Familiarising yourself with fundamental movements

[Postmaster]

In 2003 I took a sabbatical, moved to a small coastal town, and spend
my days training martial arts. My training involved Taekwon-Do mostly,
but augmented with Yoga, Tai-Bo, and the like.

One memorable exercise I did was to spend time getting highly familiar
with the patterns. To do this I'd spent one minute standing in one
technique. A pattern with 32 movements suddenly become 32 minutes
long. I'd do a technique and then just stay in that posture for a
minute before moving on to the next movement. This exercise really
helped me to truly get a feel for every technique. We seldom spend
time really feeling a posture. I mean, how long have you stayed in,
say, a bending ready stance -- just to feel your body, feel where your
centre of gravity is, feel how the different parts of your anatomy act
as counter-balances? How long have you stayed in an L-stance knife
hand inward strike just to feel the weight distribution, to feel how
the hip has rotated inward to add thrust to the technique, feel your
own open vital spots.

We often rush through our patterns -- even we we do them slowly, we
still rush through them as if the goal is to finish the sequence of
the moves. Here's another exercise I learned from Boosabeom John-
Wesley Franklin many years back. One way he'd practise the patterns is
to do them super slowly. To got throw the motions, but in slow motion.
I've found this a wonder way to really get a feel for how the body
shifts its weight from one posture to the next, to become aware of
both static balance and dynamic balance. Bsb John-Wesley would also
make us do the patterns extremely fast; this helps you get a feel for
the flow of the pattern.

Getting truly familiar with the movements is really important. Stay in
a fundamental movement, for a long time, feel it, sense how your body
is compensating, how you are covered in some areas but vulnerable in
other areas. Feel where your centre of gravity is, where your centre
of body mass is. Notice your posture. Sense where you are tenses, and
where you relaxed.

Embody your techniques, don't merely do them. Become them.