Month: August 2006

This is a very good drill to develop natural movement. Have two people hit and lever at you at a speed that is a bit over what you feel comfortable at and do this for a while with additions such as hands held together or legs tied with a string at a small distance. Vary the additions and you will be able in time to see what you can do to bring out the creativity or your natural movement from within. A great way to do this is to simply wear a blindfold or close your eyes for a while and do the drills. You move differently when you don’t see yourself. If you are shooting and in position most will not hit the mark if they keep their form but close their eyes which means there is movement and breathing patten we are not aware of until we try. Don’t sink into games of what else can I do to make this interesting thouh. The purpose is to learn to move naturally in all walks of life. If you need a warm up or a special shirt to feel worthy than it’s a miss and than the other guy gets to shoot at you

You cast a stone in the water and the ripples reach far. You cast a rock in the water and you get wet…  

This is an example of a usefull mindset.  I was stuck in a post were you had to walk 35 km to and from every time you got out. We had to carry everything on us in addition to the regular gear so we kept it light. In order to make use of one small towel we had we cleaned ourselves under the water tower and jumped in place shaking the water of for a while before finishing it of with the towel. A little resoursfullness goes a long way. 

Try this too: Place the blade of the hand under the blades of the shoulders and lift and move them around gently. Pressure points exist in many places where the bone marks a line in the skin such as in the face back and sides of hips. See how you can press and move around to feel better and how the other way will create a lack of will to fight in another.

A great movement I adopted and modified from a book about Russian ballet: Lie on your stomach and put your hands on the back of the neck with straight legs. Now lift up and look forward and go down. Modify by looking to either side and change the hand placement. Once this is done put your hands on the lower back and rise All the time keeping your feet on the ground and relaxed. Notice that we tend to relax against solid contact. It’s a survival reflex and a social one too. It can help or harm us as you know so developing an awareness and a way to override if need be will benefit you. Like many other things most of the solution is in the question asking.

To breath better under stress try this: Lower or hang your head on your chest and puff breath swiftly as you shake your body up and down with the breaths. Keep your mouth closed unless you exhale and inhale through the nose. With the rocking motion and the position you are in it will be much easier to breath later and you will grow even more appriciation to alignement. 

Compansating when something is broken or hurts is a good way to see what you can do with say just one hand or leg. Try going about for 5 minutes with just one eye and than the other. Now perforrm any usuall task on one leg and than on the other. Try to roll from one leg and rise on the same. do so with rolling with one hand and than no hands at all (slowly) See what you can do with your mouth neck and head. Can you make a phone call ? It is also rather funny to do so 🙂 If you have a cut or some other abrasion try to see what other parts of the limb or trunk can be used while you heal. Place your body on the floor and lift another part off the floor each time. Like breath, if your chest is hurting than breath with your stomach and vice verca.

Sometimes it of use to know the distance between yourself and a car another person and the like. Take a few minutes to do this and you will have a tool to approximate this distance. Your hands have a fixed distance between this finger and that and a fixed distance to each finger and knuckle. In a place where you know the distance like a running track or a range (Just count how many steps you take in 100 meters and you can do this anywhere) Now see how much space does a full man take as you look at him. Perhaps two upper knuckles of the pointing finger or something else. Once you do this and stay carefull as you chop wood, you will be able to know that distance.