Mark said, “Try now.” 

I tried leading with my feet like he just demonstrated.

He stopped me, “No, you aren’t connecting the movement, the whole body must move as one unit”

I looked at him puzzled as if this wasn’t making sense. In actuality, everything Mark was saying made perfect sense. I’ve “heard” this dozens of times before yet never made the connection.

Then I thought back to my left knee and how I tore my ACL when throwing a softball to first base. I realized I was onto something! This was the same pattern as that throw. No matter how subtle of movement I was doing, my body was still resisting rotating to my left. My entire body was going into a trauma response.

“How interesting,” I thought!

I just wasn’t getting my body to move that way yet.

Mark demonstrated again showing me S-L-O-W-L-Y what he was talking about.

Slowing the movement down even more I felt how “stuck” my feet were to the floor as a result of tension in my hips and lower back.

If I wouldn’t have slowed down the movement I never would’ve had a clue of the tension “higher up” in my body. I felt how my hips and lower back were “locking up my movement” not to mention how tense my shoulders were becoming. I also came to the awareness that I was holding my breath and tensing my jaw.

I made some internal adjustments and tried the movement all over again from the beginning.

Then Mark said, “That’s right!”

I laughed out loud and smiled, I had no idea what I just did! I figured I’d need to do it again several more times before being able to do it on my own. I don’t even believe I could have done it without Mark’s guidance. Gain that level of awareness in my body and begin to move correctly.

Going slowly and feeling the correct movement allows me to get the neurology to fire in the right order so my brain can tell my body to move differently.

Going faster would have never got me there. As a matter of fact anytime I rush through anything is a sure indication that my body is protecting itself from a perceived injury. It reminded me of a quote from the head Systema Instructor in North America, Vladimer Vasiliev, “The mind is a direct reflection of the body. If the body is moving smooth and fluid so is the mind.” That’s why from a Martial Arts perspective you always look out for the guy moving in a strange way. His mind is not relaxed and odds are bad things are going to happen if you hang around someone like that.

Mark also has poster in his gym in Charlotte, NC that says, “If you can learn it fast, you can learn it twice as fast, slow.”

Such is the process of learning something new.

I’ve experienced this over and over where someone I trust points something out to me.

In the past I had a tendency to reject guidance secretly thinking to myself that, “They don’t know what their talking about, I know better!”

In the past couple of years, I’ve taken on the mindset of being open and truly listening to what my friends, mentors and coaches have to share with me.

The results have been nothing short of amazing!

The insights I’ve gained in my body and my ability to pinpoint exactly how pain can be relieved in someone else’s knees have gone through the roof.

I started trusting these special people in my life “see” something that I don’t. They are saying something to me for a reason and I take those words of insight seriously.

Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes those words of constructive advice still piss me off, but I know that’s really not me who’s resisting those words.

It’s just my ego or pride or me just wanting to be right!

If I can suspend that little voice just long enough to hear the words being spoken, I find absolute “gold” on the other side in the form of transformation in my body and in my life.

I hope this helps you “connect your movement” a little more! 😉

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