When you read this, it is important to remember that everything I’m about to tell you is an idea based on patterns and dynamics. The problem, is that it is not clear cut. That’s why it’s so hard to communicate it through written or spoken word. What we claim to understand, typically is not what is actually happening. An aspect, at best. But never absolute. We are limited. Developing, yes. Well, maybe. But you get the idea.
A few weeks ago I got into a discussion with my older brother on a topic my teacher was sharing with him.
The 2 Opposing Forces
How can we translate vague concepts in order to make them more specific if only for a short time?
Yin and Yang.
Don’t let this world crush me. I expand in response. Part of me is being weighed upon. But another part of me is pushing back. Social pressures. Competitors. My own fears. They try and crush me, they try to make me small. But I access the power to open up. To be courageous. To fight for what I believe. To believe in myself.
‘I train to keep my mind and body open and moving outward.’ ~Jesse Lown
We used to train movement within stillness. Both Jesse and I trained this under Master Zhang. We focused on one aspect at a time. To gain familiarity. To really become sensitive to it. Yin and then Yang. It was an offset approach. It was brilliant.
But our experiences are never really just one thing or another. That’s too subjective. From a larger perspective both are happening at the same time. To be aware of both is important. To work in accordance, is even more important.
At a time when I am teaching my little boys about posture and what it means to show up in the world, I’m still learning how to explore expansion as well.
Open up and inflate. Feel the resistance. Work with it. Work opposite of it. Balance it out.
Training the 2 Opposing Forces changed my life. I didn’t understand why I was training what I was training at the time. But looking back, I smile at what it’s given me as a skill in this ever changing, brutal, yet beautiful dynamic.
Thank for reading.
Paul