Striking with the Staff

Mark and I did some striking work with a wooden staff. For the past five or six months, I've had some issues with tension building on different areas in the right side of my body--neck, shoulders, abs, and back. The staff strike seems to resonate through my body much differently than a strike with a fist would. A strike with a staff takes a much narrower pathway while going through, whereas a deep strike with a fist will expand through the body a little more. There are exceptions to this though. Anyhow, with one of the staff strikes to my back, I noticed how sharply it traveled up the right back muscle that runs parallel to my spine. I felt as though I was struck pretty squarely in the back. However, the difference in tension on the two sides of my body was easily observed in how the impact traveled.

The last few strikes with the staff are of course always the best. We both allowed the last two strikes to get inside to really work the breathing (maybe tomorrow we will work on getting the strikes inside whether we want them to or not *evil grin*). The very last strike to my solar plexus with the staff was good. It went straight through me with a little bit of breathing and actually accumulated in my back, almost in the exact shape of where I was hit in the front--no expansion of impact, just narrow travel from the front to the back in the shape of the staff. I tried to breathe it out of my back, but I couldn't get the hang of it. I had Mark whack me a few times in that spot to help my breathing and relaxation in the area along. That seemed to do the trick--one good strike to the back and the nasty accumulation of the impact was gone.