- BALANCE
This week we taught building rock sculptures to children in our martial arts classes. The theme of the class was balance so students obviously practiced stances & kicks which pertain to balancing oneself physically in the martial arts. We also had segments of the class where students creatively stacked stones to feel, experience, sense balance & self control.
One student just took the rocks and instead of delicately stacking them with balance, she crudely clumped them up into a stout pile. I observed closely as her tense fingertips failed to adequately feel & sense the nature of balancing the stones gently one on top of the other. She was confused each time the stones would avalanche down as her pile collapsed. Her undeveloped sense of balance in stacking stones was a reflection of her undeveloped sense of balance emotionally. She was manifesting externally what was happening to her internally. Her patience fled along with her focus, interest & self control. Her face & body language clearly displayed her emotional loss of balance. I smiled and without a word artfully arranged the stones, vicariously stacked one upon the other. She became curious & I prompted her to try again. This time upon sensing her tension she relaxed, connected her mind with her hand, settled her emotions & gracefully accomplished creating a beautiful rock sculpture. In fact she was so surprised of her success her smile was at first cautious. This caution quickly switched to serenity as she sat back, took a deep breathe, relaxed, & smiled with calmness. She had discovered balance both inside & out.
In the Martial Arts we teach balance by standing on one leg and kicking. This ability however is useless unless we learn how to apply it into our everyday life. In my minds eye I like to imagine that one day this child will take this lesson of learning the ability to balance her emotions & use it to make a difference in the our world. To learn to balance ones emotions is a valuable tool for anyone to posses. This ability to balance ourselves through self control and focus is what we teach in our Martial Arts Education of Intelligent Curriculum at TheDOJO. Balance is the alternative to taking a gun to school, cyber bullying, war & other forms of conflict that begin in our hearts & minds before manifesting themselves externally in negative & harmful ways. It takes a village to raise a child…we are part of that village. Another week of Sensei Dan Teaching at TheDOJO, Learn more at TheDOJO.org
