Month: September 2017

STRIP

A man who marched for an internal eternity is different than the man who have yet to embark on one.

You cannot prepare for life although many books say otherwise but you can prepare yourself for yourself. Confused ? Just wait.

I cannot prepare a student for everything as a teacher. I have no key that opens all doors nor does anyone else I know. What I can do with them is engage in learning what they actually do and what is natural for them. Through play we learn ourselves and learn to deal the cards without filters and misconceptions.

Strip:

Take away the idea of what you want and find what you need.

Release the tension your body and mind hold onto due to our interpretation of trauma.

Take away the moves and responses you rely on so you actually live instead of hiding behind a mask.

Remove the blocks from your life by acknowledging your paradigms and how they restrict our actions and thoughts. What are you stopping yourself from doing?

Take a look at your stuff, your bag, your home, your knowledge. Let go of what is keeping you down. Become streamlined for what matters to you.

Weekly Exercise:

Take one aspect of your life and find what is missing, find what is in excess, find what is pointless.

Strip it from what is not needed and make room for growing into your own skin.

My suggestion: choose a repetitive movement for starters such as climbing the stairs or going to work and make it better. 10 minutes spend planning and tweaking can result in days of free time overall.

Movement questions to ask:

Do this for ten of your movement patterns and your movement life will be altered for the better…

  1. Do I hold my breath before starting?
  2. Do I bend as I start the motion (hips, spine, elsewhere)?
  3. Do I collapse into a position or do I control my movement?
  4. Do I force myself into a linier path of movement?
  5. Do I tense/brace as I apply force beyond what is needed?
  6. Do I allow my eyes to fixate to the horizon?
  7. Do I forget to use my entire body and freeze parts of myself as the rest compensates?
  8. Do I move more than is needed to complete the task?

Enjoy 🙂

 

 

LETTING SICKNESS OUT THE DOOR

 

A GUIDE TO HELP THE BODY TO RID ITSELF OF SICKNESS

  1. BREATHE – Inhale and exhale through the nose for better control and filtration. Let each next breath come to you by listening to the body needs and you will breathe more calmly and be more connected to what your body is telling you.
  2. THE MIND IS THE CONTROL – Fill your day with laughter and positive actions. Avoid negative places (who keep the smell of those emotions) and people and find the good in any situation you can. Follow your bliss.
  3. NATURE IS A HEALER – Find a few minutes or more every day to spend silently observing nature. Our nerve systems release excess excitation and the body releases unwanted hormones.
  4. LET YOUR DIGESTION REST – Finish eating every day at sunset or before it and eat breakfast two to three hours after waking up. This way you allow the body to work on healing while you sleep and allow the growth hormone we release before waking to take positive affect in the body.
  5. CHANGE YOUR POINT OF VIEW – Your body is fighting gravity all day. Spend 15-20 minutes upside down or at least in an angle over 45 with your head down to allow the blood vessel system to rest and balance.
  6. PLAY – The mind charges the body to release positive hormones to the system when engaged in joyful play. Find something you enjoy from dance to scrabble and pursue it.
  7. LEARN – The brain builds new connections and structures through study. Find a new language or skill to learn and tell your body to keep you young.
  8. SWING – hang on a tree branch or bar and just breathe. Let your body elongate and release the stress of compression and with the breath to lead, let the body swing naturally on the bar. That is one of the primal moving patterns of man and thus we communicate to the body to keep us in the game.
  9. ROLL – Lie on the ground and let the breath lead you in rolling front to back by using just the movement of the body itself. Go slowly and let the body shed excess tension and unneeded movement. Rolling is too a primal moving pattern of man and will keep you moving like a young self.
  10. SHAKE – Everyone shakes from fear or cold sometimes but we can use this innate mechanism to heal and release unwanted tension and emotion. Breathe and shake one body part or the body itself and release what is in excess. Shake the bleak off.

Notes from class: Spinal fluidity

We understand machines. There are defined lines of compression and depression, there are defined lines of movement and there is a defined intent to each and every part.

Let us consider a less obvious machine. Let us explore the key to that machine and breathe-move our way to endless intuition.

We begin on the ground as we begin our life as babies with not much to forget and lots to learn. Relax on your back and just breathe. That is the beginning. Paying attention to the breath.

Now extend from your inhale and feel the movement of inner compression transferred to the adjoining body parts. Exhale and feel the decompression move the arch of pressure back down.

Now wait for your body to tell you to breathe between both inhale and exhale. Feel the body moving in between these two arches of inner tension and feel your heart pulse and ebb and flow with this.

Now let the breath movement connect with your spinal movement and sway from side to side on your back. Reach up with the limbs of the raised side from the joint that connects them to the body (big moves small idea)

Now let the breath movement connect with your spinal movement and sway up and down on your back. Reach up with the limbs of the raised back area from the joint that connects them to the body (big moves small idea again)

The rest is just letting the mind wonder in your own direction. More video will come on the subject soon.

 

 

Wall walking

WALK THE WALL

100 STEPS WITH YOUR FISTS ON THE WALL SIDE TO SIDE

100 STEPS WITH YOUR FEET ON THE WALL SIDE TO SIDE

100 STEPS WITH YOUR FISTS ON THE WALL UP AND DOWN

100 STEPS WITH YOUR FEET ON THE WALL UP AND DOWN

100 STEPS WITH YOUR FISTS ON THE WALL SIDE TO SIDE WHILE FACING AWAY FROM THE WALL

100 STEPS WITH YOUR FISTS ON THE WALL UP AND DOWN WHILE FACING AWAY FROM THE WALL

 

ROLLING THUNDER

Thunder rolls over the landscape. It goes into every opening and shakes and affects what is in its wake. Thunder is of course the outcome of lightening so we must approach our striking movement in the same manner. One of the other qualities of thunder that goes without saying is that it is not affected as a whole. You can engage a part of the wave while the rest goes on undisturbed. Let us play with that quality to become the source of lightening.

 

Ideas to consider:

  1. The body is the lightening, the force. Allow the body to move the arms and legs.
  2. A tense limb both gives and receives pressure and tension. A relaxed limb can choose.
  3. Two moving parts can create a greater level of freedom than one. Do not focus on one body part. Be a whole human.
  4. Waiting means you are always late, always in someone’s control. You breathe, let your breath be the wave you ride to freedom.
  5. A dancer can dance, a fencer can fence. Be a human being first. Just move. Walk and climb and roll. Do not give names and categories that define and jail your thoughts.

 

MOVEMENT WITHOUT PRESSURE

Place one fist on the other and breathe. Move both fists together in the air in arches and lines. Move them in your front and overhead and at your back. Roll the surface of one fist over another and use your elbows, shoulders and body to move the grid without creating a crest in the tension lines.

Place one fist on the fist of a partner. Have them attempt to tense you up and move your body through that contact. Move your feet, your hips and spine to keep the contact of the partner fist while you move your body and tension on your own without letting the contact affect how you carry yourself.

 

MOVEMENT WITHOUT ANCHOR

Place one fist on your partners body. Have them breathe and let the fist slide on them instead of press in by moving just the hips side to side. Continue to doing the same by moving just the shoulders in rolling motion. Continue to doing the same by moving the spine in continuous arches. Move from your breath and most of all, Move by your own volition. Never wait for the drum to be hit.

Place one fist on the partners body. Start to push and turn in order to bend and wedge the partner into a tense and static position. The partner who is getting the fist contact moves with breath and relaxed eye horizon (seeing what is in front of us instead of fixating to the horizon) and most of all: relax both hips and shoulders and the connecting spine so you move everywhere without letting the partner contact pressure you.

Place two fists on the partner body. Move both from the area of the spine between the shoulder blades to create lines of tension in the contact body. Have the partner release the contact movement downward and sideways by allowing the body to move as before and letting the pressure go back to the partner by moving your own body and no attempt to control anything besides yourself.

AAAAAAA Tension

There is a saying “It is easy to be a monk at the top of the mountain“. It is indeed much easier to be excess free if the environment is calm and smooth but the universe is a better teacher than that 🙂

As it is easier to be smart when you watch mayhem from the sidelines (There were aristocrats in carriages at the Waterloo battle who came to view the spectacle) so we cannot overload our awareness and expect logically to deal with it as a spectator. Instead, we will go from parameter to parameter and build a greater web to catch the moment. Calmness is a large net.

  1. Stand next to the wall and have one person push and twist your body toward it. Work with your eyes closed on keeping your breath continuous and avoid letting expectation control your breathing tempo.
  2. Repeat with eyes open.
  3. Lie on the ground and breathe continuously. have one or more people pull and push on you in different directions as you maintain your comfort by moving the least you can and breathing.
  4. Repeat as you actively tense your body on every other inhale. This teaches to let go of accumulated tension and surprise postural (think loud noise reactions 🙂 ) tension on the go.
  5. Stand and let a trusted partner grab your neck or head with a pressure hold and turn and twist you by that contact. Work to breathe and to let your eyes see what is in front of them instead of trying to fixate to a horizon or any exiting location like the door to the room. Move your entire body and remain as comfortable as you can be.
  6. Repeat as your partner also uses their legs to give you further contact 🙂
  7. Start a delicate task (arranging a balance structure using small rocks, typing a poem and so on) and have one or more people lean on you with slowly increasing speed. Breathe and work to allow your spine muscles and body and eyes to move with the contact the moment you pay attention to them or simply move the entire time with your breath to lead.
  8. Tense your upper body and start walking. Move from standing to siting and laying down and back up while keeping the tension in the upper body. Work to keep the tension from bleeding to the lower body while in movement.
  9. Tense your lower body and move on the ground continuously. Have a partner create obstacles for your to navigate and work to keep the tension from bleeding to the upper body and your eyes from fixating on your heading.
  10. Stand and tense just your arm on the inhale. Exhale and “move” the tension to the other arm and repeat faster and faster until you reach a current end. remember this changes from day to day and with practice.
  11. Repeat as you move to avoid getting caught by a partner or more. Creating and letting go of tension while engaging with a partner is key to learning to manifest tension as a tool instead of working with the default of someone else.
  12. Start walking and have one or more partners grab you with force and torque. Work in turn on keeping your breath continuous, keeping your movement in the direction you want or angling toward it (getting to somewhere can happen in an arch, it helps in letting go of tension), letting your eyes move without fixating on the horizon or your heading.
  13. Engage your partners in pushing and pulling and grabbing. Talk about a non connected subject as you continue to move together and against each other. Being a human is not a one way road. Embody this in your lessons.

Work on the basics in simple combinations. Work on one thing at a time and progress will come before you know it.

Enjoy the road. Tension is your friend when applied correctly.