Friday, October 16, 2009

The New Paradigm

Your HandsImage by Toni Blay via Flickr

Hey, I've decided to take a more informal stance to my blog... not going over "big ideas" for the most part, because it's hard to think of them :-P and also I get caught up in that and it's not really helpful to my practice to force them out. SO - now I'm just going to use the format of talking about what I'm working on.

I've been working a lot on keeping my hands level in stance. It seems fairly straightforward, like just about every other structural component of stance. Just put your hands a level place, so they're even. Simple, Right? Apparently not so much. Why can't I consistently do this one simple thing? I swear I've been working on it (on and off) for 3 years... It's like my achilles heel, my " Dan's Left Arm".

So far these have been the issues keeping my hands from evenness:
1. My left hand "wants to be" higher than my right.
2. Sometimes when I think it's even, it's still higher.
3. If my attention drifts, there go my hands again. (And to be honest, my attention is only so-so)

But I've been working on focusing on my hands, and things have been getting better. Lately I've been putting more attention and intention in structure (still trying to remember relax), and it's been paying off... I'm starting to notice more connections starting to show up.

Anyway, that's how things are for now, look forward to more posts soon!


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2 comments:

  1. I appreciate the difficulty of coming up with more "hardcore" topics when blogging...and while I do enjoy the formal as well as informal posts of yours I also appreciate what can come out of more "relaxed" discussion...

    As far as hands being level, it's also an area I've been working on...I feel a bit of a twist in my body as my left arm drifts up (presumably from more tension...I'm also working on relaxing the arms so that when moved around there's no resistance or stiffness when the other person lets go and yet another big thing for me is relaxing the wrists...So many points but it's all part of the enjoyment/interesting-ness of stance IMO!

    Good training!

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  2. Nice Dan! I look forward to reading more of your training notes!

    Mike from http://internalgongfu.blogspot.com/

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