Today, more than ever we’re living in a fast paced society. Thanks to constantly improving technology our minds are able to access and interpret information on an ever broadening scale. Our minds are becoming more active in everyday life of modern society hindering our ability to relax and observe. The skill of stillness is something that can be cultivated in order to promote physical healing, recovery, mental clarity, self awareness and, of course, elite levels of fitness.
We talked earlier in this blog about high intensity stillness in which the body holds functional fitness shapes for extended periods of time in order to promote good technique. The stillness we’re referring to now is an internal switch of the mind. It is internal regulation of the processes that occur through your conscious and unconscious mind. The skill of stillness is; the ability to rapidly release control of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy and enter a state of complete conscious relaxation.
We are all up in our heads on a daily basis; thinking-thinking-thinking-thinking! Our unending thoughts are sparking emotions that are firing signals all throughout our body. We’re stuck in a state of overload for our nervous system, taking time to shut down that overloaded mind is an important ability to practice.
Whatever you’re doing right now, whatever you’re thinking and feeling inside; just stop. Stop completely. Observe what happened.
At first you’ll notice that your mind doesn’t stay still for very long before it’s right back to wound up again. This is the auto-pilot taking over. You’ve been wound up for so long your mind doesn’t know how to stop for longer than a few seconds. So you have to keep practicing, and you practice by doing exactly that; stopping.
Stillness of the mind allows it to settle like the water of a pond. Small ripples go unnoticed in thrashing waves, but a still pond reflects even the smallest disturbances. All of your thoughts, feelings, emotions and beliefs create ripples inside your mind, waves of energy that flow and express themselves throughout your body. The more still your mind is, the more you will be aware of these subtle energies and how they affect you. Remember, there is no separation between mind and body!
Believe it or not, this is a valuable skill to cultivate in fitness. When the “relax” switch has been flipped in the mind, the body reacts. Stillness in the mind can create stillness in the body, and vice versa. This is the premise for yoga practice. The movements you perform are taking your attention away from your thoughts, bringing your mind to be more aware of the body, more aware of itself, and to help you ease into a state of total relaxation at the end.
Yoga is one way to create stillness, meditation is another. Sitting down and letting your mind relax without distractions can be a pretty hard thing, almost scary! Let’s face it, the inside of our head is a pretty horrifying place, right!? Well, like all dirty closets, crawl spaces and attics, you have time spend time in there to clean the place out. While it’s freaky at first, once you become comfortable going in there you can start to create order from the chaos. Spend time sitting, relaxing, and cleaning out the cobwebs from between your ears.
Training at high intensity in a state of stillness is as equally valuable, though not nearly as relaxing! The tendency in high intensity exercise is for the mind to get wound up again! The body is moving at a high intensity, so the mind says, “Why not me too!?” But as we described, polluting the mind with activity only makes it harder for you to sense small observations. Moving at high intensity, you need your mind as calm as possible to feel all the micro-corrections and data that your body is experiencing with every passing nanosecond. If while doing box jumps, for example, your knee is buckling inward but your head is so busy thinking-thinking-thinking creating thrashing waves on your mental pond that you cannot sense the small ripples of the knee-buckling-in information, then you are working towards injury. All because you were too unaware to feel it’s position. Still your waters so you can feel those ripples.
In high intensity fitness stillness has wonderful psychological application. Not only will you be more aware of your body’s position in space as you move, but you will not waste energy fighting the trickery of the mind that wants you to quit. Stillness in the mind allows quiets the thinking-thinking-thinking where those negative thoughts arise, turning them into more of a suggestion than a shout. In stillness you can observe those negative thoughts from afar, letting them pass, and not associate with them as you continue to fire through your workout. This leaves you with heightened awareness, allow you to spend more mental processing power on expression, focus and determination.
The competitive benefits of these mental skills are without question. This is “The Zone”, or as I like to call it, “The Flow” that has been rigorously valued in sport psychology for years. When an athlete is clear of mind, not distracted in thought or emotion, that athlete has the awareness of the moment to focus and express bodily movements with powerful channeled emotion backed by determination. Every action and movement on the field is detected within the ripples of his mind-pond, and he is free to react accordingly. In this state, nanoseconds will pass and trillions of biomechanical feedback sensors can be easily interpreted and reacted to. The mind isn’t hindered by junk processing, bouncing from one thing to the next, it’s full operational capacity is reached by relaxing and allowing information to come to it, not actively seeking information out.
We all have the ability to achieve that frame of mind on a daily basis. Stillness is the epicentre of all good psychology. Your mind doesn’t need to be actively engaged all the time in order to be useful. It can relax and be functional. In fact, a relaxed mind is MORE functional than one that is reeling. This is because of what we described earlier; you are firing less signals throughout your body giving your nervous system a chance to relax. An overloaded nervous system from external or internal stimuli is a source of discomfort, distortion and disease. Relaxation and stillness promote mental health, clarity, self observation, physical healing, and good performance.
The faster one can achieve a state of stillness, the better. The skill is to be able to rapidly release all internal energy and enter a state of complete conscious relaxation. You have to train this skill if you want it to be there when you need it. Life throws curve-balls at us and getting wound up in our reactions to them isn’t the answer. Cultivate stillness so you can live your life free from your own static and distractions. Remember, how you move inside the gym is how you move outside the gym.
Your Homework:
Continue to:
1. Play; both inside the gym and outside.
2. Learn new skills or continue to master known ones (or both!)
3. Grow tall at least once a day for 5 consecutive minutes.
4. Perform core workouts daily.
5. Get breath!
6. Wake up!
7. Perform the 10 minute Squat test regularly!
8. Visit stillness in movements to master them.
9. Master the three basic functional movements!
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