TATONKA! PT. 2

 BY Sifu Starr

Hopefully, you've been practicing the basic “tatonka” exercise, lifting your ears away from your shoulders, for some time. Now it's time to dig a bit deeper into this exercise and see what else it affects and what you should seek to feel...

When you push your ears up in a standing posture (zhan zhuang), you must also (figuratively) lift the sternum...straight up, without lifting your shoulders or expanding your chest. This will take some practice before you can “feel” it.

Do the same thing when practicing ths “shu-tetsu” exercise (which I refer to as the “P.O.W. Exercise because the hands are clasped behind the head).

When you inhale, hoist up the sternum. When you exhale, let it fall back down- but don't forcibly sink you shoulders. Just let the sternum settle back down naturally.

Then you must “lift” (the correct word in Chinese means “hoist”) the anus so that it eventually feels as if it is being hoisted up a bit.

These actions ensure perfect posture as well as a rooted, balanced, solid structure.

But there's more...! You must strive to “hoist” the psoas muscle a bit to stretch it. This is a critical piece of anatomy and in gong-fu, it is generally referred to as the “kua.” Our martial arts ancestors lacked the adequate knowledge of anatomy to understand or explain fully what the kua really is; they felt it's effects mainly in the inguinal crease, so that's what they emphasized. But the psoas is much larger than that...

To truly “move from the dantien”, you must do so with the ears pushed away from the shoulders and the kua engaged.

First, learn to do it in a static posture. When you can do that, practice doing it while moving...just one step at a time. With time and practice, you'll get it, but you must practice a bit every day. Make it part of your daily routine!