Distancing arms, 34 min
I come back to this lesson again and again. It can be put into many categories, but my favorite is what I call “centering for strength.”
Consider how resistance occurs when the limbs are made to do the job of the pelvis. It’s exhausting. So you could say this lesson is about waking up the big muscles of the trunk.
For me, the shoulders feel lighter, less tense, the breath opens up from the movement of the ribs, and the whole system feels alive and sparkly (my word) with new connections.
Note that the low back starts to lengthen to accommodate the legs even as the mid back lengthens to accommodate the arms. It’s very cool.
(For more lessons like this, see Light, Easy Arms and Unwind the Upper Back in the Treasury.)
Thought for April 25: Productivity and effort
I live in a condo complex on a large, green park surrounded by woods and lakes. Occupants include owls, cranes, ducks, geese, and giant turtles.
In the park, some people sit in camp chairs with a folding table between them, playing a board game and drinking beer. Others do burpees and pushups. Dogs race in circles. Kids play basketball. (Has the basketball been cleaned?) An older man circumnavigates the park over and over with his tiny white dog.
The park is the new living room, gym, stress reliever, social connector, and community center. Being near others takes on a new meaning.
Instability and effort
Instability can be physical, spiritual, financial, social, or emotional. If I feel unstable, I just apply more effort. After all, it gives me peace of mind. I feel satisfied that I’m doing something that will move me forward.
I am not unusual in this. It’s normal for people to remedy instability by adding willfulness and tension instead of clarity and connection.
Unfortunately, this is neither intelligent nor efficient, and it has the opposite effect because unnecessary effort prevents me from moving forward—a false positive.
Conflicting impulses
Effort happens when conflicting impulses arrive at voluntary muscles and crash into each other, a traffic jam of contraction.
Try opening and closing your hand at the same time. Voila, effort! (Work is using your muscles to move your bones through space. Effort is wasting contractions not moving, and by the way, it hurts.)
Well-coordinated movement, on the other hand, has a sensation of the absence of effort. It’s an elegant voluntary act, one of making a choice and using the muscles in a way that's compatible with that choice.
What choice?
These days, I don’t act compatibly with my choices. I counter them with doubt that I’m not being productive enough, not moving forward enough, not reaching out to friends and colleagues enough.
Hence my really annoying shoulder tension! That means I’m over-contracting trying to find clarity and stability and it’s not working. By thinking I should be outside exercising with the burpee-bouncers in the park (not going to happen), using this time more wisely, being more productive, etc., etc., I’m not acting in line with my intentions. If those were my intentions, I’d be doing them.
The problem is a lack of clarity.
Conflicting impulses create tension—in all domains. Once I make a choice and commit to it without doubt, the tension and co-contraction will go away.
quote(s) of the week:
“You'll do what you think you want to do, or what you think you ought to do. If you're very lucky, luckier than anybody I know, the two will coincide.”
― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose
“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”
― Ray Bradbury
“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions."
― Naguib Mahfouz