Zen Body Being by Peter Ralston, (10) Life Practice, Notes

Post date: Sep 9, 2016 1:30:10 PM

Zen Body Being by Peter Ralston

Chapter 10. Life Practice

• • 1. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one single step.”--Confucius

    2. Study and Training

       1. Study is disciplined commitment to learning. To assist with our study:

          1. Learn more about the body.

          2. Study with someone knowledgeable or skillful

          3. Observe the self, how our body works and how our mind works in relation to the body.

          4. Contemplate. Pursue an insight. Anything that increases our awareness or solidifies our understanding is a useful area of study.

          5. Maintaining progress is about development of daily habits and routines. Every time we review the principles, they are likely to yield more. Search for the truth. Ground it in experience. Routines provide the structure, but only we can do it for ourselves.

       2. Training

• • • • 1. Training turns study into personal experience. Train some aspect every day. Familiarity breeds comfortability. Consistency is the secret sauce.

        2. Turn the activities of daily life into opportunities to train and practice the principles. Blend these with short, medium and long training sessions (based on the day and how we feel.)

        3. Invent exercises based on our individual individual needs. Perform known skills (choreographed movements) while practicing the principles.

        4. Train at least 10 minutes every day. Those few minutes will carry us throughout our day. Whenever we remember to do so, practice. Progress can be made more quickly this way.

        5. Increasing consciousness of our body use--structure, movement and function will produce positive effects our emotional. Adopting a state of calm and relaxing the body is quite helpful in stressful situations. In everyday life this enhances our sense of wellbeing . Practice good movement habits all the time, not just during our training. Training begins from the moment we wake up until we rest for the night. Training the body is a full time activity. We are in our body all the time after all.

        6. Training this way is fun, safe and effective. Every tiny movement breakthrough enhances the adventure. We need to adopt a continuous cycle of learning and training, training and learning, with each aspect adding direction, grounding and momentum to the other.

        7. There is fulfillment in experiencing improvement. As a result of training, there is a joy from the sudden surge of understanding that comes with insight. Being open to new ways of thinking and investigating advances our understanding.

        8. Maintain our training. Training turns a good idea into a good experience. Training makes it real.

        9. “The purpose of today’s training is to undo what we learned yesterday.” -- Miyamoto Musashi

• • 2. 3. The body and exercise

• • • • 1. How we use our bodies is important. If we only focus on results and getting the job done, there is little enjoyment and certainly no 'body' improvement. The surest way to make an activity more satisfying is to do it solely for the sake of the activity.

        2. Having a daily movement practice yields satisfaction and confidence and is very ‘grounding.’ It allows us to return to a base state and gives us a chance to listen to our bodies. We check in with our physical self. It is both invigorating and calming and can set the tone for the whole day. Nonetheless, our bodies are with us all day long and it would be wise to use all our activities as opportunities for training.

• • 2. 4. The body at the office

• • • • 1. Stand up often.

        2. Be mindful of every movement from the way the body is held while sitting to lifting a cup of coffee, typing, etc.

• • 2. 5. The body at labor

• • • • 1. It is often true that when making changes to how we use the body, at first the job isn’t done well or quickly enough. But with practice we can become efficient and use manual labor as a training ground.

        2. Always take the extra few steps to align ourselves prior to any heavy lifting.

        3. No matter the task, disposition is everything. When seen as an opportunity to train, work then becomes a chance to achieve excellence no matter the task.

• • 2. 6. The body and athletics

• • • • 1. Whatever we discover in our studies should apply in any physical endeavor. If we can act in more effective ways, with less effort, we are making progress towards physical skill, grace and power.

        2. Through study, either we gain a deeper understanding of the rule or discover that it is merely dogma. Don’t take anybody’s word for it, experience it yourself.

        3. Learning another system will help us recognize universal human movement in a different light and help us translate those into our sport.

• • 2. 7. Stretching the body

• • • • 1. Your cat stretches, so should you. Relax into stretch.

        2. In any stretch, feel the whole body and ask how best to involve as many muscles as possible. Make stretching a whole body affair as much as possible. Stretching is not a warmup but a challenge to the muscles. The goal of stretch is that the body can move freely with a greater range. Tightness breeds tightness. Wear clothing that is loose and can stretch with movement.

• • 2. 8. Body Being for the Body Worker

• • • • 1. Learn to us the compressive quality of a unified and properly aligned structure to create the necessary pressure. Find the path from the hand through the arm, into the body and into the ground. A properly channeled motion, even though all parts stay relaxed, has nowhere else to go but the desired point. Don’t hold anything back. Let all the energy go into the movement. ‘Free’ effort. Unrestricted flow.

• • 2. 9. Tai Chi for every body

• • • • 1. Do not let the skills and benefits of the art or practice be limited to the time of practice. All practice must be grounded in genuine understanding and skill. Any true practice will include all principles previously discussed

• • 2. 10. The body and the arts

• • • • 1. Any art form that requires creative expression is prime for practicing improved body awareness. Using the body effectively provides finer distinction in mastering any craft or art. By mastering the points and principles, the wonderful sense of being more alive provides inspiration, energy and stamina that will enhance any artistic endeavor. Refining feeling sensitivity both allows a greater range of possibilities in movement as well as finer distinctions in all other senses.

• • 2. 11. A practice for life

• • • • 1. Practice the principles daily. Our routine should include the complete scope of the principles. It is useful to attempt to cultivate each one at a time until we are able to access it at will. Revisit notes often. Little by little finer distinctions will be made and the principles eventually become part of natural life. As we become proficient it becomes necessary to incorporate all the principles at once as that is the ultimate goal.

        2. Remember that there is no magic. We get out of practice what we put into it. If we fall off track, make the correction and begin again.

• • 2. 12. Our own sense of purpose and intent will guide us. All of our life is our training ground and we must walk this path if we hope to attain all our body’s possibilities. Train with care and change is inevitable.