Connie Brown
04-22-2004, 11:36 AM
(warning: a long rambling flight of fancy sans point)
Just got back from a business trip to Bellingham where Coach Szolek kindly provided some time for a session that included my first "real" Body-Flow practice. (not counting arm screws in WW) I had gone with a friend/colleague and she was my "training partner" for the session. This was her first in-person exposure to CST and she was just blown away.
a little prologue... we were waiting on a ferry dock for an hour - it was a beautiful time of day, "dark thirty" as the saying goes. We got the CBs out of the trunk and were just fooling around with simple swings and cleans to order. A teenage girl approached and asked if we were practicing martial art. So I said yes we were training for it. (actually I am in CST for fitness and longevity but that didn't sound cool enough)
Well we told Coach S the story and he said, he tells people he fights gravity. :lol:
So that sparked a gravity connection - made me think of John Brookfield's CST Mag interview (http://www.circularstrengthmag.com/22/interview.html) where he says,
I have found that this kind of training seems to simulate real life much better than traditional weight lifting. For example, with weights the pressure is always going towards the ground. However, in all sports -- such as wrestling, tennis, or golf -- the pressure is very rarely going towards the ground.
Fast forward to a cafe the next day. We were talking about our health-and-fitness buds, many apple-shaped women over 40, some very heavy.
They are faithfully doing "cardio:" walking, swimming, stationary bike, gliders. They are faithfully "strength training:" free weights, classes, machines. I am the ONLY one doing CST and I am the ONLY one reporting joy, real honest-to-gosh ROM recovery, trauma resolution/resetting, and reconnection with the physical. To be fair, everyone reports feeling better but not to this astonishing degree.
So I said to my friend, what is it about CST - for US, for these women - that does this, where the other movement does not? Shouldn't restoring any movement at all, be moving us on the path to physical recovery?
She makes arm circles in our booth and says, it is the opening up, the circular motion. It opens up the heart and breathing. The arm-waving leads to talking about the circles and figure eights of Warrior Wellness.
We get into the 6 degrees of movement: front-back, top-bottom, right-left.
But this triggers my inner geek and something nags at me: those are quadrants - spaces defined by the 3 axes, x,y,z, of three-dimensional space. Movement is IN space but is not THE space. What describes the movement itself?
A spark of association brings back the gravity remark; and what else defies gravity; and I come to the language of movement in space: flight and robotics. Aeronautics and robotics talk about not only about movement defined by points and direction along the 3 axes (x, y, and z) but the rotation around each axis (pitch, yaw, and roll).
Pitch: rotation around the x axis; on a plane, nose up or nose down. Yaw: rotation around the y axis: the plane's tail wagging side to side. Roll: rotation around the z axis.
CST needs not only the planes and quadrants to completely describe movement, but ALSO the rotations. It is freely moving through all of space - ah so that is the "defying gravity" Coach S describes.
Well, no wonder circular motion is so much more sophisticated. No way can walking or linear lifting touch all this. I know, I know, Coach Sonnon's work says this over and over.
But there is nothing like making the associations for myself too out of everyday happenings.
I will stop now. Today I practice long arm rolls. Who woulda thunk rolling around on the ground releases from gravity. :) :)
Just got back from a business trip to Bellingham where Coach Szolek kindly provided some time for a session that included my first "real" Body-Flow practice. (not counting arm screws in WW) I had gone with a friend/colleague and she was my "training partner" for the session. This was her first in-person exposure to CST and she was just blown away.
a little prologue... we were waiting on a ferry dock for an hour - it was a beautiful time of day, "dark thirty" as the saying goes. We got the CBs out of the trunk and were just fooling around with simple swings and cleans to order. A teenage girl approached and asked if we were practicing martial art. So I said yes we were training for it. (actually I am in CST for fitness and longevity but that didn't sound cool enough)
Well we told Coach S the story and he said, he tells people he fights gravity. :lol:
So that sparked a gravity connection - made me think of John Brookfield's CST Mag interview (http://www.circularstrengthmag.com/22/interview.html) where he says,
I have found that this kind of training seems to simulate real life much better than traditional weight lifting. For example, with weights the pressure is always going towards the ground. However, in all sports -- such as wrestling, tennis, or golf -- the pressure is very rarely going towards the ground.
Fast forward to a cafe the next day. We were talking about our health-and-fitness buds, many apple-shaped women over 40, some very heavy.
They are faithfully doing "cardio:" walking, swimming, stationary bike, gliders. They are faithfully "strength training:" free weights, classes, machines. I am the ONLY one doing CST and I am the ONLY one reporting joy, real honest-to-gosh ROM recovery, trauma resolution/resetting, and reconnection with the physical. To be fair, everyone reports feeling better but not to this astonishing degree.
So I said to my friend, what is it about CST - for US, for these women - that does this, where the other movement does not? Shouldn't restoring any movement at all, be moving us on the path to physical recovery?
She makes arm circles in our booth and says, it is the opening up, the circular motion. It opens up the heart and breathing. The arm-waving leads to talking about the circles and figure eights of Warrior Wellness.
We get into the 6 degrees of movement: front-back, top-bottom, right-left.
But this triggers my inner geek and something nags at me: those are quadrants - spaces defined by the 3 axes, x,y,z, of three-dimensional space. Movement is IN space but is not THE space. What describes the movement itself?
A spark of association brings back the gravity remark; and what else defies gravity; and I come to the language of movement in space: flight and robotics. Aeronautics and robotics talk about not only about movement defined by points and direction along the 3 axes (x, y, and z) but the rotation around each axis (pitch, yaw, and roll).
Pitch: rotation around the x axis; on a plane, nose up or nose down. Yaw: rotation around the y axis: the plane's tail wagging side to side. Roll: rotation around the z axis.
CST needs not only the planes and quadrants to completely describe movement, but ALSO the rotations. It is freely moving through all of space - ah so that is the "defying gravity" Coach S describes.
Well, no wonder circular motion is so much more sophisticated. No way can walking or linear lifting touch all this. I know, I know, Coach Sonnon's work says this over and over.
But there is nothing like making the associations for myself too out of everyday happenings.
I will stop now. Today I practice long arm rolls. Who woulda thunk rolling around on the ground releases from gravity. :) :)