Month: January 2015

10 Ways to make evert minute matter

We have many minutes to hours a day where we are on our way to work, waiting for something or doing general maintenance.

Let us make at least some of those minutes count:

1. Squat but do not sit when you go to the toilet. Make your connective tissue stronger and your bowels as well. Make sure your knees and feet point in the same direction to avoid undue strain.

2. Balance on our toes as you urinate, Works your balance and your ankle solidity as well.

3. Balance on the heels of the feet as you brush your teeth. Keeps you from having stress fractures by keeping the power balanced in the shins and gives you better balance control.

4. Before you go to bed, Lean from your hips forward and relax the neck muscles for 60 breaths. This will ease much tension from your spine you did not know exist.

5. Before you leave your bed, lift your legs us and hold onto your toes with your hands. Arch your back up and allow your spine to align before you place your mass on it.

6. Before you start eating, take a slow long inhale through the nose to let the body smell and know what is coming and you will digest and harvest more from the meal.

7. Once an hour, Slowly raise your shoulders and exhale as you release excess tension from them.

8. When you have a thought you do not feel well with, Exhale with some sharpness and shake your body. It helps in clearing mental tension from taking roots in the body.

9. When cold, Breathe in and out through your nose to keep the air in the lungs warmer.

10. After a hard effort, Listen to your heart beat and allow it to sync with your breath. Your recovery will be swifter and easier without taking your mind of what is happening.

Defiance

To me defiance stands for personal freedom. Freedom of thought and action.

An attacker wants me to be either frozen and static or responsive in the manner of his or her choosing.  I choose to do it my way.

Drills to carve this ability out of the soup of response based conditioning.

  1. Have your partner attack you in some way. Your mission should you choose to accept it J is to avoid reacting in any way to his attack and do these two things:
    • Keep breathing in a pace that is comfortable to you.
    • Move to attack him/her without any response to his attack.

Example:

Johnny swings his club to hit you in the top of the head. You do not block or move away and instead step sideways and place your foot on his as you relax forward.

Heather tries to choke you from behind with a shoe string. (Tread carefully) . You do not try to stop her hands or hold onto the string and instead place two fingers on her eyes and gather her lashes.

  1. During a conversation with your partner say something offensive to you and you choose to avoid treating it as personal or influential. Instead simply note the information and continue to talk without giving in to the hook.

Example:

Johnny says “Everyone who is not stupid know the movie True Lies is based on actual events” You note his point and way of stating it and avoid consider it a sly if you do not agree to this statement and at the same time maintain your frame of thought and direction.

Keep breathing and see far.

Teaching our eyes to see “faster”

A swift bird traveling in the skies is easy to spot even though its speed is considerable. It is much harder to track when it is low and closer to the ground.
We have the ability to track and act upon swift movement and it will be much easier if we learn to see the movement on its background.

caters news agency bird over hula lake picture

Solo practice:

1 Bounce a flexible ball such as a tennis ball against a wall and work on keeping your breathing continuous.

2 Continue by tying a ribbon to the ball and focusing on the movement of the ribbon instead of the ball so you can see both.

3 tie two balls between one ribbon and bounce both against a wall focusing on neither ball nor ribbon and allowing everything to aid you in the practice.

4.Repeat the practice with just one exhale to include inner pressure into the drill and even out the work inside and out. Just movement is dance while martial movement is about sustaining life and loved ones.

Partner practice:

1 Have a partner strike you lightly with his fists and feet. You move away and place your hand or leg on his knee or elbow to bring to mind the next link in the chain.

2 Have a partner strike you lightly with his elbows and knees. . You move away and place your arm or leg on his shoulder or hip to bring to mind the next link in the chain.

3 Have a partner strike you lightly with his shoulders and hips (body strikes) . You move away and place your limbs or body on his spine or head to bring to mind the next link in the chain.

4.Repeat the practice with just one exhale to include inner pressure into the drill and even out the work inside and out. Just movement is dance while martial movement is about sustaining life and loved ones.

Controlling time

A clock ticks each second or hums with electricity going through a quartz crystal.
We thankfully operate on a different dynamic scale where we can change our perception of time and even act according to our perceptions.

watch

Start in a comfortable position and your eyes closed to lower your intake of the outside world.  Count your heartbeats and how they combine with your breath. Stretch your breath over more and more heartbeats until you reach the top of the pyramid and stay there for ten breaths. Lower the count of heartbeats per breath in the same manner and each time you repeat the drill use a less and less comfortable position to learn to create more breathing space under pressure.
Example for position progress: Laying down, sitting against a wall, sitting on your shins, static push up, lower end of the squat, half squat position…

half squat

Take a piece of paper or a stretch of sand and start to draw a spiral from the inside out. Hold your breath and wait for some pressure is built. Continue to hold your breath and follow the spiral back to the beginning. With practice you will hold on to the tension less and less and both directions will grow.

spiral

Hold your gaze toward the horizon for ten breaths and capture what is in front of you. Close your eyes and bring the picture with all its details in your mind. Repeat this drill with one less breath for the capture each time and when you reach one breath use just one exhale and after that just a blink of your eyes. With practice this drill will allow you to use less and less time to grasp and realize more and more of what is in front of you.

bond shutter