So I dare you, because it’s difficult to mash mean moods and sever silly sufferings. It’s tough to create compassion, kindness, and kick-ass, cool-heartedness. Our world needs it now. You can do it. You are The One. So take this Dare-Pill and see how far this Post-Hole goes.

I dare you.

1. Giggle. Right now. Fake it if you must, but giggle right now. Start slow, get the giggling murmuring. Giggling is good for you: the sound, the feeling. Let your giggle grow. Feel your face change shape. Listen to the crinkling and crackling as your jaw loosens. Hear your face bones begin resonating. Giggle good. I bet you sound silly.
2. Make a funny face. Do it. Contort your eyebrows, and wiggle your ears. Try, real hard; force one eyebrow to go up, the other down. Keep trying. Push it. Grit your jaw like the bad guy, the villian, the nasty-man in the movies, then — open wide as sudden shock. Widen your eyes; hold it. Wait for it, wait for it, wait for…the welling, the tears. Blink. Blink. Blink a bunch.
3. Cry. It’s okay. You can do it. Sob a bit, just a little, to water your eyes. Like a fresh well, welling up, crying is good for your body, your mind, your spirit. You’ll need no self-pity here, just cry. Whether it’s been a while or you did it just a minute ago, start with a muffled sob. Pucker. Blink. Look and feel sad. (Real, deep-down sadness is not pity; it’s that daring feeling of deep solitude.) Let your eyes well and brim and leak and flow. Cry. It’s okay.
4. Yawn. Sometimes it takes some priming: breathe in a bit, push it out, breathe in bigger, push it out more, breathe in fully and savor it, savor it, before releasing it. Yawn big. F-F-F-Fahh! Let your breath burst in, jaw crank open, eyes flood with tears. It’s contaigous because everyone want one: one big yawn. The great divide between rest and no-rest, stress and no-stress, your yawn might set you free. Your yawn could catch on, setting others free.
5. Find Awe in That. Pick something boring or unusual. That pen, this eraser, that plant (good choice), this window sill, that cloud (good choice), or choose your toenail. Whatever you choose — marvel at That! Wow. Discover your Awe-Ability. Look at That! It’s amazing: make sure to open your eyes wide and your mouth big — listen to it, smell it (even if it’s far away —try— it’s awe-filled), lick it. Wow. That was cool.
6. Stop it. Don’t even read on… Don’t do anything. I said: stop it. Turn this off. Rest. Stop. Lighten up by lightening your load. Rest. Stop it. It’s tough, I know your mind chatters on, but let go of keeping track of it all and everything. Exhale smoothly and softly and release that petty thinking about that thing you’re thinking and instead, stop. Lighten up.

Please share the dare in comments. I bet you have some good stories.

The kicks in the Yang Chen Fu Form give my balance a run for its money. In the beginning, my balance was all over the place. I’d fall out of all of the kicks, or, at least, I would make big, awkward adjustments, fighting to not fall out. My balance issues exasperated the slower I did my form.

Nowadays, I work my balance using the 4 Corner Balance Drill (4 CBD) from Scott Sonnon’s Warrior Wellness DVD (replaced by his Intu-flow DVD). As a part of my daily joint mobility exercises, I do a round of the 4CBD, holding each posture for 5 slow and even breaths. I attribute my increased balancing prowess to this ingredient in my routine, and I encourage those having balancing woes to try it out.

Integrating this exercise into practice improves balance and grounding while performing kicks. In addition to better balance and grounding, you’ll gain experiential knowledge of how gripping the ground with your grounded foot and toes helps root and balance. To top it off, you’ll gain functional flexibility.

Watch the following video and try it! Post your experiences, difficulties, successes, and ideas right here, please. If you can’t figure it out, shoot me a message or purchase Warrior Wellness.

Four Corner Balance Drill

“No pistol shooter, no matter how expert, can hold a pistol in firing positions without some motion.  This is called the arc of movement.  The very best that any shooter can do is to keep the arc of movement at a minimum—it cannot be eliminated.” The N.R.A.’s Basics of Pistol Shooting (57).

For humans, perfect stillness does not exist in the living. Our bodies constantly make adjustments, large and small, to maintain even simple postures. In marksmanship, constant adjustments add up to what is called the arc of movement. The arc of movement is the amount that the firearm moves as a result of a body’s natural inability to maintain perfect stillness.  The greater the arc of movement, the more difficult it is to maintain proper site alignment which leads to inconsistent marksmanship.

At first we might think that to minimize the arc of movement we need to force our arm into stillness. This severe willing of stillness inevitably leads to muscles contracting, causing tension as well as motion. Anyone who has tried showing off their bicep could tell you that intense muscle contractions cause trembling in surrounding muscles. We can conclude that forcing our arms into stillness leads to a greater arc of movement, the exact opposite of what we want.

Now we may conclude that, since willing our bodies into stillness causes an increase in arc of movement, then perhaps relaxing our bodies has the opposite effect. This would be correct, but it overlooks the fact that if we were completely relaxed we would collapse to the ground under gravity’s pull. The arc of movement decreases dramatically, but we couldn’t stand to shoot a firearm.

The answer is, you guessed it, somewhere between these extremes, but where? And how do we find it? Muscle tension is required to stand, hold the firearm up, and squeeze the trigger. We must figure out what tension is necessary and what tension is superfluous. To figure out this challenge, we will examine Qi-gong.

The ancient art of Qigong brings insight into minimizing the arc of movement.

In Power Taiji, Erle Montaigue explains that “Qigong literally means ‘internal work’…any physical and/or mental actions combined with certain breathing methods that cause an internal flow of energy” (1). Qigong is practiced as a meditative, relaxing exercise to increase health, and it’s used to cultivate physical and mental power and awareness. It’s practiced as a moving exercise or as a static, standing one. To explore minimizing the arc of movement, we will concentrate on standing Qigong.

In static or standing Qigong, the practitioner holds a particular pose. This practice usually focuses on experiencing relaxing while still maintaining proper posture. In other words, practitioners aim to learn how to use only the necessary amount of muscular tension to hold the pose. This is difficult because, as the practitioner starts to tire, more muscles crave participating to compensate.

Relaxing into the pose, teaches practitioners to tap more into Type I Muscle Fibers. According to Gerard J. Tortora and Mark Nielsen, in Principles of Human Anatomy, Type I fibers “are very resistant to fatigue and are capable of prolonged, sustained contractions for many hours…[and are]…adapted for maintaining posture….” (298).  Once we teach these muscle fiber the posture, we need to get out of their way and let them do their job.  Keep in mind it isn’t black and white.  Through experience, we learn which other muscles besides Type I are necessary and which are just excess.  In addition, by relaxing, practitioners may begin to feel the tensile strength of their connective tissues and the supporting role they play.

Through regular practice of Qi-gong, we discover deeper awareness of our bodies and tissues. Our awareness can be applied to the stance and body structure needed for the practice of marksmanship. Instead of relying on muscular tension to position ourselves in front of a target, with our new found awareness, we work to relax all those muscles that unnecessary. By minimizing the amount of muscles doing work we will minimize bodily tremors that accompany excess tension, and we, in turn, minimize our arc of movement.

Quiet down and allow your body to do what it knows how to do.

We examined physical awareness. Let’s turn our sights to the mind and its relationship to the arc of movement. In the Inner Game of Tennis, Timothy Gallwey tells us that “if the conscious mind thinks it…knows which muscles are actually needed…and tries to control those muscles, it will inevitably use muscles that aren’t needed.  When more than necessary are used, not only is there a waste of energy, but certain tightened muscles interfere with the need of other muscles to relax…which will actually impede…[the outcome]” (35).

In other words, when we use more muscle energy than we need, we end with an outcome opposite of what we seek. Moshe Feldenkrais describes this phenomenon in his classic book Awareness Through Movement: “People who know how to operate effectively do so without great preparation and without much fuss.  Men of great will power…who often have poor ability…tend to apply too much force instead of using moderate forces more effectively” (58).  In terms of ability vs. will-power, someone who owns ability and trusts that ability will be much more effective than someone who lacks ability or who does not trust that ability.  In the latter, the person compensates by using will power which translates to using excess force.

Both Gallwey and Feldenkrais emphasize the effects our thoughts have on our actions. If we’ve competently performed a particular skill in the past then our body can do it again. However, by focusing too hard upon a desired outcome, we encourage tensions beyond what we require for proper performance. Even if we have never competently performed an action before, by desperately willing or forcing it, we create excessive tension and poor performance. In relation to the arc of movement, if we focus too-intently on decreasing the arc of movement, our bodies will respond to our brains’ desires by forcing extra tension.

Qigong, in addition to helping us become aware of necessary and unnecessary tension, also aids us in managing self-defeating thoughts. While practicing, our awareness can bounce back and forth between our bodies and our breathing. Inevitably, thoughts will arise, but, as we practice returning to our attention to body and breath, we learn to manage and minimize self-defeating thoughts. The more we become comfortable with this practice, the easier we achieve stillness while practicing marksmanship (or any activity for that matter). Instead of getting caught up in thinking, really hard, about how much we must keep our arm from moving, we return our awareness to our body, to our breathing, without engaging in the thought. Once that thought is gone we can allow our body to do what it knows how to do.

Physically, to minimize the arc of movement, one balances tension and relaxation. The difficulty is finding the balance. Qigong is one way we explore and experience this balance. Once we experience it, we can apply it to our shooting. Mentally, once we know how to minimize the chatter in our minds, we can also reduce unnecessary tensions in our bodies that arise from our thoughts.

Relax. Stop pouring effort and emotions and energy and reasons and time and money into machines and lessons and language and schools and therapy and workshops. Stop trying, real hard, to relax.

Relax. No pressure, no need to worry. Relaxing is easy — go deeper with the following five free methods.

5 Free Methods Promote Relaxation in the Whole Body-Mind-Spirit.

1. Huff-n-Puff. Inhale abruptly — sigh out-loud. You’ve done this before when you were exasperated or fed-up or exhausted. Try it again with some attitude. A sarcastic whatever attitude could flush out the tensions; a disgusted what-an-idiot projection might release stress. Huffing and puffing helps us relax naturally, even if bitterly. It’s easy and it’s free.
2. Shake “No” — try this softly. Shake your head. Nose pointing from one corner of the room to the other, to the other, to the other, back and forth, shake your head. A small, soft shake will do. Mesmerize yourself. You can even employ the bitterness from the Huff-and-Puff. It is important, however, to pull your head in so that your head balances atop your shoulders. Each ear lines up over each shoulder. Shake no, and feel the back of your head, those muscles, the ones gripping your skull in position, feel them relax. Yes. Relax.
3. Smile Inside. It’s the physical act that matters: this one happens deep in your throat, behind your tongue. Smile. You don’t have to show it. It’s that inner I’m-so-satisfied-grin. Smile inside. Feel your deep grinning pull up your spine. Grin inside about anything: use revenge, secret knowledge, long-term spite to lift the edges of an inner smile. Of course, love and friendship and contentment make smiling inside easy. Ah.
4. Pound Something. Beat it. Wreck it. Pull it down from the top shelf. Push it off the counter with fantastic fury or fabulous delight. Hit it. Kick it. Smash it. Whatever you do: work. Physical work releases loads of stress and when it’s done, it’s satisfying and primal. Babies do it (mine does). My son does it without chagrin, without anger, without resentment. He loves to see things pulled apart, dissassembled, and broken. (Inside, he smiles.) Sometimes we need to see problems and obstacles broken in bits. Do this one well and, as best you can, carefully. I hang punch pads on the wall; I hit things just for fun. I do Taiji!
5. Wave Hands Like Clouds. T’ai-chi proper brings great results. The more intimate your knowledge of your body, the deeper this kind of movement instills stillness. Wave your hands like they are clouds. Get it. Try it. Emulate cirrus, strato-cumulus, or cumulonimbus clouds. Wave hands through clouds. Stand in a park, on a mountain, in a field, on a roof, in a stream, on a tree, or in your room (right now) and, while looking through your top hand, watch your hands wave through those far away clouds. Relax: even if you’re waving them through piling storm clouds, it feels fine.

No doubt myriads of legitimate ways to relax exist. (Take a nap.) Many descriptions lurk in twilight for each somnambulist method. (Go to sleep.) If you take notes on your process of deepening and experiencing and watching your relaxation bloom, you’ll find something peculiar about your breath. (Let go.)

Bonus Relaxation Method #6.

• Breath As If Sleeping. Try it…wait…to get a great grasp on this method, you might need personal research. Study, watch, experience your breath as you begin to drift into sleep tonight — or right now during your nap. Notice changes in breathing rhythm and shifts in breathing depth. You can also: watch a baby sleeping. Notice your friend napping, your spouse sleeping or snoring. And if you can’t be sure about your personal sleep-breathing patterns, then guess. Emulate your vision of an obnoxious, snoring sleeper. Support your big head either standing or lying down. Mouth closed: huff your breath in. Pause briefly. Mouth slightly open (perhaps pursed), slowly puff your breath, making a slight sleeping sound (we each have one). Pause just a little longer, letting the inhale-reflex cause the next huff. That’s it. Breath as if sleeping.

Relax.

Ute Hostel

21 Kelsey Ave, Salt Lake City, UT 84111

Reservations 801-595-1645

Patti wrote this to me: “Thank you for your interest in my hostel. I would be honored to host your guests while they are attending your workshop. My hostel is my home and I make all good efforts to make my guests feel at home. I provide a common area, a music room, and a cozy kitchen.
If you have time, check out my vision on the internationalutehostel.com website. Pretty much says who I am :)
Please let me know if I may serve you in the future.
Bless your good efforts.
–Pattybear”

These friendly folks have a potent vision while providing:

• Coffee and Tea for your morning wakeup
• Internet Access, including WiFi wireless
• Music Room
• Massage Room
• Bottomless Vegetarian Soup Pot with lots-o-bread
• Fresh Linens
• Phone
• Pickup from Amtrak & Greyhound & Airport with advance reservations

The Avenues Hostel

107 F Street, Salt Lake City, UT.

Make Reservations 801-359-3855 or on-line

San from the Avenues Hostel says that “the Avenues Youth Hostel has many amenities to ensure all guests enjoy their stay in Salt Lake. One of our most widely used amenities is our outdoor patio — the best place for people to meet, talk, and to grill on our BBQ grill in the summer. This is where our travelers enjoy meeting each other. In the summer, enjoy our $3.00 BBQ every Sunday, and on Wednesdays, enjoy our $1 cheese burgers (weather permitting). Our hostel’s 4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas parties are always a big hit. Just as enjoyable is our nightly movies shown on a HUGE big screen television.

Situated in the Historic Avenues District, we are less than a 5 minute ride by bus from Salt Lake’s city centre. On bus line, with a supermarket nearby, we are minutes walk from world famous Temple Square and the Salt Palace.

Salt Lake — a great place to chill out or get active with hiking, biking, skiing, snow boarding, rollerblading and much more.”

The Avenues Hostel is nearer my house than the others.

Hostel Utah International

50 S 800 W, Salt Lake City, UT.

Reservations 801-359-4525

I don’t know much about Salt Lake City’s

• bed & breakfasts
• hostels
• hotels
• local campgrounds
• motel
• other local lodging

I live here, so I don’t use them.

Please help me out. More and more national and international guests sign up for Utah’s World Taiji Event. I want to refer each to proper accommodations. I want a more thorough list.

I have a couple ideas…

In 2004, for my wedding, I recommend guests stay at Snowbird. It’s a great taste of the local mountains and they have a spa and some nonchlorine pools.

I believe, on the less expensive side, the Anenues Hostel is fairly fancy and it’s near my house.

We have myriads hotels, motel, and bed & breakfasts (plus three other hostels). Please recommend some.