For the past few months I have been working on involving my hips more in Tai Chi, and it has started to trickle down into the rest of my Kung Fu. The main reason I started working on my hips more was so I could use my shoulders less, and this past week that had really started to show. I was helping my Dad with a move where he was engaging his shoulder and I wasn't, So I told him to turn with the wrist instead of the shoulder. Now, I don't know if it's physically possible to turn your wrist in the way needed without lifting your shoulder, but I find it is possible to do it without engaging the shoulder. Instead of initiating the movement with shoulder, then moving through the elbow and finally to the wrist, I initiate with the wrist, and let the elbow and shoulder 'drag along' without engaging.
Being able to do things like that is only half of my goal when working on my hips. The other half is maintaining a low center of gravity. I have always tended to keep my weight high, as I've been told is common with taller people, so trying to bring it down low and then keep it there has been a big struggle for me. With every class that I go to, it gets a little bit better, so I will stay on that trajectory and keep working on it.
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