This is something I encountered in SPM that I've been wondering about. My dai-sihing describes it as "gripping your stance", although I've not sure what it translates as. At my level it's basically trying to drag your feet together while breathing in with my diaphragm... although I'm pretty sure there's meant to be more. Anyway, my question is, does anyone do this? And what benefit do you think it has? Cheers
I’m not an SPM practitioner, but since it’s a Hakka art I would guess it’s similar to other Hakka arts which have this sort of practice. My understanding is that this is a foundation practice for learning to generate coiling/wrapping force, but before this is achieved it also helps to coordinate your muscles to produce some of the forces used in the art. I would guess the process from various styles teachers will vary but the end goal is probably the same. As you describe, it's basically trying to drag your feet together while breathing diaphragmatically. Can also include the opposite component of pushing feet apart while breathing out. The part you describe, as I understand it, is the process of learning to coordinate the “contracting” forces of your body (muscles which control the closing of the body, the extreme of which is the fetal position i.e. all muscles which can contract/close your structure in their most contracted/closed position). It also works to link the “absorb” (maybe you call it “swallowing” in SPM?) potential of all the muscles which can contract/close your structure, in to one unified force. The opposite of this practice, i.e. pushing feet apart while breathing out, works the “projecting” potential (maybe you call it “spitting” in SPM?), same sort of idea, but in reverse. In other words, learning to coordinate the “opening” forces of your body (opposite of the fetal position i.e. all muscles which can open/expand your structure working together). It works to link the “project” potential of all the muscles which can open/expand your structure, in to one unified force. In later stages spiralling/wrapping is added in to the mix, which in essence produces another force which has the contracting and expanding potential within it at the same time, i.e without having to do two opposite things (contracting/expanding). If you’re doing this sort of work, don’t get too overzealous and exert yourself 110%, this coordination is not about how much force you can generate or how forcefully you can breathe, but recognising which of your muscles play what role in each process and how to engage the ones you want for each process and not actively engage the ones you don’t, in essence so that you are not fighting yourself and coordinating your muscles/body towards the same goal, be it contracting/absorbing/swallowing or expanding/projecting/spitting. If you do it too forcefully, you can end up creating numerous imbalances in your body and breathing which will take more work to fix later. Hope that’s of some use to you, but I’m sure your dai-sihing can probably tell you more about this from an SPM point of view.
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. My dai-sihing gives out information on a strictly need-to-know basis. It's good while I'm training so I don't get overwhelmed with detail, but sometimes I can't help but be curious : ) There's a lot more to it than I first thought, which is a thing I like about SPM. Thanks again for the info. What Hakka art do you practice?
No worries, you’re most welcome. Yeah, it’s probably a good idea, too much detail and end goals can skew the development of the basics which are most important and form the foundations on which skill is based on. I practice ‘I Liq Chuan’, it’s a family style from Hakka people who migrated to Malaysia. It’s a mix of a few different styles systemised in to one whole by the family. Happy training!
Some Goju Ryu schools do something similar. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grZj3b1OVas"]Sanchin (The Essence of Goju Ryu) - YouTube[/ame] Though to my limited knowledge Goju is not derived from a Hakka style. Is this anything like what you do in SPM?
most okinawan styles can be traced back (i think) to southern white crane, and some people see a common ancestery in southern white crane and the hakka arts
:topic: That’s quite interesting, I just had a look on Wiki, but I certainly wouldn’t consider Wiki as any authority of the subject. Nevertheless, have a look: As far as I know, Fujian has/had a Hakka population as the area is home to traditional Hakka dwellings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_walled_village#Tu_lou I’m not sure, but judging by their geography, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hakka also practiced Fujian White Crane and Five Ancestors. I don’t know if these styles are considered Hakka, they don’t seem to be on this list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_Kuen Though I do recall there is some relationship between Bak Mei and Five Ancestors and there must have been some general historical crossover/development in the various styles: However the time frame seems off i.e. Hakka migrations to Fujian (a southern Chinese province): Whereas this refers to earlier time periods: But there seem to be later influences too, as below: This is quite interesting too, specifcally in relation to Goju Ryu: :thinking:
Intersting. But I've read that Karate's upright head up chest out stance distinguishes it from hakka arts which can usually be characterised by a hollow chest/C shaped back? Anyways, what you guys think of vid, is it same kind of thing going on?
In terms of the shape I think it's quite dependent on the practitioner and what he is doing at that particular moment, but to some extent I would say that the C type shape does appear often. The first part of that vid is very similar to what I think the method is, except maybe that the breathing is too forceful for my liking and I've never seen the toe thing before. Also, we always try never to rotate the feet inwards, though I'm not sure if he was doing that. The second part is not like anything I have seen, but I guess has some similarities to horse stance training, but I would not keep my feet in such an alignment nor specifically collapse the knees like that.
SPM has the rounded shoulders, but I don't think Fujian white crane does. As for the video, it looks/sounds like what we do, pretty much. I haven't done the pushing/breathing out yet, but I assume that comes later.
I got the impression that the second exercise was a training method for the outward/inward energy, just making it more explicit.
Yeah, I'm sure its related. It's just that the knee movements and feet placement are contradictory to what I understand of our style. Namely, the feet should always be at least parallel, as this allows a much greater degree of coiling outward, whereas if your foot is already in an outward position, there is not much potential for coiling unless you do it inwards(?), but that’s not present in our style. Also, the way we use the knees is very passive, i.e. we don’t use them to support weight, but to pass the weight through them, most of our leg movement originates in the hips. I'm sure there is some decent explanation for the 2nd set of movements as shown in the video, just seems contradictory to some of our principles, not sure if it’s the same in SPM.
