Let me ask folks about hip flexibility. In some exercises I have been shown I am told to have the feet parallel about shoulder width apart. The feet do not move, you are supposed to rotate just the pelvis left and right (without shifting the weight to the right or left; i.e. keep the weight centered).

If I understand the exercises correctly what perfect performance would amount to is the femurs (the thigh bones) freeze in place and the pelvis turns left to right based on whatever flexibility you have in the two places where the two femurs attach to the pelvis.

Now here is my problem. If I do not cheat my range of motion is less than 10 or 15 degrees from the center line. If I go beyond that what I am doing is pulling (painfully) on my knees or cheating by twisting the waist. Most of my classmates I note, basically cheat by either just twisting the upper torso to make it look like they are spinning 90 degrees left or right of center or doing some kind of knee dip to get more range of motion.

Now my question, if you hold both of the thighs/femurs in place how much should you be able to spin/rotate the pelvis? 45 or 90 degrees from center!! Not aging Brian. The teacher claims you should be able to get that far around but (off the record) Brian thinks the teacher maybe cheating because in her nice flowing kung fu outfit you can not see how much she is twisting from the pelvis and how much is torso twist.

Comments?

Thanks,
Brian

i think that i know what you mean, and I think that 15 degrees or so is about right.

I just try to keep the entire bottom of my foot stuck to the floor through out the movement (not necessarily flat-footed- but stuck to the floor) throughout the movement.

This keeps the knee's in line- and keeps you stable. If your femur or torso move a bit, that's okay.

Shane

bending the knees a little may help reduce the twisting strain on them, pivoting on the outside or inside foot may help also.

Research shows that it's not a matter of training although it helps. There is a wide variation from person to person of how elastic an individual can be, and that doesn't change with practice.

some people think that hip mobility (the ability to do something like side splits) is fixed before you end puberty. I think that is kind of bullshit. Stretching works, if you are disciplined about it, though I will admit that progress may be slower, the older that you get.

Stretching does work, but we all have our structural differences.

true, i just hate it when people say that they are not capable of something b/c they are too old. or too young, or the wrong sex or whatever.

I don't think stretching alone can do it. This is a very complicated area the kua. We do very specific exercises in class for the development of this area for strength and flexibility Brian.

We do them first in a medium horse stance and then in san ti like postures until it becomes second nature. We use a mirror to look at our shirts. When we are turning and the wrinkles appear that's when the spine is twisting. I did this exercise tens of thousands of times over the past three years and can turn at least 45 degrees easily without any pain or tightness. When I began I could only turn maybe 10 to 15 degrees before the old wrinkles would appear on my shirt telling me that I was cheating. Now I go much further easily.

The benefits of this exercise are many. It greatly improved my connection to the ground and the ability to deliver a blow with my whole body behind it. I would imagine that since the largest artery in the body runs through this area that the opening and closing of the kua is beneficial to circulation.

The exercises we do come from Han Xing Yuen. He would say to do it correctly the knees must be "nailed" in position over the toes and the thighs must not move. Ideally only the torso should rotate. So we clamp the feet inwards towards the center in a horse stance to keep the legs from moving and twist.

Stretching does not seem to give the same results although it can not hurt. The kua is the largest joint in the body therefore its range of motion is of paramount importance if we are to use the leverage the legs create and take advantage of the ground when transfering force.

So don't cheat. Just do it at least 500 reps a day for a couple of weeks even and you'll see a great improvement in the range of motion. You will notice a great difference in your movement and delivery whether you do taiji, hsingyi or bagua.

I have this problem big time, and I think John Medurga's advice may help me a lot, although 500 reps a day is a lot. I tried a minute's worth and it came out to about 25 reps (on both sides) so that would be 20 minutes a day just on this exercise.

I also noticed I could refine it by placing hands on knees so they can't move, or at least not without my knowing it, and found I could not only do the swivel hips thing, but pelvic circles.

As for hip joint range of motion-- I don't think that's it. Like a couple of other posters, I have about 15 degrees when i try this exercise standing, but if I stand on one leg and point the other one straight-- or lean back in a chair and stick them both out-- there is a good 90 degrees of rotation, 45 on either side of top dead center. So it's not just the hip joint; it's the way the hip rotators and other muscles in the area are organized for standing.