Lately I feel like the sentence has been directed at me quite frequently during the basic drill. I thought I got it. It's not that I need to move from one end of the carpet to the other faster. It's that I need to do more kicks faster. And the key to kick faster is to relax. This might not sound sensible but it worked for me. A lot of the kicks that we do are for blocking. The power should be on the way down. With these kicks, there is only a split second that I activate my legs, butt and hip to propel my kicking leg down. Then it's back to being relax into the next kick.
I felt like I got pretty good at it. But of course, training never stops.
Today I was told to work on my speed again - this time with Xubu.
What? Xubu? The empty stance?
Hearing that, I made my steps between stances faster. I almost ran from one end to the other. But that, of course, wasn't what Shifu's speed meant. Speed is never moving from point A to B faster but putting more power into each stances.
Fortunately, I was shown how to do it. I was to snap my arms, body, legs and head from looking back to the front faster. Doing it this way, I felt my stance 10 times more powerful and also about 11 times more exhausting.
I thought I had Xubu in the bag. But no. I need to train harder.
