Renegade Yogi

Self-monitoring

So there I was, doing Level 3 with legs, thinking about what I would post here. I certainly do want to impress everyone. Not with my dance of shiva skills or level, but my ability to extract entertaining, personal, and insightful stories out of my practice.

That’s what I was thinking about. And it hit me. A small hit. Not a megapiphany. Just a small bit of understanding:

My body feeling is smarter than my vision.

They say seeing is believing. But more often, feeling is believing.

The realization came when I closed my eyes a few times and decided not to follow the video. I did better (though there were mistakes). How was it better? I knew that I was choosing what to do next based on my feeling, and not based on what I saw Andrey do. It was me leading, not me following.

Just another reminder that my body learns and remembers faster and longer than my mind. But my mind likes to monitor my body, for fear that it will make a mistake. What in my history could have caused this?

This totally explains why I am drawn to Tai Chi, Kung Fu, Dance of Shiva, and other physical wisdom traditions.

I most definitely have been having lots of insights from Shiva Nata and my other practices. The self-monitoring thing is the biggest thing I am facing right now.

Self-monitoring holds me back. I don’t hold myself back as much as I used to. People used to say I would stop myself from laughing. I don’t do that anymore. But I always want to know what I am doing, be totally aware. This is my safety net. In concentration practice, I realize that that is my next obstacle to surmount.

I hold back a little piece of myself that watches the rest to make sure I’m doing it correctly. I suppose this lets me learn quickly things that really require that kind of awareness. But by holding a piece of myself back, I don’t give myself fully to an experience. In concentration, it is the breath. I commit to giving myself fully to each breath, and I keep a little part of my mind to monitor myself to make sure I’m doing that. How silly.

Part of the Buddhist concept of “beginner’s mind” is that you face things anew. There’s a sense of adventure and openness that I can’t have if I hold even one piece of myself back. It’s about facing the unknown future as it becomes the present with a whole self.

I’m about to sit for concentration practice. I’m going to have a little talk with myself to ask my monitor to jump into the breath with me. See you after practice.