External and Internal

Internal and external; yin and yang; quantification and qualification; these seem to be dichotomies, mutually exclusive, but they are inclusive and dependent on where we are concerned and the key to our change. Sometimes we find ourselves living too much in one world. There is usually a feeling of stagnation, frustration, feeling lost, or “searching,” when we are too one sided. That is a great time to start to look to the other side for a hint. In competitive venues things are quantified; how deep, how long, high, fast. We take the quantification of these as measurements of our success, since those are the goals. What do we do when we feel like we have squeezed every drop out of our system? We have to change it. In Freediving, you train your breathing, practice the art by diving, strength train for more powerful kicks. When we see decreasing returns on our quantifiable efforts it’s time to look at the other side; qualification. How does your body feel? Where is your tension? Where does your mind travel? There we learn to make the body more relaxed and demand less to create more room. If we are resilient, pliable, flexible and springy then we have an efficient system. It is by looking inside that we can then improve the outside (the clock, tape measure, etc). Do your Bladder Meridian (stress, anxiety associations) stretch again this month – it’s fantastic for the kicking; will save you effort and oxygen which translates to more underwater time (possibly more fish) and a quicker recovery time – and, going internal, try to be aware of what and how you feel.

In summation; want a better performance: look at your externals (clock, tape measure, etc), train, reexamine the externals, and, as you start to get diminishing returns for your training efforts look at your internals and create a new “You” to train.

Cat