Flea wrote:
"Brian, I hadn't thought of the static pushup as a springboard for meditation. Interesting! I'll have to give that a try. I've found meditation to be my best resource for insomnia; I have a string of Tibetan beads and I try to do at least one "round" before hitting the sheets. It makes a huge difference in downshifting the mind. My dreams are of a higher quality too - slower, clearer, and more instructive.
I hadn't thought of the stressful effects of being party to the drills in class either, but that makes perfect sense. The other day I was paired with someone who kept grabbing for my throat for some reason. I thought of sitting out because (go figure!) it produced a lot of anxiety. It would have made sense to ask him to ease up on that, but ... I'm just getting tired of feeling like a shrinking violet all the time. Instead I worked on my breathing and concentrated on how I could work with it - different kids of evasions, wrist locks, and so on. It was a good experience, but I know some of that anxiety followed me home." (Emphasis mine. Bri)
Flea, the next time you are nearing the end of your class or even after class let your instructor know that you still have some of “that anxiety” inside. Your instructor will show you different ways of removing (cleansing) it. This is important work for both you and your instructor to do. Flea, it might be that with your experience you are very good at hiding your anxiety burying it deep so that no one notices, perhaps that has even become a survival method, bury and block out. So many people do this. It might also be that your instructor has noticed your anxiety but has also noticed that it is a button for you and to talk about it increases the anxiety and/or that you are working on it and they may feel that giving you more might over whelm you at that moment causing more harm than good. Your being honest and open with your instructor if you are able will answer many of your questions and speed up your progress. If at this time you do not want to or can not yet be that open and vulnerable it is OK. Likely your instructor has noticed the tension and has started the cleansing without you realizing it. By structuring different drills and exercises during class time we can have our students working on cleansing excess tensions from their bodies even without them realizing that they are doing so, often even during brutal combative type of work they are also healing themselves and/or their training partners. Have you noticed Flea how the energy of the students feels after a class, even a brutal class? As the students become more aware they can add the “cleansing” to any movement drill/exercise or combative moment that they face…it becomes so ingrained that after a short while it happens automatically so that the student does not even have to think about it and is barely even conscious of doing so.
"Could you be a little more specific on "cleansing?" I'd imagine that means drinking lots of water and maybe the occasional fast, but I'm not sure what else."
Fasting on a regular biases is healthy and can be found in many health and spiritual paths. There is a reason for this. It is good for both the body and the spirit. It can teach you many things about yourself, help you to discover and better understand your pride and your self-pity, your strengths and your weaknesses and helps to teach you to give permission to accept and to forgive. It is interesting work and highly recommended although not exactly what I was referring to when I posted above thread.
People carry excess and nonfunctional tension in their bodies. You can get amongst any crowd Flea and see it written on so many bodies. Next time you are out driving around take a moment and look at the drivers in the cars around you. Both hands on the steering wheel squeezing so hard that the hands are white and practically leaving indentions on the hard plastic. Their shoulders are raised so much that they are almost higher than their ears making them look like some creature out of the star wars bar scenes. Focused straight ahead with grinding teeth and clinched jaws working furiously to get to their next stop or home. Think that when they get to that location that they are relaxed or that the drive rejuvenated them? Get on a bus or subway often? Look at those passengers beside you. Notice how that one flinches and tenses when someone bumps into them or is seated to close, notice how their face changes and the eyes seem to change.
(*off topic flashback memory* One of Vladimir’s comments to me, made while walking by and observing me work with some training partner or partners, was “good work Brian but you MUST relax your eyes.” This happened at many seminars over likely 8 or 10 months. He showed exercises and drills and made comments and told stories and it wasn’t until I finally felt what he meant that I better understood what he meant, and all the prior work he did made much more sense. He was so very patient with me and I was so stubborn LOL but really who ever heard of relaxing your eye LOL For me one of the first noticeable exterior expressions of tension was through my eyes and face.
Flea everyone gets stressed and/or injured but not everyone notices this tension/stress/injury right away or even at all. They let it accumulate little by little then watch in helplessness as it either explodes outward or inward in destructive behavior. Many people try to cleanse this tension (either consciously or subconsciously) by self medicating with the use of alcohols, with caffeine, with nicotine, with narcotics and pharmaceuticals, to you know “take the edge off”. Those are certainly methods of dealing with life’s little daily stressors but hardly ever work out for the better long term (or even short term) There are many on the board that when stressed will go home or to the gym and try to beat the stuffing out of a heavy bag, or lift heavy weights till exhaustion removes the daily stress and tension, and again this is a method of dealing with those stressors and tensions. Not sure how well they work on their own especially if you are injured or as you age or if they are done with aggression or other self destructive behaviors. It is far better to cleanse these stressors and tensions right way the very second that you become aware of them. The use of breathing is paramount in doing so. I could continue this thought here but the post would become as long as a book and I would still do the subject injustice especially when there is already an affordable book written and easily available.
Flea have you yet read the book “Let Every Breath by Vladimir Vasiliev? I remember in another thread you were going to get the book from your library or something. This book will make a huge difference in your Systema training and your life. (For others that might be reading this thread you DO NOT have to be a Systema student or even a martial artist to benefit from the reading of this book) The entire book can deal with the subject of this thread and of becoming aware of the tension and the cleansing of it.
From the book-
“Relaxation is a pre-condition of correct breathing, as emphasized in the Seven Principles of Systema Breathing (Chapter 3) But exactly how can we relax?”…
“Systema breathing includes specific exercises that can rid of the extra baggage of unconscious, non-functional tension. That extra tension causes us to tire more easily in the physical work, and hampers our freedom of movement. Excess tension can also affect us psychologically, causes us to give up too early when things get tough.
You can’t eliminate something if you aren’t even aware of it. The methods introduced in this chapter will help you to identify excess tension and then release it…”
Basically Flea we try to become aware of these tensions right away. The sooner the better (see avalanche in my prior post) and we use breathing and tension to cleanse tension.
Specificity would require a book length post, and while you are worth it, I just do not have the free time right now, LOL especially as Vladimir and Scott have already written it and I am lazy and you have an instructor available to help guide you in person. Think on some of the drills I have given you in other posts and some of the drills and exercises you have done in class. ALL drills and exercises done in a Systema class will be working on many different levels Flea. Think back on some drills and do them again but open your mind to what else might be going on. Forget how you did them last time and now do them differently, have a different focus, a different intent, a different goal. Discover yourself.
Warmest regards
Brian King
I guess my body is trying to tell me something?
