Sinking into Seiza

Training again at the dojo last night when I had an epiphany of sorts.

Taking instruction form Tom Helsby, he told us to place our bodies on the floor when rolling, to see how quietly we could do it.

I went back to my rolling and concentrated on placing my body on the ground and placing my attention there.  I found that, suddenly, my awareness had shifted and I was heavier, a lot heavier and more compact underneath, so to speak.

Let me try to explain.  I have been reading about how to allow one's weight to 'sink down' naturally.  Everything wants to sink down to the earth due to gravity.  Our body is designed through thousands of years of evolution to stand up under this pull, to move under this pull.  Now I think a problem for a lot of people, and certainly for me, is that our minds get in the way and tell us how to stand.   Or we distract ourselves completely from our body awareness and get lost in thought, hunching out of alignment and loping around under the pull of gravity.

So in my reading about sinking weight, I have spent some time just standing and feeling from within, how my weight sinks down into my feet.  Last night I was suddenly able to feel how my weight sunk whilst rolling and it made the rolls quieter, faster, smoother and my stance coming out of them stronger.

Then sitting Seiza (see O Sensei's sitting posture above) at the end of class I could feel how all my weight sank down into the triangulation made by my body.  The weight could be felt almost as a tangible pyramid shape encompassing my body.  Hard to put into words, it's not something the mind can label easily.

I was reminded later after class of a training accident some years back when I was thrown forward, landed on my left shoulder too heavily, snapped my collar bone, continued my roll forward and came out of the roll sitting perfectly and very stably in seiza.  As soon as I felt that bone snap my mind shut up, my body relaxed and the roll and the sitting position happened perfectly naturally.   Interesting to note that my rolling and sitting are only now beginning to catch up consciously with what my body was able to do spontaneously in an emergency some five years ago!