beauty comes first

"It is evident that a child will learn a piece of music more quickly where there is melody, rather than an exercise in which only technique is required. Therefore beauty comes first.  In the same way, yoga will be accepted by the body when it is done without resistance. The wave along the spine is like the melody in music. When the beautiful flow of extension is in action, this wave (felt along with the magical attraction of gravity) will help the body find the right adjustment in the performance of the various movements."

--Vanda Scaravelli

you are a journeyman

Apprentice is the beginner - the first years you work in a craft in the European sense you are an apprentice. That takes 3 or 4 years. Then you are a journeyman. You can go from one master to another and learn other tricks and other secrets.

-- Josef Albers

live with your hands unfolded

Son: What are your dreams for me?
Dad: My dream is for you to beable to live out your dreams. I like this old proverb that talks about when children are born they come out with their fists closed because that's where they keep all their gifts. As you grow your hands learn to unfold because you are learning to release your gifts to the world. So, for the rest of your life I want to see you live with your hands unfolded.

The Backwards Brain Bicycle

"...Be very careful about how you interpret things, because you are looking at the world with a certain bias, whether you think you are or not. "
Absolutely brilliant experiment so show how fixed the brain becomes...

the long body

The long body is a Native American term which refers to the individual body plus the life support systems around it. It is a much bigger conception of the human body than we have in western culture, and considers the body continuous with the larger environment.
The perception of our bodies as isolated units is dangerous because it doesn’t take into consideration that organisms live in context. We co-evolve with our habitats over many millions of years.
We think we have nervous systems to regulate our bodies- and we do- however the nervous system has other functions- for humans in particular -  it's purpose is to learn habitat and our social environment too.

-- Frank Forencich over at Liberated Body

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. ”

― Alvin Toffler

“The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.”

  --Voltaire

Johnny Dawes

  "What you learn helps you to find out who you are. The rock will show you exactly in what way you are not being you." --Johnny Dawes (via archclimbingwall)

learning to swim...methods are always changing!

a note.

Sometimes opening your eyes to knowledge's blind spots can reveal fresh solutions to old problems and give you an appreciation for the unknown. ...this is the journey I am on right now with all this yoga stuff. It's both terrifying and tremendously exciting to step away from my old dogmas, question assumptions and challenge paradigms, but change is hard!

I'm currently taking my time to adjust my work flow and research and implement new skills. It hasn't been easy to admit that there are plenty of gaps in my knowledge of how the body works and moves, but i'm taking the responsibility of unlearning and relearning to heart and hopefully this little space I tend to on the world wide web reflects that, tips and hints of things to look at always welcome!

learning to unlearn

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.”

-- a summation of Darwin’s workby someone in the 1960's...

Asimo and BigDog

Asimo, a humanoid robot made by Honda, has been developed using a computational model and is known for its smooth, fluid motions and sleek appearance.

Asimo is not an autonomous robot. It can't enter a room and make decisions on its own about how to navigate. The robot either has to be programmed to do a specific job in a specific area that has markers that it understands, or it has to be manually controlled by a human. Either by a wireless controller, gestures or voice commands.

CUTE!
But if Asimo falls midtask, then he's lost. I'm guessing you would have to command it to get up again...
Now I'm looking at these amazing inventions through the lens of 'a mover'. If I were Asimo, I would want to be more like BigDog.

OK, so not so pretty, but BigDog, a rough-terrain robot that walks, runs, climbs and carries heavy loads, and is powered by a system that is a more 'embodied' model of movement using senses, much like our nervous system. The robots on-board computer controls locomotion, processes sensors and handles communications with the user. This system keeps it balanced on a wide variety of terrains and handles navigation. AMAZING!!! The sensors for locomotion include joint position, joint force, ground contact, ground load, a gyroscope and a stereo vision system. Other sensors focus on the internal state of BigDog, monitoring the hydraulic pressure, oil temperature, engine functions, battery charge and others. The result is something much more animal, and look what happens when it's pushed over...

small black ashes

it is the exhalation that has to learn to be free
and to carry out of the body
all the unnecessary deposits
then the inhalation is just beauty, novelty
it comes, you don't have to think about it
but in the beginning
the exhalation has to be encouraged
to tke away all these small black ashes
that otherwise stay inside

-- Sandra Sabatini (Breath: The essence of yoga)