Gaylyn AitkenYesterday I took my wee dog for her morning walk and as I had a zoom class with one of my students scheduled for later in the morning, I took that opportunity of quiet space to sense the direction the class will take. What came to me is what I’d like to share with you in this article.
This young lass is a bodyworker of Lomi Lomi and has connected with me to learn how she can be more graceful in her movements and how to build mana (life force, power).
Grace and mana may appear separate but are in fact contained within each other, the yin within the yang within the yin.
Building mana or life force happens when we use the least amount of effort for the greatest amount of force. Looked at in this light, movement then has an energetic value, the more conservative we are with our gestures the less energy we use thus more energy stored for future use.
Grace lies within the mana building process. We must first become aware of the feeling of the body, the feeling of the breath and how it moves within the body. The opposing motion of expansion and flexion is the primal movement of the universe and is expressed within the breath then the body. Every breath we take contains a subtle message on the state of our nervous system and energy lines if can but feel it.
Lying quietly on the floor feeling your breath moving your body, you learn from yourself what happens when you inhale and exhale. These two movements are the foundation of all human movements and are primary to sensing the reality of how your body functions naturally. My latest video posted on the front page and my YouTube channel, a guided Constructive Rest session, may give you some guidance.
The mountain range that needs to be mastered before we go any further is the mind. Our mind is not in our body, its frequency is higher than matter, so the mind is our master and our body is the servant. This is a very simplistic statement I know, but it can give one the idea of the relationship our mind has to our present physical circumstances.
The way I access the body’s truth is not through my mind but through the awareness or the feeling of my body responding to my breath. Whether the breath should be this way or that way is not relevant, it is what it is and we simply feel it. We can then bypass the rights/wrongs/should/shouldn’t/good /bad, the classifications our mind throws onto our path.
The body will always move in a particular way when we reach and extend and as we flex and crouch. We can access that awareness through awareness of the breath moving the body and when we bypass the mind and allow the intelligence of the body to move us freely and lightly, unencumbered and unrestricted by tight tense muscles, our movements become flowing, graceful and energetically sound.
You don’t have to be athletic or interested in exercise, you could be a couch lover or passionate about your gifts and skills that don’t feature activity, but we’re always moving because we’re alive, we breathe and the body is set into motion. Every now and again, stop what you’re doing and just tune into your breath, feel it coming in and out then expand your awareness into your body, feel your body breathing. Let it move, let the graceful flow of universal motion draw you close to yourself, to the soul within.
Jacq Koloski
Gerard Bini
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