Day Twenty Five: Mind Over Matter

Peter says, "Goodbye," with a friendly shove into space

It's blowing my mind the stuff we're learning at this Effortless Power workshop. It's being shown the ultimate power in the body, how it is intrinsic, and requires no strength or tension to apply. Don't get me wrong, it's hard to master throwing people while being completely relaxed and using no force at all, but watching it done and the entire concept is amazing. The tools designed to train your body and retrain your mind are also a lot of fun.

Fitness/Aikido: Skipped the Morning Training and had moments of bounciness during the day, especially during Pressure No Pressure at the end where Dave seemed to be taking it easy and having a laugh at my expense. So I upped the anti and destroyed him. He was panting more than anyone by the end. Heh. We also got to play Game A today, which I love. Game A requires both participants to remain in contact with each other while one person tries to make the other move in a way they don't choose to, then the roles are reversed once they are successful. Probably hard to envision, but it's like a rampant game of trying to throw each other with your hands tied together. You learn fluidity of movement very quickly. 11am till 8.30pm in the dojo is still a long day...

Derby: I need an extreme crash course on strategy, but being as green as they can get I also need to start garnering experience as quickly as possible. My mind blanks out on the track, which is possibly the most useless thing ever. I have a sneaking suspicion I know why this happens though, it's because of the blank spots in my strategy and experience. There's nothing there to call on because I haven't filled it up yet.


As an aside Peter was talking about fighting and I swear this guy sounds like he exists in a perpetual "Bullet Time" mode without realising the rest of us don't. His adaptability to the now is almost unquestionable and his response time quicker than anything I've seen. I can only hope to achieve that level of now awareness. The moments where everything seems to slow down, that's when your brain is 100% engaged in the moment and not the past, future or concepts (where it spends most of it's time hanging out and blurring the seconds together for you). To be able to engage more fully in the moment especially while playing, fighting, jamming, whatever... it would make you a force to be reckoned with.


Diet: Got up early enough for breakfast, weetbix, tried to have a cup of tea but we only had green milk and it was just disappointing. Fish burger combo for lunch (L&P for drink), banana snack, chocolate milk, Burger Fuel for dinner (Bio Fuel) and a handful of blueberries when I got home. We do get 90 minute meal breaks but it's not enough time to venture home and back, plus my mind is so squishy that thinking of food is damn near impossible. I stood outside with my keys for five minutes unable to think of a single place to acquire food from until Lucy said she was headed to Burger Fuel and I should come. Yes, thank you, they probably sell food.

It was three times as cute as this

Sleep: Woke up at just after 6.45am when my body had decided that was enough sleep for the night, which was a bit sad because I was having a lovely dream about how there was a secret zoo up the top of the harbour bridge with baby giraffes. They were about the size of cats and all really liked me and fell asleep on me. So cute. Tess got pictures, but only dream pictures, which I don't think we have the technology to develop yet. But yes, I seem to be getting enough sleep but I think it's just the extreme mental intake that is causing me to feel so sleepy at the moment. I'm not tired, my brain is just processing a lot, which feels almost exactly like being tired.