Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. -Miyamoto Musashi
The other day, Watanabe Sensei and I were filming some bokken videos for the dojo when he said something interesting in reference to cutting or standing in kamae. He said, “In swordsmanship, they say your shoulder should sit.” The next day, I was washing my hands when I looked in the mirror and noticed that my shoulders were up and I instantly remembered, “Shoulders should sit.” Raising our shoulders is part of the cycle of negative tension our body exhibits in response to stress. This is part of our flight or fight nerv0us system or sympathetic nervous system. When we feel stress, our neck contracts and our shoulders raise and put pressure on our Vagus nerve which innervates many if not all of our organs and thus it can have an impact our health. When we feel stressed or notice our shoulders are raised, the antidote is to take a moment, breathe and lower our shoulders. The more we do this, the more we are teaching our nervous system to relax as oppose to escalate when confronted with stress. In bokken training, when we cut, there is a natural tendency to put too much power or upper body strength into the cut and force it. One of the main indicators of forcing the cut is the raising of the shoulders and so our “shoulders should sit.” It is the same in life, when we are stressed, we are probably working too hard or trying to force something and that is precisely the moment when we should take a moment, breathe and come back into our bodies by deep breathing which automatically lowers our shoulders. In Chinese medicine, they say, “Keep your feet warm and your head cool.” So, for optimum health, we should keep our feet warm and our heads cool while focusing on our breathing and let our shoulders sit.
Today’s goal: Try to notice if your shoulders are up. If so, take a breath and let your shoulders sit.