessary muscles. So, this is definitely not something new.
The balance drill may not excite students, but it is essential in my mind. To learn to feel any imbalance requires you to tune into your body. To make yourself more and more loose and remain standing requires you to systematically release more and more unnecessary muscles. This is the learning. When you imbalance yourself you learn to feel the pull of gravity. We are constantly under the force of gravity but most of the time we remain oblivious to it – until we slip and fall….
When we move on to the touch the toe to the wall drill, we are looking for that feeling of engaging gravity. We want to feel it’s pull as we release the muscles to touch the toe to the wall. This is where we learn to engage gravity to create some momentum. It is important to be able to do this in any direction at anytime. If you can easily release and move in any direction, then you are well balanced. If there is an imbalance then there is a direction you cannot easily engage gravity to move, it will require using muscle to initiate the movement. This shows, for me, why the balance drill is the first step and foundation for learning release.
So if you want to start to use release to move do the balance drill and touch your toe (sides of foot and heel) to the wall and then, most importantly, try to use release to initiate all movement in your training.
