wearing weights and chi, rooting or flying

[SanHeChuan]

I’ve heard that practicing in weights will make you feel lighter. But will practicing with weights help you to develop a strong root.

I’m having problems channeling chi to my lower body, and I just got some ankle weights and I was thinking that they could help me to channel chi for root, by artificially creating a feeling of root.

Is this making any sense?

thoughts anyone?

[RickMatz]

Forget the weights. Just take a deeper stance in standing stake practice.

Best Regards,

Rick Matz

[Water Dragon]

It can be done, but may not be worth the effort. When doing kicks, you would put the weight on the non-kicking leg only.

For root, I suggest the following: get a heavy bag (preferably at least 100 lbs). Get in front of the bag in your "punch shape" from your form. Push the bag with your free hand. As it comes back, hold out your punching hand in front of the bag. Be sure you are in a good stance; not too deep, use your fighting stance.

This is what will happen: At first, the bag's gonna knock you straight out of your root. After a while, you wont get knocked out but will have to use a lot of muscle to stay in place. If you keep at it, you will stand there in your shape, extremely relaxed, and the bag wont affect your structure at all. Then, you'll have a decent root and can start to punch the bag. Do this 20 times a day on each side for 100 days.

[SanHeChuan]

WD, ok let me see if i got this right, stand in front of a heavy bag in a comfortable fighting stance, push the bag, when the back somes back try to stop it with the pushing hand? (and dont absorb the bag) should i try to stop the bag with just a stiff arm or use my whole body.

is that what your saying?

:confused: :confused: :confused:

[Water Dragon]

Just hold out your punching hand to stop it. All you are doing is building your ground path. In time, the energy from the bag is going to hit your hand channel down your body, and ground in your foot. Once you build that path, you can start hitting from the floor, ie whole body power.

[Nexus]

If you have training partners, you can have them act as the bag, by pushing on your arm, which is a process in tai chi we use to learn and develop ward off energy.

- Nexus

[maoshan]

I disagree with this as a first approuch.
What should first be viewed is your posture.
You say, You can't get a good flow to your lower extremes, From what I gather, it's your back or a deep placed Meridien, Which in the end, the method is the same. You must first make sure your posture is correct, and stand! There's no way out of it. But then refering back to the basics is what makes masters.
if it 's a deep placed Meridian, Only through constant standing and relaxation will it start to open. Or an acupunturist. Doesn't matter, you'll still have to stand.
Be careful of your choice,

If it's your posture, you'll begin to create blockages in your lower back.(by the bag method) (which is good training for the right foundation)
If it's the Meridean, You'll never have any real power and begin inadvertantly (over time) violating the principles that governs the Nei Chia.

Peace
Maoshan

[Water Dragon]

The bag will fix your posture. In order to stand there and take the impact, your body MUST learn the correct posture. The same end, different means.

[maoshan]

Makes sense,
Cool
Maoshan

[EARTH DRAGON]

Just to add the point that moshan was making POSTURE, there is a largly over looked rule that helps you send chi to the lower extremities. It caled the ming men this is the point which should be opened to allows proper chi flow to the legs and feet. it is the point between the kindneys acroos from the lower dantien. This could very well be your problem, I would look into trying to open this point and forget about the weights for that is band aiding the problem and not fixing the source...

[KungFuWarrior]

First, I would ask, How do you know you are having a problem channeling Chi to your lower body. What are you experiencing that makes you think this.

Secondly, I would have to agree with the others, examine your postures, and angles. Most american practitioners get the postures wrong and end up creating injuries for themselves, expecially the knees. If your knees are hurting or stressed that is a good indicator that your posture is wrong.

Third consult a qualified instructor to examine your posture and verify what you are feeling.

[SanHeChuan]

WD
Am I suppose to move far, I moved barely a-half a step the first time I tested it and after that it didn't move me back . So i tried pushing it harder and ****her, but nothing. I haven't gotten a chance to really try it out, and I was leaning forward a bit in anticipation of the return.

KungFuWarrior,
I don’t think I’m channeling chi to my lower body properly because I can't feel it like I do in my arms. It’s strongest in my hands but not so much anywhere else; it's improving though.

I'm learning some Tai Chi but I wouldn't really consider my instructor a "qualified instructor". And the only other people is this Hippie guy that I think sucks, some Chinese? Dude at the YMCA somewhere, and some dudes in some park somewhere that I don’t know (where), all of them are mainly health oriented too.

The bag pushing thing is "Ban Zhuang".

However, this will result in structural breakdown of an improperly taught stance - particularly in the knees, back, and ankles.


In traditional kung fu, one must have perfect posture before even THINKING about "Ban Zhuang".

Directly jumping into weight training without having good postural fundamentals as built up by Ban Zhuang and solo set training will result in what my teacher calls "conflicting jings", or strength channels that go against each other as opposed to working with each other.

The thing is that I have yet to see a teacher outside my own teacher who focuses on this properly. Even my sifu's sifu doesn't teach this stuff as thoroughly as mine does, and this results in physical damage to his students.