Suffer the Wound of Love

Posted on May 27, 2010 by Josh

When I was younger, I always associated “love” with the feeling of sexual passion – the intense desire, the suffering in that desire, the longing…and the consummation of that longing and desire.

For a while, “love” was just my addiction to the chemical “squirt” in my body that I felt in moments of passion.

Now, love means much more to me. It isn’t an instantaneous thing, but a process. Love is still passion, still that desire/fire, but it is also the process of suffering the wound of separation…remaining within yourself, appreciating the other person’s path as their own, and not interfering…loving them from “so close, yet so far away.”

Or, updated a bit…

This recent article in Parade – A Connecting Flight – sums up part of this so well, I had to post it. Please read it, I think it’s worthwhile.

We often forget, in moments or relationships, in that wonderful gush of chemicals flooding our body, that there is another person, another individual, there with us. Or that we are an individual person, with our own history, issues, joys, and desires – that all are only, ultimately, experienced by us alone.

And what happens when that high wears off? When we become used to the presence of that cocktail in our system?

No one else feels what you feel. We agree on meanings of words, and approximate agreement on what we’re feeling inside by using those words…but it’s only ever an approximation.

No one ever feels what you feel. And you never feel what someone else feels.

To try to even get close requires so much space, so much observation, so much silence, and listening, that most of us never get there. But that’s what love really is…the attempt to get there. The attempt to give that much space, observation, silence, listening, care, facilitation, whatever you want to call it…

We’re so busy with our lives, with our own feelings, and our ideas of what the other person may be living or feeling, that we rarely clear space to see if we can really experience that connection.

In the article above, it often only hits us, as with so many things in life, too late. Or, if we’re lucky, when we meet someone who can wake us up to that.

Part of the goal of “physiology tracking” is knowing your own physiological responses to things, so you can see those in others. So you don’t have to rely on words – which are never good enough.

But to track, you have to be silent. You have to be careful. You have to clear your mind of opinions, and let the signs guide you.

Another goal of physiology tracking is to stay true to yourself. Only if you know yourself, your physiology, can you be aware enough to keep it in check when it threatens to overrun you, or allow it to overrun you when you most need or want it to.

Learn to be a tracker.

Desire, as my Sensei, Mick Dodge says, is Fire – it is an ember within you, and you have to carry and protect it, to tend to it, like a fire bundle, and to stoke it into life.

The rhythmic process of the rise and fall of desire/fire can be encouraged. And then it becomes a relationship with yourself, a new lens through which to see things, a new way to experience different dimensions of “reality.”

Part of love is respecting the other person’s path, their full path – the place where their desire ebbs and flows – as the thing that you loved, inseparable from the rest, and the thing that you love now.

Even if it’s the pair of slippers you trip over every day.

But to feel this, you have to agree to suffer the wound of love, the suffering (which is what “passion” really means, by the way) of the whole person of the other, of the realization that the other is complete, and you are too, and you embrace it all.

It’s not all internal…

Posted on May 25, 2010 by Josh

I got a couple of comments on my last two posts from readers who asked me if I thought all events are really just internal.

I didn’t mean for it to come across that way, so please allow a little clarification.

While I think that our reactions are internal, and that those reactions can offer us a lot of insight into ourselves, what triggers those reactions – the “external” world – is very real.

I suppose the main thrust of what I was trying to say is that, if your reaction to something outside of you is very strong – for instance, you love it, or you hate it – it’s reflecting not just the nature of that outside thing, but also a lot about your own inner state. Also, if you hold onto that feeling, without seeing it as part of your own process, and without letting it continue to be a process, and continue to grow and change, you lose a lot.

So that’s not to say that the external entity isn’t really lovely (or hateful), or that you don’t really love (or hate) it, just that, it seems to me a lot of times we latch onto things – either the external “thing” (that is really an ongoing process), or our own emotion – without either allowing it to continue evolving or growing, or without tracing its source within ourselves.

Sometimes, we put so much emphasis on the external causing our emotions, that we forget to get in touch with them within ourselves. Other times we feel so strongly about the external thing that we hold onto it tightly and smother it (the source of the saying – “if you love something, set it free”).

Then, when the external situation changes and you’re still attached to it as “the thing that makes me feel xyz way” you stop growing, you’re stagnant. You’re attached to a static idea of something that, like the river, is always changing. And you’re also keeping that external thing locked into that way that you see it.

“Setting it free” you can allow the relationship between you and that external reality to continue to grow.

It’s like a garden. If you restrict everything to certain spots, you will miss out on where certain plants grow the best, due to slight differences in soil or water in different parts of the plot. If you just let everything go, it will look crazy, weeds will sprout up, and eventually you can’t really call it a “garden” anymore. But if you allow the plants to find their own place, and foster their development, your development expands as well. You’ve learned to work with, instead of on or in, your garden. It becomes more and more a piece of you, and you of it.

Suffering isn’t bad. Often you have to suffer the wound in order to receive fully the gift of the experience. That path is a multi-directional one, though. It is external, in the processes you’re attached to, and it is internal, in the path only you can know. So try to be in touch with both (or all) of the directions or dimensions your emotions are reflecting. Cultivate your relationships with the “outside” world as you would a garden. Become part of the process, and the “suffering” seems to fade a little bit, because the life of the plants, and their beauty, begins to sustain you just as you cultivate it.

Hope that makes it a little clearer…and not more confusing! Hahaha!

Happiness withdrawal…

Posted on May 24, 2010 by Josh

Here’s a great way to experience what I like to call “physiology tracking.”

The next time you go visit friends, and have some good times for a while, pay attention to your physiology. There is a chemical composition of “happiness” or “joy” happening inside you during that time.

But the time you might notice the effect the most is afterward, when you go through chemical withdrawal.

Some people will call this “sadness” or “feeling blue,” and it is…but it is also “happiness withdrawal.”

The symptoms will be the same as any kind of withdrawal. What will you feel? A lack, as if something is missing. Maybe you’ll notice how much/little of that feeling you had before. That, at least, can help to determine in part how powerful the withdrawal might be – a marker of how much you’ll crave that feeling.

You might notice, upon reflection, that the feeling of withdrawal means that you aren’t feeling that enough in your life…happiness. You might need to figure that out.

If that is the case, the withdrawal feeling points to something we’ve excluded from our lives. Why has it been blocked out?

In that way, withdrawal can help to point us in the direction we want to go (or don’t want to go!). It can serve as a homing beacon (come closer).

Perhaps a lighthouse is a better analogy…it signals both potential safety and potential danger – the shoreline is here, you are safe!… or…the shorelines is here, watch out! dangerous rocks!

In either case, this is the place where you can sublimate your withdrawal into wisdom and action.

The “internal alchemy” here is to follow the feeling of loss or lack…to stick with it, and to track it well. Find what it points to within you, and meet it face to face.

Most “indigenous” cultures have methods for doing this that often involve dancing, singing, playing, (and sometimes, drugs) that allow the tracker to pursue more deeply, free from inhibition.

I think you’ll get plenty deep without the drugs, so try it that way first…but it’s almost always fruitful at some point to take your feeling out into motion in the world. Run, feel your breathing, and use your feeling of withdrawal as your mantra, your training device/guide. Keep it right in front of you. Let it tell you where to go, how far/fast, how many repetitions, and keep pursuing it more and more deeply…listen…listen…

Good luck.

The Loss of Intelligence

Posted on February 16, 2010 by Josh

My friend JR Atwood posted a great TED talk by Liz Coleman, regarding the nature of education in our day and age.

I’m more concerned with something more foundational – the use of common sense.

My father is in the hospital. He’s been in before – most seriously, when he underwent emergency surgery to replace his aorta with a gortex tube, four years ago.

He’s been having some issues, and went back in recently. The doctors have him on so many medications, it’s hard to tell what’s causing what.

And that’s my problem.

The doctors have no faith in the human body to heal itself.

In days of old, before “internal medicine” (which is anything but “internal” – consisting as it does, mostly of “external” items leveraged against the internal state), the body was regarded as a delicate and powerful system. To attain health, one usually only needed to do things (or do fewer things) to return that system to balance…

Called “homeostasis” – the balance of activity within the body.

What’s Up, Doc?

Where did the faith go? Where is the faith in the human body to heal itself? Only in “alternative” medicines? Even there, many alternative practitioners have taken on the cultural values of US culture, and peddle pills and external “cures.”

Doctoring the Evidence

Another faith disappeared around the same time as the faith in the human body – faith in the healing power of the Earth. I don’t want to get too crazy with this (you’ll be calling me a “hippie” in a minute if I’m not careful, boxing me in), but the point is salient.

As the values of “science” (the “expertism” that Liz Coleman mentions in her talk) overtook common sense, it killed any other thought process or options.

When society realized that this expertise-value could be used to sell more products, it took the reins. As people have become more and more inculcated in the idea of “the expert,” other options disappear.

And so does common sense.

Doctor My Doctor

Now we’ve reached a point where it has become commonsense to refer to “experts” for our opinions – for our common sense.

My father lies in a hospital bed tonight. The doctors have not healed him at all. They can’t figure out what’s wrong. Because they’re incapable of asking questions.

The foundational of all common sense is found in a single question:

Why?

The Social Ecology of Science

Posted on February 8, 2010 by Josh

My good friend Aaron Schwenzfeier asked me if I had read any books that talked about the information from my last entry – about the continuity of an animal with its habitat. The rest of this post is my response, with some modifications.

The short answer is no, I haven’t read any single text that shows this continuity. The closest I could come would be something like Lynn Margulis’ works, or James Lovelock’s and others’ works with the Gaia hypothesis.

In a world where everything needs to be validated by “science,” it’s no sufficient to use common-sense to combine the different principles you’ve learned into a coherent whole.

Please don't drop the ball!!!

Breakdown

The “animal-as-continuous-with-habitat” is an obvious thing, but who’s going to write about it? What science would you cite? I’m not sure there is much. There are some studies coming around about the importance of environment with regard to physical activity, even health (for instance, the Framingham study that correlates social group with obesity) but they’re few and far between. It’s hard to quantify. And that’s what science wants – quantities. Qualities are still derided.

The other part, “eat in season, locally,” is the same thing – continuity with environment. But dieticians can’t quantify that, again. They can count calories, vitamin content, etc. They can count other things (OCD), but they can’t count the effect of eating things from other places than your natural geography.

Activity levels waxing and waning with the seasons is as old as life itself. All animals do this, not just human animals. The squirrel hides nuts away for the cold winter, builds a large layer of fat to keep itself warm, etc.

Is there a way to measure that, though?

Meow...it's THIS big...

Happiness

Finally, how do you measure happiness? A few studies have tried, and they create “scientific” versions of happiness – with plenty of “categories” to rate different aspects by. Is that how happiness is made? What about the feeling of safety and security that comes from living within your tribe? How would you measure that.

And even if you could, what would happen? What if you realize, through the course of your research career, that a feeling of happiness and safety was all that really mattered? What would you say? How would you say it? How would a message like that be taken by your scientific colleagues? By the general public?

The other thing, and perhaps the biggest impediment to getting real answers about things, about the true “optimal state” of the human animal, is revealed by this question – Why does science measure what it does, and not the other things? What is guiding science? Who gains from scientific research?

An ounce of gold, or a pound of lead?

You’re in The Cul-tcha

Culture dictates all. So, what does our culture value most? Money. Our culture is built around the flow of money. An economic depression is the most terrifying thing imaginable in our society (other than a nuclear holocaust).

I’d go so far to say that much, if not most, of science is guided by money. You need funding to do science. So you have to do science in a way that gets that funding. If you can get funding for a particular research design and not another, you’ll choose the design that gets you the money.

Who is paying that money? I would hazard a guess, again, that much, if not most of the money being donated to the pursuit of science is being donated by people who want to make more money from that science.

They are pursuing science for the sake of money. Not for the sake of discovering “truth.”

A few examples of this, taken from the ideas in my post:
The studies done on continuity of animal with habitat are largely from zoo populations – trying to discover how to keep zoo animals alive. Why would you do that? What is a zoo for? What does a zoo tell people who visit it? How does a zoo treat animals? I’ll let you answer those questions for yourself.

Studies of diet largely focus on quantity of micro/macronutrients and the physiology of the body. Almost none involve the fact that that body is not a “physiology” without its habitat and social environment. There is no isolated “body” to study…it doesn’t exist alone, in a vacuum. But, further, and again – What is the purpose of dietary research, and to what ends is that research put? Who gains from dietary research?

Our measurement of chronobiology has largely been to discover how to handle “shift workers,” and make them healthier and more productive. There is some research on circadian and ultradian clocks, but it isn’t integrated into anything else. It’s just “science.” Another problem, I guess, that should be mentioned. Science for science’s sake is even less effective than science for money’s sake. It may produce amazing information, but what happens to that information, if it is done in a culture that is separate from the main flow of science? It sits there. It doesn’t get used or analyzed, or integrated into the big picture.

Studies of happiness and culture are similarly isolated from other science. There has bee a trend in the past ten years to combine scientific zones of study, in fields like psychoneuroimmunology, or social ecology, etc. But they aren’t really making themselves heard that strongly.

What’s Eating at You – Diet?

Posted on February 7, 2010 by Josh

My recent post on the Paleo diet raised some great questions and comments from various sources.

I want to say something about diet here.

A “healthy” diet varies by region, by geography. YOU ARE NOT SEPARATE FROM YOUR ENVIRONMENT.

: Fukuoka. He was continuous with his environment…

Your physiology is determined to a great degree by your environment. The type of terrain you have to navigate, and how you navigate it. How frequently you have to move through that terrain, similarly, and what types of tasks you need to accomplish in what type of frequency, will also determine your physiology.

The weather in your geography – the barometric pressure in your area, the amount of rainfall every year, of sunlight – will determine how your body looks, feels, and can move.

The types of animals and plants available for consumption in your area represent natural energy that is in synchrony with the seasons your body is in. Eating outside of that synchrony (the old “I live in NYC, but eat strawberries from Brazil) creates metabolic discord in your system.

Yes, human beings need a certain amount of nutrients, but not as much as you’re told, or as you think, or from the sources you’ve been told (or think) that those nutrients are “supposed to” come from.

Before I go much further, consider the wide range of climates and geographies that human beings inhabit. From deserts to ice-packs, from coniferous and deciduous forests to rain forests, from tropics to temperate zones to the arctics.

In each of these places, human animals live just fine. They can, if times are good, live to the same ripe old ages that human animals in any other area live to (given the same good conditions).

It’s not about a specific diet.

: “Happiness, is a smile on a dog”

Consider This
Instead, I think it’s more important to consider the state of the physiology the diet is going into.

If you are happy, and feel safe and secure, things in your body tend to run smoothly. Homeostasis is achieved and maintained easily. Your body heals faster. Things correct themselves.

If you are unhappy, your body is constantly releasing stress-hormones that break things down. They tear your body up from the inside.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy
In the happy state, the food you ingest, whatever it is, will flow through that smooth-running system. Your body is miraculous in its ability to take what it needs and discard what it does not (as long as you’re moderate in consumption).

In the unhappy state, the food you ingest will not be processed well. Your body won’t be capable of digesting, it will be busy constantly preparing to defend itself. Things won’t go right. You’ll have gastro-intestinal disorders – ulcers, heartburn, acid reflux, poor digestion.

In that unhappy state, it doesn’t matter what you eat.

Not only that, but what does get absorbed will simply be put to use continuing the bad state. That sounds like hell.

Eat What’s In Season, Where You Live, Now
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate eating McDonald’s. And I agree with Michael Pollan, to a point. Not every locale produces the same foodstuffs. Pollan’s dictum, to “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants,” is not actually how we evolved. Our brains got bigger from eating a lot of protein. Plants don’t have a lot of that. I have a different idea.

Eat as much organic, locally-grown food as possible. Reduce or eliminate processed foods (including breads) from your diet. Whatever is in season, is what is best for you at that point.

Part of the thing we Northern-European humans used to do was to rest more in the winter. It would be cold, it would snow. It wouldn’t be a good time to work. And there wouldn’t be much work to do. We could live off of dried goods for a while, till those ran out. Then we were stuck with whatever we could gather from the land. Pine needle tea. Hardy winter greens. Root vegetables. Animal meat.

It’s not hard to imagine.

: I can imagine that!

What Determines Your Happiness?
Your happiness is directly related to your feeling of safety and support in the world. A community of like-minded individuals, a “tribe” (a word/concept that’s catching on these days).

In the womb of the tribe, you are complete. Your worldview is reinforced and supported. You are cared for. You are able to do your work, and step back, without attachment.

You are able to be happy.

the exuberant animal tribe

Culture – Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Josh

Remember history class? At any point. High school, college, prison…wherever you took a history class. Remember?

Remember what you studied? Yeah, dates, events, blah blah blah. But the important stuff, the stuff that grabbed your attention?

For me, there were two things. The first was the great leaders in history. Usually, they were the “conquerors” – Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, etc.

Then, it was the great cultures. The rise and fall of civilizations – the Babylonians, the Greek, Roman, Aztec, Mayan, Mongol, etc.

The great leaders either represented the pinnacle of the culture they led, or became the representation of that pinnacle – the goal to reach for, for that culture (Jesus is a good example of this latter type).

I’ve been thinking a lot about culture recently. Ever since I read Rene Dubos’ book, “So Human an Animal,” back in the Spring.

An article in “Trends and Updates” laments “The Culture of Getting and Spending.” Which is part of our American (US) culture. The author highlights this culture by quoting from William Wordsworth’s poem ”

There are other aspects of that culture, such as:

Ignorance of one’s own feelings (lack of self-awareness)
Self-denial (“needy” people are looked down upon)
An inability to communicate feelings
Obsessive Compulsive tendencies
Tendencies to Hyperactive/Attentional disorders
Unconscious mythmaking/Idolatry
Sloth and gluttony (lack of self-awareness in relation to one’s surroundings)
Lack of general awareness (of surroundings)
Disdain and/or lack of awareness of nature

There was an article published in the New York Times on September 10th called “Are Your Friends Making You Fat?”

The answer, in short, is YES.

Researchers have found that there is a direct connection between fitness levels/mortality indicators and…friends.

Your culture determines largely what you will engage in or not. Do all of your friends smoke? If yes, than you are likely a smoker as well. Does everyone in your neighborhood play soccer all the time? If yes, then you probably will as well.

Does your culture believe in faith healing? If yes, then most likely, you will as well – and not only that, but you will likely be healed by a faith healing at some point in your life.

Sure, you might also die. But what does that say about you?

The secret here, is to do something. Thinking about what your culture does is fine, to get better at thinking (specifically, to get better at thinking about what your culture does…maybe not better at “thinking in general”).

If you want to get better at doing things, you have to do. You cannot get better at doing things by thinking about them.

If you want to get thin – make friends with thin people. If you want to be more active – surround yourself with people who are active (preferably, who’ve been where you are now, and are now active).

The age of the craftsman has almost entirely vanished. But in that practice, there was the concept of apprenticeship. If you wanted to learn a craft, you went and lived with the master. This used to be true of the martial arts, as well (and still is, for some). You made sacrifices of your personal liberties in order to learn what the teacher had to teach you.

Sleep Like a Baby…No, Really.

Posted on September 15, 2009 by Josh

For several years now I’ve had serious misgivings about the mattress industry, and the type of bedding we use in the US.

I’ve never had a problem sleeping on the floor, or on a comfy couch, or outdoors. In fact, I’ve usually found that I sleep much better on the floor than I do in most beds. My favorite mattress ever was a cheapo discount mattress that was hard as a rock.

A few years ago, before I left Virginia, I bought myself a new mattress. I figured I should have a nice bed to sleep in, so I paid out for a nice mattress, and a good platform frame. After three months, the mattress had a huge sag in the middle.

I took it back, and they gave me a new one. That was nice of them!

Six months later, that one was developing a sag as well.

Now, I don’t think I gain mass while I sleep, but I might. My next mattress was out here in SF. My girlfriend and I bought a California King. It was GREAT!

Till my side turned into a saggy marshmallow.

When my girl and I split up, I realized what I’d done wrong. I’d believed the hype!!!

I moved out of our old place, and left that old bed there. I slept on the floor for a few weeks, but the floor by itself is rather unforgiving. So off I went to the local futon shop.

They hooked me up! For less than $200 they gave me a simple pine futon frame, and a nice, thick, firm futon mattress. It feels like sleeping on a soft floor. Very nice!

The other things I left behind were my pillows. I’ve had a Chinese pillow full of flax husks for five or six years now. Why not just use that as my pillow?!

It worked great. Till last night, that is.

Last night, I slept without a pillow.

And I realized something.

Ever see a baby sleep, or see a picture of a sleeping baby?

It looks like this:

Awww! Wook at da widdle bay-beeeee!

or like this:

Sweepy

Notice anything?

THEY DON’T HAVE PILLOWS!

I felt very strange when I woke up and realized I hadn’t used a pillow all night. But then I wondered, why had I used a pillow for so long?

And why do people spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on mattresses when my futon seemed to be doing the trick for less than $200?

I don’t know. Do you?

Happiness, and Grandma

Posted on July 25, 2009 by Josh

I had a wonderful dinner at a barbeque at Jen Fuller’s tonight, who is a most gracious host – lots of good food, drink, and conversation.

Of course, health was discussed at a certain point. And everyone agreed that one ingredient is more critical to health and longevity than any other – happiness.

My grandmother, for me, is a case in point.

She lived to be 89 years old. She died last Friday, a week ago, succumbing to cancer after a fight of 7 months.

For my grandmother, happiness was the secret to life, and life was the secret to happiness.

Every day, she once told me, she would wake up and say “Happy day, happy day! Thank you Lord for another day on this earth!”

That was her attitude toward life. She loved it, she loved the fact that she was alive, just because she was alive.

She grew up in the hills of Ashville, NC. She was a hillbilly. She grew up on a farm, and became a nurse as a young lady. She was married before she got much nursing practice, though, and soon had two boys to care for (my father and his brother – my uncle).

She was a young lady in the 40′s and 50′s, when it was common to smoke and drink at any time, and for any occasion. She carried her farm diet with her her entire life – bacon, eggs…fatty foods were common…so were pies, roasts, and the like. Not “the image of health.”

In fact, one of the funnier more recent stories is from grandma’s visit to the hospital, just last year, for her regular check up. She was the picture of health. The nurse asked her, “Mrs. Leeger, do you drink?”

“Yes,” my grandmother said, matter of factly.

“How much do you drink, ma’am?” the nurse asked.

“As much as I want to,” my grandmother replied.

That got the nurse good! She laughed, and asked my grandmother what, exactly, that meant.

“Well, it depends,” my grandmother said. “If I’m at a party, and everyone is drinking, well I have a drink every time they do. If I’m at home, I may just have one or two drinks on my own, or none at all.”

My grandma lived life the way I’d hope to. She was happy all the time – whether times were good or not. She trusted that her current situation was all that it could be. And being all that it could be, it was as good as it could get.

As good as it could get, how could you be sad? Unless you were just maudlin by nature.

She lived to be 89, without advanced exercise prescriptions, without sets and reps, without a boot camp, without Pilates, or Crossfit, or Powerlifting, or anything else.

She lived to be 89 by being happy – certainly, she had exuberance!

She lived to be 89 by living according to what she knew in her heart was right.

I miss her.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Doing new things…cont.

Posted on June 7, 2009 by Josh

I posted a very short entry last night about trying new things. Let me explain where that came from, so it makes more sense, and is, hopefully, a little more motivating.

Earlier this year, my buddy Charlie said he was going to try the Highland Games. I said, sweet, I’ll try it too. We practiced a little bit, went to the Woodland games, and competed. I pulled my right biceps on the very first throw of the day.

Today, the group we practice with down in Stanford had a little cookout. We all threw, all day. It was awesome. I learned some very good lessons from all of this. First, make sure you’re plenty warm before you try to start throwing heavy things. Second, make sure you don’t workout two days before a competition. Third, practice, and practice with good form. It’ll help you to perform better, and not to get injured. Fourth, technique is king. A guy with average strength, but excellent technique, will beat a brutally strong guy in the Highland games. The technique itself taught me something as well – follow. If you try to lead the weight, or force it, it will force you right back. The first thing everyone says when trying the men’s heavy weight for distance for the first time is “You don’t throw it, it throws you.” In a very real sense, this is true. You get the weight going, and guide it, and at the last second you give it a little extra help…but all along, the weight is the thing moving. It’s moving you. If you come at these events with this perspective, things suddenly make more sense – less force, more follow.

The second place I’ve recently experienced epiphanies due to trying something new was at a Tai Chi class at Doc Fai Wong’s school in the Sunset district of San Francisco. This was Charlie’s idea too. I’ve done Tai Chi before, and continue to practice martial arts by myself on a semi-regular basis. But it had been some time since I’d had a teacher watch me or teach me, or correct my technique. I learned a few things in that short 1-hour class. First, don’t “walk on a tightrope.” You don’t want your feet directly in line with each other, because then you don’t have any balance. This is something my teacher George Wood used to tell us all the time, but it suddenly “made sense” this time. Second, keep your body in neutral – that means your spine, scapulae, pelvis, knees, feet, etc. If you reach a limit in your movement, you won’t be able to extend or retreat beyond that limit, and you’re vulnerable. Know your limits, and play within those. That’s a new definition of “safety” for you!

If I had never done these things, I would never have had these wonderful experiences. They informed other things I was thinking about at the time, and made my life richer and deeper in the process. Trying something new isn’t just about novelty (though your brain will thank you, by creating new synaptic pathways), it’s also about rounding out the things you already think you know.

So, like I said, go try something new, or try something old in a new way. Be open to the experience, and really pay attention to what’s happening – how is it different from what you’re used to, or from what you expected? What lessons can you take from the experience? Go ahead and try!