Carrying vs Holding

Carrying instead of holding is a principle that I have been working on in my training for at least the last 10 years and had been a big area of focus for me personally for the past few weeks.  As I get deeper and deeper into the practice it has lead me to some very insightful things within my training.  It has been an interesting process of letting go of the places that I am holding tension and allowing my integrated structure to carry my body through space.  The benefits that I have been experiencing have been quite interesting as well!  I feel that the physical training has increased mobility, providing more fluid and continuous movement and the meditative aspect clearer thinking for longer periods of time.

What is holding?
Holding is when we are physically trying to hold our ourselves together to the extent that it is impeding our freedom movement.  This can happen physically as well as mentally and both can restrict your ability to change.
There are times that we will actually create the hold because we are looking to feel something within our movements and the hold provides that feeling.  I think that we end up in the situation of holding largely because we spend a lot of time training by ourselves and we don't have the feedback that a partner gives so that we can genuinely feel our structure and learn how to apply force through it without it being compromised.  If we have a partner or some other method or resistant feedback we can begin to reduce how much we are holding and start relying on the structure as the main support and learn how to move it freely.
One of the more difficult things to do is to put the structure of the body in motion and have it maintain it's integrity.  The key to unlock this is finding out how I move my structure without trying to hold it's parts in place?  How can I move freely and rely on my structural integration to give me unified power?
If I am holding I will not have free movement.  If I am holding I will feel the hold and not the free movement.  The key is to relax enough that you can rely on your structure and feel yourself move freely.  As you get more relaxed and move more freely and are carrying your structure through space, there will be less mental distractions from tension in the body which will allow the mind to wander.
We do not want to try and hold the mind in place, over-concentrating on keeping it from wandering. We want to let the mind relax and be an integrated part of the practice.  If you focus too hard and apply rigidity to your mind it will restrict your ability to think clearly and quickly.
We also don't want to try to create feeling in practice.  Instead we need to apply the principles of integrated movement to the form and allow it to express itself.  Just let the mind genuinely feel out what your are doing.  To borrow words from one of my teachers, "Don't think about what you are feeling because all you'll feel is your thinking".  You have to free your mind enough that you are feeling the expressions of the movements come out of you.

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my new blog!
This blog is to serve my new study group, "Mindful Integration - Martial Arts and Integrative Meditation".
My family and I recently moved to Arvada, Colorado and I am going to be starting a study group in the area.  I already teach private lessons in Baguazhang, Xingyiquan and Taoist Qigong, but soon hope to be leading a public study group in the Arvada area.
I hope to share some of the insights that I have discovered in the 16 years I've spent doing Chinese martial arts and 14 years doing the arts of the Yizong school.
Please contact me at 303-588-6097 or yizongcircles@gmail.com if you'd like to try a free private lesson.