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Reversibility or Changing my Mind on a Blog Post

By on April 16, 2012 in BJJ, Feldenkrais, Training Advice

Earlier I wrote about my experiences at a Feldenkrais workshop run by Dennis Leri. The series of lessons was built around the act of moving from lying to standing and back to lying: creating and exploring a loop of movement.

The Feldenkrais concept that we were investigating during this workshop was reversibility.

Reversibility basically means the capacity to stop a movement at any point and then go in the opposite direction with a minimum of hesitation.

-Todd Hargrove, Better Movement

Originally in this post, I was planning to explore how to play with the idea of reversibility through one of the most basic movement patterns in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: standing up in your opponent’s closed guard.

But then I changed my mind.

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Embracing Failure

By on March 27, 2012 in BJJ, Mental, Training Advice

Failure is not only an option; sometimes it’s the best option.

In my lifelong pursuit of martial arts, not only have I come to embrace failure, I often look for it.

What I have found is that failure presents an incredible opportunity to examine a process, event or concept and to build new ways of functioning, performance and perception. By deeply exploring failure one can peel back the veneer that paints it as something negative and find its true value. Continue Reading →

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Focus on the Shoulders: Mobility

By on March 13, 2012 in Injury, Older athlete, Prevention, Product/Seminar Review, Recovery

As a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu student, I hear a lot of people complaining about their shoulders.

The kimura being applied by the man himself.

Despite being known as the arte suave and descending from the gentle art of judo, BJJ is rough on the shoulders.

I know first hand after having hurt my shoulder from either an overzealous kimura shoulder lock or weighted pull ups with less than ideal form or just the gradual wear and tear of this grappling art.

Rather than go to the doctor to be offered pain killers or surgery, I sought my own path to recovery. This path included rotator cuff and bicep extensor exercises, an organic herbal balm made by my wife, a joint mobility program and a return to measured body weight exercises and weight lifting.

Today, I am just going to dig in a bit deeper into one of these methods I used to recover: joint mobility.

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Tick, tick, tick…

By on March 12, 2012 in Inspiration, Mental

Following up my previous post on the Feldenkrais workshop on time, a few juicy bits:

It is a complete realization that the whole of time is what the whole of existence is, and that there is nothing more than this.

-Dogen

How is it possible, at a moment in time, to experience an event, something which has no existence at a moment in time.

-Alva Noe

Even spiritual masters can’t make it,

wracking their brains for schemes and plans.

The months and the years, a running river:

Then there’s the day you wake up old.

-Han Shan (trans. J.P. Seaton)

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Embodying Time

By on March 1, 2012 in Feldenkrais, Mental, Product/Seminar Review, Strategy

Live in the present.

We’ve all heard that advice. Live in the present. Don’t fret over the past. Don’t stress out about the future.

But besides nodding our heads and saying, “Yeah. Be here now,” how do we actually live in the present?

Most strategies, especially from older traditions, focus on meditation and awareness and quieting the proverbial monkey mind.

But what about physical practices to embody the present?

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Mushrooms in My Coffee: A Cordyceps Primer

By on February 16, 2012 in Product/Seminar Review, Recovery

Pack the coffee in my mocha pot, spoon a bit of sugar into my cup, and then follow it up with half a teaspoon of powdered mushrooms.

Powdered mushrooms in my coffee? Am I crazy?

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Choose not to be a timid soul

By on February 8, 2012 in Competition, Inspiration

Words to live by from Teddy Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

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I’ve Fallen and I Can Get Up: Thoughts on a Feldenkrais Seminar

By on February 6, 2012 in Balance, Feldenkrais, Mental, Product/Seminar Review

Certain movements are fundamental to living.

One of these essential movements is the act of moving to standing from lying. Coupled with this movement is its reverse: lying to standing.

As we age, this movement chain often becomes more difficult. For each individual the reason is different – whether from poor balance, inefficient movement, decreased strength or reduced body awareness.

This failed movement chain reached pop fame with the TV ads depicting an elderly woman calling a medical alarm company and saying, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

As a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, one of the core movements we drill again and again is standing up in base, a way of standing that allows us to protect ourselves and rise quickly and in control.

As an older athlete, I am always looking for ways to more efficiently move, so when my wife told me about a Feldenkrais workshop in which the main lessons were going to focus on the lying to standing movement chain (and its reverse), I jumped at the opportunity. Continue Reading →

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A Mind-Body Method: Feldenkrais

By on February 2, 2012 in Balance, Feldenkrais, Injury, Prevention, Recovery

About a decade ago, my taiji teacher told us to get on the floor.

Not the usual instruction in a taiji class, but what he was about to show us was something exceptional: a very brief introduction to the Feldenkrais Method to address back pain.

We lay on the floor on our sides in a fetal position and began a series of guided movements lifting the arms and legs and turning the head in different patterns, all with the slow, mindful movements that one finds in taiji – so the territory was not unfamiliar but the movement patterns were.

Amazingly after a mere fifteen minutes, I could feel a difference – as if my body had opened up and felt lighter.

So what is the Feldenkrais Method?

In simple terms, it is a system of guided lessons or one-on-one work to awaken the body to habitual movements patterns (especially those that may have been neglected or blocked out due to injury, pain or lack of use) and to break those patterns in order to move more efficiently and freely.

But it is also so much more than that. It is an approach to learning how to learn and a method for examination of the mind and life. The body is the laboratory in which to experientially explore the methodology.

I returned to this exercise on my own year after year to address back pain, including more recent work around back pain from the rigors of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Interestingly Moshe Feldenkrais was a black belt in judo and wrote a book on newaza, the ground game of judo which is the area of specialization of BJJ.

I am lucky to be in the San Francisco Bay Area where there is access to a wealth of teachers and schools that have emerged out of the work of Feldenkrais such as Anat Baniel, Hanna Somatics and early students of Feldenkrais like Dennis Leri.

Stayed tuned for upcoming reviews on a recent workshop on Reversibility by Dennis Leri and on Feldenkrais’s book Higher Judo.

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Don’t Mess with the Old Man

By on January 27, 2012 in Inspiration, Older athlete

Before settling into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I spent about a decade studying Chinese martial arts and it has still greatly influenced my trainnig.

One of the promises of the Chinese systems is that they can add to longevity because of their more holistic approach with a strong emphasis on joint mobility, efficient use of energy, diet and meditation.

Here’s a great example of the stereotypical old timer who at nearly a century can move with smoothness and grace and still dish it out!

What are you going to be doing when you are his age?

95 Year old Grand Master of Lan Shou, Chinese Boxing.m4v – YouTube.

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