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Inner Meditiation

Centring the Body

Balance is the all-important factor in a fighter's attitude or stance. Without balance at all times, he can never be effective. Bruce Lee (1975)

Centring the body involves connecting the mind to the physical centre of gravity of the body (the Tan T'ien). This centre is approximately one and a half inches below the navel, in the centre of the pelvis. It is the place that you were first nourished from via the umbilical cord and is at the level of the sacrum, which is the first bone made in the body. Both Eastern and Western medicine define the physical centre at this point, and to build a connection with your centre is to communicate with the very core and origins of your being. From a self-defence point of view, having a strong connection with the centre increases your balance and power and reduces the risk of falling.

To start with, this connection (referring back to the quotation at the beginning of this chapter) is made by our ‘intention’ from the mind (initiator) sending our ‘attention’ (capacity) to the area of the body (army) that is its centre. From there we begin to ‘play’ with the two primary mechanisms that allow us to have a sense of where the centre is exactly: pressure sensitivity in the legs and the balancing mechanisms in the inner ear. The placement of the centre is defined in three dimensions: left and right, forwards and back, up and down. By working with these three dimensions we can pinpoint an exact place inside the body that is the centre. These directions correspond to the three semicircular canals in the inner ear, which are filled with fluid and aligned to these dimensions.

FIGURE 6

FIGURE 7

1 Left to Right If you look at the exercise to centre the body (here), you will see that the first movement oscillates between the left and right leg; this stimulates the pressure sensitivity in both legs. Pressure sensitivity in the legs is one of the main ways that we remain upright; the brain constantly uses the information from each leg to balance itself (it does this by sensing the amount of muscle tension present in each leg). If you think about walking, the pressure is passed from one foot to the other, and as you make your stride the pressure is balanced on each side to form an equal gait. If you have ever injured your foot you will have been reminded of this pressure moving from one side to the other – the moment you stand upright your body uses the pressure in the two legs to maintain its balance. As a martial artist you must develop sensitivity to this so that you become increasingly skilled at keeping a balance between the two legs.

2 Forwards and Back The next movement oscillates forwards and back (standing in the Basic Stance leaning forwards and leaning back), which stimulates the inner ear, one of the most extraordinary pieces of engineering in the body. As we lean forwards and back the fluid in the inner ear acts much like a builder's spirit level, providing vital information as to whether the head is level or not. The brain stem and the cerebellum (two of the areas of the brain that control reflex movement) are continually monitoring this information from the ear. If we lean too far forwards or back, the brain immediately makes us shift our feet and hands to ‘catch’ our balance. By evolving our sensitivity to this inner movement of energy, we protect the centre from being lost; if we lose the centre then very soon we will fall over and have to fight or defend ourselves from the ground.

3 Up and Down The last dimension is up and down (the vertical axis), arguably the most significant of them all as not only is it the most common way that we lose our centre but also the connection to this area helps to work against the body’s most powerful symptom of the fight-or-flight response: energy travelling upwards in your body. You will see in the exercise on centring the body that the vertical axis is found by relaxing and ‘sitting’ (similar to sitting down on a chair) into the Basic Stance, so it is a movement of relaxing where you instruct the muscles not necessary for standing to turn ‘off’. This is of tremendous significance because in any conflict situation our inner energy travels up and backwards simultaneously turning the muscles ‘on’ (tension). This type of reaction is the root of many popular sayings such as ‘to blow one’s lid’, or ‘to lose one's head’. Becoming in touch with the absolute truth of this statement is one of the keys to self-defence.

In any conflict situation (and we have gone to some length to describe what we mean by conflict) the first movement of self-defence must always be a relaxation and dropping towards the centre. This is not as easy as it would first appear because the aforementioned effect of fear in the body is of always moving the energy up and turning the muscles on. Therefore, by working with the exercise of centring, the body creates a deeper connection or movement towards the centre, and once we have found our centre everything else can orientate itself around it. The stronger the connection with the centre, the more of an anchor we have against this movement upwards of fear in the body.

Physical Imbalance

When we become physically imbalanced we lose our centre in a combination of the above dimensions (left, right, up, down, etc.). If you recall a time when you tripped and fell forwards, or jerked your head back away from something coming towards your head, you will already have a very real impression of physical imbalance. The Basic Stance is the most balanced position a human body can take, and relaxation is fundamental in order to adopt it correctly. When we relax, the body accepts the force of gravity through it (see Align the Body) and naturally begins to find its point of balance. We have evolved by nature an upright spine, so by relaxing and entering into this most balanced of postures we once again move closer to a natural state of being. That does not mean that we have to always walk around with a lowered centre of gravity, but in terms of applying self-defence techniques, the lowered centre is essential. When standing or moving generally in life we can still have this movement of relaxation and dropping down by connecting to our sense of the centre even if our legs are not bent and we are fully upright.

Mental Imbalance

Working with the physicality of the body is very tangible and we can feel it if we are in the present moment; by the Principle of Resonation this sense of balance then begins to teach the other areas of our being: the mind and emotions. Therefore, we begin to feel when our minds become imbalanced; the classic symptoms of this imbalance are a heightened internal conversation and projection into the future or the past with daydreams. For most of us this imbalance goes on all the time inside our heads, but when humans for one reason or another become chronically imbalanced we see this internal conversation starting to manifest itself outside ourselves. When this happens people talk aloud to themselves and actually begin to see their daydreams in the form of delusions and hallucinations. In this situation the internal imaginings take over control of the physical body and start to change its position correspondingly; this process happens in much more subtle ways with regular daydreaming. The balancing point for the mind is the present moment, which is the fulcrum between the past and future. To maintain this balance you as an Intelligent Warrior must develop the ability to quieten internal conversation and direct internal energy away from the part of the mind that generates daydreams.

Emotional Imbalance

Emotional imbalance always has a positive or negative charge so we either become overexcited, silly or ‘over the top’ or we indulge in negative emotions such as anger, self-pity, depression or self-loathing. Emotion is the quickest and most powerful energy in the body and for this reason it is the most ‘expensive’. If we become extremely enraged at something, it can take days for the body to rebalance itself. Recall a time when you became extremely emotional about something and remember how the emotional energy took over your physical body, perhaps contorting it into various positions, and how any rational thought was severely impaired. When we find the balancing point for emotions, which is always a sense of stillness, then we can begin to develop or evolve the emotions into feelings and allow them to take a more subtle form such as the composition of a piece of music, poetry or painting or the selection and execution of an appropriate self-defence technique.

The Three-Dimensional Point of Balance

The process of searching for balance can be well illustrated by the movement of a pendulum. To start with the pendulum swings in quite large movements from side to side and then gradually, as the force of gravity takes over, the movement decreases until it finds the point of balance (pointing straight down) and it comes to rest. This point of rest is a defining characteristic of your balance but it is not a complete point of rest or stagnation as it is always oscillating in tiny movements between the three dimensions. Think about a tightrope walker making very fine adjustments to stay on the tightrope or a child learning to ride a bike, wobbling from one side to the other until he or she finds a point of balance and stability. In humans the point of balance has many different expressions but the three primary characteristics are relaxation in the body, quietness in the mind and stillness in the emotions. The gradual development of balance through Meditation brings these characteristics to the surface and each can only truly be found in the present moment.

The Exercise of Centring

http://bmsmartialart.com/centring-exercise-iwv

Centring the body is an essential skill for the Intelligent Warrior for it allows you to hold two opposing forces in your awareness and find a balancing point between them. This is critical for applying intelligence to emotionally charged situations.

Left to Right

This exercise opens awareness to pressure sensitivity in the legs, a device the brain uses continuously to keep us upright, especially when walking.

1 Stand in the Basic Stance (see here) and close your eyes.

2 Direct your intention down towards the area of the Tan T'ien (an inch and a half below the navel).

3 Slowly shift your weight from the left leg to the right in quite large motions, leaning quite far out over each leg (see Photograph 5).

4 Relax and be open to the impressions of the pressure as it increases in each leg as you move over it.

5 Gradually begin to decrease the movements. Perhaps think of the pendulum swinging from side to side as it begins to move to a point of rest.

6 Continue until you are only making very small movements but can still feel the pressure changing in the legs.

7 Finally, try to come to rest at the exact balancing point between the two legs.

Forwards and Back

This movement primarily stimulates the balance-sensing mechanism of the inner ear.

1 Slowly begin to rock forwards (see Photograph 7) and back (see Photograph 8) on your feet and feel your weight travelling from the heel to the ball the foot. Try to be sensitive to the place where if you went further you would begin to fall and would have to move your foot to catch your balance.

2 Without losing the sensation of the Tan T'ien, direct your attention to the area of the inner ear.

3 Repeat the process in the previous Right to Left exercise, gradually decreasing the movements until you find the balancing point.

Up and Down

1 Open to the sensation of relaxing and sitting into the Basic Stance, as if sitting down on a chair.

2 Push up slightly from the stance and then “sit” down into stance again into it.

3 Repeat this process, focusing on the sensation of the muscles that are necessary to push you up as opposed to the ones that are used for you to ‘sit’ into the stance.

4 Try very gently to keep renewing this movement of relaxation (letting go) as you sit down in the stance.

By making large movements to small ones our brain receives, via the pressure sensitivity in the legs and the balancing mechanisms in the inner ear, a wide range of movement from which it can compare the complementary opposites inherent in each section. By working in this way we gradually increase our sensitivity to the interplay between the opposites and become very sensitive to even the slightest movement away from the point of rest in any of the dimensions. This sensitivity means that we are aware sooner that our centre is becoming unstable and then, by the process of attention or presence in the body, we can correct it accurately with less chance of over-balancing in the opposite direction.

The up-and-down movement of relaxation may take a little while to get the hang of but by relaxing just enough you will become sensitive to the sensation of your weight locating down to the Tan T'ien. This movement of relaxation needs to be accompanied by a command to the muscles to ‘let go’. Remember, when you become nervous, stressed or afraid the body has a tendency to turn the muscles ‘on’, in other words tension creeps into the body; by practising the command to let go you are in effect giving the muscles the opposite command of ‘off’. It is in the conscious repetition of this command that you develop a strong enough connection to the musculature to relax when you have to face fear in your life.

After you have worked for a while in each of the three dimensions try searching for the centre in a circular movement pressing from left to forwards to right to back, gradually decreasing the concentric circles so as to combine the various dimensions simultaneously.