Braden...

[Sam Wiley]

I noticed that in another thread you said you sometimes found yourself forward weighted when coming out of changes while walking the circle. What exactly did you mean?

[Braden]

Nothing good, just a sign of my ineptness. ;)

When I walk the circle, I try to keep my weight really back, so that I constantly feel posted/sunk into the rear leg, even though I'm not ever standing still. I must have at least _some_ skill at it, since I notice when I'm not doing it. ;) I have some amount of trouble keeping the weight back for the first step coming out of a simple inside or outside change. It's not the coordination (I can do it easily enough), it's just that it's not natural - it's one of those things that 'goes' quickly when I'm not paying attention to it. I'm not entirely sure why; maybe because I'm in a rush to step away, or maybe the change itself taxes my balance a bit.

Does that make sense?

[Sam Wiley]

Are you dropping your weight in order to extend your front foot, or are you shifting weight forward to push it out?

Do you scrape your front foot along the ground when you mudstep, or do you keep it like a centimeter off the ground?

When you change direction, are you turning one foot before the other or are you turning them both at the same time?

Do you ever imagine that there is an iron bar running down through your backbone and standing leg into the ground, and that when you change you are simply picking that bar up and dropping it into another hole?

I find that if I imagine the iron bar thing, it is easier to change weight from one leg to the other. Also, if I am walkign the circle with my left hand in the center, and have my left foot forward, for instance, and turn my left foot before the right to do an outer change, I find that my left foot takes proper position and that once I transfer weight onto it, all I have to do is turn my empty right foot to face the other way. Then all I have to do is sink my weight further onto my left foot (pressing energy) and slide my right forward for the step. It's almost the same for the inside facing change, except it's quicker and tighter. Also, except for the steps immediately after the changes, I tend to keep my front foot completely off the ground.

I think more than likely you are rushing the step after the change. Try centering yourself and making sure you're weighted all on that back leg before pushing off into the next step. You might want to do like I do and slightly lift the front foot off the ground right after the weight transference. When you make the change, pause for a second, and then step. Also, try doing this: every time you step, do it as if it were a kick, with the front foot remaining off the ground. Same movement, but no contact with the ground. This tends to make me drop my weight to extend the front foot. Also, do the kicking motion a bit quicker than the slide, keeping the front foot off the ground. This means making a little pause before sinking the weight and extending the front foot again.

I tried to find one of Sun Lu-tang's classics to quote, but it's not in Erle's book Internal Gung Fu vol.1 like I thought it was. He onyl lists Eight Essentials, but in my notes I have 9 listed. The ninth one is "pull the kua," or "contracting energy,"where the front leg is made to expand and the rear leg to contract by trying to pull the feet together. If you do this until your upper body turns into the center, and then slack off the front leg so it is completely insubstantial, you get this.

Now, when you do a change, you should be doing this as well. So, when you change, you pull the kua and slack off on the front foot a little to maintain the essentials. If you do this, and provided that you come into proper posture after the turn, then the step is just like any other step during your walking.

I hope this makes some sense. I could show you easier than I could tell you.