Are You Listening To Your Feet.

[mook jong man]

While we all know that sensitivity of the arms plays a major part in Wing Chun training.

We should not overlook the role of the feet as a sensory tool that can relay important data to help us in our practice.

In the early stages of training you might be hard pressed to really feel much of anything except your feet on the floor , but after a period of time you are able to feel minute changes of pressure in your feet .

A simple example of this would be in finding the optimum level for your stance when practicing your SLT form or in chi sau.

Operating on the premise that your back is straight , if we sink down to far we will begin to feel the weight moving towards our toes , if we are to high in our stance we will feel the weight more in our heels.

What we are aiming for is to have our knees bent at an angle that will allow us to feel a sense of equal pressure between the front and back of the foot and then we will be balanced.

In chi sau we can also use our feet to gauge whether or not we are absorbing our partners force correctly.

Next time you do chi sau have your partner really start to lean on you so that you are forced to bear most of his bodyweight.

If you feel most of the stress in your arms , shoulders and lower back then you still have a bit of work to do in regards to relaxation and stance.

On the other hand if you can only feel slight stress in the upper body and pressure in your feet as though you are getting heavier then you are definitely on the right track.

But of course peoples threshold will vary on how much force they can absorb according to their skill level.

We can also look at our parners feet to see what effect we are having on his stance , if we just take an example of my partner being in Bong Sau and myself in Fook Sau just for arguments sake.

We will assume we are both equalising each others forward force , If my Fook Sau is not aligned properly I will not have any effect on his stance.

But if I start to target his centreline with my Fook Sau and it is in the right place on a horizontal and vertical axis ( it varies with the height of the partner)

If I look down at his feet when I am targeted correctly at this sweet spot , then I will see his toes start to lift and at that point I can shift him or attack his structure with not much effort at all.

If you are not sensitive enough to feel when his stance is about to go , then have your partner give you feedback as to when he feels that his stance is threatened as you try to focus correctly.

So don't just think of your feet as a way to get you from A to B use them as a tool to help your training.

 

[cwk]

good post MJM.

 

[MA-Caver]

In the novel Dune by Frank Herbert, the young hero Paul was preparing to get into a knife fight with a challenger, he took off his boots as he remembered this axiom... "on unfamiliar ground bare feet are best"....
While in this modern age walking around in bare feet isn't always a good idea it does lend support to the OP.

Our feet are incredibly important and many people take them for granted. They understand that they are what we walk on and they help us test the temperature of the water in the bathtub but they're so much more.
Animals use their feet to sense the ground they're standing on for danger, and other things. My house is such that I can feel when someone is walking across the living room through my feet and that in-of-by-itself is like an early warning system... not that I really need it where I live... but it's nice to know it's there.

Our feet are ingeniously formed to help us maintain balance. The arch, heel, pads and instep and other parts of the foot well designed to bear weight at odd angles and irregular ground.

Watching your opponents feet is a great idea. I agree that knowing when the feet are not perched as they should the rest of the tripod is off balance and thus easier to push out or push over.

Great post. Worth a rep.