The other day I was in the gym and noticed someone walking
very oddly.
Noticing this person got me to thinking about the basics in
this art and how they have changed my body mechanics in what I do in the gym
and in my everyday life. Let me give you
some examples.
Breathing: Are my fellow gym denizens using all of their
lung capacity or are they chest breathing?
With chest breathing one doesn’t exchange as much air as one can when
compared to the way we are taught in this art.
Walking: I see a
lot of people walking with their toes splayed in or out or moving forward by
falling onto their front foot. The way
we’re taught to walk helps prevent injuries and produces power -- why walk any
other way?
Structure: So
many people have poor posture and I’m no exception. Just as I was typing this, I corrected my
sitting. We’re lucky because we know the
right way to sit and stand while so many people don’t. We learn this very early in this art.
Intent: In
working out, why do it half-assed? Focus
on the task at hand and give it all you’ve got.
Most of the regulars that I see do this.
The newbies will become regulars if their intent is solid and unwavering. Again, we learn this in class.
Imaging: When
lifting a weight, doing a sit-up or some other exercise, I see so many people
wearing ear buds, watching the TV monitors, or talking with their friends. In doing any of these, they cannot picture
their body structure to see if they are in proper alignment or imagine their
muscles in their mind’s eye growing and expanding. Doing this takes concentration and focus and
being mindful, which is hard but will give one a better workout than focusing
on anything else. We know this from our
classes.
Sung: I’ve seen
someone who blazes away on the treadmill with his shoulders a little below the
level of his ears. This person is not
sung. In fact, it takes effort to get
and keep his shoulders so high that he’s expending a great deal of needless
energy in that effort. It’s so much
easier to move when one is at his/her ease, using only those muscles that are
needed. How often have we practiced this
in the Dragon Rolling the Pearl posture?
We learn so much in this art that makes us more efficient in
our body mechanics, which helps us stay healthier and be more effective in any
type of physical labor. And we get this
as an addition to the martial training. I
think that’s really neat.
By the way, I make every one of these mistakes and am always
correcting myself. But I know when
something needs to be changed because these basics been taught to me. I don’t have to learn it on my own like a
non-JBZ person would. That’s another
added benefit to this art.
