Stillness and ideal movement

Photo: Baguazhang master Luo Dexiu demonstrates focussed attention with a relaxed, extended and balanced posture

I must be doing something right. Despite only writing here intermittently I seem to be attracting an increasing number of readers.

Anyway before I start patting myself on the back I thought I can offer you an adapted extract from the manual of a training I offer called Practical stillness.

The idea of the training is to distill years of martial arts and meditative training, combined with NLP to give people tools that they can use in communication, coaching, difficult situations and in decision making.

Ideal body use - martial arts and coaching

What we are looking for (not mention listening and feeling for) is the most relaxed use of the body possible. Emotions, positive or negative require tension and movement to express.

Being increasingly relaxed allows a kind of quietness, a stillness and a receptivity.

Also excess tension is both tiring, restrictive and wearing on the body.

If the body is relaxed the spine can lengthen and we can stand increasingly upright. The more upright the spine, the less tension is needed to stand, the easier it is to relax. Thus a virtuous cycle is created.

A simplistic biomechanical view of the body is muscles attached to bones, which act as levers moving around joints held together by ligaments. To an extent this is true, the reality is far more complex, and subtle.

A more interesting and accurate image is a dome tent. There are some rigid struts in the body, but they are held in place by sheets of fabric that balance tension in many different direction simultaneously. This allows the tent to be springy if pushed. Inappropriate tension in one part of the body is like pulling the fabric on one part of the tent. The fabric is only pulled in one place, however the whole tent loses its capacity for springiness.

In the body the tent’s fabric is not just muscles, it is multiple layers of connective tissue, under the skin, in the tendons, throughout the internal organs. The major lines of pull that these make map across loosely to the meridians of Chinese medicine.

Also all these structures are tied into the nervous system, which is also tied into the endocrine system, which baths every cell of the body in chemicals that effect the way they function.

How these systems all interact is beyond the scope of this article. Essentially making a change in one effects all the others, and the ones that are most available to work with are movement, and breathing.

When we return to an upright and relaxed posture the body becomes more receptive. The bodies of people around us leave subtle echoes of their postures and emotions in our own. To notice and work with these it helps to be still.

I remember a friend, a Karate champion who was discovering these sensations of sensitivity. He was more interested in kata (solo movements) than fighting. In fact he was completely fascinated by body movement. He had recently placed very well at a major tournament in which he had to fight, and since he did not like to fight this surprised him

He explained that because he was sensitive to the possibilities in his own body, he could read the possibilities in his opponent’s body, and thus predict his opponents next movements and defeat him.

For coaches and communicators being able to return to some neutral and sensitive state is extremely helpful in modeling the world view of others.

Of course you can second guess intellectually, and it is great to have intellectual models you can play with. If this is all you do though, you miss out on a very ancient and sensitive method of getting information. You will also miss out on many important channels through which people connect with each other

Many people equate sensitivity to other people's emotions as weakness, and in some cases spaciness. It does not have to be this way. Going via the body allows people to be both sensitive and grounded.

One of the reasons I choose martial arts as a model of ideal movement is that it is one area that places great demands on the body, the need to move freely, predict and act, and in which there is no space for overly weak sensitivity.

In martial arts the body needs to be able to accept impact while staying balanced, and transmit grounded force. The same characteristics that allow you to do this physically also map across very well to accepting emotional impact.

Developing this kind of body use takes some time and practice. There are aspects that can be realized instantly, and other parts that require the gradual lengthening of muscles and connective tissue. It all works best with gentle attention to key areas of the body - the spine, the pelvis and centre of gravity, as well as the flow of weight downwards, balanced with the support of the ground upwards.

So can you attend to this gently as you sit at your computer and read this blog?

Right and Easy

photo: Right is easy by LN



A conversation I had at a training recently stayed with me. Perhaps because I felt quite happy to quote an unusual and famous person. Perhaps because there was something unclear about my answer.

But before I offer the quote, let me set the scene. In the course we asked the attendees to remember a time just before they made decision that they later regretted.

Additionally in the moment they made the decision, they had some sense of warning, some signal that told them they would regret their choice. Which they did.

We do this to help sensitize our clients to their own inner warning signals, and those of the people around them. Something I consider useful in any decision making process.

A woman whose gaze alternated between intensely still, and sparklingly mischievous came up to me afterwards and asked

'I do not understand. If someone knows that they will regret a decision, why would they make that decision?'

Looking at her super steady eyes I saw the genuineness of the question. Here was a woman with a clear decision making process, and strong resolve. She struck me as someone intent on moving forwards. She was genuinely puzzled how other people might waver in the face of tricky alternatives.

Fortunately I have some experience in that area. Her question sent me on an inner search through my bad decisions in search of an answer. I managed pull myself out before too much time had passed.

'People have conflicting beliefs, and interests. Sometimes the decision you regret is less painful in the short term - or more pleasurable, or less complicated.'

She did not look convinced to me. I decided to try an appeal to authority, a quote from someone famous. "Do you like Harry Potter?'

The gaze turned mischievous.

'Well, at the end of one of the books Dumbledore says something like 'Soon we will be called to make the choice, between what is right, and what is easy.' Sometimes the right choice just seems too hard.'

Now she looked more satisfied. The trouble was I was less satisfied. I was still in the context of getting a warning signal. Getting that signal would not make the things that seem to hard any easier.

But that is just one piece of the puzzle. The reason we engage in personal development is so that we can develop our planning skills, and find ways to make what is right, easier.

Just as importantly, we train and study, and serve others so that what used to seem too hard is something that we can do with increasing skill and confidence.

The ideal is to make what is right, easy.

I appreciate that from one perspective the world is already absolutely perfect. On the other hand you need to be pretty blind to not to be aware of the suffering that people inflict on each other for one reason or another. Knowing that, what right choices do you want to make more easily?

A review in reverse

photo: Mangroves Mafia Island by Karin Osterlund

I almost feel this is a bit of a cheat. I know that it is some time since I sat down to write on my blog, and this seems like an easy way to start October.

Yes I have a review to offer you, but it is not a review by me, it is a review of a recent London training by Robbie and I.

Here it is.

The reviewer Peter Kenworthy is and HR director with over 25 years of experience.

You may be wondering why I have a picture of Mangroves with this review. They are not just any Mangroves, they are Mangroves that fringe and protect the edges of Mafia Island, which is set in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Tanzania.

When I read that Peter had a background in Tanzanian fisheries it took me back to when I was a researcher gathering data for the Mafia Island national marine reserve. Some of my best evenings were spent swimming through the mangroves at dusk or by moonlight enjoying the depth of the spring tide.

I'd like to draw some conclusion, a helpful educational metaphor to relate to that time. But all I remember is the pleasure of it, the joy of seeing fish swimming in trees, the intimacy of the light and water. I think that is enough.