Full body and segmented tension Futhur work

There is a Systema practice which involves consciously tensing different muscles or groups of muscles with different degrees of strength.
There is deeper work where you can tense the tendons, nerves and joints but this is beyond the scope of this post. I shall be primarily focusing on the muscular variations.

These can be as simple as tensing an arm of a leg or can be made much more challenging by incorporating motion and control into the practice.
These drills teach you to become more adaptable and free.

They help you recognize where in your body you have excess tension, due to past injury, incorrect posture or imbalances and help you to release that tension, through becoming aware of your own internal and external condition.

Here are a number of variations that i have found more challenging:

- Change the position: lay of your front/ side instead of your back, while sitting down, while against a wall, while halfway through a roll/ in the lowest or topmost position in any the core exercises

- Add motion: during walking, running, rolling or falling

- Add time: extend the length of time you hold the tension try 30 seconds or even a minute, extend the length of time after you have exhaled in the relaxed state (just hold your breath)

- Muscle group variations - just tense your arms and legs, the shoulders and buttocks, the top half/bottom half of body, hands and feet, the fingers, the jaw, shoulders and hands, thighs and feet.

Different degrees - See if you can tense the upper body 50% and the lower body 100% vice versa, hands and feet 100% and the rest of the body 50%, whole body 25%

There are many more variations and they really are only limited by your imagination. If you always give yourself a challenge, your body will respond with enhanced awareness, sensitivity and control.

Good luck
Tom

Keeping the body healthy

In this post i am going to talk about how to keep the whole body physically healthy.

To have health in any part of the body we need 3 key things:

• Strength - Strength of muscles and connective tissue, Correct alignment and structure
  

• Relaxation - The overall tension quotient of the body part must be low, so that all movements are carried out with the least possible effort, which reduces the risk of injury or strain.
  

• Mobility and awareness - The body part must be mobile in all planes of movement. You must also be kinesthetically aware of the body part.

Here are a few tips to accomplish the above ideas -

- Do body weight exercises as these strengthen the muscles as well as the connective tissue(tendons, ligaments etc)
- Exercise every part of your body not just the obvious ones from the neck and spine to the feet ankles and toes
- While laying down on your back, bring your awareness to a particular body part and consciously try and relax it.
- Stretch out the muscles in unusual ways. Google: stretches and make up your own.
- Circle and move all your joints in various planes. One of Mikhails drills for this, is to write out your name with 1 arm or both arms in the air.
- Pick a specific body part and inhale through your nose and tense that part as hard as possible, hold the tension for 10 seconds and then exhale and relax that part. Repeat as required. This drill teaches you to become aware of tension and relaxation in specific body parts.

Have fun
Tom