Silk Reeling and "The Upper Body Turning Movement"

Master Stephen Hwa speaking of the quarter body movement, half body movement and upper body turning at a workshop 2011, Buffalo, NY.  The video is here:  "Upper Body Turning"

In speaking of Silk Reeling another movement is the “turning” movement.  You keep the pelvis fixed and you turn. The buttock is fully engaged actually.  The buttock function will keep the pelvis from not turning.  So when you are turning up there the buttock is holding the pelvis.

As usual, with this one, I find more people have problems when you teach this. The problem is getting the shoulder away from the turning movement. If the shoulder has even a little bit of initiation in the movement you lost it. Don’t use the shoulder.  Everything is in here (core, lower abdomen).  The shoulder is just a slave following the movement.

Anybody have any questions on this turning movement.

“Do you practice with a tuck”?

Yes, because the buttock is involved.  You feel the buttock is energized and holding the pelvis.

“Master Hwa, at the end of the turning movement, is there a sense of a denser contraction that is happening”?

Well, a lot of places you feel the contraction. When you turn in this direction, without moving the pelvis, your buttock is supporting you.

“When you change direction, does the new direction take over?”

I guess, initially it is relaxed back to the neutral position.  

You can do it either way.

You could relax to the neutral position or you could energize back to the neutral position.

You probably want to energize back to the neutral position.  Because when you have an application you may have to energize any segment of the turn.  So you want to energize back to the neutral position.

I think you want to energize so you are intentionally turning back, rather than just relaxing back.

Try to get the shoulder away from any of the movement.

I notice on this side, you get a little bit of drop of the shoulder.

Good, very good.  Do you find how much energy is involved in making this movement, compared to  turning at the pelvis…because it is moving at the abdominal area.  So this is another silk reeling exercise.  Boy the beginner just eat it up.

“Well it is something they can do”

They can feel, and they feel somewhere they never have sensation before.