Intrtinsic Strength Applied to Ground Fighting

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Michael Thomas
Kimberley, England
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Hi Peter Ralston,
I'm wondering how intrinsic strength applies in a groundwork context. Is it still possible to apply principles such as grounding when you're off your feet? My experience of ground fighting is that it utilizes a great deal of muscular effort, but I can't yet see how it could be otherwise. What are the options for applying intrinsic strength?
Thanks,
Mike

Mike,
It is harder to use intrinsic strength when grappling on the ground. It isn't harder to use grounding though, since you can't get much more grounded than lying down!
First you need to learn the use of intrinsic strength before trying to use it in a more difficult situation. Usingintrinsic strength requires movement, alignment, and compression. While grappling, movement is reduced because of the nature of the art, but there is still movement. The more you can use the ground for compression the better. In grappling, positioning is very important since you have so little mobility, also leverage is essential. And yes, more strength is generally needed because of the situation, but still less strength than you might think, and much can be done in the area of yielding, maintaining the advantage, efficient use of weight and positioning, etc. All of the principles still apply, they simply must be translated into lying on the ground.
Good luck,
Peter

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Insight to become one with your opponent

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Jan Bloem
Groningen, Holland
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Peter Ralston,
Two small questions:
Q1: During the Cheng Hsin workshop we did an exercise in which we needed to put our hand on the body ofthe partner and move around without losing the contact. After that we did some pushing. At one moment I put my hand on a partner and I had the feeling that he was not very present. I felt the body all right, but that was it. Also with the pushing it was rather easy to "push him around." On a theoretical level, can you say that this is a case of a lack of body-being?



Q2: I have the feeling that I see more and more what you mean with "consciousness" and also the "martial value" of it. My question is (one of them) some people say that you are able to "read" the intentions of your partner. How I interpreted your remarks during san shou was that we should be very aware of every part of our body and the mechanical and physiological reactions which are evoked by external stimuli -- being a punch, kick or behavior in total. When people say "he can read the intentions of his opponent" the impression comes to mind that you need to learn to observe behavior of your opponent and you should start with your opponent. I have more the feeling that you do not read the intention of the opponent by looking at him, but by being aware of your own bodily reactions, because they are usually quicker there than any visual feedback. When you know out of experience that a certain physiological reaction is evoked by a certain behavior of your opponent, there is a great chance that this behavior will occur. In that sense you will be one step ahead. This will make it possible to "respond instead of react."
Am I on the right track?
Jan


Jan,
About Q1:
What we were practicing is called "outreaching," which is making and feeling the connection with another. This enables us to pick up information about a partner or opponent beyond feeling his whole body, such as a sense of what he's up to, how aware he is, his reaction to being "touched," and so forth. We can't say that your partner lacked body-being since that would mean he didn't have a body or wasn't alive. We could say that he probably was not very conscious of his body, or not "in" his body much. When a person identifies most strongly with his mind, the relationship that mind has to body is abstracted, detached. He may "perceive" the body and even identify with it, but he doesn't occupy the position "of" the body "as" the body, which creates a serious weakness.

About Q2:

Certainly I recommend paying attention to the opponent and your own body. Although this sounds self evident, you'd be surprised how many martial artists need more work in this area. As far as your analysis, it certainly shows you're thinking about it, and it may well have validity. The particulars, however, aren't as important as the experience, and the experience usually comes as a feeling awareness, a cognition of theother person's intent and impulse, which for me comes largely as a feeling, sometimes just as a sort of knowing that is so close to my response as to be virtually undetectable as something separate from my action (but not completely). As a feeling it is as if their movement, and in some sense their intent or what they are up to mentally, emotionally, and strategically, "touches" my body. In this way, it may be similar to what you are considering. I wouldn't want you to restrict yourself to one way of thinking about it. In the end there may be many ways we pick up such information -- use them all.
Peter

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Questions for the Master (Insight into several aspects of the martial arts and other training)

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Nguyen Van Minh
Paris, France
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(Next: Because of the amount and nature following questions, I will answer these rather briefly and as
they come up.)
Peter,
1. Question: Does your kind of realization break selfishness and fear?

PR: Yes.

2. Question: Is the "I" purely memory?

PR: No. The self certainly is identified relative to what is historical and so memory is a big part, but I don't think it is accurate to say that "I" is memory. At least one other ingredient is necessary, which is the
conception that "I am." This is then followed by "I am this or that" based on identifying something that I am, which is a function of memory.


3. I can't stand firmly. What is exactly "rooting"?

PR: Attaching to the earth. There are various methods to achieve this, but the name, being a metaphor, suggests some sense of being connected into the earth. Feeling the whole body and relaxing the whole thing so that it falls down into the feet will help you stand more firmly. Concentrating on a feeling sense of being located or attached under the ground will help you root.


 4. About relaxation: Does it require that one find out and annihilate every anguish, including existential anguish? I mean anguish about one's destiny, life, death, and so on. I feel them in doing relaxation in bed, before sleeping. What kind or state of mind allows this kind of realization?

PR: Your view is an extreme one. Deep relaxation may well result in running into emotional tension produced by such things as anxiety, and it is true that fear or anxiety does not fit in an extremely relaxed body. But worrying about it doesn't help. The principle behind relaxing is letting go. If you can let go of all anxiety, something very deep is sure to relax. But don't get caught up in "biting off more than you can chew." Instead of trying to accomplish everything at once, it might be more reasonable to do what you can and then work your way toward deeper levels of relaxation when it feels natural to do so.


5. In fighting situation, does one use a minimum amount of strength when relaxed? If yes, what is this minimum?

PR: Yes. The least amount you can use to get the job done (and usually less than what you think).


6. About chi: I never understood it. How to train simply to develop it? When you push someone far away in T'ui Shou, do you use chi? Do you use a minimum amount of strength?

PR: Chi is best thought of as "feeling-attention." This applies primarily to feeling, listening, outreaching, directing movement, and whatnot, yet it is intrinsic strength, not chi, that is the main component to not using strength.


7. Did you manage to make somebody else to break the ego? I mean: is your realization "transmissible"?

PR: Yes and no. First of all if you mean by "breaking the ego" a realization of being that is not a self, then this might be called an enlightenment experience which others have had, yet neither I nor anyone elsecan "make" that happen. Others can experience whatever I have experienced (or anyone else for that matter), but they must always experience this for themselves, it cannot be handed to anyone without their responsibility. With work and commitment on the part of a student, I can facilitate such things.


8. Do you have any students who have the luck to live by you so to have the opportunity to get close teaching (your own personality is part of the teaching)?

PR: Not really. Some students live close enough that we see each other on occasion. Of course personal contact with someone who has an experience of what it is you want to know is the best way to learn (but I doubt anyone would want to learn my personality).
Peter

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Trying to find Effortless Power, How do I do it?

Cheng Hsin

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Stewart Breslin
Pacifica, CA
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Peter,
I was working with one of those punching bags with the water in the base trying to find the proper alignments for compression using the resistance of the bag to push against in various shapes. Testing myself by feeling my triceps while pushing, I noticed that no matter how relaxed I started out, at some point my triceps would tense up. If I go on the assumption that there should be no tension in the arms at all at any point then I must be mobilizing that muscle group to push the bag away at that point. I even setup my push so that I was bracing my elbow against my hip so that the upper arm was not required at all and I still tightened up my triceps. I also tried working the alignments with a feeling of receptivity of the bag and also with placing all of my attention in my foot. Both of these approaches yielded better results but I still couldn't keep from tensing up. Is this a sign that I am holding the bag out or pushing it away subtly rather that allowing the weight of the bag to compress down to my feet or is a very small amount of tension in the triceps necessary or inevitable? If I should continue to try and eliminate all tension from my arms, do you have any suggestions for ways I can train to eliminate the tension?
Stewart

Stewart,
Bags aren't the best training devices for pushes. But to answer your question: fail. Instead of moving the bag and trying to relax the triceps, relax the triceps and try to move the bag. The operative words here are "do" (relax) and "try" (to move). This means that the most likely result will be failure to move, but success at relaxing. Once you've found action in which your muscles are relaxed, then keep that and search for ways to move the bag with relaxed muscles, not with something else. You may not get it in a week or year.
Good luck,
Peter

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Intrinsic Strength in Boxing

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Jamie Schardt
Chicago, IL
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Peter,
For power delivery, western boxing can produce more raw power, but compared with intrinsic strength it is inefficient. For balancing power delivery and mobility, again intrinsic strength goes a lot further. Because there isn't a great deal of muscle contraction, movements can be redirected, changed, corrected. It doesn't unbalance the "giver" because there is no force until compression by the "receiver," and it is harder to become unbalanced by the opponent moving the attacking limb because it isn't rigidly connected to the torso. So, am I understanding this correctly so far?
Jamie


Jamie,
Boxing doesn't necessarily have more power, it simply takes more effort to achieve it. The rest of the
statement seems fine.
Peter

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Distorting the Body for Training?

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Rene Hunt
BC, Canada
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Hello Peter,
I am a practitioner of Shotokan karate. It has been brought to my attention that a high ranking master in our style has a posture of moving with leading hips or tilted hips while walking and probably at all times. Do you know what the benefit of this would be? Does it have to do with lowering the attention to the center? or movement?
Thank you for any input.
Rene Hunt


Rene,
Perhaps. When we engage some body practice our attention does go there, and our movement is affected, but there are many ways to produce those effects without contorting the body. Tilted hips sounds bad. Distorting the body is rarely good. There are many martial and other arts that tend to disfigure the body for some purpose. A ballerina for example will have stubby and crushed toes and feet, and a tendency to walk like a duck. These side-effects may be necessary to the practice of her art, but it is a disfigurement of the body. We should question the necessity of any distortion. Perhaps some reshaping of the body is required to practice our brand of martial pursuit, but be wary of obsolete or irrelevant methods of body conditioning.

Leading with the hip may just be another way of coordinating body movement, perhaps to unify top and bottom in motion. If movement is initiated from the hips or center then the hip will move first, but if the body is to be unified the rest should move at the same time. Such movement may appear as different than what one is used to seeing since usually people aren't unified and don't move from the center. Hope this helps.
Good luck.
Peter Ralston

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The Art of Effortless Power: Peter Ralston shows and explains some Cheng Hsin martial dynamics.