Working on your spirit is not building courage that can wear out or “learning ” to withstand pain but gaining awareness through the fog of tension and perception of what we can truly do.
Start by doing simple tasks like drawing shapes and walking in a straight line while slowly inhaling or exhaling till there is nothing left and then add a bit more on what you perceive as empty.
Swim underwater while slowly exhaling of if you have a tube inhaling or close your eyes and look for a pebble at the bottom of the pool while you exhale or run on your last breath. (important to have a buddy who does not fancy your woman to guard your back if you lose your consciousness here)
Proceed from simple tasks that do not require more than a “stored procedure” of motion to tasks that are more whole in nature so all the dust can be removed from both intellect emotion and body noise.
Add the drill where people walk through you and you evade them while exhaling or inhaling to the end and see how this fares in comparison to the previous jobs. Give them wood meat sticks like the ones used in kebabs and have them repeat the drill with the pointy end toward your stomach and later on add a rope they can hold between them to create a wider obstacle to make use of.
Another example to a more complete task is to keep contact with a partner holding a blade in one hand who is working to remove your contact from him using the blade. You place your hand on the back of his neck, he moves the flat of his knife on his neck and you remove that arm and place the other on his stomach without losing contact with him and so on.
Yet another example for this level of drill is to close your eyes and go from one end of your house to another on one exhale of inhale of without any air at all. Later on adding no contact or noise to the drill is very helpful for soldiers and civilians alike. The same works for any piece of bush with no mines in it.
Now we proceed to a more open drill where the objective is not defined in advance in some ways just like life and in particular the myriad of conflicts we are a part of during ours.
Start with the obvious of having a bunch of people walk past you with different intents from dragging you to their trunk (not an elephant man joke) to asking for the time to picking your backpack and so on as you breath calmly as possible and learn you do not need to tense up or hold your breath toward impact or contact and not everything in life is black or white.
Continue to restricting your breath to uneven breathing (One pulse inhale and three pulses for exhale for example or One for inhale and ten for exhale and so on) and repeating the drill as listed before.
Continue to a more focused but shorter drill of doing this during one prolonged inhale or exhale or one of them and a breath hold to the end at the end of the extended breath while you repeat the drill with the several people with several intents.
Continue to the best drill for this of one group on one group play without telling the other team what you set up to do but have one person know all intentions so there will be no unhappy accidents like impalement and injury…
Have some fun and learn something while you do it .
Month: August 2011
So you want to reach out and touch someone ?
What happens if he or she is not in agreement with you ?
What if they are doing something about it other than not being there ?
Start with a partner sitting on his behind and you sitting an arm length from him. Have him place one arm in the air toward you stay still. raise your arm slowly to contact the arm and slide on the arm refraining from creating a contact spot your are moving around and seriously moving your arm and shoulder freely rotating your forearm, moving your elbow and shoulder ALL TOGETHER!. It will also eventually work if you avoid letting the breath lead the movement but it will take a few more lifetimes so make your decision about this.
When you ask why we are sitting on our behinds I answer to note how we can move without our legs and hips so we avoid compensating with one part over lack of awareness in another.
Continue with your partner raising his arm toward you and back and you maintaining contact but without resistance or leaning on him during all the movement.
Continue to add him rolling his body toward you while he extends toward you and you do the same work as your own body evades his all while maintaining contact and awareness to your own tension and the most important part of the key your breathing.
Now repeat the drill standing and replacing rolling with walking and running and adding a stick or other tool when you feel comfortable with it.
We are already afraid so there is no need to push toward it in training and learning. Learning to release fear is more fruitful then learning to coexist with it.
Keeping the eyes and head clear during rolls
To engage a child you do not need to forbid something but to engage in something or intrest or worth. When rolling note how the head and eyes are free to move and removed from harm when you point one finger upwards and look at the finger throughout the roll. This way you learn to remove what is blocking your way even if it is a part of you without having to consider it as danger or harm. How you define what you are doing limits and guides you. The more your movement is without names and tags the less you need to carry and overcome.
Uneven breathing
We tend to even things out with carrying groceries in each hand or bringing our breathing to the same intervals or pulse timing for the inhale exhale and sometimes to the pauses between them.
Consider working on uneven phases of breath to learn to work with this imbalance and letting the tension this builds release with the growing knowledge of self through the work.
Start with writing numbers from one to ten or twenty depending on your comfort at the moment with no linear connection between them.
Inhale and exhale according to the numbers letting the inhale and exhale match each other but changing depth and length of the breath from one whole cycle to the next.
Next repeat the drill but have one inhale be the first number and the exhale the next. This way you advance in releasing the hold balance has on you and freedom in movement and temperament (how the outside affects your mood) from the outside reveals itself.
Next add the pauses between inhale and exhale with the random numbers and when you curse me remember to be kind especially if you go for the twenty and more in the number spread.
Next add simply walking a step per heartbeat if you allow for it to lead the movement or use one of the basic four drills and repeat the number drills first just inhale and exhale and then adding the pauses in between as you push up with the same count or do leg raises along the exhale.
Next do a different drill from the four basics with each breath phase.
Lie down and tense and relax your body parts one by one and in waves to feel how tension changes form in your body as you release this master key of breath.
Consider getting this: http://www.russianmartialart.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=115
The book
The single reason other then deployment to my lack of posts is working on the book and DVD. If you have any questions I will be glad to answer.
Yours
Sharon
Systema Israel.
The Martial Art of Walking 