When I was in Melbourne and a co-owner of a gym, I worked with a lot of people one-on-one to help them move more easily and at the same time start to build some useful strength.
The “assessment” process was fairly qualitative after seeing a lot of people – how are they moving now and what do they feel? What do they notice and have to say about it?
Specifically, when we look at “how” they are moving, we are looking for areas of tension.
We then have a range of ways to move into the tension.
It doesn’t mean we blast right through it and ignore it.
But rather we become interested. We see the tension, feel it, explore movement patterns around it.
Then slowly, over time, we start to understand it both physically and otherwise and usually it frees up a lot.
Often, a lot of us want to “avoid” this tension. It’s obviously an area of difficulty – something we are not good at. It feels easier to simply leave it alone.
And, as usual, we see parallels between the physical body and other aspects of our life – our work, sales, speaking, relationships. When we seek out tension, we inevitably find areas that we have veered away from in the past and are thus areas of growth.
“I thrive on tension. If I had a relationship where nothing was ever wrong and we were never debating or arguing, I don’t think we would ever grow. There’s no change.” – Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, founder of Square.
