Monday, November 2, 2009

Knowing Your Body...The Greatest Quest

It has been a little over two weeks since my last post due to my work/life schedule being so busy. Well, now things are a little more normal and so here goes another post.

Today I was helping a few students during our Combat class and then in Log Training class as well. During my time with these students, each differing in time spent within our academy, I was able to see how much we rely on our developed ability to understand our body.

It first started when I worked with a new student who has participated in Combat and Log Training classes for a few months now. Although he still feels at odds with his body (most notably his feet), he is doing quite well. I worked with him for a while on his footwork at the end of Line 1 and tried to explain to him how I was able to feel when my feet were correctly positioned within a front stance. I explained how the pressure on my feet is noticeably different when my feet are turned in or out too much, and how the pressure feels against the outside arch of my foot when I am in a proper front stance. I explained that it comes from repeatedly focusing on how my body sends signals to my brain and that it becomes more natural and easy over time. After moving on to work on my own forms I observed him paying attention to his feet more closely and within a few minutes he was much more consistent with his stances and he looked much more comfortable as well. He still needs to continue working on his stances, but he picked up on it very well when he was made more aware of how to focus on his body.

My second exposure was when I was working on the fan technique with a fellow senior student. We were both reviewing our form and were helping one another with various parts of the form. Working with her in this situation provided a very different experience for me. Our hand, foot, and/or body position was more of a remembrance factor than a new discovery like a new student. We have each been exposed to the signals our body provides in these situations for quite a few years now, so it was much easier for us to rediscover and correct some of those form movements which were fuzzy to us for some reason or another.

Lastly, I was helping a very new student during our second class of the evening which was Log Training. She is a student of another martial arts style, and has recently begun taking classes within our academy. During this class, which was her very first Log Training class, she had some difficulty flowing into the training movements. This was not because of her fitness level. On the contrary, she is very fit. The difficulty however was due to the lack of experience with our movements and how she could not coordinate her body as well as she liked. In the end she confirmed the merits of our Log Training class, and is looking forward to her next class where she feels that she will perform much better. She also believes that our Log Training exercises will benefit her transition into Nabard Combat, which requires a lot of movement and fluidity that is not a part of her previous martial arts style. All of this confirmed to me that once we better understand how our bodies move, behave, and react, we are much more able to develop ourselves.

Each of these situations reinforced to me how important it is to know your body. Knowing your body does not come quickly, and not always easily either. Through continued exploration and self study, each of us can become much more than we are currently. Once a person becomes aware of this and accepts the inherent challenges therein, that person begins one of the greatest quests in life. This is the quest of constant improvement. Within this quest, a person realizes that the more they know and understand currently, the more there is to improve upon and the more there is still to learn.

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