Awareness and Joong-Gun

I was going to start by saying that awareness is THE path to healing, but who am I to say I know the secret to healing in this life of ours............so I am going to say, awareness is a (really excellent) path to healing.  John F. Barnes, the teacher of myofascial release (pronounced myo fashal)  says "without awareness there is no choice".

Jonathan and I have been working on a process of getting our forms checked off as part of the requirements for our upcoming black belt examination.  There are nine forms that we have to get checked off by our instructor.  For each one we have to perform it in front of him and then he will either give us feedback on how to perfect it for the next try, or he will say "okay" and check it off the list.  Each form has a series of movements that have to be memorized down to the finger and foot position.  Chung-ji, the first form, has 19 moves.  Chung-Moo, the ninth form, has 30.  Each form has a different amount of moves and a different meaning, as well as a different sequence and pattern.  Getting each of the forms right takes practice and a lot of mind-body awareness.  The actual practice of going through the motions in your body gives you the body memory portion of it.  And this is in combination of being mentally (I am going to suggest that "mentally" isn't just thinking) aware of each move, the sequence of them, and the bigger picture of how the whole form comes together in a flow with power and rhythm.  Not to mention that your feet better end up exactly on the spot that you started.

Jonathan and I waiting to compete at a tournament

So I am stuck on Joong-Gun, the sixth form and the recent feedback got me thinking about awareness.  When someone makes you aware of something that you are doing with your body that you were not aware of before, and you really get it, then you have a choice to correct it the next time, or at least practice differently.  In the moment that you get it, the little light bulb goes off at the same time you are saying, "ooohhhh, that is what I am doing?" to yourself.  You may have received that same feedback several times before but it just didn't click.  The click is awareness.  It comes and you feel something different and the whole situation changes at that point to one of choice.  No awareness (checked out mentally and physically) equals no choice.   Awareness (you are present in your body and mind with a calm focus) equals the choice to respond differently.

Master Holloway told me the last two tries of Joong-Gun that I was making a bunch of extra movements with my arms during a particular move of the form.  I was not aware of it and it didn't click.  Yesterday it clicked, and I performed the move nicely.  He said "that's it" which gave me the second level of the click.  What I felt in the movement in my body was what he was looking for, and now with awareness I can practice that move differently, by feel, not just thinking.

I spend a lot of time in my physical therapy practice helping people with the same sort of thing.  We practice gaining a better awareness of the body especially the chronic level of muscle contraction or tightness that begins to cause pain if left unattended.  We practice and practice how to feel this contraction so that we can start to let it go.  What seems so unconscious and habitual at first becomes conscious and changeable with awareness.  Patterns of chronic muscle contraction that are now changeable, give us hope, the ability to feel differently, and ultimately the realization that we can heal.

With awareness we can now choose healing.  Or get our next form checked off.