Mirroring
Hi, all..
I was taught to train all forms left and right.. and also held it very important. It was part of our small tests to come into the next level... first we had to practice the form on the right. When it was fluent we took techniques out of the forms ( three or four ) and made what my sifu calls "right-left-roads" of it. Next step was to do the roads as application-roads. By doing this you were finally able to do the whole form on the left also..
But: Though we train it it still feels weird for me because I have more training with the right side also.
But see it like this and then the use and importance is obvious:
How learning of movement works:
first you learn a new movement and you nead all your attention for that, more muscles than you need for the move are tensed because your body has to find out the most efficient and economic use of muscles first. The "little correction-program" in your brain doesn't work already because the movement is new and so: rough-mototic. Then the little programm starts to work, your moves get more fine-motoric..you don't have to think about each small detail anymore..but still it's not perfect. If you can make the movements as fluent as cooking tea in the morning or watering flowers (like someone said in the german board)-that is moving without thinking about it, Bruce Lees and old taoists "emptyness", then your moves are part of the cerebellum plus perfect fine-correction-program- let's say: that perfect, that you don't need any fine-correction any more.( I have to add: fine correction works unknowingly already, too) So how want you be able to react in a fraction of a second on the left side, if the movement doesn't flow out of you, doesn't come as fluent as moves on the right side? And how should they be as efficient as the ones on the right if your muscle-inervation on the left is not so optimized as on your right side? And- if we talk about muscle-inervation: there is another phenomenon called overflow: if you tense a muscle or musclegroup on the right side, there will be a measurable reaction of the same musclegroup on the left side though it's not intended.. just inervation-overflow is the thing. So you allready train your left by doing forms on the right a bit, but the optimum would be having a good left and right and optimize the contralateral side with giving it the" little rest " by the help of Mr. Overflow...... Long text, short intention: I say: train forms on right AND left !
Last edited by tanglang; 09-16-2003 at 08:37 AM.
7*tanglang Germany with regards...