toes, legs

today some minutes with heels off floor.  it is not standing on toes, it is balls of feet with toes stretched out relaxed for stability.  if the toes grab everything else wants to grab too.  if toes stay relaxed then a stable platform can be made on which the rest of the body can be draped.  after some small amount of time in bent-over-backwards the muscles of the anterior compartment of my left lower leg started to burn, so once again a tightness in that leg has been revealed, another one to work one.  in aikido we are always wanting to keep as much of the foot on the floor as possible, so is this toe stuff non-aiki?  don't think so.  any more than bendover in warmup is.  bendover is an exquisitely exposed position for the head based body: the butt becomes the most important mediator with the "rest of it" while the head & its sensors can't see what's going on.  bendover in aikido is a split second thing & rare.  all the more reason to do it in warmup.  it has endless things to tell about the hamstrings & low back.

fall.  i've returned to working in the downlow zone, exaggerated knee bends, walking around down there like groucho marx with a sword.  quads burn down near the knee.

legs have biggest muscles in boday but they are attached to the "nether regions" where the boday maintenance stuff is as the arms are connected to the "higher regions" where the desire functions are processed.  using the leg muscles inevitably reminds us of our bodily functions because every leg movement rubs stuff in the digestive/reproductive zone (while the arms just pull on the head).  so they thought let's immobilize the legs so they won't think about that stuff, more time for upstairs work.  thus we spend our days in chairs, the leg muscles are the biggest.

ways of throwing acorns at a tree:
1. left hand / right hand
2. throwing side foot forward / throwing side foot back
3. stepping forward with throwing side foot / stepping back with throwing side foot
4. stepping forward with other foot / stepping back with other foot
etc.
5. oh, and chucking it backward using a mirror, haha.

a lot to play with, starting with my left hand throw was always sucky, still is, but much better.

going back out again to do more balance on one leg stuff.

~2 years of almost daily morning workouts.

one leg stuff with a sword to keep the arms occupied.  lots of wobble.  long way to go.