help with ditang and landing

[freedom76]

When doing ditang I feel nauseated and "shaky" inside. I've tried a few things like timing the breathing, full relaxation, etc, but it still happens. I'm wondering if it is a body toughening thing that's needed. (maybe qigong or something) The only advice I've received from previus teachers is to keep doing it, then the bad feelings will go away. That hasn't happened yet and it been a few years. Any suggestions?

[IronFist]

Wtf is ditang?

IronFist

[Qi dup]

Isn't freedom '76 a Ween song?

[wall]

Ditang Quan aka falling boxing , thus lots of jups, falls, etc, thus lots of pain if done wrong.

Sounds like you really have to focus on your falls. The key to the landings is soft...I know it sounds obvious but basically don't tense on landing at all, relax and dissipate the force of down impact outwards, by "flowing" and "rolling" on landings. Practice always on padded floors, and when going for new stuff try it on gymnastics type mats first!

Wall

Btw, some strenghtening is useful, just overall body muscles to protect your structure at impact. Also I don't know your body shape size but Ditang is for little guys. Big tall ones (by Chinese standards) will never be good at it. I'm 5'11" and 170, and that's too big for really good Ditang and "soft" landings. Bigger then me....forget it, change style ;)

[Arhat of Fury]

concentrate on how you are falling.

[SaMantis]

I don't know anything about ditang beyond what I've read on this thread so far ... but as far as falling, when I took judo my instructor told me that an important action when being thrown/falling was to breathe out before hitting the ground.

Before learning that, even if the wind wasn't knocked out of me after a throw, I felt pretty shaky. Your description sounds similar. Hope this helps.

[Leto]

tell me about it...drop kicks are a pain in the a**...literally. :)

[freedom76]

thank you for the replies. I'll "start over" and pay attention to every aspect, especially relaxing and exhaling. Perhaps I think I'm doing something a certain way, but just missing it. I'll give it a go, thank you.