Turn from waist not hip mp4
"I have two of Master Hwa's DVDs and I find his concepts fascinating. I am a practitioner of Wu Style TCC (disciple of the Wu Family). However, we have been taught that all of the movements are generated by the "hips" first, not the "waist". I still do not understand why Master Hwa thinks that the hips should remain less mobile than the waist. The hips are the fulcrum of the body and connect the upper with the lower." A response: I have never understood how people can say things like "all of the movements are generated by the hips first, not the waist", "turn your hips", "push him harder so that he can turn his hips", etc. I heard those refrain for years in studying large frame Wu Style and years before I started Classical (Wu Style) Tai Chi. The hips are a large and complex joint of the body and like any joint are necessary for movement. They are necessary for movement but not sufficient to power or “generate” movement, however. In other words, they do not move in and of themselves but move as a result of action initiated by other parts of the body. Stating that they are "the fulcrum of the body and connect the upper with the lower" still is not a sufficient explanation of what powers or “generates” their movement. A crowbar is also a fulcrum but without a source of power “generation,” it is just a metal bar. What exactly is the mechanism that they use to move in and of themselves? There is no such self-perpetuating mechanism in the hips wherein one can "generate movement". Your hips "permit", "allow", "tolerate", "provide for" movement, but they do not "generate" movement. The generation of movement for our hips comes either from our legs or from our waist and not from the hips themselves. The generation of hip movement from the waist comes with its own set of problems as does the movement of the hips from the legs. See the attached video for examples of what happens when practitioners turn the waist and the hips at the same time. In large frame Tai Chi, the movement of the legs to turn the hip is called "folding the hip or Kua". A leg pushing the body either forward or backward makes one hip rotate into itself and the other rotate out of itself...hence the inguinal "fold' so coveted by large frame practitioners. As far as "Power" is concerned, one will reduce or drain off power when turning the "hip first" (which as we said is really impossible because it does not generate its own movement). Keep the hip still and then turn the hip "first" and you can readily see the difference in the "generation" of power. In a Large frame, it is true the hips can be rotated forcefully once the legs push the body and they reach the apex of a weight shift. As we have stated previously, however it is also true that power is drained off once the rotation is completed. Compact frame does this by pulling. In contrast to pushing, pulling moves are internal and stay energized Energy is not lost but constantly recirculated and not dependent on legs for power. In talking about "fulcrums" it is of prime importance as to how one locates or places a working fulcrum. As you can see in the video the turning of hips lowers yin/yang junction (fulcrum) to area of knees. One can readily see several practitioners of "external" style Tai Chi turning their bodies at the hips, lowering the junction to the area of the knees in the mistaken impression that "generating movement by the hips first and not the waist" can be used to "turn the body". "The most important instruction on Internal Discipline passed down from Wu Chien Chuan to my teacher Young Wabu is that": "Every movement in Tai Chi Form has to have two complementary parts of the body, a moving part (called Yang) and a stationary part (called Yin). When the yin-yang junction is located in the torso of the body, it is an internal move. When it is outside the torso, it is an external move".
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7iFQWYQwEM
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