Sharon Friedman – Vigilance and Tranquility

To build a solid healty fist you can do so many different things: Walk up and down a wall with your fists. Do a static push up on them. Walk on all fours using feet and fists. Try pushing fist against fist or any other body part in different forms and see how they combine best and worst. All is conductive to your learning and what feels bad or wrong can be used to take away the fighting spirit from someone without causing damage. For example if you hit a hand holding a knife well on the back hand you can have the knife out of the immidiate present and be careful because if you over commit and take this as a casue instead of a moment and an opportunity you may become attached and hurt yourself if he (or she) changes position. Don’t try to do anything, Just be there.

A few things on the three basic drills: (push up on fists, bringing the legs overhead and sit up with legs flat on the floor and a straight back, squat with upright torso and feet flat on the floor pointing forward at shoulder width all done using slow even movement and about 30 even breaths each way )

As you do the slow sit up consider pushing your lower back to the floor as you bagin and see how that helps your awareness. Also push your behind into the floor (it needs be a hard surface for you to learn from it) and see how that changes your balance. Bring your chest away and high as in parade and your head a little in and with line to the spine

As you do the slow squat you can tense and relax your behind to become aware of the tension unbalancing you in it. Try to breath and feel the diagfram moving up and down rather than the stomach moving forward and backwards. relax your feet on the floor and feel how the mass shifts from heel to toe and among the toes.Squat with your back to a wall so you cannot cheat yourself thinking you’re an upright dude 🙂

As you do the slow legs overhead, consider the rule of hard on soft and vice verca to see how you manage to keep your spine from harm. try to relax your stomach as you bring your legs up and sorta pull the thigh bones into the pelvis rather than bring them in an arch high (intention translates to action and tension that feeds itself) rotate your shoulders so they are flat on the ground and a relaxed platform so you can arch the back to bring the legs to meet the floor

As you do the slow push up consider the angle of the fist to the body and play with this to see how you can relax that way. think about pushing the floor away from you and HAVE FUN.