RE: Learning What it Means to Move
Thanks for the kind words and amazing comment, you could put a ton of this in an intro post!
It is odd to me that a lot of these topics are only talked about in spiritual circles. I find connecting to movement in this way to be far more valuable than just doing the movements. I'm sure there are some people who take the type of clarity you can get from a good movement practice for granted, naturals.
I think the problem is that a number of people are stuck in thinking, so even when doing yoga or something similar, they are thinking about doing yoga. Like you said, "something clicked" for you, before you were just stretching.
I think this clicking happens when we simplify movement. There's this guy, DK Yoo, who is just an amazing mover. I've never seen him fight, not even sure if he does, but just his training videos are worth watching and reading some of his translations.
At one point he says to simplify your body. To me this means that we don't think about how to move and we just move. In order for me to do that I first have to learn to relax, until recently I didn't know what it meant for the body to be at ease, but after some movement practices, self massage, and releasing mental and emotional blocks, I've been learning to let go enough to feel why my body is out of whack and start to resolve it.
Once I can relax the body, moving it becomes simple, the trick is relaxing. It's not even a relaxation of the muscle, more a relaxation of the fear that causes mental/physical tension. That's what I think of as letting go.
Anyways, hopefully some of that made sense and I didn't ramble, thanks for the comments and resteem, and keep commenting, I love trying to talk this out with people. I'm still figuring myself out and it's always good to see other people's perspectives!
All of that made perfect sense.
The physical and the mental; not letting one override the other, not letting one take for granted the other. Keeping them in balance. Shutting off your mind long enough to let your body speak, at all. Or just be. I'm glad for the day I finally reached the point where I could understand this, and now put it into practice. I try, and I forget, and then I try again and maybe one day, eventually, I'll forget to try, and it'll just come naturally to me, to relax and be in some kind of healthy balance with it all. That's the ultimate goal, I assume.
I'll check out your reference. I love great movers. People who make instruments of their bodies. They're so neat to watch, and wish I might accomplish that kind of grace someday. I guess your mind has to get there first. I think this kind of discussion definitely helps that. It is wonderful to see other people's perspectives!
The body has great wisdom if we listen :)
I'm still working on things too, while I'm much more relaxed now, there are plenty of times I find myself getting caught up in things or trying to figure things out instead of just surrendering to the moment. The great thing is that now I notice it.
Balance is a great word, all through life we are told that we have dominant sides and whatnot, dominant hand, dominant eye, etc. One book I read talked about how one side of our brain is dominant, and in my meditations I notice the other side and different areas of myself "turning on" again as I explore inward, and my perception broads because of it.
I'm working on becoming a graceful mover too, watching great movers makes me think "that would be awesome!" I have some firsthand experience of the joy of feeling like you have full control and understanding of your body and all I can say is that it's incredible. It basically spurred me to dig into this stuff.
Once we have a correct perception of the world (including our bodies), healing and moving with grace becomes much easier imo, so like you said, mind has to get there first, even if healing the body helps.
Ya, keep it coming, talking through this stuff is really helpful and one thing that is really rewarding about blogging