use of sword in yogoid mode

I have been sick with tenacious green mucus upper throat. 2 weeks of un-painful cough, no fever, some malaise.  there was some outbreak of reverted old patterns.  here's hoping that i don't end up as the 9 year old i once was.

missed aikido 2x weeks.

i've been using the sword as a guide to the lines in my AM stretch.  holding it in any position will always give me something to align with.  if i move a part i can watch the sword perhaps not move demonstrating that i did the isolation correctly.

going through the various stretch movements things are done that are absolute nos in martial, like bending the torso over a straight leg.  in martial the leg would always be bent unless taking a breakfall, but in the AM stretch the goal is to produce the stretch burn in the outside of the forward leg, so the positioning is "anti-martial."

then there's that kneel thing that may someday turn into that superyoga position with the head back & a hand touching the over backwards touching the raised toe of the flexed kneeling leg.  i can't do that yet but the girl model in the yoga clothes catalog can.

anyway, use of the sword in yogoid mode.  useful.

sword

using sword in morning stretch routine.  the purpose of the sword in static (natural man for that matter) is to enable me to notice asymetries, torques, etc.  it demonstrates the axes.  when i move a part (head e.g.) the sword demonstrates that the rest of the body did or didn't move.  in walking it demonstrates my fore and back space otherwise it tends to bump into things.  exactly how close to my feet is "here"?

what is in front of me?  (after getting, after all this time, some approximate idea of what "in front" means, other than a screen, i mean)
what is to my left?
what is behind me (how do i know?)
what is to my right?
what is below me?
what is above me?
what is inside? (glub)
what is outside?

double visual

yesterday i worked on appreciation of 2 visual fields.  the brain pretends there is one field corresponding with the unified "itness" of everything that's not "me" but that is a perceptual joke: there are 2 curved images as we know.  yesterday i was appreciating that.  the attempt was to get the two ocular directions as close as possible to parallel which means as close as possible to an infinity focus.  that meant that i would be theoretically looking beyond the farthest object in the field.  in that "position" i tried to play the attention exercise with the eyeballs still and the direction of the attention changing.  ok then, so there are 2 attention spots to pay attention to, 1 for each eye, so that while the leftward attention sees a far edge in the left eye the right eye attention notes the bridge of the nose.  then of course it is possible to move the 2 attention points separately so that 1 is for example all the way in some directiion while the other is still.  attention is "all mental" so that can be done.  slight tweeking of the concept of "unity of purpose" is required, so like most exercises it is about walking and chewing gum at the same time.

still busy

had been feeling a squished feeling in chest, all bent over in the thoracic, oldish, what old people do, bent over, head forward, eyes toward ground.

what to do?  the morning routines, the aikido, the attention, still squished.

today i did the morning routine with the long stick, because i felt like it.  so,
1. for the attention directionals i held the stick at base of skull level behind the head.  continued through the head movements.  immediately some numbness in left upper arm, of course the shoulders get tired immediately.  keeping the stick in that position, relaxing the hands, keeping the stick not quite touching base of skull, arrange the rest of the back & pelvis, in all the stick helps to define the vertical & horizontal, the chest is lifted & spread by the needs of the shoulders, so the whole experiment with the stick is immediately rewarding (because a real experiment does not "succeed" or "fail" except if data is not obtained).

6-8 minutes of arms up at shoulder level gives some comfortable-with-discomfort practice.

2.contiuing into the torso movements the forced relationship of the 2 arms creates a different set of effects in the torso, increased burn in the side to side bendovers & some interesting where-do-i-put-my-head situations in the side leg stretches.

Planning to do again with the stick.  There is stuff there.

too busy

been too busy to write.  too was going for the 5th kyu test & didn't want to jinx it by imagining that i know how to do anything.  and really too busy.

that hot spot in upper outer left foot = gone & it can move all over without that adhesiony burn.  now there is another one on mid outer right foot, trying to find the position to make it burn.

have been doing things in morning that are never done in aikido like hyperextending the knees.  today in side bendover went straight down the front of the knee in hyperextension, a great well of burn up the front of the left leg.

also the side leg stretch without tightening the quad of the out leg.  still working on it.

relaxing quads in bendover

continuing with relaxing the quads in bendover.  i think the reason they do that is to guard the ligaments in the back of the knee.  that's great but we learn to fearfully overguard and it holds us back, largest muscles in the body bumping around, trying to be helpful.

in side-reach bendover i found there is a front leg and back leg, the front leg quad wanted to tighten as i bent over and fully extended the knee.  i spent the last year learning how to do the move without engaging the forward quad.  now i want to do other things without engaging the quad.  pivoting for example.

pivoting on the ball of the foot turned out to be no problem, quad stayed relaxed.  pivoting on the heel turned out to be difficult.  had to move the center of gravity around, had to try manual gentling, had to back off & try again.  i think though that i have established that the quads are not required to make that move.  can learn how to save energy.

this a continuation of what i did yesterday, when i researched unnecessary recruitment of the quad in side leg stretch: the application of gentling, etc.  the progression was: ordinary side leg stretch with foot flat on floor keep quad relaxed, at any point of the stretch (trunk moves away from that leg), rotate on heel, allow toes up in air. quad really wants to tighten up & guard.  multiple failed attempts.  gentling, etc.  fail and partial fail. 

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.