Sunday, November 27, 2011

Starting knee strengthening and stabilization exercise set

The set of exercises I am presenting here is the starting knee strengthening and stabilization exercise set. This set should be mastered before you start practicing any internal martial arts moving exercises.

This exercise set strengthens your whole lower body, all the way from your ribs to your toes.

It teaches you how to connect your torso with your legs.
It teaches you how to move without hurting your knees.
It teaches you how to shift weight fully from leg to leg without swaying.
It teaches you how to ground yourself.
It teaches you how to have a full Yang and full Yin leg.

Instructions:

1. You should have your full weight on your supporting leg. The moving leg should bear no weight even when it touches the ground.
2. The supporting foot should be in full contact with the ground, with the weight equally distributed throughout the exercise. You should never lift your toes or your heel, or the sides of your foot during the exercise.
3. The supporting knee should be over the center of your foot and should not move from that position.
4. Your supporting leg should be vertical and your hip, your knee and your foot should be on the same vertical plane at all times.
5. Your torso should be vertical at all times. Do not lean forward or backward as you step.
6. Your torso should be facing forward at all times. The angle between the supporting leg and your torso should be 90 degrees.
7. When moving your other foot away, you need to lower your body from your coccyx. You are effectively performing a series of mini one leg squats.
8. Your core muscles should be engaged at all times, but only to the minimum required to keep the body in the correct position.
9. Your breathing should be smooth and long. Do not hold your breath.

This set of exercises is sometimes known as Taichi dance. Once you can perform this set, you can connect the movements by shifting the weight from your Yang leg to your Yin leg. During this process of weight shifting, you learn how transform Yin to Yang and Yang to Yin. You learn Taichi.

Here is the link to the video that shows how perform these exercises.

Example of internal martial arts exercise (hip rotation)

This is one of the internal martial arts warm up exercises. It should be performed before any form practice as part of the opening of energy gates (joints) set. I will show the full opening of energy gates set at some stage later. I have decided to show this exercise separately, because it is one of the best illustration of what “internal” means in internal martial arts.
Hip rotation exercise looks simple. Anyone who has ever been to a physical education class, or to any sport training has done this exercise as part of the warm up routine.
Every external martial arts has this exercise as part of its warm up routine as well. You were told that it loosens up the hips. This is all external martial arts gets from this exercise. You were told to put your hands on your hips and to swirl around. No other instructions were given.

In internal martial arts, this exercise has many levels:

1.It opens up hip and ankle joints
2.It stretches all ligaments, tendons and muscles from your floating ribs all the way to your toes
3.Teaches you how to open and close your qua
4.It teaches you how to shift your weight from foot to foot in a circular way not just linear way
5.It teaches you how to perform smallest and most important Bagua circle, the foot circle. This circle is the weight shifting circle, where the 70% weight point traces the circle witch has it center in the center of the foot, and diameter the distance between the ball of the foot and the center of the heel of the foot. This enables you to change direction of the force and its intensity by shifting the weight from one part of the foot to another. This is the core exercise for push hands.
6.It teaches you how to extend your awareness into your feet.
7.It teaches you how to connect the lower Dan Tien and your feet.
8.It stimulates bone growth in your legs by oscillating the pressure in the bone tissue through weight change through the leg bones all the way from the hip to the toes.
9.It works like chi pump. When the 70% of the weight is on the ball of the foot, this opens the upward chi channel, which allows the chi to ascend from your feet up your legs to the lower Dan Tien. When the 70% of the weight is on your heel, this opens up the downwards chi channel which lets the chi descent from your lower Dan Tien to your feet.


The instruction for performing this exercise are very precise:

1.Stand with feet shoulder with apart
2.Put your hands on your kidneys, with your fingers pointing down, and palms facing out.
3.Lock your knees, and then just open them tiny bit.
4.Your upper body should stay upright at all times
5.Keep your feet fully pressed on the ground. Do not lift your toes and heels. Do not rock your feet from side to side.
6.Perform circles slowly and smoothly.
7.When you shift your weight never shift your full weight forward or backwards. Always maintain ratio of 70 – 30.
8.Keep your feeling in in the space between your feet and the ground.

Here is the link to the video showing the exercise being performed.