Nope. Forget intent for the moment. Intent (and all the mental visualization stuff) is part of the exercise and also what you're training.

The "something else" that must happen first, and which you already alluded to is using the whole "suit". How do we do that?

In a word...connection.

Basically, the focus of the exercise is to coordinate parts of your body so that the suit is working as a whole unit, supported from the spine, which is strung like a string of pearls from the crown to the coccyx.

The other thing which must happen is using the ground reaction force and accessing the force through the body to various places - the hands being a good place to start.

So.... the foot bone is connected to the ankle bone is connected to the knee bone, yada yada yada... you get the picture.

If you can't get this part, don't jump ahead just yet.

you just described 'structual body mechanics' with alot more than 3 words. or did I miss something?

Apparently, there's structural mechanics and there's structural mechanics. Which one are you referring to?

I'm talking about the first stage of connecting feet to hands using the "suit".

There's the next stage (of "ki black magic") where you bypass the connections altogether and jump the "short-cut" from feet to hands or center to hands.

Can I ask a noob question, for clarification? The basic level is learning to move muscle/bone/fascia/ligaments in a connected way to deliver force, and the advanced level is when the connectivity is so developed that one 'sees' the energy being moved?

Oh, and what comes from the ground, should work in reverse too.

Here's a little experiment to see if you're using "external" muscle and structure, or if you're using "internal" redirection of forces.

Have someone push you on the chest. Imagine that where their hand is placed, is your shoulder, and their shoulder is your hand. Have them push you and see if you can redirect the push to the ground. They should feel like they're pushing against the ground.

energy conservation. nothing is lost, it's just transferred. the release powers the restore and vice-versa. thats part of what I consider body mechanics. structual mechanics is what I consider to be transmission....which is the point between the release and restore.

so far we are well within the realm of physics. it's only the concepts which are starting to sound like jedi mind tricks.

imagining to redirect pressure on my chest isn't going to do anything, unless I slightly redirect the natural force vectors of my body structure. I can do that 2 ways, either yeild to the force exerted on me, or deflect that force....depending on which way I chose to pivot my axis.

ok, so I've got my elasti-respitory-exto-suit on, I understand the conservation of energy and redirecting/yeilding principles....now what?

wait a sec...although I understand the concepts of redirection and yeilding, I want to come back to those later and talk about specific drills to work on to making it smoother. most of my previous practice has been sharp angular deflecting with force. which is why my drill partners were going home with bruises on their arms...which was the indisputable proof I was doing it wrong. One of the areas I am currently working on is the method of 'soft' yeilding and redirection. timing is not the problem for me, it's mostly in rotating my core WITH the guard....seems simple, and it is, but I've been doing counter-rotation hip stuff for years (this also works the elastic-conservation principle, but just in a different way - more like as a tourquing force). works well when young and quick and has good power gen, but I think where this thread is leading is more efficient ways to do the same thing....which is what my current Goju Sensei has been showing - it's a challenge to communicate it into words and so far in this thread, it's fun trying...

Yeah elasto-boy... that's redirect the push without moving your feet, shifting your body angle, or bracing, bucko!

Try it. I bet you your 11 y/o could push you over....;)

Oh, we're well within the realms of physics (aka "natural laws").... no "magic" or mysticism here... (we'll talk about Jedi mind tricks later...)

...but I'm allowed to bend knees and pivot core slightly right? if not, I should pause the topic there for a while until you come back down to earth, aikijedi-master.