by Mark Walsh
Intuitive centring
In this technique we ask, “What part of the body would be resourcing right now?” Go with whatever “jumps out” and don’t overthink it. You can then put your hand or just your attention there, and hold your awareness in this place for a few seconds. You can even ask that part of you what it has to say about the current situation, though I appreciate that this may be too kooky for some. Note, there are practices such as Focusing that go much deeper into such “body listening” methods and I teach coaching tools based upon them.
SEVEN WAYS I STAY CONNECTED TO MY BODY DURING DESK-BASED WORK
• Bookending (beginning and ending) the day with some simple yoga or other gentle embodied practice
• Stopping for a moment to notice how I feel before doing each new thing in my calendar
• Stopping work when tired (not exhausted), irrespective of what my calendar says; keeping work creative and playful, whatever it is
• Stopping to enjoy food and not using addictive eating as a way to not feel, or as a reward for overwork
• Walking in the park or around the house while taking calls
• Drinking lots of water, so I have to get up and pee regularly (timed reminders on a phone also work but are not as visceral)
• Doing a job that keeps reminding me, too (here, I’m just lucky)!
BREATH CAN BE A GOOD FRIEND
An early warning when I’m getting stupid or mean
A canary in the life-mine
An anchor when times are turbulent
A shit-getter-togetherer
A close friend. A dear intimate friend. A loyal friend
How long have we held each other, old lover?
A warm hug many times a day.
Embrace in. Embrace out.
A magnifier of passion and pleasure
Fuck yeah breath, throw my head back and turn me on, you sexy whore
A tidal reminder of change
A reminder of vulnerability. So precious…and never certain.
One day you’ll leave me, dear
A…dare I say it in this cynical world?…
A moving gateway to God even
LET ME BE BREATHED
I surrender. Kiss me through my veins
Breath can be a really good friend
HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR PRACTICE
Helping students pick and maintain suitable practices to develop their embodiment is quite a big part of what I do. In a world of choices, ways of picking are key.
Here are my top tips:
• What embodied capacity are you actually trying to develop? It all follows from this.
• Know that no single practice covers all the embodied skills that you could gain.
• Pick your focus, based upon your needs and your current preferences.
• Check out any teachers’ ethics. Never work with an abusive teacher, but accept that none will be perfect either. If you can’t see human flaws, RUN!
• The best practice is the one that you can practically do. Things like class schedule and the studio’s distance from your house matter more than may be apparent at first.
• Fall in love with the practice. Commit to it until then or for a minimal period, e.g. 3–6 months.
• Pleasure is your friend. If it’s always hard (after an initial commitment period), it’s the wrong practice.
• Be careful not to only follow comfort, which will just reinforce your patterns and neuroses. If it’s always easy, it’s the wrong practice too. Listen to your body for that deep, intuitive “hell, yes”, which isn’t the same as ease.
• Short periods of practise often over time are better than a lot all at once, and then nothing.
• How you do the practice matters at least as much as what it is.
• Who you do it with also matters tremendously; community, practice culture and friendships can help or hinder.
• How the practice integrates into your life, work and primary relationships is what matters. Most practices are terrible for this integration, so you may need to add more reflection, bridging practices (linking the activity to life), micro poses (see the pieces relating to EYP) and other life transfer methods.
It’s totally valid to ignore all of this and just go with gut instinct…just don’t fool yourself.
PRACTICE CHECK-LIST
After reading this book I hope that all readers will establish a practice if they don’t have one already, or reignite one that they have previously had. Here’s a check-list for both reassessing something that you’re doing, and for picking a new practice.
❑ I have a clear goal for the quality I’d like to build through the practice.
❑ The practice does not risk deepening my existing character flaws.
❑ The practice builds skills that I need.
❑ I have a plan to integrate learning from the practice into my life.
❑ There’s evidence that the teacher and senior students have become better people through the practice.
❑ It’s convenient. It fits with my life.
❑ My gut says “hell yes” to the practice. It’s definitely a body wisdom yes and not conditioning.
❑ I love it, or at least can grow to.
❑ I can stay open in this practice and be surprised by it.
❑ Doing this practice will make the world a better place (and not just make me feel better). Concretely and directly.
TODAY I DECIDED TO BE HUMAN
Today I decided to be human.
I went for a walk when I had “lots to do”, because busy is a choice.
I smelt the roses
and the dog shit…to be fair.
I watched some trashy TV
I ate what I liked and didn’t feel guilty.
I grunted in yoga and didn’t bother to try the “advanced” pose.
I didn’t pretend to transcend my money worries
and didn’t just say, “fine” when meeting people.
I got grumpy with my wife
and apologised a bit later than was ideal.
I sat with myself kindly on a park bench
and breathed.
I decided not to brutalise my body with mind-enforced deadlines.
I simply felt when was enough (food, work, sex, whatever)
and gave myself a break from self-tyranny.
Today I decided to be human.
I went for a walk, heard the birds blabber, ate a packet of non-organic, high-fat crisps
and forgave myself, for being
well …
human.
FOUNDATIONS
This chapter covers the basics of embodiment.
AWARENESS, RANGE AND CHOICE
“All I teach is awareness and choice. Once you get that, let’s all go to the pub”, I often say at workshops.
Embodied education involves:
1. Building awareness of our states and traits
2. Building range so we can step into different modes and build a long-term embodiment
3. Through these, we gain choice
Without awareness, range and choice there is no freedom. While embodied work may look complicated, it really just comes down to this simple list.
ON PRACTICE
You know intellectual learning alone doesn’t cut it. Imagine if I claimed to be a great lover because I’d read many romance novels, or suggested you’re safe to ride in my car because I’d been told a lot about driving. Websites and apps don’t help much let’s face it. Wikipedia has not solved the world’s problems. Learning about France is not the same as learning French, let alone knowing how the quality of light is in Paris, as you have your first coffee of the day there. The reason there’s even a field of embodiment is that we have forgotten some really very obvious truths about what constitutes learning (e.g. reducing learning to learning about things).23
The bad news is obvious – we can’t talk, read or theorise our way back into our bodies. I hope that it’s also good news not to be bu
llshitted about this obvious truth too. After all the motivational talks, board breaking and fire walking, endless advice and air-thumping workshops, what we really need is practice. It’s the only way we’ve become good at anything, so we know this. Anyone who has learnt to play an instrument, got good at a sport, or mastered a language knows this.
Our embodiment is what we unconsciously practise and can become something that we consciously practise too. THIS IS SIMPLE (if not easy). Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Grow up and get on with it.
NB: Ginny Whitelaw, Shinzen Young and Richard Strozzi-Heckler are all excellent on embodied practice.
THE BODY OF LEARNING
– West Midlands, UK
I’m 24. He swings the aikido staff at my head. Hard. I block as I’ve just been taught to and don’t end up in hospital.
I had to help him onto the mat ten minutes ago, and his breath smells of death. His skin is paper thin. Once I saw a section of it come off from a simple wrist grab and he used masking tape to patch it up so he could finish the class. Cancer. He should have been dead years ago, they say. I’m fit. Lithe. Strong without being bulky. My head is shaved. I’m a live-in aikido student of William Smith Shihan OBE, and the other teachers at one of the top schools in the UK. He’s a classic English gentleman and has taken me in. God knows why. The people here are kind and the real lessons from Mr. Smith aren’t really about locks and throws. Aikido is a “do”, a path, the practice is about character above all. Frankly, I need it.
Inside, the dojo smells of sweat, a little blood and the concentration that comes with real martial arts. It’s a dojo, so has a Japanese feel, though outside is a poor industrial area of England and certainly not The Orient. Later, I’ll live and train in dojos above nightclubs in Brazil, full of hot women and cold beer, on a personal growth ranch full of sensitive Californians and therapists, with academics at The University of Chicago, and even with a circus in East Africa. Eventually I’ll even get to the home of aikido in Japan, while working with coaches in Tokyo. But for now I’m in England, training in a very intense way.
My fellow “uchi deshi” (meaning “inside the door student”) Polish Pete is on the mat with me. Piotr, or just “Pete”, is the only foreigner here and made of Slavic iron cables. He’s far better than I am at dealing with the hardships of dojo living – washing from a bucket of cold water, never having enough food (we’re dirt poor and get by on odd jobs), and of course getting beaten up 5-8 hours a day. Kasia, his childhood sweetheart, smiles and waves from the side. I’m “her favourite English boy” apparently. Pete and I clubbed together to get her an EasyJet ticket to visit. At this time, Eastern European immigration to the UK had just begun and Pete didn’t speak English for the first year of our friendship. He hitch-hiked here from Poland and ate berries until he found a job.
A few years later, I’d be the best man at their wedding. A few years after that, Mr. Smith would be dead, and Kasia would die horribly of cancer too. I would stand by Piotr in a small town in Poland at her funeral, as he held it together the best he could, bringing dignity to the day. Two years after, he would dance by my side at my wedding, approving of my Polish-speaking wife. Then we would know what we had been really been training for with Mr. Smith: life in all its love and loss.
Later, I’ll realise that aikido isn’t special…even if your first love always is…and see rich embodied learning in other martial arts, then meditation, yoga, tango, conscious dance, bodywork and more. But for now, I’m fully immersed in trying not to die. Mr. Smith stops lovingly attacking me for a moment to explain that to get any pleasure you have to give yourself fully to what you do. To commit. It’s like being married, he explains, something I can’t yet imagine, but he’s clearly devoted to his wife. I listen with ears from the future, as I am not ready yet. He sighs, sees that I have enough breath back, and we go back to training, in a way that might look brutal, but is full of love.
THE WHAT, HOW, WHEN, WHERE, WHY AND WITH WHOM OF EMBODIED PRACTICE
To practise effectively, it is necessary to consider the what, how, when, where, why and with whom of any yoga asana, dance form, martial art or whatever. All of these factors can support or undermine a practice. They are always present and always impactful.
The what?
The form of a practice could be described as the “what”. For example, the asanas (poses) of yoga, the kata (movement patterns) of a martial art or the steps of a dance. The “what” is a framework for exploring oneself.
The how?
Critically though, “how” they are done is the real essence of embodied work, and is actually a simple definition of embodiment. If you do
a linear pose in a circular way, a loving meditation in a hateful way, a fierce move in a timid way, or whatever, it utterly changes the impact. The manner matters. The manner maketh the embodied man (or woman).
The when and the where?
The postures will be quite different when done at different times of day, times of the year and in different environments, i.e. the “when” and the “where”. The same pose during morning or evening, or during mid-summer or mid-winter, is not actually the same pose. Similarly, a pose done on a mountain top, in a forest, in a cathedral or in a modern office is, again, not the same pose. This is easy to miss, if you only practise in a controlled environment like a studio, which, while seemingly neutral, is not. Nowhere is.
The why?
The “why” of a practice also matters. What is motivating your practise? What is it in service to? An asana built with purpose is not the same one as one built without. This is subtle, but significant.
The with whom?
Lastly, there is always a social context for practice. “With whom” you are doing a practice (actual or imagined) will strongly impact it. Specific relationships (such as with the teacher), whether friends or lovers are present or whether you feel like you belong to a group are all factors.
CONTEXTS OF EMBODIMENT
Take all these contexts into account to gain maximum benefit from your practice. This image includes the “where” of practice previously mentioned (environmental), as well as the “with whom” (relational). It adds the fact that we are also cultural creatures (both historically and within a context), and carry the embodied heritage of our ancestors (the intergenerational layer). Most of what this book discusses is the personal layer of embodiment, and our shared biology such as the fight-flight reaction (part of the human core).
When we see a person, or in fact feel ourselves, we are experiencing at all these “layers” at once, which is why we should be cautious jumping to any conclusions. Perhaps we are just seeing a person’s bad mood that day, or how they relate to their kids, or something common to their culture, not who they are for example!
Contexts of Embodiment
CRITERIA FOR EFFECTIVE PRACTICE OF ANY EMBODIED ART
The following features should be in place for an embodied practice to make a difference:
• Dedicated: the sole purpose of the activity is to develop yourself.
• Controlled/simplified: by controlling variables, such as time and intensity, and simplifying conditions you can maximise learning and safety.
• Ritualised: this helps create a “container”.
• Social (in community): we learn with and through others.
• Reflective: make time to assimilate and reflect, again to maximise learning.
• Recurrent: you need to keep doing it to make practice permanent!
We can then apply the skills of a practice in daily life, for example by being mindful during the day, as opposed to in formal sitting meditation, but do not try and replace dedicated practice with ad hoc application. Ad hoc application is not systematic; variables can’t be controlled for ideal learning (try telling your spouse to be 20% less annoying to keep you in your sweet spot for practicing kindness for example), and consequences matter too much in real life to practise freely (“whoops, I lost my job” versus, “whoops, I fell over in tree
pose”).
A METHOD FOR EFFECTIVE TRANSFER OF PRACTICE “OFF THE MAT”
The previous list (criteria for effective practice of any embodied art) referred to creating a good “container” for a dedicated practice. This is vital. However, it’s also useless unless such practice transfers into daily life. To put it bluntly, what’s the point of having a great aikido throw or lovely yoga pose if you’re a useless arsehole?
Here one method that leads to transfer to daily life:
1. Intention: have life transfer as your intention from the start.
2. Form: practise a basic posture or movement.
3. Feel: establish mindfulness.
4. Check: ask yourself whether it’s familiar or longed for (shows habits and growth potential).
5. Notice: notice deviation from the “correct” form or method. You can also exaggerate “mistakes” and use contrast (this also shows habits).
6. Enquire: link to life. Ask yourself if more or less of this quality is needed in your life (or areas of your life).
7. Explore: ask what variation of this is needed (e.g. more peaceful or severe).
8. Integrate: discussion with and feedback from others is helpful.
9. Establish: practise micro poses, subtle variations of something you’ve been developing that you can do without looking “weird”, to apply in daily life.
Adapted from Embodied Yoga Principles teacher training notes. This is just a guide and exact questions may vary. Creativity and variations are encouraged. More generally transfer is maximised by intention before, life-linking during, and reflection after a practice.
HOW TO SUSTAIN A PRACTICE
Enjoyment and discipline, are not “nice to haves” in embodied training; they’re necessities for sustainability…and also not what most people think. If you’re going to continue something to at least the tipping point of 8–12 weeks, where you’ll get noticeable results, you’ll need to both enjoy the process of training but not rely upon pleasure. This goes for fitness, diets, language learning, improving your sex life and other things too. Over years of training in various practices, and guiding hundreds of students on The Embodied Facilitator Course, I’ve also observed a series of stages that it helps to understand – somewhat loosely framed here as a romance: