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Unlock Your Kua: The Key to Better Mobility in Tai Chi
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- čas přidán 19. 08. 2024
- Learn how to improve your Tai Chi movements by opening up your "kua," the area where your leg joins with your pelvis. Discover the critical role the kua plays in mobility, knee health, and alignment in Tai Chi. By strengthening your glutes, core, and keeping your knee aligned, you can move like a ball, rotate effortlessly, and reduce the risk of knee damage. Improve your Tai Chi experience and achieve better mobility by focusing on keeping the kua open and your knees properly aligned.
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Here are 2 exercises to help you open up your kua: czcams.com/video/4lmGpDWZDDY/video.html
As a player I can tell you that the kua is the most important key in tai chi. Without it, you can not get to the higher levels of tai chi. As a teacher, it is one of the hardest things to get students to do. Some never learn no matter what you do and their tai chi reflects it.
I recall seeing a video from someone, it might have been the Institute of Human Anatomy, where they talk about something similar. The impression I got was that your pelvis is tied to so many different muscle groups, when it gets out of alignment it pulls everything out of alignment. Back, shoulders, and neck starts to hunch over. The ball joints of your legs get pushed outward, messing up your knees and your feet are forced to angle out with your toes pointing away instead of forward.
Can't at all tell that you've had knee surgeries. One does indeed need to have strong and flexible pelvic muscles. And being able to properly engage ones glutes is key to any powerful movement. Seems that Tai Chi has made you pretty darn strong. I think it might actually be the best all around Martial Art. Thanks and great video.
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Thank you so much for this video. You saved my knees !
Thank you so much for sharing this information Ms. Shirley.😊 This has brought me out of my "wandering stage" this was my missing or unfocused area, Much appreciated 😊
I'm so glad this was helpful 🙏❤
Thank you. I am beginning to understand what the Kua means even though I am Chinese.
Thank you so much. Finally, I found the clue by viewing this video.
Bravo Shirley. Keep up the good work!
Thank you so much Jimmy 🙏❤ It's so good to hear from you! I hope you have been well. Please reach out, we have to so much to catch up on!
Thank you for this, respectfully I'd add that when your meniscus starts to shred (with age) and you're a little over ideal weight, the hinge/knee theory falls short sifu. I've never seen an aged master be able to perform this low.
Yes, weight and overall strength in the structure to support the body's weight will definitely play a big factor in being able to come down low. I know it's not the body positivity message to say but I do counsel my students who have a lot of extra weight that the most impactful thing they can do for their mobility is so lose the excess weight.
@@AipingTaiChi That is great advice! And so true as well.
My question is what exercise (movement) are best to unlock the kua ?. Thanks
Yes, please tell us what exercise or movement that enables us to unlock.🙏
I made a TikTok showing the best stretch for opening kua: www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRnpKCCH/
FYI, just make the TikTok into a CZcams video: czcams.com/video/4lmGpDWZDDY/video.html
Thank you very much for sharing this very useful idea.
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Great Video ☀️🍎
Thank you 🙏❤️
Excelente maestra!!Se podrían activar los subtítulos en español??Gracias!!!
Thank you 🙏❤️ I will look into Spanish subtitles for my videos. Thank you for the suggestion.
@@AipingTaiChi Xie,xie!!!!
Thank you. New sub.
Thank you 🙏❤️😊
Your totally right, it's an excuse for a lot people not to do these excercises 😊
I have the same problem, I am always feeling pressure on my knees during those movements. Are there any specific stretches or strength exercises to help with this? Thank you very much for your detailed video.
I suggest strengthening up the core and feeling your weight supported by the upward lift from the Bai Hui point on top of your head. Often times when you feel a lot of pressure in your knees it's because you're carrying the load too much in the lower body. The feeling of weight in the body should be distributed as much upwards as downwards. This also helps maintain vertical alignment so you don't stress your knees by leaning forward and bringing your knees forward past your toes which a lot of people do
@@AipingTaiChiYou should be able to bring your knees past your toes without fear of damage, without pain, and without damage. Keeping the knees behind the toes cause atrophy. And that is slways bad, painful and damaging to the knee. All the best.
Laoshr #60
CYKFA
Thank you, Shirley. Any recommendations for bone-on-bone (due to surgically removed meniscus) osteoarthritis in the knees? I generally don’t feel pain when walking around and living my life, but when proper leg joint alignment ensuring use of the knee as a hinge, doesn’t seem to mitigate the discomfort. If I stand with relatively straight legs, it’s not so bad, but if I slightly sit into standing postures, and move from those postures, it becomes uncomfortable. I’ve heard that proper alignment and use of the legs can strengthen them, so I just want to optimize that benefit (and in the shorter term, train pain free, or at least more pain free). Appreciate any thoughts you may have.
My advice for all knee pain related problems is to bring as much of the "load" that sits in your legs up into your core. If you were to hook your body up to a sensor and look at where you feel the "weight" of your body, most people would feel the weight most in their legs. Internal work brings the load up into the core which is much stronger than the legs. This is the value of standing practice to be able to connect the upper and lower body. It's like having a harness on to take the load out of your legs and less pressure in your knees.
So ultimately your are relaxing and let your weight drop/sink your weight trough the segments of the kinetic chain into the ground right?
I always focused on "folding the kua" which caused a lot of tension. When I simply dropped relaxed starting from my ankle and relaxing all other parts of the chain it was effortles and the pelvis sank naturally and was ultimately carried by my feet. Can you please share your view on that?
Yes, I would agree with your description, I relax the kinetic chain and make sure my alignment is correct to support the weight and just sink into it.
@@AipingTaiChi thank you
💝💝💝!
Could you give me some advice please? I've been trying to get my legs stronger again, I stopped training for a decade after being diagnosed with fibromyalgia (I was so afraid of flare ups) and in particular working on creeping low like snake. I figure if I can handle that, I can say my legs are pretty strong again. My kua around the pelvis seems easy enough to open. but what lets me down is my ankle mobility. My ankles feel so tight, and it's really difficult to get low. Could you suggest anything to help loosen up? They've always been too tight to squat down with but I'm not sure how to improve, and concerned of injury. Thanks, enjoying your channel :3
Thank you so much for the comment and the question. Ankles can definitely be a limiting factor. The feet are the only contact point we have to the ground so if we have mobility limitations with the feet, the entire structure above is limited. Unfortunately, most people have very weak and stiff feet. It's the natural consequence of the terrible shoes we wear. My number one advice for people who have feet and ankle issues is to transition to bare foot shoes (I personally own Vivobarefoot and Xero shoes) and to watch videos that help you transition from regular shoes to barefoot shoes. There are excellent foot strengthening exercises in those videos.
From the Tai Chi perspective, you have to strengthen up the toes so you can really activate that big toe. You want to be able to fully engage the big toe, behind the ball of the foot, and the heel. Your entire weight should be supported along these three points. The arch has to be fully formed and may take time to strengthen up the muscles in the feet to properly support your weight. Hope that helps!
If you put pelvis into the ball it BECOMES the ball, now pelvis can flow or it can crash...
I am afraid that you misinterpreted the importance of opening Kua like many taiji practitioners. In taiji, opening the Kua is more from the rear rather than from the front. The way of shifting body from one side to the other is not correct and that is the reason why so many practitioners hurt their knees when practicing taiji. The correct way to shift weight is a bit complicated it is not easy to describe. Fortunately, there are good videos 张殿成两胯旋转虚实练习方法 from one instructor from Chen Villiage. Unfortunately, it is only available in Chinese.
You are correct. I have been diving very deeply into this myself these past 3 months with my trainer and have a much greater understanding of the kua's full range of motion now compared to when I made this video. I will definitely make an updated video after I further my training
False topic name. It explains the importance of Kua. Not how to unlock it.