The Center of balance?

[still learning]

Hello, Where do you feel is your center of balance or center point?

We have being taught our center of balance or center of our body is two inches below the belly button and two inches inside. If you are able grab the center? ...you will be able to spin the body like a propeller.

Where do you feel is your center of balance? and have you been taught it is else where?

"I once balance on a ball....then had a fall...today one now balance on two feet and still have his two ball's (ever try balancing on two balls?)....Aloha

 

[exile]

Hello, Where do you feel is your center of balance or center point?

I don't have the sense of my center of balance being in one very localized region of space... in fact there isn't any particular area that feels as if it's the crucial part of balance, for me. Balance feels like as though it's determined over a much larger, more diffuse volume of space, not some `point'.

 

[Adept]

The point of balance is that point where most of your weight shifts from being inside your base, to being outside it.

Effectively, this usually means that once your belly button goes over your toes, you are off balance and will either fall or have to step forwards.

 

[pstarr]

Yes, the body's "center" and "center of balance" is located at the area you described. In Chinese, this is the dantien. In Japanese it is the tanden.

 

[still learning]

I don't have the sense of my center of balance being in one very localized region of space... in fact there isn't any particular area that feels as if it's the crucial part of balance, for me. Balance feels like as though it's determined over a much larger, more diffuse volume of space, not some `point'.

One day you will understand this differently....try learning JUDO or Akido, or any throwing art....you will understand the "center of balance ".

Everyone has a center...for a child to walk...they are learning how to balance in each step, as they practice...it becomes natual.

Learning how to balance in fighting skills use in martial arts is like a child learning to walk....it comes with practice and more practice...Aloha

 

[morph4me]

One day you will understand this differently....try learning JUDO or Akido, or any throwing art....you will understand the "center of balance ".

Everyone has a center...for a child to walk...they are learning how to balance in each step, as they practice...it becomes natual.

Learning how to balance in fighting skills use in martial arts is like a child learning to walk....it comes with practice and more practice...Aloha

When a child learns to walk, he just leans forward and when he starts to fall he puts his foot out to stop himself, which is how most people walk. When you learn about balance, as in Aikido, Judo or other throwing arts you learn to move from your "center" and not lean forward. Then again, you also learn how to fall in case you misplace your center or have it taken away from you.

 

[Jade Tigress]

Yes, the body's "center" and "center of balance" is located at the area you described. In Chinese, this is the dantien. In Japanese it is the tanden.

Yep, that's what I was going to say. But I didn't know the Japanese term for it. You must learn to utilize it though.

 

[exile]

One day you will understand this differently....try learning JUDO or Akido, or any throwing art....you will understand the "center of balance ".

Everyone has a center...for a child to walk...they are learning how to balance in each step, as they practice...it becomes natual.

Learning how to balance in fighting skills use in martial arts is like a child learning to walk....it comes with practice and more practice...Aloha

I think I might not have been clear in what I was saying. I do a lot of balance exercises, freezing my side, turning and back kicks at arbitrary places in the action and so on for up to half a minute, sometimes trying it with my eyes closed (really tricky!)---it's something I train as much, or more, than power, or speed, because for me these last come much more immediately. What I was talking about was the subjective sensation of having a point of balance. I taught downhill skiing when I was in my 20s, and it was the same then---I raced and skiied moguls, both of which are very demanding in terms of balance, and did pretty well, but I never had a sensation of my balance concentrated at a single point. When I move to maintain balance, it results in a kind of `general' sensation of a number of elements locking into place very smoothly, not the sense of a single point exactly aligned so that I'm stable. That's all I was saying...

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

One day you will understand this differently....try learning JUDO or Akido, or any throwing art....you will understand the "center of balance ".

Everyone has a center...for a child to walk...they are learning how to balance in each step, as they practice...it becomes natual.

Learning how to balance in fighting skills use in martial arts is like a child learning to walk....it comes with practice and more practice...Aloha

To be honest I've never really bought into the whole "centre" concept of balance. Thinking like that tends to focus itself far too much in balance during stances rather than balance during fluid movement.
And yes I do Aikido and Judo.
I just figuring focusing on one point for balance is inaccurate when its the base and frame which determines it.

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

I think I might not have been clear in what I was saying. I do a lot of balance exercises, freezing my side, turning and back kicks at arbitrary places in the action and so on for up to half a minute, sometimes trying it with my eyes closed (really tricky!)---it's something I train as much, or more, than power, or speed, because for me these last come much more immediately. What I was talking about was the subjective sensation of having a point of balance. I taught downhill skiing when I was in my 20s, and it was the same then---I raced and skiied moguls, both of which are very demanding in terms of balance, and did pretty well, but I never had a sensation of my balance concentrated at a single point. When I move to maintain balance, it results in a kind of `general' sensation of a number of elements locking into place very smoothly, not the sense of a single point exactly aligned so that I'm stable. That's all I was saying...

Agreed. Its the combination of base and frame that determines the balance, not the effects of a centre point. In fact what the centre of balance would be is something that would be determined entirely by the position and situation.

 

[morph4me]

I think I might not have been clear in what I was saying. I do a lot of balance exercises, freezing my side, turning and back kicks at arbitrary places in the action and so on for up to half a minute, sometimes trying it with my eyes closed (really tricky!)---it's something I train as much, or more, than power, or speed, because for me these last come much more immediately. What I was talking about was the subjective sensation of having a point of balance. I taught downhill skiing when I was in my 20s, and it was the same then---I raced and skiied moguls, both of which are very demanding in terms of balance, and did pretty well, but I never had a sensation of my balance concentrated at a single point. When I move to maintain balance, it results in a kind of `general' sensation of a number of elements locking into place very smoothly, not the sense of a single point exactly aligned so that I'm stable. That's all I was saying...

I think I understand what you're saying. If you are looking to experience the sensation that is being described, I propose that when you lose you're balance, you try to pinpoint what it was that caused you to fall, and what happened in your body. I think you'll find that in each case your center moved passed a certain point and carried the rest of your body with it.

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

I think I understand what you're saying. If you are looking to experience the sensation that is being described, I propose that when you lose you're balance, you try to pinpoint what it was that caused you to fall, and what happened in your body. I think you'll find that in each case your center moved passed a certain point and carried the rest of your body with it.

Wait, starting to get what you're getting at now. The point seems to differ quite a bit depending on the motion though from my experience, and Ive had alot of practice with regards balance, its pretty important for free running.

 

[exile]

Agreed. Its the combination of base and frame that determines the balance, not the effects of a centre point. In fact what the centre of balance would be is something that would be determined entirely by the position and situation.

Yes, this very wells describes my `physical image' of being in balance. It's a feeling of all the parts of my skeletal structure being connected in the `right way' at once.

I think I understand what you're saying. If you are looking to experience the sensation that is being described, I propose that when you lose you're balance, you try to pinpoint what it was that caused you to fall, and what happened in your body. I think you'll find that in each case your center moved passed a certain point and carried the rest of your body with it.

Very likely---the problem is that when I find myself going out of balance, I'm usually to preoccupied with getting back into it to be able to identify just what was going on at the moment I passed out of it---there's just this great big overall sensation of OOOPS and then, if I'm on form, things snap back... and if not, well... :uhohh:

It's possible we're looking a dimension of individual variation here---some people may have more localized body awareness than others just because of the way their nervous systems are wired.

 

[pete]

your center is as described, in the lower abdomen approx 2" below navel equi-distant from front to back and left to right. in many qigong sets, we use our breath to expand and contract this center as a balloon would, but rather than blowing it up and releasing air from a valve on outer edge, we inflate and deflate from the center point of the center. this teaches us to expand 3dimensionally, up down and all directions eminating from the center point, and deflating into that precise point. this helps us find and bring awareness to our center.

in martial arts, such as tai chi chuan, we move from and protect our center to maintain balance. when engaged with an opponent, we learn to recognize 3 centers: ours, theirs, and the one we create between us. we protect and hide our center, while we try to find and exploit theirs. we use the 3rd center, the one between us, as a device for change in order to take away there center and gain advantage.

 

[searcher]

I feel that is located all around the hip region. My reasoning behind this is simple. Stand with your legs shoulder width apart and your body not leaning. Now have someone move your hips in a lateral direction. You will stayed balanced until your hips pass outside the feet. The reason that you lose balance is that your stability triangle has been broken. It is funny really, I did not understand this concept until after I learned to drive a fork-truck. It is truly amazing where you can learn some wonderful concepts.

 

[exile]

I feel that is located all around the hip region. My reasoning behind this is simple. Stand with your legs shoulder width apart and your body not leaning. Now have someone move your hips in a lateral direction. You will stayed balanced until your hips pass outside the feet. The reason that you lose balance is that your stability triangle has been broken. It is funny really, I did not understand this concept until after I learned to drive a fork-truck. It is truly amazing where you can learn some wonderful concepts.

But this business about the hips and the feet is fairly tricky, because it depends on how your body is moving. If you look at a very short-radius carved turn in skiing, you can see that at different point in the turn, your feet need to be at very different angles with respect to your hips for you to be in perfect balance---especially if, like the modern racers, you rely a lot more on hip angulation than on knee angulation to keep that turn carving. It's the dynamic complexity of balance, I think, that makes me have a hard time identifying a single place as the `center', because---taking the ski turn as a model again---almost anything you do wrong with your arms, shoulders, head, hips or knees can throw your balance off enough to screw up the carving of the ski (and very likely cause you to fall), and often what you're aware of (too late!) is what you did wrong to trigger the imbalance---left the pole plant in too long, didn't step to correct the line soon enough, etc.

I've read descriptions of various sports by advanced practitioners, champions in some cases, who say that when they're performing `over their heads', that kind of state of grace where they can do nothing wrong, they have no awareness of any separateness in their bodies, they just have the sensation of being exactly where they need to be, without thinking. For some people, I think, the sensation of being in perfect balance is just going to be like that---and when you're out of balance, it's more like a whole house of card collapsing at once...

 

[Bigshadow]

Agreed. Its the combination of base and frame that determines the balance, not the effects of a centre point. In fact what the centre of balance would be is something that would be determined entirely by the position and situation.

Exactly! I believe it relational to the center of mass (the footprint of the body in relation to the height). Obviously if someone squats down, their balance point will not be 2 inches below the navel and 2 inches in. It is going to be somewhere at the center of the height and center of mass which will be vertical from the balls of the feet and where the center point of mass intersects.

That is my take on it.

 

[exile]

Exactly! I believe it relational to the center of mass (the footprint of the body in relation to the height). Obviously if someone squats down, their balance point will not be 2 inches below the navel and 2 inches in. It is going to be somewhere at the center of the height and center of mass which will be vertical from the balls of the feet and where the center point of mass intersects.

That is my take on it.

I think this has got to be right. And it's that relational aspect, involving the change of body position and configuration over time, which makes it hard to pinpoint a particular place as the `center of balance', at least for me. It keeps shifting...

 

[pete]

Exactly! I believe it relational to the center of mass (the footprint of the body in relation to the height). Obviously if someone squats down, their balance point will not be 2 inches below the navel and 2 inches in. It is going to be somewhere at the center of the height and center of mass which will be vertical from the balls of the feet and where the center point of mass intersects.

That is my take on it.

sorry, but no.

to send the center down, you also need to expand it equally upwards and outwards. otherwise, you'll be creating an imbalance where you will either stumble, fall, or loose your mobility in low stances. take a look at some good internal martial artists in low postures.

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

I think this has got to be right. And it's that relational aspect, involving the change of body position and configuration over time, which makes it hard to pinpoint a particular place as the `center of balance', at least for me. It keeps shifting...

I think this is why I view fluid drills as being more important than static ones, the only way you can understand the balance of a motion is doing that motion over and over again till you learn where to adjust it.