Parallel Joy

We run along parallel to many sources of joy, meaning and fulfilment if we define ourselves to narrowly. If we aren't able to overcome some of the barriers built of a lack of awareness or discomfort. If we aren't able to get to experience the other side. 

I tried some Capoeira classes last year. It was a wonderful experience that I definitely want to get more of. The teacher described the place where the beauty of Capoeira lies as a dance between the forces of gravity pushing down, and our strength pushing up. Each movement up goes down first. Each movement down starts by going up. There is a flow. When the forces equal each other, there is a lightness. Music. Poetry. 

I am training for the Comrades Marathon. At 89km long, there are going to be a lot of forces flowing through my body. It is famously difficult and yet famously open to everybody. You qualify by running a Marathon and entering before they hit the limit of 20,000 people. I grew up on the route. We used to cheer the leaders as they flew by. Bruce Fordyce and Frith van der Merwe were childhood heros. Fordyce winning every year for the first decade of my life, bar 1989. In 1989, van der Merwe obliterated the woman's record and finished 15th overall in a time of under 6 hours. Most people aren't uber athletes. Their cheers were a mixture of awe, sympathy, support and a transfer of any will power possible. They are parents, uncles, aunts, friends, colleagues and teachers who are waking up early or going for runs after work. Transforming their bodies. Slowly building up to finishing the race in under 12 hours. On the road almost twice as long as the legends.

Bruce Fordyce and Hosea Tjale (Comrades Marathon)

The Capoeira feels relevant as I slowly build up. I have been doing it very slowly. Following the advice that your breath is your best coach. If you aren't breathing comfortably, you are running to fast. As my muscles strengthen, and my joints get stronger, there are passages of running where that balance of gravity and my force seem to be in sync. When I am comfortably moving along. Breathing easily. Outside. Floating.

Wandering the routes around where I live, it feels like as my body slowly builds resilience, I am also growing into the area. Not quite like hoping on a train under the ground. I run past unusual shops. I recognise side streets. I discover alternative routes. Where I live becomes more a part of who I am, in the same way as I am becoming a runner.

Beyond some discomfort, lies a broader you. A stronger you. A you where the ups and downs of life find lightness of being.

Intention

Last night, Ponciano told our Capoeira class the story of 'The Tiger who killed a Wife'. The husband was so distressed, he grabbed his bow and arrow and went deep into the jungle to find the tiger. When he saw it, he stilled himself and fixed his gaze on the target. He pulled back the arrow and released all the pain and anguish at his loss at the tiger. The arrow sunk deep. He went across to the tiger and found that it was in fact a stone. A stone shaped like the one who had stolen his world. The arrow had not broken, instead it had sunk deep into the stone because his intention was so intense.

Like Eric Mead in the TED clip below, I have always been fascinated by the Placebo Effect. As a scientifically minded person, you want to strip out the story and make it replicable and testable. You can certainly do that, but it removes a whole lot of the good stuff. For some people something is only interesting if it can be proved wrong. If you can't say it in a way that has the possibility of it be shown to be false, it can be beautiful, but not 'interesting' in a scientific way. By its very nature, belief and intention are not replicable. You have to buy into stories. Through dance, art, poetry, music, writing we can feel beauty and we can do incredible things. I believe much of this is actually because we allow ourselves to drop our negative beliefs. The beliefs we have that say we can't do certain things. I described one of the first times this really sunk home for me in 'faking it'. Hypnosis can be seen as faking or it can be seen as simply a very deep state of relaxation where you become very open to suggestion. Real limits then act as your boundaries rather than the limits you create in your head.

Ponciano's story of intention is relevant for me. If you are able to focus your intention on something, it can be a form of hypnosis. A form of meditation. If you can relax out of any self created concern, you can become incredibly powerful relative to your doubt-ridden self. In my 5th class of Capoeira there are still a lot of real limits. I have to do lots of strength work. I have to teach my body the rhythms. I have to learn the forms before I can forget about them and just play. I thought the Tiger story was beautiful though, and diving into stories helps you learn.

My Capoeira adventure:

1. First Class - You have to start somewhere
2. Deep End - Learn a little, and enjoy
3. Shattered - This impact is bliss for your body
4. Left from Right, Arm from Leg - Training your body to have an awareness of where it is

Left from Right, Arm from Leg

The early stages of learning something can leave you completely disorientated. I had glimpses of 'ooo, I think I just got that' in class four of my Capoeira experience, but a lot of the time I was trying to remind myself whether a limb was left or right, or whether it was an arm or a leg. Every now and then we paired up with another Capoerista (someone who plays Capoeria) and practiced a few moves. Sometimes I was paired with someone relatively advanced, and the were all very patient. On one occasion I was paired with someone at my level. The two of us had the same wide eyed attentiveness I see in my niece and nephew when they are a tad confused but very keen. We would slowly go through the required routine, realise we were in a knot, laugh, and start again. Sometimes we would get it and think boom. Then try again, and it was gone.

I had been out of action for a few days with a cold, but was feeling good. I wasn't as lost this time. Perhaps it was because the Thursday night class is focussed on beginners and there was a guest teacher. There is a Dance Workshop on Sunday and a friend of the teacher (Ponciano Almeida) is here to join him for some demonstrations. They learnt together as little chaps in Brazil. Years and years of practice mean when they play everything flows. They aren't focussed on the mechanics. They can however slow things right down and demonstrate each bit in a fully conscious way.

When you are focussed on the mechanics, there are too many things to think about - so one limb can end up somewhere you didn't tell it to go. I would be focussed on trying to copy the teacher as I twist around and would realise that I was facing exactly the wrong way. A sense of humour is helpful. You are training your body to have an awareness of where it is without your help. I know from yoga that half of the challenge with inverted postures is this body awareness and balance. When you are in a head stand, you actually have a more solid base than you do when you are standing. Your elbows are bigger than your feet. Everything just feels weird because it is upside down. 

Perhaps this relates a little to Rugby. If your fitness isn't there, it is difficult to concentrate on the game or be in the right place at the right time.  When everything connects, the best players seem to have a sense of where the ball is going before it even gets there. Like Zinzan Brooke or Gary Teichmann who were there when they were needed to tackle, but when the ball was kicked downfield they also magically appeared.

Not magic, they also had to start somewhere.

Zinzan the Magic Man

Related Posts:
1) First Class - you have to start somewhere.
2) Deep End - learn a little, and enjoy.
3) Shattered - 'This impact is bliss for your body'.

I have started learning Capoeira at The Dance Attic in Fulham as one of my First 100 hour projects. Let me know if you would like to do one too, and share the experience.

Deep End

Do you dive in at the deep end, or gently wade? After my first class of Capoeira last Sunday, I attended a beginner's class on Thursday night. I also taught the first class of a 4 week beginner's Yoga course on Tuesday. Sometimes we get the option to be eased in to learning a new skill surrounded by those at a similar level. We get a teacher who adjusts the pace to the class and fellow students who are keen to learn and feeling similarly shrouded in mist. My aim as a teacher in the first yoga class is to leave the student with a feeling. I presume they are going to forget most of the instructions, but will remember having walked out of the class relaxed. 5 years after starting Yoga, that is one of the things that keeps me going back to the classes. Although how far into some of the postures I can go has changed, that is rather immaterial. It is the same slight edge forward and the same feeling that I tasted in my introductory class.

Source: Mojuba

I didn't count how many people were there on Sunday, but there were around 30 of mixed levels. The teacher had to try and cater to the various students. One of the great things about being thrown into the deep end is being able to enjoy a vision of where you can get to. If you are able to switch off the voice that says you obviously can't do it because you are missing every beat. I enjoy asking more advanced students how long it takes till the sense of confusion goes away. Till there is a gap in the mist. Mestre Poncianinho, my Capoeira teacher was talking about this on Thursday. There are only ever really gaps in the mist. You are always learning. In the beginning everyone feels like they don't know what they are doing. Then you go through a plateau where you gain a little confidence and start to feel pretty good about yourself. Then the mist descends again as you push a little further. Mist is good. It means you are pushing yourself a little. You need to concentrate. Too much mist is bad. It means you lose the path and the feeling that keeps you on it.

It is easier to give beginners a flavour of the feeling in small controlled groups, but sometimes you do get thrown into the deep end. It then becomes your job to not beat yourself up through comparison. Learn a little and enjoy.

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