The Intelligent Warrior: Command Personal Power with Martial Arts Strategies. Steve Jones

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      1 Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart to provide a wider base and therefore more stability to your upright structure (see Align the Body). The wider you put your feet the more leverage you can get from the ground, but you lose mobility; the closer your feet are together the more mobility you can get, but you lose leverage.

      2 Make sure that your feet are parallel to each other. This is crucial for correct alignment of the body – having your feet parallel is the natural placement for them, which means that the ligaments in the feet and the knees will be strengthened and balanced correctly in accordance with gravity (see The Art of Walking).

      3 Bend slightly at the knees. Bending at the knees lowers the centre of gravity in the body, locating it to the Tan T'ien. Bending the knees works closely with the width of your stance to give you balance between power (from the ground) and mobility. The bend in the knees should allow you to drop your centre by approximately 6 inches, which is the optimum place for the centre of gravity to be located and also makes the body feel more grounded, which affects the mind and the emotions.

      4 Make sure your spine is straight. A straight spine is the most essential ingredient in maintaining our biomechanical health. It also allows us to judge distance accurately (an indispensable self-defence skill).

      5 Make sure you are not leaning forwards as in Photograph 3, or backwards as in Photograph 4.

      6 Adjust the angle of your head by tucking your chin in slightly; try to feel that there is a string pulling you up from the top of your head.

      7 Hold your hands in a loose fist at about the same level as the navel, gently touching the sides of the body. Tuck your thumbs outside the fist. The hands and arms are not essential for maintaining uprightness but we need to give them an exact form and place when meditating.

      Take your time to learn the Basic Stance correctly. It might seem a bit boring but its effects on your health and your ability to practice holistic self-defence are far-reaching. It is this physical stance that forms the root of all other physical positions and techniques; also, by giving a precise form to our physicality we take a great step in bringing form to our thoughts and emotions.

      Inner Meditiation

      Centring the Body

       Balance is the all-important factor in a fighter's attitude or stance. Without balance at all times, he can never be effective. Bruce Lee (1975)

      Centring the body involves connecting the mind to the physical centre of gravity of the body (the Tan T'ien). This centre is approximately one and a half inches below the navel, in the centre of the pelvis. It is the place that you were first nourished from via the umbilical cord and is at the level of the sacrum, which is the first bone made in the body. Both Eastern and Western medicine define the physical centre at this point, and to build a connection with your centre is to communicate with the very core and origins of your being. From a self-defence point of view, having a strong connection with the centre increases your balance and power and reduces the risk of falling.

      To start with, this connection (referring back to the quotation at the beginning of this chapter) is made by our ‘intention’ from the mind (initiator) sending our ‘attention’ (capacity) to the area of the body (army) that is its centre. From there we begin to ‘play’ with the two primary mechanisms that allow us to have a sense of where the centre is exactly: pressure sensitivity in the legs and the balancing mechanisms in the inner ear. The placement of the centre is defined in three dimensions: left and right, forwards and back, up and down. By working with these three dimensions we can pinpoint an exact place inside the body that is the centre. These directions correspond to the three semicircular canals in the inner ear, which are filled with fluid and aligned to these dimensions.

       FIGURE 6

       FIGURE 7

      1 Left to Right If you look at the exercise to centre the body (here), you will see that the first movement oscillates between the left and right leg; this stimulates the pressure sensitivity in both legs. Pressure sensitivity in the legs is one of the main ways that we remain upright; the brain constantly uses the information from each leg to balance itself (it does this by sensing the amount of muscle tension present in each leg). If you think about walking, the pressure is passed from one foot to the other, and as you make your stride the pressure is balanced on each side to form an equal gait. If you have ever injured your foot you will have been reminded of this pressure moving from one side to the other – the moment you stand upright your body uses the pressure in the two legs to maintain its balance. As a martial artist you must develop sensitivity to this so that you become increasingly skilled at keeping a balance between the two legs.

      2 Forwards СКАЧАТЬ