Kua/Shoulder Set

Shifu,

As a result of studying some videos and increasing my practice time, I came across some new discoveries that need some confirmation.

I feel that my Kua is “looser”, not in a structural manner, but in terms of the way it is able to open and turn.  When I was on the mountain, one of the things you said that struck me the most is that the legs are congruent to the arms.  Hence, not moving the knees would be parallel to leading with fingers assuming that the knees behave similar to the elbows.

Following this same reasoning, I matched the behaviour of leg joints and arm joints.  One of that is the most interesting, and rightfully so, is the set of Kuas vs shoulders.  I realize that this set is the most difficult to control; how many year has passed before I realized that the shoulders my should, not only be stationary, but they should also be pulled down and rotate to remain stationary in order to help pull in the entire arm towards the Dian Tian via the elbow; i.e. the first half of the circle.

In terms of the Kua, if it does behave similarly to the shoulder, while the knee is stationary, that would also mean that there is a squeeze powered by the turning of the Kua in the opposite direction to keep is steady.  Hence, you kept reminding us of always keeping the knees slightly turned in.  The thigh acts sort of like the medium for this knee/kua relation, hence is is all twisted up like at wrung towel.

Here is what I feel recently.  I am not only feeling the opening of the kua interiorly, but also exteriorly, i.e. there is a definite stretch towards my bum.  The best way I can describe it is like when you want to get a ketchup bottle open, you would grip the bottle and the cap with both arms.  Unless you are able to get both to turn proportionately, you would not have ketchup for your fries.  My bum is like the cap, the leg and knee is like the rest of the bottle, and the bum feels the rotation along with the Kua.

Looking forward to hear from you.

Thanks

Nicholas

Tagged as: kua, 胯