Your body is not just a piece of flesh and bone for transporting you around and manipulating physical objects at your whim. It is a sophisticated entity with its own intelligence. It talks to us all the time.. unfortunately, in modern living, people live in their brains and don’t listen to their bodies. We have become separated from this fundamental part of ourselves.
Your body knows how to relax and breath by itself - it does it while you are asleep. When we are stressed, the mind tries to tell the body how to breath, which it does badly resulting in shallow unhealthy breaths. The mind constantly makes the body tense.. It is only when we schedule time e.g.: to meditate that the mind gives the body permission to relax. Or we zone-out looking at TV or the internet.. but again we are in our minds while the body is disregarded. We are continuously fighting our bodies and we don’t even realise it.. until, that is, we get stronger messages like aches, pains or injuries.
Your body is trying desperately to talk to you. It tells you when things feel wrong - the ‘gut feeling’ that we are making the wrong decision. The relaxation of muscles when a worry is removed. Our heart races when we are excited or meet a loved one after being separated for a time.
True Kung Fu requires that we are in connection with our body, our mind and our heart all at the same time. But we can’t ignore our body 95% of the time and then suddenly expect to exert control over it when we need it.
We need to be in partnership with our bodies. That takes practice. It needs to become a habit. Your body is wise. Stop once in a while and listen to what it is trying to tell you!
