I think, personally, this comes under the category of don't over-think it. I'm a very big believer in using your mind as your primary training aid - think, ponder, etc. - but int he right way. What you're asking about is physical knowledge. Once you learn various steps, practice foot work - like a boxer does, even if you adapt it to your style. Then during sparring, shadow boxing or bag work, just be aware that you want to develop better footwork - and work on it. As time goes on, you will naturally improve. In fact, what you WANT is for your body to naturally, instantly do what itneeds to do, without thinking about it. In Yiquan that's called no intent - moving with no intent, i.e. you don't think about it, you just do it. Where the thinking comes in is in assessing how you're coping with sparring, and formulating new stepping ideas, training methods etc. Separate that from the idea of choosing which is which and when and so on. Learn the correct way physically. Practice moving about - left right, coming at your opponent from different angles - the right way will come naturally. I'll be showing the way I move soon.
Just a short answer from my side, no need to comment, though welcome of course, also. I had put a so-called absolute truth into a larger frame of relativity, for sake of considering it from that angle. I used the icon to light up the matter, a bit. A bit of black humor in that case, true... I tend to use emoticons for that reason, not to offend. Hope that clarified something, and don't be disturbed in further discussion.
Hi PD, There are things that do indeed disturb me here. As you welcome my comments, I'll state what they are. In response to a typically illogical relativist paradox (Bailu posting the absolute statement that "None of these interpretations are wrong, and none are completely right."), I decided to describe something that no one could really legitimately contest unless they were trying to prove a point for the sake of it - such as the fact that cigarette smoking is bad for your health. I could easily have chosen something less contentious, such as the fact that I have two eyes in my head, or two arms or something else that was a cut and dried provable issue, but by choosing something that someone might feel like they might just get away with arguing with, I gave you or anyone else who felt so inclined, the opportunity to reveal how much of an agenda relativists have to try to prove relativism at any cost. Anyway, my hunch was correct - some people will stop at nothing to try to prove relativism, even when to do so would be in rather poor taste. I could have chosen something in even poorer taste, but thought better of it, and I didn't want to be too obvious. Having established that my suspicions were quite correct, I then chose to make some less contentious statements: This cemented my suspicions even further by demonstrating that even when the argument about relativism had logically been defeated, a relativist would clutch at straws and try to defeat my absolutist stance, solely on the smoking argument and ignoring the rest. Why didn't you try to argue with the fact that people call me Joanna, or the fact that raising my hands in the air will make them further from the ground? And why did you fail to see that the pro-relativism argument had already been lost? I suspect that for many people in your position, the desire to defend the concept of relativism is an emotional rather than a logical one. This wasn't about logic anymore, but about a personal relativist agenda. I was also disturbed by your suggestion that the life of a smoker didn't really matter and also by your choice of a sinister icon. Now please understand that I'm in no way surprised or shocked by your behaviour, you are just behaving like a great many people do in contemporary, secular-orientated culture. People think they are being different by "daring to think outside the box", but in reality this is becoming the dominant paradigm. (I believe Pope Benedict XVI calls this onslaught of evangelical relativism "The Dictatorship of Relativism"). But I do find the trend a disturbing one, because so often, people are somewhat enamoured of darkness these days and I believe fervently in steering clear of darkness. As someone once said to me "there's nothing good about evil." Never a truer word was said. Take care, Joanna
