In this training we had several new things, some of them really weird ;).
Warmup
- Turn wrists, turn elbows, turn shoulders, use full range of motion
- Go on all fours, put little weight on the hands, push body up with the wrists. Stretch lower arms in several directions. Carefully feel into your wrists, what feels good and what not.
- Swing whole body, feel the blood pouring into your fingertips.
- Swing even more until knees touch the ground.
- Make circles with knees (around hips).
- Make circles with feet (around knees).
- Turn your ankles.
Exercises
- Stand, close your eyes. Feel your body. Try to forget the outline of your body, focus just on the raw sensations, which are very unequally distributed and don’t necessarily care about your physical boundaries.
Next try to imagine the feelings of your body, when you walk. You have now two felt bodies – the real feelings and the imagined ones – and the physical one, which makes three.
Next start with to imagine the feelings of your body in the exact same position it is at the moment. So the “two bodies” match. - “Move” the imaginary body slowly and let the physical body follow. Observe your real feelings
- Take the previous exercise further to walking, then to running.
- Flow Run. Find a “lane” over and through the many fallen trees on the ground, over the Rocks and the rope. Run it for 20 minutes again and again. Try to get it quiet and flowy.
- Apnoe exercise: Breathe 30 times into the belly, slowly and deeply. (Its similar to the Wim Hof method, but slower and just into the belly. Although the Wim Hof breathing gives a greater feel, I prefer to train the divers breathe, because I do not risk getting unconscious.).
After the last time breathe out and just sit there and wait what happens, without force. - Repeat this immediately afterwards. This time, after the last time, breathe out, stand up and walk slowly and quietly, fully observing all your feelings.
- Repeat again, this time with pushups.
- Bathing in the pond. Put at least your bare feet into the water, more if you want. Try to be fully aware with what you feel (outside and inside) while doing it. Try to become aware of the thoughts that come with that. Just play with it, no pushing.
Tools used
Many new tools today!
- “The three bodies”: This exercise sounds far more esoteric as it is. Be aware that you are at your best if the physical body and the imagined (seen/felt) body are close to each other and you are fully aware of how your real body feels.
- “Flow Run” The concentration on the technique, the increased feel of competence in every round, the balancing, the change of tasks keeps you in the moment.
- “Fully aware walking”: Also called foxwalk. Very slow walking, with full consciousness. Slow enough so that the balance changes all the time, but slow enough that the feelings don’t fall behind, is a good technique to practice keeping the “three bodies” in sync. The fact that we do it without breathing amplifies the awareness.
- Surrender: Both the apnoe techniques and the entering cold water target surrender. Cultivating the “observing what happens (without pressure)” can help build a habit of “feeling in and observing the situation” as soon as stressful situations arise, instead of panicking. The water stays cold without you doing something. You don’t have to “do” something like when running and you can fully focus on observing. And playing with the thoughts and feelings that arise.
Train Joy 