Insight with Injury

           Tai Chi continues to garner new insights despite my knee.  Which is saying something because of all the left leading cat stances that are in that form and my reluctance to put too much weight on it.  It’s that same reluctance that leads me to new lessons.  There was a transitional move that was feeling off, and I realized it was because I couldn’t commit to my back leg (right leg), the way I normally would, which in turn has made everything else feel off.  I have to alter the way I move to achieve similar results.  I also came to realize how certain things work within the context of the Tai Chi form. Like utilizing the vertical punch for skeletal alignment versus the way we usually punch. That simple rotation of the wrist goes from having my skeleton behind me to wanting to rotate more into it.  Even the way we transition movements, the place before we shift weight, which is a good rule of thumb for most of our forms, but not always.  There is a move in Tai Chi that could be similar to the sweeping motion we do in DMH, but in the context of the form it is not a sweep, rather just a change in direction.

         In black belt class we went over some forms and we worked on the last sequence of DMH, the knife hand sequence.  While focusing on the rotations involved, I also noticed something that clicked some connections into place in other parts of my forms.  It’s a rather obvious one, but still a mind-blowing moment for me.  So, it makes sense now.  We have elastin in our muscles which gives them the ability to stretch and contract like a rubber band. This is utilized a lot in our movements and quite prevalent in the weight lifting world to achieve heavier lifts.  Now in terms of Kung Fu, I can apply this same rebounding effect to my techniques.  In order to do this though, you need to fully release your energy.  This means completing the technique, something I still find myself cutting short in certain areas, thus robbing myself of optimizing power and flow.

         As for how my forms are going, obviously they’re not going how I’d like them too.  I can’t lower my centre and stabilize the way I want to, and I’m having to adjust my stances to get my skeletal alignment.  Having a restricted lower body is limiting how I want to manifest my upper movements.  Doesn’t mean I can’t harmonize them, it’s just not moving as freely as I want it to.  There’s a lot of things I’m having to do “in the spirit of” versus how they should be done if I had full use.  Knee is feeling better overall.  There are some milestones that I’ve noticed that I’ve hit.  Like I can kneel down almost to the full extent that I could before, and I can jump into a horse stance (albeit a high horse) from that almost full kneel position.