Month: April 2017

Notes from class: moving tension

RELAX is a horrible word. Most times we tense up when we hear it or think it because we add more activation without intention. Let us take another road and that will make all the difference.

Let us make natural tension our friend. It serves a purpose and keeps us upright. It can be a great guide to knowing where to move and how if we treat it as such. Your frame is a network of tension arches. They shift and bend but never disappear. Fright and surprise create a surplus in activation and as nature does. We shall not waste.

  1. Breathe comfortably and divide in your mind your body from hips to shoulders to front and back and side and side. Inhale and tense your front and release on the exhale. Repeat a few times and move your tension activation to the back. Continue to one side and then another until you cover front and back and both sides, one at a time.
  2. Breathe and tense a part from the previous drill and as you exhale move the tension to the opposing or contrasting part (side and side and front and back) Work this with different speeds of breath and remember to pay attention where the tension bleeds around the location you are activating.
  3. Breathe and keep one shoulder tense. Move it in circles and in shapes while tense and note how it feels to move while tense. That is a key to moving under tension but without letting it dictate our alignment and tension. Repeat for the other shoulder and and then move both while tense.
  4. Breathe and tense your shoulder either on the inhale or the exhale creating a short cycle of on/less on. Repeat the shoulder movements of the previous movements and note the changes in the shifting of tension as you move. We all tense. Not all pay attention.
  5. Breathe and tense your forearms. twist them left and right with constant and changing tension. Lean on a tree or wall and repeat. Note how tension and body alignment changes with purpose and direction.
  6. Hold your breath and listen to your pulse. Feel it speed up as you keep the hold and how your body tenses up. Let go and repeat. Listen to your thoughts and inner monologue as well. It matters.
  7. Have a partner push and pull on you standing up. Each time you are touched, tense by intention another part of the body and ride the tension with movement. This comes to De-vilify tension and to prepare the body and awareness to using tension as another tool.
  8. Have a partner push and pull on you while sitting or on the ground. Play with the tension in your body independently of their contact to develop your freedom from the cause and affect state of mind. Enjoy the coming and going and ride the tension both inward and outward. black and white is for Sin city.
  9. Have a partner grab and grapple with you. Play independently with your tension to purposely create frames for them to work with instead of your movement. Avoid guiding them and simply create veils for them to work with in their own way. Manipulation works both ways while a broadcast can remain free.

Do the work with a clean heart and you will gain more of yourself. Do the work with intent to harm and control and you will gain a mask to superimpose itself on you.

Time is everywhere

Busy ? Time is what you make it. Make time work for you.

  1. Brush your teeth ? Stand on one leg and close your eyes. Move your head and let the excess move out.
  2. Walking to the bus or car ? Do a breath pyramid and walk softly.
  3. Sitting at work ? Tense and relax your muscles.
  4. Going to the washroom ? Rotate your joints and draw shapes with them.
  5. Eating lunch ? Practice your breath hold and diaphragm awareness before you eat.
  6. Going home ? watch the movie of the day that past in your head and note where you gave way to emotion or disregarded them. Find your own balance.
  7. Taking a shower ? Play with your awareness to toe movement and your feet on smooth slippery surface. Find balance in moving yourself instead of pushing.
  8. Going to bed ? Press each part to the mat or ground you are on in turn. Ease the day from your frame and consider the lessons learned.

Make use of each day to avoid reliving it. Live a new one each day.

Notes from class: Sight and body movement

It is easy to focus on something out of the norm. Notice the everyday things so your vision is not guided but floating.

  1. Look forward and tense and relax different parts of your face. Note how tension and relaxing affects your sight and exhale to let go of excess.
  2. Place one hand in front of you and play with height and distance from your eyes and see how best to cover a person in front  of you and to your sides and how best to place your limbs to avoid obscuring your sight.
  3. Move one hand in front of you and play with the movement. Go up and down and side to side and in circles and see what movements best obscure what is in front of you and what does not. Avoid thinking what you consider a constant will stay the same as you change with time and work. Get to know yourself everyday.
  4. Walk around a partner while facing the same direction and note when you do see them and how they rise and fall in your horizon. Repeat the drill with different speeds and note how this affects in perception of what you see and what you see but do not notice.
  5. Have a partner strike you with a fist. Move out of the way and return. Repeat the drill as you squat slowly until you are at the bottom and then rise slowly up again. Height changes our sight and it helps to play with it to bring it into our awareness.
  6. Take an object you have with you everyday. It can be a book, a mobile phone ( I hear those are coming into popularity 🙂 ) or a backpack. Use it as you do everyday. For example, find you favorite passage in a book, and note what you still see and what is now not available in you line of sight. Play with it and see how to maximize your sight when you are using your device or tool. This can be the difference between life and death one day.
  7. Repeat the previous drill and have a partner come at you in different ways as you work with your object. Every time you learn something, explain it to your partner so they can play with you even deeper and so both of you will learn much more. Communication must exist on more than one level to truly learn both self and the world.

Focus on Quality in your work.

 

Nine books to read before the storm

There is knowledge that is good for an instance and there is awareness and ability that makes an instance.

  1. The Good Psychopath’s Guide to Success This book glimpses on thought process in a different and goal oriented way. It will be beneficial to know and sometimes practice the approach within these pages.
  2. The Quiet Professional   This book glimpses into the working soldier world and how to navigate it. It has both guidelines and hints on what matters and how to get there and stay on the wave.
  3. Predictably Irrational  This book glimpses into the irrational from a wide perspective. It helps uncover dead zones in our decision making processes.
  4. The Power of Myth This book glimpses into the world of myth and how it affects our relations with ourselves and the world. It helps uncover the back of the brain and helps in making clearer choices in the large scale.
  5. Five Years to Freedom This book glimpses into the mind of a captive in body but not in soul. It gives you the inner world which can be your own.
  6. Maps of Meaning This book delves into the meaning of what and why we are and do. It helps in finding lost selves and reaching the goals that hide in plain sight.
  7. Escape the Wolf This book glimpses into the travelers mind. It helps to note differences in culture, customs and people we tend to overlook and helps in developing a higher base of tuning into the current situation.
  8. Left of Bang This book glimpses into the scale of importance in quick decision making. It helps in finding the loops and arches in developing situations.
  9. Never Let Go This book deals with the mundane body work of a working individual but also glimpses into the inner negotiations we work ourselves into and helps in making better choices overall.

 

Question kit for the day after

Gear is good. Knowledge is better. A frame of mind is both.

  1. Who am I ? Do you define by history ? training ? belonging to a tribe or culture ? Perhaps values 🙂
  2. What do I not see ? A shadow can be cast by many things and nothing at all. Questioning the projection of our knowledge can unmask many things.
  3. What is important ? Do you make decision by your values, by your loved ones benefit ? Is there a permanence in your world ?
  4. How far can I go ? There is the regular or known realm of what we can do and how.  Can we forget  the rules we draw and the reality we have for another ? What are we then ?
  5. What is enough ? How many times a week do we need to eat ? Does our child need more than one shirt ? How far can we be pushed before we push back or move sideways. Not everything is logical or linear.

Staying safe is work. Being the process is existence. Choose the energy cost option.

Breath meditation – The long sixty

Place your body in the push up position on your fists. Keep your torso aligned and breathe.

Count sixty breaths as slowly as your body allows. Feel each phase of breathing and only move on when the need arises.

Let your pulse come into your awareness all over the body.

Let the tension leave naturally on the exhale.

Let your body find its own tempo for that moment.

Keep yourself within yourself.

Let everything else move and move with it.

 

Captured in your mind

Your leg is caught by your opponent and you try to pull it back. Your arms are caught by two tall smelly guys in an alley and you try to squirm free. You are caught first in your mind.

Let us reverse engineer this paradigm into something that works a shorter route with less derailment of trying to defeat your attacker. I ask for two things.

  1. Forget the word caught. Think of any position you are in as a place to develop from.
  2. You have a mind. A machine will answer a question but you can ask questions.

Now let us put this into play.

  1. Let your hand be held by a standing partner. Check how you can move without tension in the rest of your body and see how moving one part affects the structural alignment.
  2. Let your hand be held by a moving partner. Check the same parameters in the added motion and see how your movement can merge in the partners to a combined affect.
  3. Let your hand be held by a standing partner. Move your free parts starting with your breath and eyes to strike continuously at least ten different times and repeat while moving.
  4. Let your hand be held by a standing partner. Move your free parts with your held part used to your advantage as an anchor to enhance the movements affect. Repeat on the move.
  5. Let your leg be held by a standing partner. Check how your body and especially your grounded foot move on the ground and on your partner. Repeat on the move and have a good laugh as you do.
  6. Let your legs be held by one or two partners standing over you. Check how you can move without increasing tension and how your hips can radiate movement without increasing the tension in your legs.
  7. Let your legs be held by one or two partners standing over you. Move your body to affect one partner on the other or if you are working with one partner, Work to load their bodies with your mass by feeling with your legs where they are tense and riding these sinks of tension.
  8. Let your body or neck be held by a partner and remember you are mortal so do not snap your own neck. Relax your breath and eyes and let your body move where it feels free and check how to move the feeling of freedom through the body while being held. Repeat this game on the ground and standing and in between.