breathe with a long cycle. Meaning in for ## count. Than hold and exhale and hold again for the same count. Keep it as long as you can and than some and as you reach the point where it’s really uncomfortable try to relax the body. For me it’s a lot of tention in the chest and shoulders and the last time I did this today I felt suddenly my hips relax as if they were hungfrom my shoulders and could move anywhere. Try it and be mundfull not to hurt yourself. Be aware of what you can and cannot do. Frustration is your ego wanting to fit a picture or get a better greade. Just do the work and enjoy it.
Month: May 2006
Consider the arm most people bring forward when they roll. If you tense up the arm and shoulder than the impact on you will be much greater than if you relax and just hold the arm in the alignment you require to meet and combine with the floor. Not everything is smooth and straight so you have to learn how to roll up a hill, in a furnished room and so on. Try for example rolling on the spot so you don’t advance as you roll. Easy to do if you for example have a leg of a chair to pivot around without placing your mass on it. Again to the roll: Lower your body toward the ground and place your hand on it as you turn the shoulder so your surface is more suitable to meet the ground (less edgy and more soft tissue on hard surface) now slowly at start move forward and remember, this is not a fall. There is no need to bring yourself off balance or jump. Just move the same as you do in a normal step. This applies to diverting a hit to and to anything really. It takes very little movement and power to move an arm off course. If you are tense and leaning on the arm moving than you are getting all energy inside of you. If you just move with a relaxed body relying more on your structure (bones and connective tissue) and relaxation (an even nerve activation or full awareness) than the job is done and no hurt has been done to you and hopefully to anyone else. A coin well placed on the tracks can run a train off. Think about it.
One last thing for today: If one thing works great. If it doesn’t do something else. Through natural movement you will get there. Fighting reality not so much.
Ask yourself what is martial art. For example people call snipers those who can shoot with a special rifle very accuratly and at amazing distances. Most look at the nifty clothes and the painted face and say: that is a sniper. Reality has more to offer. The sniper is a proffetional soldier who’s training and apptitude enables him or her to survive tasks that entail: camoflage themselves plus kit in the field and maintain their health and kit during long periods of working seperately from the mother unit. Being able to navigate in all conditions avoiding detection and leaving no trace in the field of their existance and work. being inteligent to make the choice of doing the job or another secondery job. Being humble in accordance to their abilities and reporting back to the unit of what they see so the inteligence can be used to the outmost effect. Recognizing the targets withing hostile and dangerous conditions and making the right choice as to route and means to an end. Planning several scenerios of conduct if things go smoothly or not so much. Being able to thing on the go if unexpected factors arise and most important of all, being able to return from a mission to be able to deploy again and learn both from one’s actions and from another’s NOW can you tell me honestly that fighting in the street is just hitting each other. The way you carry yourself and respond to your surroundings tells the attackers what might happen and can be called no contact work 🙂 Awareness to your place and knowing what you can and cannot handle will tell you what logical means can be taken and how to think on the fly. Using whatever is there in front of you: A metla pen, a suitcase, someone else’s arm and car mirrors can alter the balance of the situation alltogether. Your initial posture as first contact is made will most probably be paramount to the ending of it (remember all is connected)
Now: look around you wherever you are and start counting the things you can use to survive such an encounter: In your room there is a chair most likely, a pen and some books, a picture with glass covering it that can be fashioned Mcguiver style into many things such as a blade or reflecting mirror to look past corners. The only limits are inside of you.
Now take a bottle of water (plastic) about 1/2 a litter size works best and using just your forearm and hand rotate it on the horizontal plane so it turns in your hand back and forth. Do the same on the vertical plane and finally around the hand and back. To work this keep very close to the bottle. Don’t throw it in the air and catch it again. Maintain contact with the bottle (or in class or a fight with the others) and you will have done the same work using less movement and more control.
Using a light dumbell such as 4 kg, start to move it forward and backwards so you feel the momentoum. Now try to move your hand with more awareness to each finger, each angle and so on so you move as one unit and are ahead of the torque. This rather weird drill came to me in an erobic/dance class I am taking. They use dumbells to do balistic arm work and it was new to me. At the beginning I felt the strain in my joints and muscles and after a while I thought of this and from then on it felt fine. I am not a fan of this type of movement, I like the dance part but being cut doesn’t interest me much. Lessons come in all forms if you have an open mind and I hope to have one one day 🙂 If you are breathing there is hope.
With a knife (a tool like all others) Move it around you in cuts and stabs. Remember how a bread knife works and apply what you learned there to this. You will not cut well in a simple arch. You have to draw the blade through it. That is why knives that have bellies (curve) cut easier than lined blades which have other jobs they suit like working with wood and shaving so pretty much the work in the kitchen and the cow graveyard abide the same principles. Now move the knife so the butt is forward in the motion as to strike with it or to cut in the second part of the motion (just like we put our arms around one another in a hug and than tap each other on the back so can you place the knife at the back and than draw it to create minimal damage and spray to all parties involved) Now, Move the knife so the movement will include parts of you or a friend if you have that posibility and move as little as you can to keep safe and stay close to the person with the knife. Now Place one hand on the wall and don’t move it. Have a friend attack you (both knife and body or even cursing and throwing stuff) and you have that space to move and live. Reverse and return the favor without malice. Now stand close to the wall and do the same. use the wall as a disarm (bring the knife tip first into the wall and the hand will either let go or cut itself, being stiff in your head can be hard on you) and so on. Explore slowly how you can use movement of the limbs and body to divert the path of the blade. A pivot point can be worked in several directions and you can even take the knife away by the blade itself. Especially if you have something to wrap it with like a book, some clothing or another attacker. Thanks for listening.
Moving from the core ? Lie on your back and place your arms along your torso. tense and relax each part of the arm and keep it solid from the elbow. meaning it nor stiff nor mushy. Just alive with the right amount of nerve activation (You felt this if you ever played with a baby) Now place your feet flat on the ground and lightly bend your knees. Start to sway from your hips to your back on the ground and let the motion proper your arm in circles from the shoulders. Breath and move and enjoy.
Don’t have a routine. It’s just another master that tells you what to do. If your plan doesn’t fit the moment and you want to work on something else or change the place, whatever, do what you belive in. Let the principle guide you and don’t feel sorry for yourself and by DOING the answer will come. A no is also an answer, remember that 🙂
Looking at numbers such as 30 squats 30 push ups and thirty (eh) legs overhead can intimidate a lot more than doing the work. If you place all those actions on one moment, you may feel overwhelmed (or not or maybe you fear the number 1,000…) Just do one thing at the time.
Simple. Stand up with feet pointing forward and rise to your toes without leaning to any side and go back a few times. Be mindfull of even the tiniest tilt or roll. Now rise on your heels and afterwards do the same with feet pointing to the side. Take note of which parts of you tensed up as you first rose and in either position. Do you tense your behind with feet to the sides ? I sometimes do and I have to relax it to be able to do a grand plie (ballet move) parralel to a wall. Vladimir Vasiliev shows some drill using the wall and like the hard floor it is a good friend that tels you right and wrong. Try to squat with your back to the wall without leaning on it and it will help you do it on the spot without pushing your behind to the back and tell you if you are really aligned.
As you walk, keep your posture both aligned and relaxed. Tense up and relax the body fully a few times on both inhale and exhale. It will bring you into the body and help you become aware and awake in the morning. As you walk (deja vu eh ?) Lift the leg without placing any mass on it. Lift it as it is not supporting anything (in the air, think about it) and place it lightly on the ground. Only after the foot is secure, move your weight to the forward leg and repeat. It will help as you relax the shoulders and hips by checking them in all three dimentions, gently roll them on themselves (like a spiral that moves water but stays in place) if every step is seperate you can manouver with no ressistance because there is no momentoum to govern you.
May times we will be concerned about our way. Does it really work? Am I spending my time properly ? Ask yourself these questions honestly and see what you come up with. Do not take this as a set course or something we do. For example if you had a bad day in class and nothing worked or you felt you were getting hit more than usual. Learn from that experience and you can move on to other mistakes or maybe it was not about mistakes or decitions. Sometimes you will get hurt no matter what you do. Such is life. If you accept this (Don’t take my word for it, see for yourself) than you can stop feeling sorrry for yourself and do something about it. If lets say you are in an embarrassing situation, you can join the fun by leading the laugh rather than sulk. If you are in a bad situation, you can sometimes escape and live by making it worse. For example. A person who is attacked by a rappist notices that the rappist has very clean clothes and is rather dainty. He or she (more likely she but not always) may get away by making themselves untouchble by rolling in sewer or soiling themselves. If you free yourself from the ego or a picture of what should happen you can be inventive and live better. this as all principle applies to everything. In the Japanese arts Musashi writes in the end of each instruction that you need to practice diligently. You are alive and if you are aware and moving naturally, breathing and aligned with both your beliefs and the earth than every breath is a movement further into a better life.
Stand and start to sway from side to side. Keep the motion on one flat angele and change it from time to time. As you go add the different parts of the body to the movement to make it whole. If you are swaying from side to side. moving weight from leg to leg you can transfer or manifest the wave in the hips than in the torso and than in the arms and the head. A lot of people tend to isolate the head and keep it floating along as they move. Like a dog in the water 🙂 to move naturally you accept that things will effect you and by choosing to move, you avoid stiffening up and can survive or encoumpass more.
The Martial Art of Walking 