Snow Shoveling Practice
We've had several snows in the last few weeks and I always
enjoy the workout in the fresh, cold air. Snow shoveling gives me a good chance
to practice some basics and get some dantian training in, so I thought I'd give
my perspective on the possibilities while shoveling.
First of all, when I scoop the snow and pick it up, I try to use power mostly from the torso and the weight-shift of the body; not so much arms. I'm very aware of where my weight is and how it moves over my feet.
Secondly, when I pick up the loaded shovel and hold it, I am very careful that all forces are resting on the soles of my feet and that my source of power is the soles of my feet, not my arms. Keeping all sources of forces from the soles of your feet is "sinking your qi". No matter what you do in your movement, you should always keep the source of your forces at the soles of your feet.
Third, when I actually throw the snow with the shovel, at the moment I throw, the effort is all into my foot that is powering the throw. I have inhaled prior to the throw, so my body is somewhat pressurized, and on the throw I let my weight drop heavily into the 'back' foot, even though you probably couldn't see me do it. At the same moment, press my dantian downward into that same foot: it's sort of like the pressure of my dantian pushing into that leg results in additional pressure at the sole of my foot, instantaneously. That pressure skill takes some time to develop, so don't expect perfection immediately. "Send qi to the ground".
Throwing the snow, in other words, is a function of how much pressure you put into the ground at the sole of your throwing foot.
In some awkward places around the front of the house, I'm
forced to lean forward and throw from the front foot, sometimes. In that case,
I have to change the timing of the throw a bit, but the power to the shovel
still comes from that sending of pressure down into the sole of the foot (the
front foot, in this case). If you extrapolate it, this is good practice for
learning how to power a punch as your front foot lands.
Throwing snow from the shovel becomes an exercise in
pressure to the foot and the turn of the waist ... not an arm thing. After a
while it becomes almost a pressure-squeeze thing that you can do all day
without using much muscle at all.
There's an additional step, but I'd save that for later,
when you've got the basics down pat. When you press down and send your
weight/pressure against the back foot, that amounts to a hard push-off from the
back foot. You can learn to let some of that hard push-off bleed forward and
drop into your front foot, powering your waist turn. But I wouldn't worry about
that too soon: it comes with time. Using a bleed-off to power a turn or a stamp
onto the front foot is standard martial-arts practice. Some people mistakenly
think it's a hip-snap, but it should be a pressure mechanism.
The other thing, and it's hard to explain to someone who
hasn't experienced it, is that repetitious movement like this becomes akin to a
movement in which your body is a mostly full, but not too full, bag of air and
you sink down to fully inflate ... and then use the inflated pressure to drive
the motion; sink again, and so on, in an endless cycle. Your work becomes that
of an inflated bag of air, storing and releasing as it goes. It's not muscular
at all.
The big takeaway should be that when doing a punch or
shoveling snow, the focus should be on how hard you drive into the supporting
leg and turn the waist, not how much muscular effort you put into the arm(s).
When you do this motion with silkreeling strength:
"This corkscrew strength does not initiate from the
foot. It initiates from the trunk of the body; it initiates from the waist,
from the kidney area. It transfers down toward the foot, and then it rebounds
from the foot back up and on through the body. Don't forget, everything
initiates from the waist; it then goes down to the foot and bounces back up
from the foot. Otherwise, if you are just
using the strength of the foot, it will not be as
powerful.
When the power is really coming through, its expression
is not limited to the hands; it could be in the elbow; in your hip; in your
knee; in your thigh. In Chen style, whenever there is movement—not necessarily
a striking move, but whenever you have movement—you have this chan su chin."
... Chen Xiaowang
When I studied Xingyiquan I was told that in the old days
the practitioners stepping forward for, e.g., P'i Chuan, would often step 8
feet forward, indicating how much power was pushed down into the back leg, just
like in the snow shoveling.
When I learned the Chen-style, I was taught that in
"Jade Lady Works Shuttles", the leap would often be 10-15 feet when
someone was practicing hard. Same mechanics. Does development of and use of the
dantian help in the amount of power a person can produce? Of course it does.
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