What is breath?

What is breath?
Not the air now within
now without,
the glass is not the water
nor even the sky the air.
I cannot own all that is in me,
passes through me.
The breath is the action
and the actor,
it is the movement of muscles,
diaphragm, that fills lungs
then empties them.
To focus on the gaseous
is to miss the breath,
and mistake its freedom
for our selves.
We are the breath's tension,
we are it's weakness, shallowness.
The tide of our oceans
not the waters.
When we find and focus on breath,
we find ourselves.

Beginning at the end

Monday evening I completed an 8 week mindfulness course called Breathworks. Although I had hoped to learn a technique, and maybe something I could give to others, I dont feel like I learned. At least not yet. On this the 8th session in 8 weeks I feel like I'm at the beginning.

Its a good frame of mind to hold it in as it has created so much openness from which to approach life and situations. Now its time to begin the practice and see where it leads.

Stepping back

Made some good progress on D1 and D2 today.
How we step backwards is important, being able to run backwards and still maintain compression.
D1 inside ft back
D2 outside ft back

Emotions

How can I say this? Emotions are strange things, often we follow our emotions and let them dictate our behaviour, but this rarely feel satisfying. I wanted to go outside and do some exercises, some fun practice in the sun. But rather than go out I found myself just staring at the window. Going out at all was a triumph, for behaviour to rule over emotion.

Once outside I just felt stupid, paranoid of people watching me twirling some poi, aware that I'm a complete beginner. But it's interesting, becoming aware of how I'm feeling I could accept that this was my feeling. I feel stupid. And then, something changed in my experience of the moment. I felt empowered, but also hungry, really hungry.

Sometimes we get so caught up with our emotions that we forget to listen even to what our bodies are telling us. Lets eat.

Procrastination

Saturday just isn't my day. Seems like I don't get much done on a Saturday at the moment. By Sunday I'm bemoaning the wasted time and I get a lot more done. But right now its 11.30pm and I have nothing more to report.

Pulling out, Filling in

I went to the dentist today. Had a wisdom tooth taken out and a white matrix filling put in. The dentist is always an interesting experience because it is so far outside of the usual day to day experience. It's outside the comfort zone, letting someone into our personal space and letting them assault us.

It was a good opportunity to practice relaxation and breathing techniques, I noticed that it was not the pain of the treatment or the numbness in my gums that hurt, it was the tension in my jaw from holding my mouth so wide open. I wonder whether doing some practice before hand holding the mouth open wide, and gargling with water would help, hopefully I'll have to wait a while before I get another opportunity!

Systema

Tonight I went along to a Systema class in Cardiff that I had seen advertised. Systema is a Russian Martial Art which emphasises relaxation among other things. I dont know much about it but it was a really fun class and I'm glad I went along. The class was run by Mark Winkler.

The class involved dodging, trusting, 'tension breaking', and other fun stuff like this. As a Cheng Hsin student it was very interesting to see a different take on uprooting people. Very often I find people talk about relaxation but only pay it lip service or maybe they don't really know what it is. The Systema class both emphasised and gave me an experience of relaxed fighting.

I'll probably return, hopefully with a friend to get a different opinion.