Orbitals

        Last night's class we covered two things: a combination of jab, reverse, hook, and uppercut; and sticky hands.  We've done these drills before, and yet the way they were approached provided me with three really great insights.

         One of the goals of these lessons was to feel the connection between our lower half and our upper half, specifically between our hips and shoulders.  My first insight actually came when we were doing the combination drill, but I'll get to that in a moment, because the second insight ties back into it.  My second insight came during sticky hands application, specifically the punch at the end.  We were told the punches power comes from the center, think belly button area.  As we were practicing this it clicked that this internal feeling of where the power comes from really feels the same as the punch in Da Mu Hsing 1 that follows the step back and downward foot block.  I struggled with that technique, because a lot of the times it felt like I was just kind of sticking my arm out there, because there was no big, obvious rotation coming from my hips into that punch.  Obviously there is a rotation coming from the hips, but it is a lot more subtle, hidden even.

        As for my first insight, earlier in class when we were discussing the relationship between our upper and lower half, shoulders and hips, we talked about the plane that those work on.  This got me thinking.  A lot of what we do is a circular motion with a lot of expansion and contraction in between.  A push-pull to simplify it.  Even though we talk about this push-pull usually in the context between our left and right side, I think it applies in all directions, up-down too.  Think of the image of an atom.  You have a centre mass, and surrounding it are rings that are up and down, left and right, and diagonal.  Depending on how we move, we have a similar pattern.  Within these movements we have a push-pull or contracting and expanding motion.  There is the obvious circle between my left and right, as one shoulder and hip pulls back and contracts, my other shoulder and hip  pushes forward and expands.  Same goes with my upper an lower half, there is contraction or pull as we sink into our centre, then a push or expansion as we move that energy out, against the earth connected to our feet, and out our upper extremities.  Think about when we do a squat thrust, that loading of energy and explosive expansion upwards.  Our bodies are more dynamic, so the same goes in diagonal directions.

        The last insight I gained from last night's class was again during the combination drill.  As I was feeling out the connection between my upper and lower half, the shoulders and hips, I noticed that even though they are connected, there is a slight lag in movement.  My hips engage first, ever so slightly as my upper body follows, and same is true in the opposite direction.  As I pull back to set-up my next technique the hips start to pull back first ever so slightly before my upper body begins too.  Which means, that when I'm doing something like a jab reverse, my hips start the movement, and also, that my hips start to pull back, even before that arm is fully extended, and I'm talking by a hair.  That's fluidity of motion though.