Month: March 2008

Stand facing a tree or anything else that stays in it’s place and close your eyes. Walk toward it carefully and see if you can find it with your hands without opening your eyes first (start a few meters away and lengthen the distance as you progress). after a while, have a friend place a stick in your way as you progress and you have to avoid getting hurt and keep your heading. progress and add arms and legs to the obstacles you put in someone’s way as he moves toward the object (you can have a moving object as a target if it makes sound like a count or a whistle from a walking person) and finally add your body and grabs and at last pushes and pulls to the work. This is a good way to learn to relax and do the work as you have obstacles of many types in your way and to learn to keep your heading even under stress. Remember the goal of the drill is to build the mind and body and lean so avoid competition and doing harm to each other.

Do the same while squating and crawling.

If you feel something out of the ordinary in a low level or changing light area like an underground parking lot or a street during a power out it is possible to use a camera as a measure of self defense or confusion. Make sure the flash is on the highest output and there is no red eyes configuration and hold it ready at hand. This way if you are startled or feel something you can flash the camera and use this harmless device to escape or create a diversion. It can be also used as a part of an attack so mind if a person who looks safe asks you to look a certain way. Let your senses and feelings be your servants and avoid following politeness rules out of discomfort.

Consider what is important and what really makes sense.

To learn to avoid harm in the fingers stand in front of a post or a friend and without looking stab your fingers into his chest and stomach and according to the angle and your tension allow your fists to sink/ collapse into a fist or lead the movement to the next lever (wrist, elbow and so on) .  Have a partner do this to you and use the body to direct his fingers to a less comfortable alignment to effect his posture. This is a good way to learn and even kids can enjoy it.

The ankle and the many joints and muscles of the foot are often neglected in daily life. They are often covered and even constricted by hard shoes or boots. It is healthy to walk barefoot from time to time to let the feet breathe and the skin on the feet to adjust and sense more than the shell of the shoe. Start by walking on all parts of the foot, heels, toes, sides and so on and on different heights so you become more away to the part these joints and available movements provide you and continue to walk as you tense up different parts of the foot as you go. Stand on one leg and have people push you as you work to balance and let the movement go and breathe.
Stand next to a wall or a friend and place a hand on the support so you can bend and rotate beyond what is possible without falling and keep the feet flat on the ground as you change the tension and push/pull they provide. Do this for a while and see how you can align yourself and keep guiding your body through the feet and ankles even in positions where your alignment is off or gravity has a slight advantage.
An example of this is the fall forward where you either stand or sit on your knees and fall forward as the hands are clasped behind your back or neck. There is an experience of fear and loss of control here during the fall and you can lessen this fear by guiding your body through the feet which will remain on the ground as you fall. I will put a video soon for this purpose as it is much easier to understand by doing.


Train honestly and keep your own mind. Avoid riding someone’s mindset or feelings. Know yourself

Working with a knife on meat or wood requires a lot of awareness to the curves and the softer vs. denser parts of the tissue. Both materials come from living tissue and are good examples for working on people as well. It is sometimes easy to work with exceptional tools like a scalpel for meat or a special wood carving knife but you can learn a lot more about becoming aware and relaxed by working with a simple and not too sharp a blade. For example you will learn to hold a handle that is not perfect for your hand in a better grip and change it according to the task and learn to feel where to cut and how and in a relaxed manner because if you try to muscle through resistance you can break a bone or the piece of wood and even injure yourself. Give yourself time to learn.

 

A good way to relax and learn to use your legs is to lie on the ground and have people walk toward you. at first place your foot on their leg and allow the leg to move and as you relax you will feel where the opening is and redirect them away from your body. Progress to do this from different stations like on your back, on your stomach and half up. Breathe and remember not to depend on your location as a distance from other people but as you are in space.
To learn to move freely when you hit tense up the arm in a position where the tendons are strong (usually in the 90 degree of the elbow) and relax the shoulder. Now start to move the arm through the shoulder and work to keep it relaxed and find all the ways of movement you can. Work with both arms and have a friend hit your arms and push them with a stick so you find a way to escape and continue moving from the shoulder. Now relax the arm keeping the forearm and fist tenses and repeat the drill and than just with the fist tensed up. This makes you more aware of the tension already inside you and release it. Now move with a partner as your arms and shoulders are relaxed and close the distance if you can as he holds a stick and hits and pushes you with it. Keep moving and breathing and avoid keeping him at a safe distance. There is no safe distance. Choose what makes sense to do at that moment and remain calm. Many times in life and in the part of life you call class people will move much faster than you out of ego, out of fear and out of pure ability. Control your own speed and you will be able to survive and control others.

Smile, it helps Smile

To learn to move with the right amount of tension in your arms you can use a wall and a friend. Have the friend (the wall is already standing) stand and fall on his front or back or sides. Work first on pushing yourself off him using him as leverage and support but work so you don’t move him from his place to learn measure. Now work so you push him away as you reach for the ground and now work so your path will not change during the fall and he will be moved from your way. It is important to decide if you want to move yourself out of the way or the obstacle or both and work with honesty with what your senses tell you. This work can show you how you tense and position yourself when you want to push something away from you and when you want to move yourself and as you are falling you will need to relax to be able to accomplish the drill. Pay attention to your breathing and learn to move when your breath is held as well. Learning to do this will aid in your everyday calm and in difficult situations.

Three things to consider in this drill:

1 Sense through your hands and body where the partner or wall is easy to push off (tensed/hard/right angle) and where it is easy to push (relaxed/ cavity and so on) these things change from minute to minute so don’t assume what worked before will work again and sometimes it will be easy to push the relaxed more than the tense because it is too relaxed and looses the base of the alignment more than it is possible to recover.

2 Notice where your eyes rest when you approach the body and the fear of contact is present and work to relax the focus of the eyes so you see more and more clearly.

3. Work with your eyes closed and see how the rest of the senses get more awareness and allow this input to come when you open your eyes again.

Do the work.

Movement and feeling which are connected feel and work better when you breathe just enough. If you take in less than what you need you will be wanting and weak, if you take in more than you need you will be tenses and slow. The same guidence provides us with principles for eating and drinking. If you are after a fast and eat fast and a lot you will take in too much and feel to full giving the same feeling of tension from withing and slowness. If you eat too little than you will be wanting and weak. The same goes for drinking and you can use the breathing again. If you feel hurried than you are letting your emotions guide you instead of having them serve you. Know we are all human and laugh at yourself a bit and than it will be much easier to relax and take in just the right amount.
The breathe is like a wave and it takes time until you feel the oxygen from the inhale inside and it takes time until you feel the tension in your chest and stomach from the inhale which is a muscle activation both controled and uncontroled.
The same applies to drinking and eating so you need to spread your awareness and feel the pulse in your body as you breathe. This will provide you with a marker for fullness and you will feel the beginning of the intake or outtake. Remember it takes more time than the breathe and to listen to your body but don’t take the sensations as orders.
There are many things we can do to harm ourselves and one of them is forgeting to drink. You can notice the lack of water in the body by checking how much saliva you have in your mouth and it’s texture. You can tell by the speed blood rushes back to your finger after you hold it tight for a few seconds and by noticing changes in your mood or coordinaion. If you are bumping into things you usually do or angry without any reason check your body and make sure you do something about it out of choice and not out of fear.