Moving to become more aware

I have been training for more than a decade now. What I want to share with you is why. I never aspired to a certain physique, a particular size or strength however I would always feel this urge to train.
Through out the years I dived into Tae Kwon Do, running, calisthenics, crossfit, olympic weightlifting and gymnastics.

Over the last year it became more and more clear to me why I actually feel this need to keep on training. Training and moving are the processes by which I explore my physicality and through which I am learning how to use my body.

What do I mean by that? Along the lines of training regularly I personally constantly discover areas and functionalities of my body that I have barely any or even no control over.
By recognizing that I really didn’t know much about my body and how I can potentially use it, I became very attentive and observant.

We all take our body and our ability to move for granted and I believe that is a big arrogant mistake.
The act of walking is a complex activity that most people perform without even thinking about it. But you all might have experienced a situation where one of your legs was in compromised state. Now all of a sudden walking has become a different ball game.

In my training and or practice I use exercises and movement as a magnifying glass to observe particular parts of my physical structure. I look at how my body behaves under certain circumstances and see whether that is the way I want it. If not, I try to voluntarily
change the motion as detailed as possible.

I’ll walk you through one example: The next time you perform any exercise instead of relying on your predetermined idea of what that exercise should do, take a step back and observe what you are perceiving. By perceiving I mean which muscle do you sense? Do sense them on both sides of your body equally? Can you perceive how your joint and bones are stacked? Are they unevenly positioned?

Start observing while you are in a static position first. Once that becomes easy start “watching” yourself as you move.
Once you become better at watching yourself as you move, you can start to try to change your movement voluntarily while you are observing. Now try to feel what alterations a slight change in movement potentially offers. You might be nothing less but astounded by the impact.
Such an experience shows you on the one side how little aware you are but on that same note you can start to really grasp your own capabilities.

Most people only maybe use 5 percent of the body’s capabilities and it is a shame not to explore more throughout one’s lifetime.

There sure are many ways to become more aware, but I believe that the journey towards more awareness can only always start with internal observation.
So start observing what ever you can internally observe. The outside world will never help you.

In my case moving is the mean I use to become more aware.