Listening to George Harrison’s first song on the second side of the BEATLES’ Sergeant Pepper album left an indelible impression and invitation upon me as a young man. Have you listened to it recently?
I heard it in the summer of my eighth year several times in different settings with different people. I did not know what albums were yet, only music on the radio or in the company of my not much older uncles.
Third grade into fourth grade. Within You and Without You. “We were talking about the love we all could share — when we find it to try our best to hold it there with our love. With our love we could save the world— if they only knew. Try to realize it’s all within yourself no one else can make you change and to see you’re really only very small and life flows on within you and without you.” It seemed magical and real and an invitation.
I invite you to make some simple moves guided by breath in three dimensions.
What is needed for hand balances? How do they build? How do we enter and exit? Where is shtira?
Beginning again means asking familiar questions and looking for the answers in the posture, observing what doesn’t work, and what does. Learning twice, and twice again in Beginners Mind.
I recorded this last night because I must be on the road during our usual time. Here we observe three planes of functional spinal movement with breath. I invite you to recall warm-ups of this past week and to practice from whatever you can recall. If you cannot recall, then reboot yr favorite livestream recording and use that.
This week marks the start of a new endeavor at the SAMURAI INTI Martial Arts Studio in Frisco. I’ll be teaching i a group class there at Sendai Sebastian Mejias ‘ dojo on Monday and Wednesday mornings.
Although not a true morning wake up, the song remains the same.
Today’s practice is my first intentional movements with breath. Three planes, lymphatics, joints. That’s the way we address the experience written in our bodies like physical graffiti. Through our intentional breath and movement we recognize our state of being dazed and confused. We can move with grace through good times bad times. We awaken our bodies like houses of the holy. Not to say that our practice is a stairway to heaven, but we cannot hope to get clear and strong if we try to sneak in through the out door.
You don’t need to go down to the seaside, or over the hills and far away, or even to california. Practice wherever you are in the light.
And after practice? It’s a celebration day. Eat a Tangerine, I will listen LOUD to a British rock n roll band who made their fortune in the U.S. of A. I will boogie with Stu and my black dog. These are dancing days. Led Zep is dead, long live Led Zep....