If you don't have your health you don't have anything.
It is ironic that modern scientific medicine which has been so spectacular in extending our lives has been so unsuccessful in addressing the problems most people suffer, chronic pain from tight muscles in their necks, shoulders, back and buttocks. Our society gives us the tools to live longer but also leaves us to live those years in discomfort and fatigue.
The word healthy means that your joints move easily without discomfort, that your muscles are elastic enough to allow you move your body in all normal positions without glitching up, that your ligaments are firm and springy and hold your body upright without distortion, that your organs are well conditioned and that your mind is still and clear. When your joints move easily and your muscles are elastic and your ligaments strong, your organs are good and your mind is clear then you are in good health, and it doesn't matter if nature has gifted you with a body like a string bean or a sack of potatoes. That is just body image.
So how do you achieve the healthy body, well firstly you have a choice, you can do something or you can nothing. If you choose to do nothing then just take a serious look around at people 10- 20 years older than you, and the chances are that's how you will end up in 10 to 20 years time, because that is what most of them have done- nothing. The answer clearly is to do something, the question is what can you do, that gives you the maximum benefit with the minimum of effort. And of course, it has to be minimum effort or honestly you won't do it for long, and it has to fun or you won't do it at all.
The answer is frustratingly simple but compelling, it is to relax more. The reason is two fold.
The word healthy means that your joints move easily without discomfort, that your muscles are elastic enough to allow you move your body in all normal positions without glitching up, that your ligaments are firm and springy and hold your body upright without distortion, that your organs are well conditioned and that your mind is still and clear. When your joints move easily and your muscles are elastic and your ligaments strong, your organs are good and your mind is clear then you are in good health, and it doesn't matter if nature has gifted you with a body like a string bean or a sack of potatoes. That is just body image.
So how do you achieve the healthy body, well firstly you have a choice, you can do something or you can nothing. If you choose to do nothing then just take a serious look around at people 10- 20 years older than you, and the chances are that's how you will end up in 10 to 20 years time, because that is what most of them have done- nothing. The answer clearly is to do something, the question is what can you do, that gives you the maximum benefit with the minimum of effort. And of course, it has to be minimum effort or honestly you won't do it for long, and it has to fun or you won't do it at all.
The answer is frustratingly simple but compelling, it is to relax more. The reason is two fold.
Everyone needs to relax more
Stress is the big enemy of the 21st Century, people say they are stressed out and tired most of the time, but in this day and age it is not usually from physical exhaustion it is more often from nervous exhaustion. Feeling pressured to do too much each day and not having a good life balance is becoming so common that it is often the only model for us and our children on how to live our lives. To keep your energy levels up is like a trying to hold water in a bucket perforated with holes. An abundance of energy, which should be your natural birth right, leaks away through the drip-drip action of almost continual stress and tension.
Secondly, physical muscle tension tightens the physical body, closing down the natural flow of blood and fluids through the body, putting pressure and causing pinching to nerve pathways and restricting the free movement of your joints, ligaments and organs, locking up the free flow of energy in your body.
When you are relaxed you have more free energy, power and strength, and by strength, I mean this in the widest possible term, not just physical strength, but strength of character, strength to shield you in misfortune, strength to do the things you need to do to simply get through your day. You expend energy all the time. Tension saps your energy. When you relax you have more energy to divert into doing things, are better focused and more dynamic in whatever you choose to do.
Stress is the big enemy of the 21st Century, people say they are stressed out and tired most of the time, but in this day and age it is not usually from physical exhaustion it is more often from nervous exhaustion. Feeling pressured to do too much each day and not having a good life balance is becoming so common that it is often the only model for us and our children on how to live our lives. To keep your energy levels up is like a trying to hold water in a bucket perforated with holes. An abundance of energy, which should be your natural birth right, leaks away through the drip-drip action of almost continual stress and tension.
Secondly, physical muscle tension tightens the physical body, closing down the natural flow of blood and fluids through the body, putting pressure and causing pinching to nerve pathways and restricting the free movement of your joints, ligaments and organs, locking up the free flow of energy in your body.
When you are relaxed you have more free energy, power and strength, and by strength, I mean this in the widest possible term, not just physical strength, but strength of character, strength to shield you in misfortune, strength to do the things you need to do to simply get through your day. You expend energy all the time. Tension saps your energy. When you relax you have more energy to divert into doing things, are better focused and more dynamic in whatever you choose to do.
Can you learn to relax?
But on a practical level how do you relax, you can no more make yourself relax than you can make your self go to sleep. The method that has come down through trial and error is to learn how go inside your body, to release the contractions within your body and then relax into that new feeling and maintain that new level of space and openness. A relaxed body is not only a comfortable place to spend your time but also encourages a calm and balanced mind, one able to be dynamic and creative rather than dull and automated. Don't confuse relax with collapse. To relax, is to actively release unwanted tension, converting that locked up energy into free flowing energy. Collapse is exactly what is says.
An abundance of energy, which should be yours to call on at anytime, simply streams through new life, whether it is the green shoots of a tree in spring, a puppy dog or a three year old child, but as time marches on the tree loses its spring and becomes brittle, the dog becomes stiff and slow and the child, well just pay a visit to your nearest nursing home. As we age or get injured we set up blockages to the natural spontaneous energy movement in our bodies, our joints lock up, our muscles become contracted and bind, our bodies become fixed and set in uncomfortable positions. Like water pipes, if they are connected in a straight line, water flows through easily without losing pressure, but if you connect them with lots of elbow joints, smaller diameter pipes or fur up the insides, then the water won't flow out as easily. Habitual stress and tension contracts your muscles putting pressure on and restricting the natural flow and movement of blood vessels, veins, nerves and organs.
How to achieve a relaxed body.
Our approach to this material is to start to relax the body, releasing pressure throughout the system, then gently allow the body to open lengthen and twist to get the kinks and blockages out of the pipework, also to use the body's natural alignments to connect up the parts of the body and to start to work it as a single unit. In the process of doing this and as a by product of this work your body begins to release its tension and its binding, releasing where it has real effects, that is at the level of your nerves, relaxing and allowing your body's natural energy to stream through.
These physical movements work in conjunction with a powerful breathing method which takes your body's natural breath and without pressure or strain, develops it to a deeper richer and fuller natural breath bringing your body and mind into a coherent whole.
Just like the storey of the Tortoise and the Hare, daily practice slowly done will be the winner in the end, out achieving the no gain- no pain exercises which can bring quick but ultimately short lived benefits. So many exercises and so many sports, undertaken in the name of keeping fit end up by damaging your body and causing long term pain and injury. It is a strange mindset where you damage your body doing a health exercise.
But on a practical level how do you relax, you can no more make yourself relax than you can make your self go to sleep. The method that has come down through trial and error is to learn how go inside your body, to release the contractions within your body and then relax into that new feeling and maintain that new level of space and openness. A relaxed body is not only a comfortable place to spend your time but also encourages a calm and balanced mind, one able to be dynamic and creative rather than dull and automated. Don't confuse relax with collapse. To relax, is to actively release unwanted tension, converting that locked up energy into free flowing energy. Collapse is exactly what is says.
An abundance of energy, which should be yours to call on at anytime, simply streams through new life, whether it is the green shoots of a tree in spring, a puppy dog or a three year old child, but as time marches on the tree loses its spring and becomes brittle, the dog becomes stiff and slow and the child, well just pay a visit to your nearest nursing home. As we age or get injured we set up blockages to the natural spontaneous energy movement in our bodies, our joints lock up, our muscles become contracted and bind, our bodies become fixed and set in uncomfortable positions. Like water pipes, if they are connected in a straight line, water flows through easily without losing pressure, but if you connect them with lots of elbow joints, smaller diameter pipes or fur up the insides, then the water won't flow out as easily. Habitual stress and tension contracts your muscles putting pressure on and restricting the natural flow and movement of blood vessels, veins, nerves and organs.
How to achieve a relaxed body.
Our approach to this material is to start to relax the body, releasing pressure throughout the system, then gently allow the body to open lengthen and twist to get the kinks and blockages out of the pipework, also to use the body's natural alignments to connect up the parts of the body and to start to work it as a single unit. In the process of doing this and as a by product of this work your body begins to release its tension and its binding, releasing where it has real effects, that is at the level of your nerves, relaxing and allowing your body's natural energy to stream through.
These physical movements work in conjunction with a powerful breathing method which takes your body's natural breath and without pressure or strain, develops it to a deeper richer and fuller natural breath bringing your body and mind into a coherent whole.
Just like the storey of the Tortoise and the Hare, daily practice slowly done will be the winner in the end, out achieving the no gain- no pain exercises which can bring quick but ultimately short lived benefits. So many exercises and so many sports, undertaken in the name of keeping fit end up by damaging your body and causing long term pain and injury. It is a strange mindset where you damage your body doing a health exercise.
Pain and old injury.
We all have a universal reaction to pain or injury, we all tighten up. This should be a temporary measure which is then released but often it doesn't release. When it doesn't release nerve ending close down and so you feel less pain in the area. What happens is two fold, firstly you adapt your body movement, and adopt a new muscular position to work around the pain and end up developing a protective guarding around the pain, secondly you then fail to feel the long term effect of continuous contraction, and gradually you become conditioned to the feeling of that level of muscle tension, and accept it is a normal feedback feeling for your body.
Adapting your body and working around painful parts of the body is always the wrong thing to do when you have had an injury. Firstly it is not using the muscles that were primarily designed to do the job and therefore it puts additional strain onto secondary muscles which are not designed to achieve that task. Secondly those protective muscles can and do hold their own tension long after the original pain has been gone. That is it holds a guarding or protective instruction from the brain without reference to the original pain.
To simply stretch the muscle by massage or manipulation, gives at best only temporary relief. To forcefully stretch your muscles to relax is like trying to change the way your printer operates by forcing the printer mechanism, when what you really need is a new computer programme or a new instruction to change.
To release tension in your body you need to release at the level of your nerves. It is your brain, through your nerves, that is maintaining old patterns of learned behaviour, and holding a high level of tension in your body. The purpose of the contraction or closing phase in all of these movements is to set up the opportunity for a slow release. The slow mindful release is the focus. The involuntary response of habitual contraction can then be replaced with a new instruction to your nerves to release the contracted muscles.
The missing link in health care.
You need a new instruction because your brain is the master control centre for your muscles and movement. If your muscles are tight the problem doesn't lie in your muscles but in your brain which controls them. What has happened is that you have conditioned yourself to maintain a certain level of muscular tension. The muscle contraction arises from the unconscious instruction you have given to your body by your brain. What you need to do is to make conscious what was previously an unconscious and pernicious habit, and to retrain a learned adaption.
We all have a universal reaction to pain or injury, we all tighten up. This should be a temporary measure which is then released but often it doesn't release. When it doesn't release nerve ending close down and so you feel less pain in the area. What happens is two fold, firstly you adapt your body movement, and adopt a new muscular position to work around the pain and end up developing a protective guarding around the pain, secondly you then fail to feel the long term effect of continuous contraction, and gradually you become conditioned to the feeling of that level of muscle tension, and accept it is a normal feedback feeling for your body.
Adapting your body and working around painful parts of the body is always the wrong thing to do when you have had an injury. Firstly it is not using the muscles that were primarily designed to do the job and therefore it puts additional strain onto secondary muscles which are not designed to achieve that task. Secondly those protective muscles can and do hold their own tension long after the original pain has been gone. That is it holds a guarding or protective instruction from the brain without reference to the original pain.
To simply stretch the muscle by massage or manipulation, gives at best only temporary relief. To forcefully stretch your muscles to relax is like trying to change the way your printer operates by forcing the printer mechanism, when what you really need is a new computer programme or a new instruction to change.
To release tension in your body you need to release at the level of your nerves. It is your brain, through your nerves, that is maintaining old patterns of learned behaviour, and holding a high level of tension in your body. The purpose of the contraction or closing phase in all of these movements is to set up the opportunity for a slow release. The slow mindful release is the focus. The involuntary response of habitual contraction can then be replaced with a new instruction to your nerves to release the contracted muscles.
The missing link in health care.
You need a new instruction because your brain is the master control centre for your muscles and movement. If your muscles are tight the problem doesn't lie in your muscles but in your brain which controls them. What has happened is that you have conditioned yourself to maintain a certain level of muscular tension. The muscle contraction arises from the unconscious instruction you have given to your body by your brain. What you need to do is to make conscious what was previously an unconscious and pernicious habit, and to retrain a learned adaption.
Learn to feel what your body is saying.
You can voluntarily only release the tension that you can feel. So the tension runs on automatic instruction below your level of awareness. You need to learn how to control, that is, how to tense and then release your own muscles. To do this you need to be able to put your mind into your muscles. When you are able to do this you then become free from muscular restriction and tension. This is because when you can feel when your muscles begin to tighten you can consciously stop what you are doing, or you can consciously relax them before they become a new unconscious instruction in your body.
Sensory feedback is the most important function of these movements. When you stop the mental chatter and feel the constrictions in your body, you then have the opportunity to interrupt the habitual loop of old instruction, and change it for a new one. This is the main reason these movements are done in slow motion, so you can become consciously aware of how your body is moving, and feel restrictions and bindings that everyday living bring to your body.
What do I need to do?
Instead of accepting that your body will get more restricted as you age, instead of accepting that the pain, tension and restrictions you have had for years are there to stay you can do something about it now. It is possible to have a better functioning, more comfortable more healthy body and mind in 5 years time than you have now. You can decide to start taking responsibility for your own health right now. As they say in show business, "it's time to close down the old show and put a new show on the road". You just have to decide.
You always work at your own level, the lessons only move at the pace of the people in the class. The success is in the system, just become quietly committed, turn up and practice - that's it.
You can voluntarily only release the tension that you can feel. So the tension runs on automatic instruction below your level of awareness. You need to learn how to control, that is, how to tense and then release your own muscles. To do this you need to be able to put your mind into your muscles. When you are able to do this you then become free from muscular restriction and tension. This is because when you can feel when your muscles begin to tighten you can consciously stop what you are doing, or you can consciously relax them before they become a new unconscious instruction in your body.
Sensory feedback is the most important function of these movements. When you stop the mental chatter and feel the constrictions in your body, you then have the opportunity to interrupt the habitual loop of old instruction, and change it for a new one. This is the main reason these movements are done in slow motion, so you can become consciously aware of how your body is moving, and feel restrictions and bindings that everyday living bring to your body.
What do I need to do?
Instead of accepting that your body will get more restricted as you age, instead of accepting that the pain, tension and restrictions you have had for years are there to stay you can do something about it now. It is possible to have a better functioning, more comfortable more healthy body and mind in 5 years time than you have now. You can decide to start taking responsibility for your own health right now. As they say in show business, "it's time to close down the old show and put a new show on the road". You just have to decide.
You always work at your own level, the lessons only move at the pace of the people in the class. The success is in the system, just become quietly committed, turn up and practice - that's it.
