Practice Notes: Where I am at 8 and a bit months in.
The Foot couple feeling has changed, and it feels like a qualitative upgrade, like I've just had a tennis racket re-strung.
Leading up to this I’d been doing a lot of work on bending with ‘anchor sacrum’ and my legs were feeling as if they were moving through some kind of resistance - not a negative feeling - just different. Over time this clarified to the feeling that the changing foot couple and ‘anchor sacrum’ were changing the connection / feeling of my legs and the 'resistance feeling' now feels more like stronger support.
Current explorations.
I’ve been spending the last few weeks focusing on bending, in particular in the transition from ‘Stand’, to ‘Corner Step’, to ‘Face and Step Front’ within the ‘Raise, Drill, Fall, Overturn’ practice.
I wanted to spend time not only on getting to know the movement, but also time on how I am doing it, which elements am able to maintain, and which elements I lose or sacrifice to achieve the ‘end’.
I didn’t want it to be ‘serious’ I wanted ‘Light Yi’ and so went with ‘curiosity’ to be primary ‘attitude of attention‘.
This involved starting from the best standing I could achieve, (all couples engaged), and exploring what I 'do' and how I prepare (the doing before the doing ;-) ), to turn the foot to the corner. Is my mind still?, Got the Smile?, Do I collapse cavities?, Do I sink?, Do I think down and not forward ?, What do the leg cavities do when I turn the foot? etc etc. And I continued in this same manner through the rest of the sequence.
I didn’t always go through with the movement. Even on the seemingly simplest movement; turning the foot, if I sunk or lost the cavities or the sacrum then I stopped where I was and started again.
On the move to bend I’d maintain curiosity about all cavities, about how the pelvic couple feels different on two legs then one leg then two legs together. Was i still thinking of the foot couple on the unweighted leg?
Over the period of this practice I began to feel how the front foot is ‘aided in forward motion’ or ‘pushed out’ as the pelvis turned square to front and sent the leg out ready to begin Raise, Drill, Fall, Overturn.
Feedback - New Distinctions - Feedforward
This results of the movement practice have fed back into my awareness in Standing and Stillness practice and I have a better appreciation of the terminology or the distinctions that are used to guide exploration. If ‘To think new thoughts you need new words’ , then maybe ‘To feel new feelings’ you also need 'new words, new distinctions'. In this regard I am thinking of how the ‘Flatness Feeling’ has become really helpful as a distinction and how it changes the practice and I feel that it deepens the stillness. And this is interesting to me, as I can think back to a time when the 'flatness feeling' meant nothing to me, it was so far away.
Online Live Class Practice
Watching the corrections from Sunday’s park practice was really helpful. Seeing the 'before and after' of the students' alignments after Sifu's corrections, and interesting how my mind/body tries to 'mimic' or experience the feeling that it sees , a 'see-feel' mirroring. This session helped me identify where I was losing those same connections. As I practiced the movements myself I could feel that by over-attending to the rising arms in Raise, Drill, Fall , Overturn, focusing of accuracy, I was sacrificing the downward release of the perineum, giving up the basics. It became clear that when my front foot couple and pelvic couple aren't connected the sacrum anchor is lost and, I lose that stretch and spreading across the pelvis and the back, the ribs and elbows don't connect. Harvest : There is always more to explore, more layers to uncover, but without the basics the foundations are on sand.