Kicking – Front of the Foot and the Heel

Male Right Foot - wikipedia.orgSettle down.

Sink in.

Experience your foot (and your other foot) in all its grandeur.

It’s easy to find energy in hands. They warm up, feel, sense, and play with ease, tenderness, and power. It’s easy to choose what to do with our hands.

Feet are far away…know what I mean? Compared to hands, feet seem way down there.

Kicking with the front of the foot and the heel brings awareness: warmth, feeling, sensation, ease, tenderness, and power to our feet.

Here’s what Yang Cheng-fu says:

In regard to the feet, one must distinguish between kicking with the front of the foot (as in Separate Feet Left and Right or Spread Feet Left and Right in the form) and kicking with the heel. When kicking with the front of the foot, we must pay attention to the toes; when kicking with the heel pay attention to the sole of the foot.

Wherever the mind goes the ch’i will follow and wherever the ch’i goes there will naturally be energy. However, the joints of the leg should be completely relaxed and the kick should issue with evenness and stability. At this moment it is very easy to be guilty of using stiff force, wherein the body will rock and lack stability and the kick will have no power.

—Yang Cheng-fu from Yang Family Secret Transmissions, pp. 6-7

In the following video, we’ll discuss various T’ai-chi kicks, and we’ll look at the impact kicks might have on our awareness and on our ability to step softly and easily.

Watch: Kicking — Front of the Foot and the Heel

How’d you do? That was a short one.

By now, I bet you can distinguish the front of your foot and your heel…and your kicks are gathering stability.

Let us know…