first posting on new blog, Waking 108

I'm going to come up with 108 ways to wake more fully to life. I have done this before, but it's the first of the year, and new place, new love, a vision of myself as providing some things of immense value to others.

The new blog will alternate moving, thinking, feeling/ emotions, and soul. 

It is at http://waking108.blogspot.com
(later
note:
this blog doesn't exist any more
and it's "baby"
http://4brainfitness.blogspot.com
is lanquishing,
HOWEVER,
 the book,
the Old book
TAO OF NOW
and the only 108 day/ way
book there will be for awhile, is just fine

it's great, in my opinion,
buy it and change your life
if you are so
in the
mood)

Here's the first entry, a movement lesson you may have all done. Good. Do it again before you meditate or every 20 minutes at the computer, if you wish.

1. Find a firm chair or bench or log or rock where you can sit with both feet on the ground and your hips are slightly higher than your knees.

2. Come to the front of the chair, so your spine holds up your head and you aren't leaning back on anything.

3. Feel what this is like if you sit more or less upright.

    a. Feel how your pelvis sits on the chair.

    b. Feel how your spine rises up out of your pelvis

    c. Feel how your head is held up by your spine.

    d. Notice your shoulder blades, and how they rest on the ribs of your back.

    e. Feel both arms and both legs and your spine all at once.

4. Sit for a few minutes as if this is your meditation: noticing and sensing your arms and legs and spine. Find a certain peace and clarity in this.

5. Rest by leaning back, or walking, or just wiggling very slightly.

6. Sit forward again, and begin to round yourself into a ball as you sit in the chair.

    a. Let your head roll down and toward your chest.

    b. Let your sternum sink in and go down and backwards.

    c. Bring your belly in and backwards.

    d. Let your eyes come come toward looking at your belly button.

    e. Rock back on your pelvis, so that you are tucking your tail bone in a little and as if bring your sex toward your face.

     f. Undo all this and come to "upright," but no more.

     g. Then round down again, feeling each time a little more ease and awareness of all the parts of this.

     h. Begin to be aware and in enjoyment on the unfurl back to upright part, too.

     i. Do this many times, each time finding something new, and something more releasing or interesting or both.

7. Rest again. Sit in the meditation of 2 arms and 2 legs and 1 spine and just BE for a while.

8. Come to the front of the chair, and put your hands on the sides on your face, with your fingers pointing backwards, thumbs below the ears, fingers above. In this position, very slowly and easily begin to opposite of the movement in #6.

     a. Push your belly forward.

     b. Arch your back.

     c. Look up with your nose and eyes and the arms connected to your head.

     d. Roll forward to the front of your pelvis, as if you want to show off your rear end to someone behind you.

     e. Don't go too far, or "to your limit." Make it easy and enjoyable and about learning. Feel as many ribs and vertebrae as you can.

     f. In this movement, the sternum lifts and comes a bit forward. (The shoulders are soft ant easy. No "throwing the shoulders back" nonsense. This is about waking up to our spines, a central line to our lives).

      g. Come back to "upright" from this, but go no farther.

       h. Do this many times, each time concentrating and learning about a different part.

9. Rest in walking or sitting. Sense both legs, both arms and your spine. Feel if you are taller and more at ease.

10. Come to the front of your chair. Put your hands on your face and head as in #8. Now combine #6 and #8. Roll forward into a curled in ball, and arch up into a looking up person. Do not, do not, do not bring your neck back "too far." Just have your nose tilting up easily in a way the it feels as if your neck's curve is a continuation of your spine's curve.

    a. Go back and forth from belly in and rolling back on your pelvis, to belly out and rocking forward on your pelvis.

    b. Feel each vertebrae.

    c. Feel all the ribs.

    d. Feel the sternum moving up and forward and then down and in.

    e. Begin to sense your neck as part of your spine, not separate from it.

Brief tidbit for clarity in all of your life: THE FUNDAMENTAL UNIT OF INTELLIGENCE IS THE PERCEPTION OF DIFFERENCES.

Good.

11. Do the #10 again, rounding and arching and as you make and aware this movement notice differences between the folding part and the unfolding part:

    a. in the ribs

    b. the spine

    c. the sternum

    d. the pelvis

    e. the head

    f. your breathing

    g. your eyes

12. Rest.

13. Now do folding and arching, almost like #10 and #11, but don't put your hands on your face and head. Notice the difference in how your head relates to your back without your hands on your head.

    a. then go back and forth, hands on face to round and arch, and hands off

    b. pay amused and delighted attention how one way connects up the movement of your head with the arching and rounding in your back.

14. Rest.

15. Now, do the movement of #10 with this added complexity:

    a. Notice what your eyes are doing as you arch and lifted your head and round and tuck your head in

    b. Deliberately move your eyes (open or closed, try both for more differences to experience) down as your head goes down and up as your head goes up

    c. Now, try this, and go very slowly, and do just a little bit: but as your head goes down with rounding, have your eyes move to look up, as if at your forehead, and as your head (connected by hands to your back), lifts in the arching toward up, move your eyes slowly, slowly and gently down.

    d. Do this many times. Take rests. Make the up and down of your head very small if you get wozzy or confused. Just notice the new difference: head up and eyes down, head down and eyes up.

    e. See if you can become calm enough in this to begin to sense your spine and ribs and sternum and breathing and pelvis again, while still moving your head and eyes in opposition.

16. Rest.

17. Imagine doing #10 with the eyes in the same direction at your head. Don't DO anything. Just imagine.

    a. Then do the movement once, and notice what wasn't available in imagination

    b. Imagine it again, more fully.

    c. Do it in reality.

    d. Back and forth like this as long as you are curious and learning and in ease.

18. Rest in sitting in the 5 line meditation, and then rock forward onto your feet and feel the length of yourself in standing. Walk around and stay in the awareness mode for as long as you can. Notice the arms hanging from the spine and the legs holding up the pelvis and the pelvis holding up the head.

19. Enjoy being you today.

the computer... as i sit here on a gray today, is waking in the game plan?

So i sit here typing

la, la

usually this is fingers doing
what fingers have been trained to do

but something holds up those fingers
let's call it a hand

let's hand it to the hand
knowing how to do handy things

like type

but what holds up the hands

well the table actually

and what holds up the things the hand
are connected to
called arms

the part called the shoulder

and what holds that up

okay
okay

the cat's out of the bag:
we have a spine

and what holds the spine up?

ah,
well

we do

and the chair under my rear
the chair that is tilted forward on its two front legs

so my legs
and its legs make a four legged creature
with my spine coming up off this
and then the shoulder area
and the arm things and
the hand things
and the fingers

so could i create variation
that would help my spine
realize its "spineness" more?

yes

i can round, and the chair has a shift for that one

i can arch, and the chair shifts the other way

this has to be too boring to read unless you are playing
in your own chair hands eyes spine

and side bending
the tilting tower way
and the curving like a C and a backwards C way

those do a lot for a spine at a computer

and we haven't even come to twists
yet

but i could twist my shoulders to the right
and head to the left
and keep my eyes on the computer

and do that yoga still
push push look at me go

or internal learning
let me love and learn about me style

you could play with that if you want

a kind of pre Christmas present to yourself today

as you talk, walk, sit, dance, shop
what are you doing?

what shifts
little
unknown to anyone but you
could you make

that would make all the difference
in your awakeness???

beyond the abs: what a real brain wants: a pelvis that goes all ways (think sex, think bringing an axe up and down, think throwing a baseball, serving a tennis serve)

Sexy old man who is using his

core

Okay sweet readers. This is for all and everyone one of us,
sucked conned, lured, or just excited about doing the stomach strengthening thing
to "help" our backs.

Well, think about what a "back" is:
a collection of muscles and fibers going every which way
and twenty four vertebrae that can rotate and side bend and round forward and arch with the belly forward

In the abs world, the strange idea of "core" as only training the back to round, so that the nose comes closer to the crotch, as in sit ups, or leg lifts, tightening the stomach, tuck in your gut, all that stuff

Well: it kind of works;
tighten the stomach enough and the back is held rigid and so
you are sort of out of back trouble
with the minor price:
immobility

and the major price:
inability to move in all the other directions well and easily
and with grace and power

So, actually, lots of sit ups,
lots of leg lifts,
feels "strong" and it has the same sort of dumb strength
that you could compare,
say, the United States foreign policy

or most male response to trouble:
get strong,
do something intense
confuse effort with intelligence or ability

so,
what else to do?

Go all ways:

How?

Like this:

1. Lie on your back and go to the lesson before this,
and do all the scans that are mentioned

2. Really, scroll on down to the earlier lesson today and do that part,
it will change your life.

3. Put both hands on the floor above your head.

Lift the right leg at the hip joint, many times, much less than the full thing. Learn something.
learn a lot and find pleasure.

Rest.

Lift the right leg again, now many times with the left arm coming up from the floor at the same time.
again, less than the "limit" with tons more awareness pleasure and learning than any "exercise" you've ever done.

Rest.

Lift the right leg, now with the right arm, just 3 times and then alternate, 3 right arm with right leg, 3 left arm. NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE.

Rest.

4. Do all this with the left leg.

Rest.

5. Roll over on your belly, arms high above head on the floor.

Do all the above combinations on the belly.

Feel these muscles, the back muscles, the anti-gravity muscles, the muscles that hold up your head, and start the tennis serve and raise the axe or hammer or withdraw the pelvis in sex.

This is what special needs kids all need.

This is what almost all high performers need.

Almost all athletes really, really need this.

Go slow. Find the pleasure, awareness, delight and learning something new with each movement.

Rest.

6.
If you must do both legs on the back, trading off left, right and both arms,

and then, on the belly, same.

Rest.

7. Don't do it yet, but realize, this can be done on your side, except just with the top arm and leg.
Imagine this on your side.

Do this one side.

Rest.

Roll to the other side. Lift the leg with the arm, without the arm. Feel what the so called "back" is doing.

8. Rest
and feel what it's like to have a spine that's not only stronger, but way, way smarter than 20 or 30 minutes ago.

9. get up and walk. bring awareness of arching and rounding and side bending in your back to this most basic and amazing human function: the walk. love notice and exult in having a real back with a real "core" and that core is your awareness.

Your awareness each step of your life.

10. We haven't used the spine in rotation. Lots of movement lessons are about that. Hit the movement lesson label below and then search for rotation if you want.

11. P.S. If you want to just "do" the front muscles, try this lesson,
from last March, it's even got pictures: A folding lesson on the back

round and arch, in standing, using arms to clue in

Getting straight

Many of us, at one time or another, get the idea into our head that we want “better posture.” Often this idea was drilled into us in teenage years, with some adult saying, in usually not so pleasant a voice, “stand up straighter,” or “stop slumping.” Or some such commandment.

Whatever the baggage and past conditioning, it does feel better to stand with a fuller and longer spine. Much of yoga works toward this, and we’ll go for a sort of brain yoga as this book unfolds. I am trained in what is called the Feldenkrais Method®, named after a man, Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984) who was a physicist, engineer, judo master and student of babies and human development. He wanted to heal something in him that medical surgery couldn’t repair at the time, and he did, discovering along the way a system of attentive moving that awakened awareness and propelled people into all sorts of improvements in their life.

I’m also trained in the Anat Baniel Method, developed by, not so surprisingly, Anat Baniel, a student of Moshe Feldenkrais who has spent 30 expanding and deepening his system.

Be that as it may, stand in your socks or barefoot on some comfortable floor or ground.

Feel the you of you in standing.

Now, hold your arms straight out to your sides, begin to roll your arms forward, so the thumbs orient from up, to forward to down. And as you roll your arms forward, bend your knees, and let your whole upper body round toward your pelvis, as if you were curling up in a ball. Then uncurl yourself and rotate your hand and arms backwards, so the thumbs come back to up, and rotate to point to the back. While this is happening, arch your spine and let your head look up a little and soften your belly and let your belly come forward as your lower back comes in a little.

Don’t worry if this isn’t obvious right away. Give it a try. Go slowly. See if it can make “sense” to you and deeply, pleasurably and full of pleasure, sense and learn about yourself.

Go back and forth like this. Read the directions several times, and figure it out. Go beyond reading about it. DO IT. SENSE YOURSELF IN MOTION, SENSE THE SPINE ROUNDING AND ARCHING. Breathe as you do this. Sense both arms and legs.

When you finish doing this, sense your “posture” all day.

arch, round, twist, meditate: if you wish

Mind and body and learning: rounding and arching in sitting, with a twist.

Sit in a chair or on a log, or bench, near the front so both feet can be on the ground, and your back is not leaning on anything.

Interlace your hands and put them behind your head, and in this position, do the arching and rounding we have described several times. Do this for a bunch of pleasant and aware and waking and learning times.

Sometimes have your eyes going the way your head is going. Sometimes the opposite.

Go slowly.

Know how you are breathing.

Feel really good.

Rest.


Now try this, when you round, bring your elbows forward, as if they want to touch or straddle your knees. When you arch, widen your elbows out, and one time twist to the right and up with your right elbow, following it with your eyes. Then bring elbows forward, come down, round, and breathe out. Then go to the left, breathe out again (you figure that one out), push your belly out, and lift your left elbow up and backwards, feeling your whole back involved.

Do this a number of times.

Go slowly.

Feel the whole shifting that is going on in your spine.

Enjoy this.

For the rest of the day, simple be present to breathing and to being in your body. You might want to try a famous Thich Nhat Hahn meditation: breathing in, I sense my body; breathing out I smile.

This is a good one, and today, and do sense your spine when you sense your body.

Arch and round in sitting, head connected to the lower back, hopefully

Bending and arching in sitting, hands on face

Sit near the front edge of a chair, or bench or log or rock. Feel your spine and arms and legs. Feel breathing and gravity. Feel your feet on the ground and your head at the top of your spine.

Now take your hands and hold your head like this: with each hand place your thumb under your ears and your other fingers above the ear, and the fingers point toward the back of your head. And with this unity of head and arms and chest, fold forward: stomach in, sternum sinking and back, pelvis rocking to the back edge, head lowering.

How does breathing like to go in this mode?

Then come back to neutral and do this many times, and then rest and feel and sense and learn yourself.

Then, take the same hand head position and push your belly forward and arch your spine and rock forward on your pelvis and bring your head back a little and raise your sternum. How does breathing like to go this way? Enjoy and come back to neutral and do this many times and go slow and observe and enjoy.

Rest.

Now do, go, learn, discover enjoy both ways, rounding and arching as a back and forth game. Go slow, feel one part at a time, the spine, the ribs, the pelvis, the head, the sternum, and then all the parts together.

Really enjoy.

If any pain, go less.

A lot less.

Enjoy.

Learn. Do this a bunch of times today, and stay knowing and awaring of your spine all day.

Good

Round and arch in a simple way: one more awakening activity

On our back, letting ourselves arch and round in the back.

Lie on your back, and enjoy just this as a break from the busy “business” of upright, and often uptight, life.

Sense your five lines, two arms, two legs and your spine.

Smile and follow your breathing.

Now, raise your feet to standing, which means your feet are on the ground and your knees toward the sky.

Push your belly out and arch your back a little so that your lower back comes off the floor a little more.

Do this a number of times. Notice your breathing.

Rest.

Then return to feet standing, knees up. Put your hands behind your head and gently, not trying to go very far, raise your head to look at your knees. Pull in your stomach as you do this and feel the lower back for toward or to the floor.

Do this a number of times, and then rest.

Now raise your knees again, and tilt them slowly side to side. Two ways. Both legs at the same time. And one leg first, and then the other.

Do this a few times and then begin to arch your back and push out your belly as you do this.

Then for a few times tighten your belly and tilt your knees in the two ways to the side.

Which makes it easiest for the knees to tilt?

Rest.

Now, as you go side to side with your knees, push your belly out when your legs go to the side and when they come back in to the middle, lift your legs a little toward the floor as if to bring the knees toward your chest. Feel this a slight rounding in the back. Then, put the feet down and tilt your legs to the other side, push our your belly.

Do this is a number of times, each time seeing if you can discover something new about how you move, what it’s like to be present, how to move easily. Keep it up discovering all day.