Friday 4 January 2008

Question of the month

Starting from now, I'm planning to post a question I'm struggling to answer every month. I hope I'll be able to answer them in a reasonable time and post the answer but I also highly appreciate if you could post the answer yourself or thoughts about it in the comments.

The question (or problem) for this month:

When you practice you should keep your centre of gravity as low as possible to stay stable. If you want to keep your upright posture as well, you should try to stretch yourself upwards. How can you synchronise these two intentions? Are they contradictory? Are they unrelated and I just don't see this?

I'd like to read what you think about this.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's a logical bump in your argument. You get one week from now on to tell me what it is in which case you might even answer your own question. If not, get back to me.

Zolley said...

The logical bump is probably in my head and that manifests as a bump in my argument.

Help me clear up the mess in my mind and then I'll be able to present a better argument. ;)

Anonymous said...

Because you are NOT stretching. Upright does not equal stretching. Show me one (good) master that does not have relaxed posture. :P

Zolley said...

Thanks.
Maybe I should read a bit more about posture.
The thing is that when you bend your upper body or lower your head, your centre of gravity will be lower. Hmm..but then you lose the proper control over your centre.
There's still a lot to learn and understand :).

Anonymous said...

: The thing is that when you bend your upper body or lower your head, your centre of gravity will be lower. Hmm..but then you lose the proper control over your centre.

And? You don't bend and you don't bow. That's not part of a good posture.
Upright means that you're defensive of your good posture. When doing katemiwaza, remember, if you cut it too far away, you loose your posture, if you don't cut it far enough, you loose your posture. That's why you enter at the same time as you cut.

No bowing. No bending.

Zolley said...

Arigato gozaimashita.
I think my head is beginning to clear up more.