One important part of leveling up your Kung Fu or Tai Chi awesomeness is learning how to get a grip with your toes. Most of the time we don’t think much about our feet unless there is a problem. If our feet hurt or we are walking somewhere where footing is treacherous, we might pay more attention to our feet. But most of the time our minds are focused on where we are going, what we are doing, and hopefully who we are talking to. With our mind absorbed in our activities we forget about our feet, and they quickly slip totally out of our awareness.
However, when you wish to master traditional Tai Chi or Kung Fu like Northern Shaolin, Lan Shou Quan, Xing Yi Quan, or Ba Gua Zhang improving your awareness of your feet becomes important. In martial arts we want to make sure the choice to remain standing remains with us and our balance and stability is rock solid at all times regardless of what an opponent or life throws at us.
In Tai Chi and classical kung Fu we like to be rooted like a tree and extremely hard to throw. We also need to step dexterously, swiftly, and strategically to seize the advantage. But each time a foot contacts the ground and especially when both feet are flat on the ground, we want to root ourselves. Rooting ourselves means gripping the ground with our feet, coiling our legs, lowering our center of gravity, and doing our best to become immovable and unthrowable like a large tree. Being hard to move and throw like the large tree whose roots are sunk deeply into the earth is a great skill to have. It is also a skill you can develop with a little bit of good coaching and lot of work practicing.
The first step in developing your rooting is to be more aware of your feet and how they are contacting the ground. What shoes you are wearing can impact your ability to feel the ground. Heavy or stiff shoes are much harder to feel the ground and be aware of the earth. Mostly though this is an exercise in shifting your awareness and attention to your feet and trying to be more aware of the sensations of your feet.
Imagine your feet are as sensitive as your hands. The truth is that we as humans have lots and lots of sensory nerves in our feet and they are actually very sensitive. For the most part it is not that our feet are not sensitive, it is that we are not that used to noticing our feet and noticing the relationship of our feet to the ground. What we seek to do is shift our relationship with our feet and become more conscious of the sensations of our feet while we are of stepping and shifting our weight.
So rather than stepping clumsily or unconsciously we want to step like a dancer or a Kung Fu master moving with balance, grace, and strength in every step. Just like we are very aware of our hands when we reach for delicate items, we want to be equally aware of our feet contacting the ground, pressing on the ground, twisting on the ground, and even lifting off the ground.
Stay tuned for part 2 of 2 and take your martial arts prowess to a whole new level!