In yesterday’s Minding Your Balance™ class, students swept, shoveled, and raked as well as lifted and carried pots and tea kettles (among other things) ala Daniel waxing Mr. Miyaga’s car in the first Karate Kid movie. Everyday actions done with the same mindful awareness required in the martial arts.
Class homework for the week is to practice sitting, standing, and watering the plants with the awareness of a dancer, or a gymnast, or the Karate Kid. Move like your life depends on it.
Because it does.
The wear and tear of a long life on joints, reflexes, vision, hearing, etc., chips away at the efficiency of autopilot in everyday movement control. While the threat now comes from within, we can address these challenges in the same way we took on challenging activities (skiing, skating, skate boarding, gymnastics, martial arts, et. al.) in past years – by turning on the lights of awareness as we move.
How are you sitting as you read this? What’s the shape of your back, the angle of your neck? Is your weight more to one side than the other? Are your ankles crossed? Can you feel the back of the chair?
Simply noticing is the beginning of the mindful awareness that underlies stable balance and coordinated movement control, whether it’s walking across the living room or standing on one leg in a crane pose.
It’s not too late (or too difficult) to move like a martial artist.