The Body Knows

At one point in my life I was a pretty a physical guy. I started studying marital arts in my teens cause I got tired of being bullied.? I lived with black belt Judo champion who taught for the Army and another friend who had belts in various disciplines. I would sometimes help them at classes. I never became a teacher or black belt but I was decent enough.?

My interest in martial arts as a formal practice ended one day when I was in college. I was on campus near the student union one sunny day and noticed a bicycle heading my way on the sidewalk. While the biker was still 30 yards out, I started mentally thinking about where I would be in a relationship with him when he passed by. I wanted to shift my position so that I would be better prepared for a collision or attack. Bear in mind, there was nothing odd or threatening about this guy. Just a guy on a bike on the college campus.??

No doubt, this line of thought might be expected from Jason Bourne or some kind of action hero, but I was just another guy on the sidewalk. He was just another guy riding a bike.??

In that moment, I realized that my martial arts training was impacting my day-to-day experience in ways that I hadn’t realized. I was doing this kind thinking all the time but hadn’t paid attention.? I didn’t wake up one day and say, “I want to walk through the world being hyper-vigilant in case I’m attacked and think of every chance encounter as a potential threat.” On the contrary, I would much rather deal with each person as a kindred spirit in some fashion. I had learned martial arts to protect myself from bullies and not to imagine threats where they don’t exist.??

This was a pivotal moment for me. That very day, I stopped working in martial arts and looking back, I have no regrets about that decision. Instead of studying conflict in motion, I moved to collaborative practices such as contact improvisation. (Now, I see everyone as a potential dance partner, lol.)?

So I wanted to keep myself in motion so to speak but sought out some news ways to engage that were not related to fighting. This was an exceptionally valuable, and I guess I would say "lucious" experience. So many great moments.

Contact improvisation is a form of completely unscripted movement in which two or more people move together without music (generally). One main rule is that you and your partner must be physically in contact the entire time. It’s not about musicality or choreography—it’s about connection. Perfect for me.??

This leads to some very unusual-looking patterns of interaction. It’s not uncommon for one person to suddenly roll up onto a partner’s shoulder or to spend extended time on the ground rolling around.?

?I also did some workshops with Gabrielle Roth working with what people would call ‘ecstatic dance.”? Roth’s work is focused on movement as a path to “bigger experience” as it bypasses the mind. In this practice, you learn to express yourself from impulse to action, no censoring or worry about how it will look. If you feel anger, you dance anger. If you feel love, you dance love. It’s an incredible practice that has tremendous transformational power and provides a great foundation for a mindfulness practice as well as being in rapport with others in the moment, non-judgmentally.??

“We dance to reclaim our brilliant ability to disappear {our egos and judgments} in something bigger, something safe, a space without a critic or a judge or an analyst”?

After college, I wound up in Boulder, CO, home to the Hakomi institute, Rolf Foundation, Naropa, Network Chiropractic, Integral Institute, and many other teaching organizations well ahead of their time.???

Boulder is also home to Boulder Aikikai founded by Aikido master Hiroshi Ikeda (7th dan).? So I was psyched one day to discover he was offering a class for people called “Aikido movement.” What made this special is that it was not for students of Aikido? but rather, intended to teach people the principles of movement inherent in Aikido – no fighting.??Y-e-s!

After about 10 minutes of the first class he said to me “you are a dancer, huh?” I didn’t really identify as a dancer at all, but his point was at least some of my trainings was showing up in how I moved. Of course, that felt good to be seen and acknowledged.?

There are two major lessons in that class that really stuck with me. The Language of Mindfulness is in many ways a distillation of the “best of the best” from a lifetime of practice and study. In that process, there are a lot of good tips and meaningful lessons, but only a few foundational concepts that last a lifetime. There are two of them here, so listen up ???

I was working with Hiroshi on a very simply movement. The instruction was to simply put your arm up and make contact with the forearm of your partner, gentle but directly. So that you both your forearms are touching, skin-to-skin.?

So I did this movement several times with him and every time we made content, he looked at me straight in the eye and said “the body knows.” We did that about 5 times.?

Having done contact improvisation, and other somatic mindful practices, I felt I had some insight into what he meant. Your body knows exactly what is going on the moment. He was trying to say “get your brain out of the way, trust your body to move in a super-informed, intelligent way.”??

Athletes experience this kind of thing all the time. But I was never an athlete. I am not very coordinated, and I learned that for me to do any kind of physical activity well, I needed to practice harder than my peers. In fact, I was asked to leave a modern dance class and tossed from more than one ball team. I was the last guy standing when choosing sides for team sports (which were important where I grew up). That was me.???

Hiroshi’s statement was an awakening for me. I started to reflect on the time I was a teenager at a basketball practice.? One evening, out of the blue one of the boys across the court threw a basketball at my head. (Guys this age can be cruel where I grew up). I was looking down at the ground at that moment so didn’t see it coming.???(That was the point, I think, of him throwing it.)

Someone called out my name.

I looked up lifting myself erect and directly into the path of the oncoming ball. The ball was a few feet in front of my face, coming fast.

I was about to get creamed.??In the face. In front of everyone.

To everyone’s surprise, I moved my head 2 inches to the left. It would be more accurate to say that I watched as my head moved by 2 inches to the left.? The ball whizzed right by me. I didn’t think much of it, but when I looked at the faces of the guys on the court, they were astonished.??

The body knows.?

This was pure, direct experience. No thought, just direct action.??

This has happened to me enough times that I know it's thing. Not just a fluke.

One spring morning, I was walking outside in one of Boulder’s many great parks and had my 5-month-old son in one of those baby carriers that attach to the chest, rather than back? This let’s the child face forward and we enjoying beautiful day.??

Before I go on, if you’ve worn a backpack, you know that because of the weight, you have more momentum when you walk than normally. So that’s a change from how you normally walk. Now take backpack of 16 pounds or so and wear it on your chest. Now, your center of gravity is shifted forward. But more importantly, and something you don't hear about much, . You can't see your feet. So obstacles at your feet, while you're carrying a child around - are obscured.

This is tricky combo as I came to find out.??

Walking along, unexpectedly, my toe got caught on an uneven break in the sidewalk. Before I could figure out what was going on, I was falling face forward, with my son Zeke strapped on my chest. I knew this was potentially a serious disaster.??

I was aware that this was a serious moment, and what I did next had big consequences.

Unexpectedly, I had one very clear thought arise.

"Commit.”?

No kidding, that’s was the single thought.??

Then I did something I had practice many times before. A forward judo roll.

Because of Zeke's weight and volume on my chest, I realized I had to go all in. I made a massive effort to throw myself forward while curling my head toward my stomach as best as I could.

It was a strange sensation, like falling forward and deciding to throw yourself at the ground as hard as you could. It was kind of counterintuitive.

But I just went with it—throwing myself over, going with the flow, so to speak, but helping it a bit.??

By the time I hit the ground, I hit the back of my shoulders. Then, I just rolled on over as if I had done it a thousand times. Due to the added momentum, I somehow managed to roll forward from a standing position with Zeke attached to my chest, stumble and fall forward, then effectively do a somersault and roll back up to a standing position.?

The park was crowded.

People rushed to me to make sure Zeke and I were okay. They knew they had witnessed a near disaster, and it was, of course, alarming. Assuring everyone I was shaken a bit but otherwise okay, and Zeke, of course, was super happy at the ride, I rested a bit and considered my good fortune before going home.??

The point of this story is to underline the importance of what Sensei Hiroshi taught me.

The Body knows.??

How does this relate to mindfulness? There are two big take-aways.??

1. The body is always in the moment.?
2. The body knows?

This is why so many mindfulness practices focus on breathing or some other aspect of body sensing to bring you into “now.”??

It doesn’t ask “what if.” It’s not concerned about tomorrow. And there is an intelligence there that you can learn to trust.??

When you are mindful and present with others, pay attention to what your body knows. You can learn a great deal about your intuition in this way. But that’s a topic for another day.??

If you're interested in how to learn more about this.

Let me know. It;'s what I do.