E-mail exchange with He Laoshi
My letter exchange with He Laoshi on 24/06/06 was the following:
Feel what you are doing is most important, you can correct yourself if you can feel, good progress.
HJH
From: Martin Landsburg [mailto:cosmartin@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2006 12:04 AM
To: '何馬'
Subject: RE: Practice
Dear He Laoshi,
Thank you for your prompt reply! Yes, as soon as I sent this letter this afternoon, I started to practice Ma Bu in a different way: not as long, but several times each hour to feel differences. I felt that as long as I can focus more on the hips, I can minimize the tension elsewhere in the body. Also, you told me to learn from example. I’ve been looking at pictures of Yin Fu’s son, and some other pictures in the book, and looking at the videos. I feel an improvement already over this morning.
I’m now testing between slightly wider Ma bu stance and more narrow: in a wider stance, I notice I can control the qua more. However, I also notice that I can control the qua (pulling in tight) more if I go slightly lower than parallel to the floor…
Also, I notice that my balance is not so good on the front of the foot: I might fall backwards when trying to straighten my back. But if I lean forward, I am afraid my posture of the upper body is too far forward and my knees will point over my ankles.
More to work on!
Thank you He Laoshi,
Sincerely
Martin
From: 何馬 [mailto:baguaquan@giga.net.tw]
Sent: Saturday, June 24, 2006 10:47 PM
To: 'Cos Martin'
Subject: RE: Practice
Dear Martin:
You said:[ I am having knee problems and lower back pain now]
Try not let your knee further then ankle, not toe.
We will use too much strength on lower back if we sit low in the beginning, practice the squat exercise holding something, try to check which muscles you use and reduce them, try to feel the qua movement only, relax where you feel pain on squat position, tell me what happens.
From: Cos Martin [mailto:cosmartin@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 24, 2006 5:18 PM
To: Master He Jing Han
Subject: Practice
Dear He Laoshi,
I'm sorry I haven't been in touch the past weeks. I'm not sure what kind of questions to ask you. I feel I have nothing to base them on yet, because I need much more practice before I am able to ask intelligent questions.
But I want to share some of my experience. I noticed one of my bad habits was always to shrug my shoulders in low circle walking. One thing Alex had told me was that I should lean and let gravity twist my body, and thus the walking. So I asked Vova, who also told me that you said to lean as if looking around a tree. This is starting to help my posture, I think.
Also, I think I'm starting to feel more connection in the arm swings: when my shoulderblades are closer to my body, I feel they drop with the twisting of my hips, as two weights attached to ropes. At least in my idea, I think I should try to find this feeling?
Today I also felt that the basic gong-bu stepping on a line, which we did together in the park, needed some change. I noticed i step into a more stable gong bu if I pull the knee closer to my body. Is this correct? I watched the videos on youtube again and again, but I see I cannot keep my body upright enough.
Ok, back to practice...I'm sure all of this can be helped with more practice!
Oh, one problem: I am having knee problems and lower back pain now...I don't know what I'm doing wrong...I pay attention to keeping my knees not further than my toes, to pull in the tendons on the inside of the groin in ma bu, to lower my sacrum...But I keep having pains in my lower back and knees...I took some pictures, and yes they show my lower back is very tense. I try to relax by lowering the sacrum, but the muscles of the lower back pull me back again...Should I start my stance a bit higher? Now i keep my thighs parallel to the floor.
Sorry if I ask so many things at one time, He Laoshi. I'm working on getting to
With utmost respect,
Martin
posted by Martin | 6/26/2006 04:16:00 PM
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