Drilling Down

This week, I found myself able to drill the opponent down causing him to eventually fall vertically to the ground. The particular exercise was about me putting my right hand on the opponent’s right shoulder, and my right thigh behind the opponent’s left thigh. I pulled my elbow down his back and towards my right kua to lock the opponent (This would cause a compression on the opponent’s spine). I realized a fixed dot at the opponent’s left ribs. I opened my right kua upwards, and ended up taking out the space in the opponent. The result was that the opponent left leg would fly straight out, and I would be like drilling him straight to the ground with the original fixed dot going straight down with no tossing. Note that it was important not to thinking about rotating myself or the opponent at all. The rotation was only the result, and not my action. When I opened my kua, I opened it with a straight aim in a particular direction tightly in front of the fixed dot on the opponent’s front. At the same time, I did a separate stretch tightly behind the fixed dot on the opponent’s back. This was just like putting the hands on the stick of a rattle drum in order to spin it. I did the same drill the prior week with the same person. He commented that it felt different this week. He was falling more crisply. I tried the exercise with a different fixed dot. This time it was on his right ribs. The result was the same. I drilled him down on that axis. I tried this exercise with another person. Besides doing it by opening the kua as described above, I did it also by stretching the head/neck to the other side of the dot. It was like tipping the lever on the other end of the lever compared to what was done with the kua. I remembered first time creating a similar result a few years ago with Master Chen Zhonghua providing step-by-step verbal instructions on the side. Not until now (9+ years of training), I am able to do it in a controlled/limited manner on my own. Master Chen said training taiji was like boiling water. Water at 30 degrees, 70 degrees, 90 degress, etc is still water (H20 in liquid form), not until it reaches 100 degrees, it would become steam (H20 in gas form) and have fundamental change. However, we must keep boiling, and not stop the fire. This is known as huo hou 火候 in Chinese.

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