Integrative
Martial Arts,
Athletics, &
Embodied Arts
"Connecting Sword, Hand, and Heart"
You love the feel of the sword in your hand. (the ball. the racket.)
The flowing blade in defense and attack. (nimble fingers on bow and strings)
Your perfectly focused mind, responding to your opponent's every breath. (your dance partner's, your audience's)
You enjoy your training a lot, too. (Or maybe you don't. That's okay.)
But....you sense something is slightly disconnected.
You don't know what's in the way.
Something is missing.
It's not quite working.
...Yet.
To excel with blade in hand,
we need a clear mind
and open eyes....
We need uninterrupted connection from the point of our weapon to the sole of our foot....
We need our body to act smoothly in the time of our opponent...
Inspiration from centuries prior...
Capo Ferro on Imperfection
"Art regards nature and sees that owing to the small capacity of matter, it cannot do all that which it intends to do, and yet it considers in many details its perfections and imperfections, and in the role of architect seizes thereof and makes some beautiful model, and thus refines them little by little to the height of their perfection."
Musashi on Spiritual Bearing in Strategy
"In strategy your spiritual bearing must not be any different from normal. Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit settled yet unbiased. Even when your spirit is calm, do not let your body relax, and when your body is relaxed do not let your spirit slacken....Be neither insufficiently spirited nor over spirited. And elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak."
Swordfighting and intimacy are my two home arts, with several years of cross-training in taijiquan under my belt as well. But headspace affects every embodied art where we are expected to execute in real-time, be it wrestling, weight-lifting, ballroom dancing, juggling, or watercolor painting. Sometimes we need a new technique to break out of a rut, but often, what gets in our way is in our mind or our heart, our spirit or our emotions.
The tools for addressing these types of blockages are very similar no matter what your art might be: arousal management, mental toughness practices, mindfulness and attentional management, streamlined perceptive cognition, a positive inner dialogue, trust of our trained embodied knowledge....I'm thrilled to offer my consultation and expertise whether you're a tennis player, and archer, a belly-dancer, or anything in-between. I promise I'll have some useful ideas to help you reach your next level!