37 Minutes of Balance
Optimizing Awareness
It hit me today, how much balancing on a rail could teach me about awareness and how that awareness is what fuels learning and propels expression in music-making.
Picture yourself balancing on a rail close to the ground or at the top of a fence. You have to allow your body to micro and macro adjust to prevent crashing to the ground. The bones in the foot are in motion as the center of mass adjusts to staying upright, not the same as staying still by any stretch of the imagination.
I like to practice balancing in low-stakes situations like on my balance trainer on the floor. I also take this to balancing on a fence at the playground because it is just plain COOL!
Today’s Parkour class was a challenge to balance for 37-minutes, falling off as few times as possible.
37-minutes sounds like a long time doesn’t it? Honestly, the time flew by and along the way, I learned some really cool lessons that I will take back into everything I do including practicing and performing.
First was the challenge of doing something difficult for 37 minutes, which’s more than half an hour. 37-minutes is a long time to do one thing! Along with my fellow balancers in their Zoom windows, we began.
My biggest challenge was definitely being comfortable in the quiet of a disconnected world with no to-do lists. My mind became active tossing around “should I or shouldn’t I”, items that needed to get done, and the fear that I wouldn’t be able to get it all done. Monkey brain run wild! I was able to quiet the thoughts and the monkeys by shifting my awareness to the micro and macro adjustments of balance. Inevitably the thinking would start again, but I began to more easily redirect my attention to balancing.
The correlation between a racing mind, and vision emerged. I didn’t see much when the monkeys were loose! My reminder that visual focus that includes the periphery is really important to maintain balance, just as it is in music-making. Why? Because vision plays into movement flexibility.
I learned to be in the moment, feel movement resonating through my body, and using my vision to my advantage along with hearing the sounds in my space.
I learned that I could simply respirate as I moved through the 37-minutes.
All of this is practice for my playing. Why? you ask. Because this challenge is a process of optimizing awareness.
What I learned during my balance challenge is the power of directing attention to what matters at the moment, without thinking ahead or back in time. Simply being right there in the present moment. Isn’t this what we want for performing?
Be curious…
Want to practice awareness as you move and build a better user’s guide for your body? Friday morning Body Mapping for EveryBODY! 11am EST
3/12 - Sacrum/Sternum Keystones - Better Movement By Understanding the Body