Month: July 2006

An easy addition to your work can be made by holding a stick between the arm and the body and turning it here and there with the other arm. Explore what you can do and how you feel the body work together to reach your goal. Check how many places you can snag with and enjoy the work.

A breathing exercise: Exhale and bring the stomach in as deep as you can without pain. If you do it well than you will feel the muscles of the back activated in balancing and later on learn to relax in this form. Now contract the pelvic floor (a flat muscle like the lungs diagfram that sits between the guts and the pelvis) and exhale some more. This helps in becoming aware to the tendons and movement of the hips and neigbour areas. To activate the muscle if it seems strange at first think of stopping a urination action in haste along with an upwards pull. Don’t be afraid to look silly. It makes life interesting and free. (On repetitions: Repeat as much as feels comfortable I do around 10 morning and night and it feels very stimulating) 

*** Also play with how much you can inflate or push the stomach out and in in various poses: Standing on the ground looking up and down and on all fours for example. Move it or loose it :) 

As a general note try to count your steps one day wherever you go. At least a few times during some activity you choose and it will help you use your body more completely and stay calm and analitical during a time you see as stressful.  As an example count your friend steps as he attacks you and you take him down and see if you can count both your steps. It’s not easy.

And congradulations to Rachel on her group. I’ll come and visit one day and I am sure they will level me with ease.

To keep yourself humble and aware try this: Stand in your own conversational distance from a partner (note that your good distance is not another’s so later switch and become aware of that difference in movement psicology) Now put your hands at the lower back and take turns with light slaps to the head and fists to the neck. After a while pick up the depth of the hit  while your partner evades and redirects your strikes. The option of preemptive strike is there but try to limit this for this drill. Now have your partner grab your hands and your job is to free a hand and strike in this fashion as he evades. Don’t forget to use the other hand too to either block his blocking hand or to break form and so forth. Than just place your hands palm to palm horizontally and repeat this.

 

This next drill requires you to be aware of your pulse in at least one place (better if you can feel it at the heart and the hands and so forth)  Be still while you lie down, stand motionless or hang from a tree branch. Now with sufficient air in you stop breathing and become aware of the pulse. Try to feel it in the limbs (hand fingers and ankles) than at the arm pits and inner thighs and so on. Once the entire body is pulsing (reminder it already is :)) Try to keep the pulse at an even level even if you are holding your breath (prolonging the pause phase sounds less intimidating and the mind plays a roll here as in everything) And go the distance. Relax the body from within as the pelvic floor aligns and you become aware of the support the ground gives throughout. If you are able to count 30 heart beats than try to play with it by slowing down and speeding at will.  Many things may happen here. You might start to sweat, feel a burning at the throat and so on. Accept them and be glad you are alive.

The fui <yuk> head and neck health: Many times we start moving the head in strange patterns for joint mobility and such. It is good to have healthy intention though I consider natural movement to give you more in return. Try this: start by running your ears and side of head over your shoulders as if to ward of a fly annoyence. As with always play with this and see the complete movement. You can lift and turn your shoulder in the other way creating a grinding affect if you want to hold on too something like a communication mike and your hands are busy. Now imagine you have a beard and you are a lazy person like myself 🙂 so rub the sweat and grime from your short beard or chin if you are a woman over your chest and shoulders. If you have something annoying at the back of the neck or like a fool invested another minute of sleep and your helmet is bothering you than simply rub the back of the neck as you raise your shoulders and back muscles to meet them and than do that again with the back and shoulders relaxed. Ease you mouth and move your jaw too. It’s all connected. 

 

So you have a friend with a compressed spine and you want him to feel better: have him lie down and give himself a hug. If he can hold and move his Deltoids (back shoulder bones) it’s good. now slowly pull one at a time so the body is rocked with a series of waves and move your hands up and down to the hips and back up. If it is a deep injury than try to help him breath deeper by lifting his arms a bit to allow the intercostals (muscles between the ribs) to part with less work and learn from this yourself on how to accept a hit your current form cannot handle. Be humble and do not try to weather an explotion without moving. Let it move you without affecting your heart. Don’t become attached to the hit and let it pass.

On getting up with gear: If you are on your back like an upsidedown turtle (how did you get there ???) lift up your legs and as they drop down tense the connection (hip muscles and tendons which pull the thigh up) and the momentoum will carry you forward. Rolling to the side is also a good thing and remember your knees are not armoured so don’t drop them on rocks as you slide or loose your balance. Learning to walk at night without falling down seems to be a lost art with the young ones and I hope to bring it back. Basics are the entrance to the building and no roof is possible without them. 

In times when you are really tired and feeling forgetfull and angrier than usuall it is beneficial to keep the real reason of this imbalance in mind and that will help you do the work and live for others instead of focusing on yourself. I often consider what may happen if I loose an arm or a leg or my eyesight and that may happen but in service to others we can free ourselves too. I am not a religious man and this is not just a martial thought. I try to learn from anything I am given and many times sad things can teach us a lot. Remember the middle finger is the trigger finger and the pointing finger is just that.

I’m Surprised to have internet access where I am but here goes. To form strong healthy legs and massage the body do this double drill. One lies on the ground and the other rolls him on the ground using the front side and bottom of the foot and shin. Later do it while squatng using the knees as well and you can speed up as you feel. Another drill would be to squat and do small jumps using only the ankles and the breath. Breath in on the way down and use this preassure to lift up. This really shows you the weak spots and allows you to see how important it is to follow your breath.

To free a back after carrying a load for a long time you can do the legs overhead and than lie down with alternating face up and face down. Put your hands to the sides like a cross and lift the leg straight to the opposite hand. If you have help you can add this: Lie on your stomach and have a partner lift your arms off the ground and play with them gently moving with waves. Keep the body and neck relaxed and it will allow the tightness to go away.

Last post for a while. To help people from suiciding rolling into rock using their heads you simply ask them to roll with one hand on the top of the head and by that they will learn to roll on the soft tissue.  A block in the way can be a boon if you make it a learning possibility. 

To protect the body from harm and move well you need to know how things work together. Try this: bring your arms forward in front of you and rotate the arms so the little fingers point to the heavens. Now add the head forward and all together rotate all three back so you end up with hands to the back with thumbs up and head back. Repeat a few times and reverse the action so you know how you respond to each part moving in different ways and directions. Lie down and repeat this (you can lift yourself off the ground as you press the earth away with your elbows or hands if you can). 

Today I gave a lesson with two children and it was a lot of fun. They learned to fall and roll quit well, to think under stress “oh it hurts when he sits on me…. So move” and to move in more directions than one at once. Demonstrations and calistenics are also a part and given to children are different becasue they want to do it right away so you give them a sead and they grow it instead of a complete thing. Also important to have a bigger goal (in life too) rolling makes no sense other than fun but rolling toward or away is doing something and that makes the work into a job pro style.