Body Mind Mastery by Dan Millman

Author:Dan Millman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781577312994
Publisher: New World Library

Strength

Nothing is so strong as real gentleness; nothing is so gentle as real strength.

— Anonymous

If you had no voluntary muscle tissue, you would spend your brief life as a puddle of protoplasm — a heap of skin, organs, and bones. People with muscular disabilities appreciate that which we take for granted: the ability to move at will.

Any physiologist will tell you that if you stimulate enough muscle fiber for a given demand over a period of time, the body will build larger fiber to meet the demand. Muscular strength increases in proportion to the effort of training. That all seems straightforward. Yet there’s more to muscle than meets the eye.

We all appreciate that strength is one of the primary qualities that comprise physical talent. But many of us do not use strength most effectively. Strength involves more than the ability to contract muscle tissue; it also involves your ability to control movement.

Many athletes who train intensively for strength develop large, powerful muscles, but may nevertheless have diminished effective strength because they are generally tense and haven’t ‘‘educated’’ their appropriate muscle groups in complementary tension-relaxation. They therefore can’t hit or throw as hard, run as fast, leap as high, or react as quickly as they might.

Since effective strength is the ability to relax the proper muscle groups while consciously tensing others, it should come as no surprise that babies have this ability. Put your finger in a baby’s grasp, and try to pull away. Those little hands are surprisingly relaxed — and surprisingly powerful.

Greatness lies not in being strong but in the right use of strength.

— Anonymous

One study compared the movement abilities of six-month-old babies and some professional football players. The athletes tried to copy every movement and posture of these babies for ten full minutes without stopping. Not a single athlete could keep up; they all dropped out from exhaustion within a few minutes.

Bodybuilders may appear to be the strongest athletes in terms of weight they can lift, but in the economies of strength, women gymnasts, who have less muscle bulk, embody effective strength in action. And look at the cat! You don’t see any muscle-bound cats walking around, yet what athlete can match a cat’s movement? I’ve seen cats jump ten feet straight up from a sitting position. A cat can be soundly napping, then instantly spring after a mouse with blinding speed, then, just as suddenly, stop and clean its paws, totally relaxed. The cat carries very little tension. You can squeeze its muscle to the bone, and it will show no pain. Try squeezing your calf muscles to the bone, and feel the tension.

Various exercise systems emphasize relaxation-in-movement as a primary objective. One such system, called eurythmics, involves the gradual tensing and relaxing of different parts of the body to a regular rhythm, coordinated with the breath, while maintaining complete relaxation of the rest of the body. It’s possible to eventually master the conscious tensing of twelve different parts of the body independently.

To experience relaxed strength, try the following exercise from the martial art of Aikido.

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