If you were to stand on one leg, for as long as you can, what would you notice?
Would you hold your breath to keep upright?
Tense up somewhere to stay still?
Tighten to stop wobbling about?
Maybe you’d fix your eyes, grit your teeth, brace your shoulders…
to stop yourself losing balance and falling over?
Try it.
You have an awesome, intelligent structure: your body
It does pretty incredible stuff.
Constantly seeking to maintain and return to homeostasis (a balanced state),
whilst responding and adapting to constant change.
Intricately designed to be optimised and sustained in movement.
Our musculoskeletal system beautifully supports this.
And is nourished, hydrated and primed for efficient functioning, through… yes, movement.
Back to standing on one leg.
So, because of our design
balance is not a fixed position or point in time.
Rather, it’s a dynamic, ever adapting, way of being
that responds
to the task
or function at hand,
how we feel,
what we believe.
Balance is movement.
It is an expansive state and more multi- faceted than we think.
(Posture is too, by the way, but for another time.)
Movement begins in the brain
And is regulated in the nervous system.
We live with loud
ramped-up
nervous systems.
Fed (in part) by chronic unconscious tension and stress
that accumulates over time.
Have you ever been somewhere so loud
you couldn’t hear yourself think?
It’s the same with our nervous system.
Too much background noise
and you can’t ‘hear yourself feel’!
Move away from pushing yourself into a fixed state or shape.
Balance is a moving, breathing, state-of-being.
A playful, learning perspective through movement.
Not a right/wrong, good/bad perspective.
Fixed in time.
Moving with attention,
noticing difference
grows new neural pathways,
creates possibility for new abilities
and for change to emerge.
More on how to do that tomorrow.
Movement is key. Movement is LIFE. Movement is FREEDOM.
Until then,
How can you playfully move into and out of balance?
It’s part of living life after all.
Ruth x
Here’s some standing on one leg music from Andrew Bird. Playfully move in and out of balance and see where it takes you.
Last week was trying. While it was heartbreaking in one moment, there coexisted bliss in a kiss. There it was. I looked at it while in that moment and learned something valuable. Life isn’t balanced. I have to surf it and keep in the flow. I may biff but I will get up again and again and......
Balance comes in the not trying too hard