Overview

This first step is designed to get you feeling more connected to your body.  The closer and deeper you can feel connected to your body, the more the intelligence of the body becomes your ally in your body fitness and mind fitness. It is your first step to awakening to a deeper reality.

PART 1

Feeling the Body 

Step 1

Pick a simple exercise that you already know how to do and do it long enough that there is some “push” on you.  It could be a push-up, a plank, or simple lifting your arms out to the side.

Step 2

Do it how you usually do it, and as many or as long as you would normally do (one set).  

Jot down what you noticed, if anything.

Were you just doing it?  Did you checkout, just going through the motion?  Did it feel the same as it always does? Was there some mental resistance about doing the exercise?  Did you notice if you were suffering, especially towards the end of the set. Or perhaps you didn’t notice anything.  Whatever you noticed/didn’t notice, write it down or at least take a mental note of it.

Step 3

Let’s start “working-In.” First, let the body recover and get ready to do another set.  Notice your body without any push on it.  How is it to just “be” before the exercise begins.  Are your muscles ready to engage?

Step 4

Step 2: Integrating Feeling & Quality of Movement

In Part 1 of your training you felt your body in a deeper way when you did an exercise. In Part 2, you will practice feeling the exercise movement.  You will use your mind to follow the movement, learning to become one with the movement. 

Step 1

Step 1 is a sort of "pre-work."  The purpose of the pre-work is to get your thinking-only way of exercise in the background and replace it with the intelligence of the body.  If you do this, a new thinking takes over.  We are wanting to strengthen your being, as well as the doing.  Generally speaking, SLOW DOWN.  Resist the urge to "just do it."

Continuing from Part 1, stop and take a moment to feel your inner body, your presence.  Take an inventory of just being.  That will slow you down from just doing.  

Know the exercise you are about to do.

Think about and know which muscles are going to be used, and know the correct form of the exercise.  If you intimately know what muscles should be used and you engage them, you will find yourself being more precise with your movement. You will have a road map in your mind of what you want to “do.”  You will strengthen your muscles more quickly and efficiency if your mind is engaged.  This may seem like a lot of work, but you are exercising for a purpose.  If you exercise this way, you will need to exercise for a shorter amount of time.  So put effort into keeping your mind engaged, and you will need to exercise less.  Once you make this way of exercising a habit, your mental effort will lessen until it’s automatic.

Your body has recovered, and you are now ready to do another set of the same exercise.  

Notice your posture - get and stay in good posture.  (In many exercises, this means to pull in your abdominal.)

Notice your body without any push on it.  How is it to just “be” before the exercise begins.  

Step 2

As you did at the end of Part 1, start by feeling the exercise in your body.  All your attention should be on the body and the muscles that are going to be doing the exercise.  

Step 3

Become One with the Movement. Now that you are feeling your inner body, as you move, your awareness is going to stay with the movement.  Each movement has a complete motion to it.  Within that complete movement, there are many, many micro-movements.  For example, if you are raising your arm from the side of your body to the shoulder level, there are many many micro movements as you raise your arms.  Your job is to feel the micro movements within the whole movement.  How does your feeling of the muscles shift from one micro movement to the next?  Is there a change in You as you move through the movement?    

If you stay focused on the micro movements, Oneness and Presence will naturally arise.  Oneness and Presence is not a mental construct, it is a consciousness that arises from doing moving in this way.  You don't want to think of Oneness, you want to feel the Oneness.

Have no separation between the movement and You. You are tied to the movement.  

Jot down what you noticed, if anything.

What happened after you put awareness on your body?

What did you notice about your various body parts?

What did you notice, if anything, about your breath?  

After you finished the exercise, did you notice anything different in your presence or state of awareness? Were you quieter (are you quieter now)? Did the room feel the same? Were your senses altered?

Step 4

Part 3: Matching The Vastness of your body and mind.

In Parts 1 and 2, you felt your body in a deeper way when you moved through an exercise.  In Part 3, you will play with the Force within the exercise.  You will see your self as a force that will "match" the force within the movement. The reason is simple, to create deeper Presence and to see that force is not solid but permeable.

Step 1

Step 1 is to mentally understand the concept of "force." Force is the feeling in exercise that makes you feel uncomfortable.  If you are lifting a weight and it feels heavy, the force is the feeling of heaviness.  You can also think of force as the exertion by the body as you are exercising.  In this part, you are going to experiment with the feeling of Force.

Step 2

Just as in Parts 1 and 2, you are going to SLOW DOWN. You will do another set of whatever exercise you have chosen.  Set yourself up to know what you are about to do, know the muscles that will be engaged, get into the right posture. The difference now is that instead of putting your attention on the movement, you put your attention of the Force. Before you start, there will be no Force.

Step 3

Play with the Force:  As you exercise, notice where the Force is coming into your body. At the start of the set, the Force is usually small. It's critical that you "meet" that force head on.  With your attention, go into the Force the moment it first shows up. As you "meet" or "match" the Force, the feeling (uncomfortableness) from the Force will dissolve.  

When the Force increases, you may not be able to keep matching it. This is an important situation.  You will probably notice yourself thinking...thoughts like, this is too much, when will this be over, or distracting thoughts totally irrelevant to what you are doing. In other words, you will lose Presence, and the "small you" or "ego you" will show up.  It is important to see this, and watch this part of you show up.

Jot down what you noticed when you were able to meet the Force.  

What happened after you put awareness on your body?

What did you notice about your various body parts?

What did you notice, if anything, about your breath?  

After you finished the exercise, did you notice anything different in your presence or state of awareness? Were you quieter (are you quieter now)? Did the room feel the same? Were your senses altered?

Jot down what you noticed when you were NOT able to meet the Force.  

What happened after you put awareness on your body?

What did you notice about your various body parts?

What did you notice, if anything, about your breath?  

After you finished the exercise, did you notice anything different in your presence or state of awareness? Were you quieter (are you quieter now)? Did the room feel the same? Were your senses altered?

Step 4