Learning to use my hips

I've reached the point in my training where I can see exactly how, when and even why keeping my hips back is holding me back in my training. It stops me from generating a lead, it forces my weight onto my heels making me less mobile and it takes away from the power of my hip throws and other strikes. The task I'm undertaking is to learn to manipulate my hips, namely to push them forward throughout a technique.

The process is very slow and surprisingly difficult. The strangest part is that I feel like a baby learning to walk. This process requires constant attention and as soon as I panic or start to think about my hands or my feet, my hips immediately shoot back to their comfortable position. Since I'm also not used to manipulating and shifting my hips forward I simply don't know how to do it on cue. Now my aim is to push my hips forward during simple tasks like stretching or while holding a heavy pad. To practice Tai Sabaki and kicking with what feel to me to be exaggerated front stances.

However I think that the parallel I've used to a baby learning to walk is apt on a few levels. A baby spends quite a bit of time wanting to walk before any steps are even taken. After that, the baby spends a lot of time either trying to walk or wanting the things that are just footsteps away. I want to be more mobile, I want to have powerful hip throws & I want to have strong punches. Now, I need to do the hard thing and face the challenge the way a baby would face the challenge of walking.