11 YuFengXiaShan 御風下山

Ride the Wind Down the Mountain

A (Perilous?) Descent

This movement was one of my main motivations to write this series.

I found it took time and practice for it to not be super awkward and slightly dangerous.

First, the foot placement is... odd. The front foot is turned outward at, like, a 90 degree angle to the direction I'm facing. Which -- knees don't like to bend at weird angles. They like to bend on the sagittal plane and when I bend them in other directions bad things happen. In order to keep the knee straight as I crouch, I have to rotate my hip outward. The rotation comes from the hip -- I try to keep my knee in line with my foot.

Second, it's real easy for me to lose my balance and fall on my ass. (a LaohuGong rite of passage?) It's not a big fall -- I'm falling from a low crouch -- but it's embarrassing and breaks the flow. Eventually I realized that part of why the leading foot is turned out perpendicular to my facing is to provide lateral stability. Engaging in this consciously helped with balance a lot.

Third, though, while all this interesting stuff is happening between the front foot and the ground, I started noticing knee pain happening in the back knee. There's a twisting motion that happens and if I'm not paying attention, I put too much weight on my back leg, which roots it to the ground and... knees don't like to be twisted.

It took me a while to even recognize what was happening -- I was so focused on not torquing out my front knee and assuming that that's where any problem had to be happening that I just didn't notice that I was hurting the other leg.

So be light on that hind leg. Take your weight off it and let it pivot while less grounded. It's like a little hop that doesn't even leave the ground.

Interestingly, I've encountered this problem before, dismounting my motorcycle. My left knee was getting unhappy and I found the solution in my friend Nick's Aikido class: that little hop to free the foot to pivot.