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I have recently had an evolution in my view/thinking on The Mental Models. My previous approach was to try to approximate the feeling by moving or stretching. I would stretch my foot and along my ankle, knees, and pelvis in a way that would produce the sensations called for. I'm not saying this is not  good practice. But, it is not working the Mental Models. It is body work. It will not lead to the transformation Sifu is pointing toward. It will only lead to a limited physcal skill that can't carry us forward to emptiness or the ability to "just move". The Mental Models are MENTAL!

On my journey of undoing I have noticed that at times my upper torso actually feels like it is detatched form my lower torso. It's like two building blocks that are not just separate blocks but they aren't even stacked over one another. They are significantly offset from one another. When this feeling is clear enough I can "better stack" them and my body feels comfortable. I know that this is not the mental model we are looking for. It's just an observation. Feeling my body with this kind of clarity ibecome acutely aware of this kind of intense sense of physiological disorientation.

A couple of days ago I had my wife push against my arms in the ward off stance for fun. She was probably humoring me and not pushing very hard but she did push and it felt like I was able to withstand a certain amount of force without my structure collapsing. With my right arm out it felt like I could feel the force go into my back foot a bit and on the left side when she pushed I could feel my ribs compressing quite a bit. We have not really talked about rooting or grounding much in our training.