The Pick and Shovel of Yoga and Meditation

Balance, Mastery,Focus

THE PICK AND SHOVEL OF YOGA AND MEDITATION

As I have mentioned in my last blog words mean nothing without actions, and so the tools that I use that have been taught to me by Cmdr Divine at the SEAL Acadamy are as follows.

I use yoga for peace, tranquillity, mastery, focus, to set yourself up mentally, and spiritually for your meditation practice. The yoga poses I use are taught at the Navy SEAL  Academy under the name of Warrior Yoga. They are essentially a series of poses to get you to focus intently on your actions of mobility, and flexibility. The tranquillity and mastery flow from these. To mesh one pose into the next, to maintain balance, mastery, requires concentration and all the while focusing on your breath control, and your ability to relax, or you will not be able to complete the movement. These were all things I was not very good at. Again, getting the mind, and body to work together under the leadership of your spirit is very difficult to master. I fell over a lot, and at the very least was wobbling all over the place, but with persistence, consistency, and practice, I noticed that I was getting more balanced, and I have felt more relaxed, and had some sort of control over my movements. Have I mastered it? Not likely!!! That will take the rest of my life . The mastery of my breath also has  improved a lot with time, and became a lot smoother and easier  the more relaxed I am. I'm talking about 5 months of nearly daily practice here, I am only a white belt still. It will take a life time of practice. The words consistency, and persistence have become the bearer of good news as I become better. Now I love doing it. Some days I find myself in the peace, grace, and tranquillity. Other days I feel the movement, the mobility, the flexibility, and the balance. It also sets me up for my meditation practice. At the moment in our classes, Cmdr Divine has us doing Box Breathing, Breath Awareness, Still Water Visualisation and Focused Visualisation Practice. I liked the Box Breathing, because it provides a strong structure as a tool to reach a meditative state. I use Box Breathing most of the time, and  when I want a break, I use the visualisation. At the moment preparing for my Ironman Triathlon I visualise every step of the marathon leg. Every part of that course , nothing escapes my gaze, and how I want to feel, and what to do if things are not going my way. I have the tools. These are very strong tools and with constant  practice are very successful . Box Breathing is essentially being in a relaxed position and breathing in, filling your lungs from the diaphram up, and then holding your breath for a count, say starting at 5, then breathing out, right out and then holding for another count of 5. Breathe in again hold for 5 and then breathe out hold for 5. Cmdr Divine gives us some latitude on how we hold our concentration. He has given us the tools, and we all choose the ones that are suited to our own specific success. I use visualisation with box breathing, and I literally draw a number in my mind. If I start to think about other things,I don't beat myself up. It's very important to stay calm. I choose to bring myself back to the task and I concentrate harder on drawing that perfect number. A simple task, but not easy. Many people think that meditation is about thinking about nothing, this could not be further from the truth. Meditation is the ability to be able to master the thought process in your mind. Another part of box breathing is the "feeling" you have  when you are holding your breath. It is the "how about taking a breath now fella" feeling. You remember when somebody challenged you to swim the length of the pool underwater. You remember that feeling turned into a very strong urge to actually take a breath, but you did not because you knew you would get a lung full of water. It is the same with Box Breathing meditation. The urge to actually take a breath and to renounce that urge produces an intense focus, and concentration on the job at hand. When you do take a breath make sure it is a controlled breath. You do not  fast breathe, you take in one deep breath from the belly all way up to your chest and then relax hold the breath and count again. I can tell you it certainly holds your attention. And even though I am aware of sounds around me they do not impact on my thought processes. The point of all this is to actually master the art of your thought processes. That is what meditation is all about. The mastery of your mind and thought processes. One of the reasons people do not persist with it is that they do not see any difference in a week or two,  or they just forget for a few days and it becomes intermittent, and then the excuses come rolling in, and then they realise that they have missed so much so they give up. But it is a practice which is so important as I am finding out after 5 months, I am starting to notice the difference. I can master my breathing up to account of 10 now, and control it. I can hold that feeling of stillness for 15 minutes without thinking about what is going on today, tomorrow, or what happened yesterday. It is still only a short time. And some days are better than others, but I know if you persist, have consistency, and courage to do something different, to walk the path less  trodden, then you will discover a peace, and  a calm that was not always there. How does all this relate to the 28 km mark of a marathon, or an ultramarathon, or an Ironman marathon. Now in these endurance challenges, when things get tough, you feel the wheels wobbling, and you feel like the end is near, and I am not talking about the finish line. I will now use these tools of relaxation, of breath control, of visualisation and to be able to mesh with the mantra that works for me, "slow is smooth smooth is fast" and instead of worrying about finish times, or pace, or whatever other silly thoughts pop up, the tools of relaxation, breath control, mind mastery will come to the fore, as it has been practised  and as I have said before it is fine to have a goal, but if you keep looking for the finish line, you might just trip over the stone right in front of you. So set that goal and then concentrate on the journey, and success will be yours.

Self Mastery is a Life time project of Improvement

Peace and Tranquillity.
Would you rather be here or in your office 

Kokoro-Unbeatable Mind Yoga and Meditation

The magnificence of the universe

YOGA AND MEDITATION

You hear a whole heap of phrases about "pushing  through, be tough, hang in there," the list goes on and on. As one who regularly undertakes long endurance challenges, I often ask myself what the hell do they all. They are just meaningless words in the end. At the 28 km mark of an Ironman marathon you can hang tough all you want and still fall in a big hole, spit the dummy, or have your "wheels fall off ". What I have come to realise is that you really need some solid tools to use. You need to use those tools to train your mind to pull itself into line, and mesh and be at one with your goals and your spirit. I hate my mind dominating my spirit, and  it was a big reason why I enrolled in a course that has just opened up, called Unbeatable Mind or Kokoro which is the Japanese term. This course is run by the SEAL Academy in America. Interestingly, my teacher is Commander Mark Divine. Commander of SEAL Team one for nearly 10 years. He was a Navy SEAL for 20 years. These days, now retired, he is running an Academy to train seal candidates before they do their selection process. He was getting calls from the general public wanting to participate, to develop themselves into better whole people. And so minus all the military specific training, he has developed a course called "Unbeatable Mind" – Kokoro, . This is the stuff they are teaching seal candidates to help them bring focus, concentration, and intense trust and love of their teammates. These men when on a mission where ever it may be, need to be focused, and aware on a way higher level than the common man in the street, because their life literally depends on it. If you blink at the wrong time, you are dead. Two tools that are reiterated again and again are YOGA and MEDITATION. Who would have thought that these men and women would do something like this on a daily basis to help keep themselves alive. Just like physical practice needs to be undertaken on a regular basis, so does mental training and has for me at least been the missing link in my development. You can be as fit as anything but if your mind wanders all over the place, and you do not have a mastery of your mind  then you could end up with your race in tatters and for the SEALS worse. It is that black and white. Lots of people are attracted to yoga and meditation, but few persist. Why? Well like me they thought it was for sissies and really did not improve anything. I personally saw it as a fad. But when these 2 practices are part of a daily ritual of a Navy SEAL, then it raised my attention level, and gave me the courage to do and try something different. Whenever I have not felt like practising I think of these SEALS, I am all over it then, because I want to attain that higher level of mastery and focus.But like your physical practice it needs time and patience to develop some sort of mastery, infact like the physical side the mental practice should be seen as a life long journey  Never will my mind take over. My spirit is in charge. Because now I have the tools. They just need to become part of me which only time, patience, and courage to tread the road less followed.