You Are An Orchestra

You Are An Orchestra.

“I can play all the right notes, they’re just in the wrong order…”

Morcombe and Wise.

“When you are exercising, moving, playing, consider that all of this is also skill development, which means practice and good repetition leads to mastery.  By coordinating your movement rhythm with your breathing and your thinking, you’ll move with efficiency, grace and power; you’ll FLOW.”

You’ve probably noticed that people who do things well make whatever they are doing look easy.  Behold the Federer backhand, Messi’s movements on the field,  the way Lindsey Vonn negotiates the mountains she skis. These people are movement symphonies and they’re tuned into the most efficient way of doing what they’re doing. Start by being mindful of your quality of exercise.  It’s easy to start thinking you just need to “get through it”.  Consider how you pick up the weight, how close your knee is to the ground when you lunge.  In short, are you maximizing every exercise? Are you breathing through every repetition?    Extreme flow. Consider the runner, who looks like his shorts are full of ants and he’s being chased by a mountain leopard, running for his life.  See the bench-presser, squirming around like they’re wrestling John Cena?  Now watch a top power lifter, confident set up, positive simple self-talk and breathing timed to perfection with the movement.  That’s what we want to aim for. Feel the rhythm of your running steps.  Allow your in and out breath to synch, repeating a phrase like “smooth, light” as you run…

Bench Press this, squirmer.  “Entrainment” means simply “the synchronization of organisms to an external rhythm.”  Drop that one at your next dinner party.  If we consider how music motivates us, it’s because we can find our rhythm in the music’s rhythm and our breathing can find it’s rhythm in those rhythms and then we can find words that describe that experience.  Combine that with a runner’s high and you’re on your way. Your body loves rhythm and it’s designed to find it.  Often, simply relaxing a bit, taking some pressure off, will allow better “entrainment.”  Tai Chi, Yoga, dancing of nearly every kind, martial arts like Capoeira, Aikido, Judo and many more all ask us to loosen up (see second picture) find some rhythm and get into the “flow.”   Here’s your second dinner party winner to drop: “Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.”  Thanks Wikipedia. No ants or Leopards were hurt in the writing of this blog.  Now go flow…

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