rooting

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rooting

Postby vamos » Fri Aug 26, 2011 5:04 pm

when Dr.yang desribes rooting as the beginning does he mean the beginning of yin or something deeper ,more fundemental.
There something about rooting.really difficult for me to really comprehend.big thing on its own without any other training.
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Postby yat_chum » Sat Aug 27, 2011 5:37 am

Hi Vamos, I have noticed that you have discussed the subject of rooting a few times on this forum now and I was wondering why rooting so important to you?

In a previous post you wrote
the body comes from the earth.so your using earth energy which presumably is huge, for correcting your body.can you draw up energy?etc

what if you rooted to the centre of the earth..

if there are energy centre/spirits etc are you communicating..ie when rooting your looking/feeling/sensing under the earth

Ideas/thoughts of that nature...


Do you have a teacher or are you training on your own?

I may be speaking out of turn here but I think that you are making things more complicated than they need to be.
yijing zhidong

use stillness to overcome movement
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Postby yat_chum » Sat Aug 27, 2011 5:42 am

You have reminded me of a quote from the film Needle Through Brick

"Train more, talk less."
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Postby joeblast » Sun Aug 28, 2011 9:58 am

a good friend's gongfu brother gave us a very interesting talk on grounding vs rooting one day - it made for exponentially more practice time integrating vs the time we sat in that talk :lol:
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Postby yat_chum » Mon Aug 29, 2011 2:04 am

Hi Joe, would you like to share some of the imparted knowledge? :D
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Postby joeblast » Wed Aug 31, 2011 7:13 am

sure thing, I'm just very busy these next few days /\
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Postby joeblast » Sat Sep 10, 2011 7:50 am

I like images :D

a lot of it had to do with the psoas and the positioning of the hips - you're familiar with the wing chun horse stance, that one purposefully has a tight...tight isnt really the right word...the position of everything simply induces a bit of tension on the psoas, a cousin of full lotus, from a certain point of view. any time you root are are quasi locking yourself to the ground, and probably the closest & most significant muscle aside from the long femoral ones with regard to the "hinge-point" is the psoas, so that bit of tension even if induced from lengthening/twisting of the psoas helps "seat the hinge" whereby you may efficiently transfer force - the application utilizes the kidney sinew channel more.
Image[/img]

Image

I like this cross section - you can see just how central the psoas is
Image


and the point of attachment on the femur for the psoas
Image

so by changing the angle of the pelvis as a whole, a lot of what you're doing is either stabilizing or relaxing the psoas muscle - the tenderloin, the kua, if you were to have to point to a single representative structure.

stand there in the wing chun horse stance, then run your finger along the inguinal crease and you should be able to feel the psoas there, when tense you should be able to feel the muscle a bit flexed.

now change the angle of your pelvis so that the lumbosacral junction is nice and flat (i.e. parallel to the ground) - when balanced properly you are able to relax the psoas completely! mess around with feeling your psoas flex & relax with your hand on the inguinal crease and you'll get a sense of...like standing a pencil up in its eraser, when everything is properly positioned over center then there is much less need to stabilize one direction or another.

with relaxation comes more qi flow - which is HUGE especially when speaking of such an energetically significant one such as the psoas muscle - with more flow, one is able to be better grounded - thus the relaxed method equates to a more "grounding" focus and the "ready-set" method of a stance like the wc horse has much more of a rooting focus. simply by changing the angle of the pelvis a bit changes the energetic focus of the stance. you can think of the relaxed method, not utilizing extras like the kd sinew channel quite so much, as utilizing the kd primary more - especially since more relaxation, more flow, the psoas flows right along with the kd channel. :)
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Postby yat_chum » Sat Sep 10, 2011 3:18 pm

Thank you Joe. :D
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Postby joeblast » Sun Sep 11, 2011 8:36 am

:lol: sorry I couldnt mimic the brooklyn delivery that accompanied it hahahaha

_/\_
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Re: Rooting Section

Postby Cotton Over Steel » Mon Nov 21, 2011 11:36 am

joeblast wrote:I like images :D

... a cousin of full lotus, from a certain point of view. any time you root are are quasi locking yourself to the groundl. :)

****

Excellent material on a deeply rooted stance, thanks.

Classic exercises are Standing Pole (Embrace the Moon), and holding Hsing-i San Ti stance.

I have found that sitting for long periods of time in all of the cross legged positions, including lotus; will help align the hips and lower back for deep horse stances.

The Lotus Cobra position helps with another part, as do the splits.

Some karate schools will have a partner stand on your thighs or shoulders; while you hold horse stance.

Some other methods for strengthening your root are hiking with a pack of 50-100% of you body weight, tug-of war, and pushing cars.

When kicking one can test there root on a front thrust, or side -thrust kick; by kicking against a tree with a pushing or internal strike, and not getting knocked off balance. You should go back, and sink into ground.

One can test rooting by walking across an ankle deep fast moving creek. Another method is by testing your fixed stance in waist deep surf, should work as well with wave approaching, as with the returning undertow.

A moving root, is tested with a Skim Board (Boogie Board).

More on rooting, Masters Course with the analogy of a sailboat's keel at:
http://www.jadedragonalaska.com/masters.php
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Re: rooting

Postby Sanfung » Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:46 am

I have had trouble with proper rooting in the past due to a balance problem, but training in this respect had aided me greatly. I've been reviewing this thread, and I find the advice in regards to training more than talking very apropos in my case. When I finally stopped complaining about my issue and started to do something about it, I finally made progress. I shouldn't have wasted time in such regards. I still have a long way to go, but I realize my error. Through application, instead of just wasting time, I can improve my stance and thus everything in regards to my posture.

I've found that making changes in other aspects of life have aided me in this. I used to slouch, which I now make a conscious effort to avoid. Slouching seems to be contrary to the principles of rooting. Am I wrong in this?

I also wanted to thank joeblast for posting all those images, though I realize that it's in the past now. Scientific images are pretty useful for these sorts of discussions. I noticed that one of those diagrams appeared to be from Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body. I'm not sure if anyone's linked to it before, but the entire 1918 version of the text can be browsed for free on Yahoo! Reference at:

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/gray/

or Bartleby Books at:

http://www.bartleby.com/107/

Though it's based on Western medical ideas, I've found many of the Gray's diagrams to be particularly useful for getting a better grasp on the mechanics of the human body.
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Re:

Postby John the Monkey mind » Thu Jun 07, 2012 3:41 pm

joeblast wrote:a lot of it had to do with the psoas and the positioning of the hips - you're familiar with the wing chun horse stance, that one purposefully has a tight...


Thanks for the information.

Rooting has been some what of an obsession of mine in the last three years.

I have started practising in the horse stance but making shore my pelvis/ perineum is tilled forward. This gives me a good connection and I can also start to relax the muscles a bit. My stance is not overly deep but it is a horse stance perhaps. My feet are about two shoulders widths out and my knees are over my feet with my back strait and my ..... tucked and sucked up and down with abdominal breathing.

I have found it is worth holding it for extended periods of time as it is only ever for part of the practice that I am fully relaxed. This ability to find relaxation even in an uncomfortable position and to keep yourself in the position when all you need to do to end it is stand up is good training from a mental point of view as well.

This horse stance training also has made my knees and thighs a lot stronger and improved my root a lot. I am only up to about 35 minutes but I think the longer the practice the grater the chance of accessing the internal aspect of the training.
Some days are better than others but one day after about 20 minutes I got into a really nice meditative state and really felt the pathways open up in my upper body. I am now doing over 25 minutes 6 days a week barring unforeseen demands on my time or sickness (then I will try to do less rather than nothing), I am aiming to be up to 40 minutes by the end of next week and work up the time in the coming months.

I guess what I am saying is you can't really understand the more esoteric element to rooting unless you put a lot of time in over a long period of time. I would guess a minimum of about 20 minutes most days.
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Re: rooting

Postby Sanfung » Thu Sep 27, 2012 1:34 am

I've been thinking about something for a long time. Before I started my training, my toes were rather cramped together. Now, my grandmother was a nurse. She always wanted to space them out, but our family doctor constantly complained that it was too young and that she was simply overreacting. Naturally, I'm an adult now and whenever I really get into the appropriate mindset where I am completely aware of my body, I notice that they're still a bit overlapped.

Believe it or not, rooting practice has actually helped me to walk much straighter than I had before. However, I was wondering if toes pointing to one direction or another were an issue when working on proper rooting position. Regular toe spacers are available over the counter in most areas, and while its never been declared an absolute medical necessity I was wondering if wearing toe stretchers occasionally wouldn't be a bad idea.

The problem has somewhat corrected it as I've realized that laying in certain positions or crossing my feet up made the problem worse. Actually, working on my poor posture is helping a lot. I was curious, though, if anyone had an opinion on toe spacers and rooting.

Thank you.
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Re: rooting

Postby joeblast » Thu Sep 27, 2012 6:53 am

imho, nothing wrong with using crutches here and there if they will help you get from point a to point b more quickly and efficiently - you just have to be mindful not to become reliant on the crutch ;)

a friend shared a good link today, so I will pass it along here :)
Even in mildly complex systems, any outcome is the wrong thing to target, with the process being where the focus should be.
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Re: rooting

Postby brer_momonga » Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:15 am

joeblast wrote:imho, nothing wrong with using crutches here and there if they will help you get from point a to point b more quickly and efficiently - you just have to be mindful not to become reliant on the crutch ;)

a friend shared a good link today, so I will pass it along here :)


exactly!

also, big toes can grab during mabu - not tensed, but activated, aware - like talons gripping the ground so this is a good exercise for toe.
pelvis and coccyx opens up (out), lately in my practice I imagine the area being lightly pried open. if mabu can train the pelivs to open up, and condition body for deep abdominal breathing, I wonder if the toes can be trained to be straighter.

now, if I could just get my teeth to straighten to make a proper bite! lol

John Monkey Mind, 25 minutes / 6 days a week is impressive - and a good place to progressively make internal discoveries. also pleased you want to steadily incease. do you do one drop into mabu or do you achieve this through sets? I do sets.
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Re: rooting

Postby josemunoz63 » Thu Sep 27, 2012 9:49 am

I use an interesting trick in order to increase my rooting and balance. I look for the same points as in embryonic breathing ( yin point in upper dan tian and yang point in lower dan tian ), I connect both points with my mind and start twisting this imaginary connection sometimes to the left and other to the right and depends of my needs at different speeds. The more balance I need the more twisting speed I use.

This method helps me mee to improve my rooting and balance.

Hope it will help you
:wink:
Best Regards
Jose Munoz
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Re: rooting

Postby joeblast » Wed Dec 05, 2012 5:29 pm

It helps, of course - if the fundamentals and alignment are properly tended to first ;)

some buddies talking about 90º horse stance got me doing a bit of it lately - definitely some meditative benefit there, each stance has to be done correctly, otherwise you wont be doing it for long :lol:
Even in mildly complex systems, any outcome is the wrong thing to target, with the process being where the focus should be.
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