Back to Basics - Learning to Walk

As we progress in our journey in life, we get excited about learning new things.  I have the opportunity to watch a lot of kung fu classes and you see it all the time.  A new concept is introduced and you instantly have the students attention.  It is easy to be engaged when things are all shiny and new.

This morning in class, the old was new.  We started the class off doing Da Mu Hsing which lead to a class on keeping our centres down.  A large portion of the class was spent slide stepping back and forth across the kwoon.  As I type this, I fully realize that this does not sound very exciting.  A whole class on slide stepping...  But it was awesome!!!  

The big light bulb moment today for the entire class was right near the end of class.  When we slide step, we are taught to slide our foot along the earth, to maintain contact.  The issue was we were all doing that with our toes and then that was our first contact when stepping forward.  That is not how you walk!  Or maybe it is, but you shouldn't be.  The first point of contact when stepping forward is the heel.  So why on earth would slide stepping be any different.  Same with stepping backwards - the heel is the last to leave the mats, not the toe.  Once this little (but huge) correction was made, it changed everything about our weight transfer.  So basic but there were light bulbs and fireworks going off all over the place for all of us in the class.

Thank you Sifu Hayes for an incredible class.  So basic yet so important!  Today I relearned how to walk and now I need to go work on putting this new gem into some forms.  I have a feeling that things may feel a little broken for awhile but isn't that how it always is with the best lessons.