Read a person like a book. Never enough.

Have you ever notice your reading pattern when you have a book in your hand?
I choose books by its covers, yes... we all do. most.

While most of the people i know likes their books to be new, hard covered, anti- dog ear, clean, nicely printed, sharp bladed pages... I'm just the opposite.

I prefer books that looks old, that has been flipped by strangers' hands, that the pages are yellowed, soft side pages, roughly cut, soft and frail book cover. I find that old books have better quality stories to share, and that it appear to be more mature and friendly to talk to and gentle to touch.
In some books i had, there are many dog- ears. I don't mind it at all, it leave behind the traces of previous readers' on their preferences; some even made notes and underlined sentences.

Don't mind the book cover, i approach a books from the very first page, the very first line. I don't have a habit of scrutinized each and every word, i scanned through it rather quickly... high lighting some nice sentences with a pen ( yes, i read with a pen), and fold the corner of the page;

I'm an impatient reader, if the story gets too draggy... either fast forwards a few pages or, jump straight to the last few pages. And returning to where i stop, pretty random.

Knowing a person is like reading a book. You never ever understand it thoroughly as you thought you would. Some books has good cover, bad content. Some with tattered cover, great content.
One can judge a book by not the covers, not just by reading a few sentences, not by picking chapter or pages to read, not even if you read every word of the book.

If you realize, that each time when you re- read that same book, the meaning sort of changes. And each time, we pick up something new to learn from the same old book. Why?
The book hasn't change, its we who has change. The way we look at situation, our perspective has change; that's makes the content becomes more dynamic.

Its a good thing, i feel. The ever expanding perspective makes our life interesting and meaningful. We tend to have a habit to be too quickly to rest an opinion on others; too judgmental. I do, sometimes.
The good thing is, every time i withdraw  myself of being too judgmental, i open myself to another level of perspective; and i learn something.

Every book has a story to tell; every person has a story to share. There are some i particularly attracted to, and there are handful i do not have a bit of interest yet.

Each book has the power to influence your inner thoughts; every person has the ability to influence some part of us.

We have the freedom, and authority to choose what we want to input in our well- being; who we want to gain access to our life.

Becoming more Imbalance?

Last week a girl came up to me after my last class asking me a question that i'd asked the same to myself some years back. ( i was so shy, i didn't have the same courage like her to ask the teach back then. Somehow i figured it out.)
She pointed out why does she feel her body becoming more imbalance than before, or than the way it should be? The muscles on one side which was already strong, got stronger; and the one on the left which was already more flexible got softer.

This is a very common issue with people who are generally quite flexible, and especially mobile in the lumber spin and the hip areas. It is very important for the student, to be very aware of their body movement and sensitive towards it; instead of solely dependent on the teachers' general instruction in a big class.

I told her to give me an example of the pose that she can pinpoint the feeling of imbalance. She assumed into a half- pigeon pose ( where the hip & knee are externally rotate). While waiting for her to get comfortable into the pose the way she thought it should be, i observed that she was shifting her hip around. Then later explained to me that she was searching for the that piece of muscles to stretch. In the end when she found it, her hips was already loop sided which her noticing it. She don't feel that though.

I went to her, lift her grabbed her hip bone firmly on both side, lift it up slightly and level it. Then slowly had her to sit into the pose on her own while am still locking her sides. Initially, she mentioned that she felt nothing; but later she felt a tightness at her back thigh lengthening ( the piece that she had not been stretching yet.)

(In case you don't get the pose, this was what we were working on.)

In any poses, we have a tendency to look for the feeling, instead of observing the actual condition of the body. Unless the student is on one-on-one with the teacher, it is essential that the students are independent in a big group.
With our skin nicely covers our whole body, we can't imagine how complicated the muscular system is. Like just our front thighs, there are 4 big pieces; and 3 major pieces at the hamstrings ( back thighs running down to the back of the knees)...etc.

Each little rotation of the hip joints will affect different angle and stretches different piece of muscle.

Of course, as the role of teacher, i used to point out  generally the muscles the student should feel when they are at certain postures. Which i thought its not too of a good idea right now, that they student will in turn search for the muscles in expectation drawn out by the teacher.

Instead of painting a picture in their mind, in turned, i would have them to voice out what they feel according to the signal their body gave them.

Just like any other skills, having a strong fundamental knowledge & technics, the positive feeling will slowly flow through the body naturally; you don't have to seek for it. 

Gaining strength by Letting Go.

Being persistent and being rigid is a hairline of difference. The difference of letting go, the key of allowing the situation to flow on its own direction.

We all have dreams; no doubt there is one particular big dream that we are working on right now. When we look back, we've come so far, the dream remains a dream, hasn't been realized the way we had once imagined. Now, this precious dream is becoming a nightmare, somehow it didn't work out realistically . We begin to develop resistance towards all other things to protect this dream, fighting hard to keep it alive, at least its breathing in the mind. 

Maybe its time to let go.
We commonly misunderstood the meaning of letting go. Letting go of something, does not mean giving up. Does not mean waving a white flag of surrender. It means granting freedom to both the dream and ourselves. To liberate the dream for the way it wanted to be, and giving us a breather to really see what's the reality is like.

In my previous blog posts, i wrote about how we need to be persistence to realize our dream, no matter what others' got to say & if we have that faith, just press on.
We too need to strike a balance between holding on, and letting go. Between the ideal and realistic. 
Sometimes, we can get lost in our own dream, without us knowing it. This can be destructive. 
When we can't tell apart the imaginations created in the mind, and the real world.

It is like being on drugs. A small amount of cough syrup can relive us from the problem, stay in bed and get well. If overdosed, our world become drowsy & light minded; we lost the ability to operate properly; Which is not good.

Ego. An egoistic mind will convince you that letting go is a sign of weak; that the others' are going to laugh and smirk at this sign of weaknesses; that everyone is waiting for this failure. But that's no true, at all!
If anyone had experienced the process of letting go, one will know the power of it. The person who learns to let thing go, is so much stronger & wiser than the one who endures it. Releasing the grip, doesn't mean you have to break that dream; you can always return to it after a reality check.

Imagine you are in the river, swimming against the river towards Point A ( your ideal destination);
but no matter how much strength you used to  swim, its seems like your in the same spot. You're energy ( your resources/ capital ) is depleting, but your mind is sees only Point A, nothing else. 
You get frustrated, thinking why things doesn't work the way you wanted; why so much of the effort and sweats are not getting you any closer. 
Because, you are busy just looking at your destination, but fail to see what's really the situation you are in.

Let go. Get out of the river, and see what's really happening; The river is flowing against your destination. Let go of this river, get over it and go for other options. 
Know where your dream is located, and travel to the river that will flow you to your designated place. 

As much as we need the mind, it is important to know when not to listen to it.
Once i read a line somewhere on a Facebook post " Too much positive thinking leads to negativity". That's how our mind can help us at a appropriate level, and how it can destroy us if overdose.

When realizing our ideal fantasy, we need to always do reality checks. Chasing dream is like running a marathon, we have to constantly check the condition of our body while allowing the mind to motivate us. People who got trashed by the run are usually those we listen to the mind too much.

"Go, just keep going. The pain in the knee is nothing, strong mind strong body. Think about the goal, don't think about the pain in the knee. Everything is alright!" 
So you kept running, till you heard a "PoP!" from your knee, and fell down.

Ligament torn. No running, just rest, goal not reach. 
Who's the winner? The egoistic mind had just tricked you.

Pace and adjust the goal accordingly, be flexible.
There's no one way to solve a problem. There are many routes to reach a goal. The universe is helping, you just have to open to them.

A strong person is one who has the capability to pick up, hold and let go of things. He who is strong enough to persist & soft enough to let things happen the way it is. 

No such thing as ' common sense'

There is no such thing as " common sense". I used to thought there was, but no... there isn't.

From child, i really thought that we have something call ' common sense', as told & taught by our teachers, peers and parents. And if one doesn't react accordingly as being ' common sensible', is consider weird, silly or stupid.

As i grow up, i starts to break free from this ability call ' common sense'. Because, personally, i begin to realized that being ' common sensible' is build upon the creation of others' expectation on us. We have to react according to the expected or so- called politically acceptable behavior of the others, then we are normal. At the same time, this set of expected reaction build walls of fear of being ourselves and different.

We have the 5 senses, of which, each carries a purpose of its existence. However, " common sense' is not a sense of any function, is a creation in the mind of others into us; and we into others. It makes us want to be acceptable socially by living in mind of others, fitting into their set of puzzle, being with the norm.

What's common for one mind, is uncommon for the other. What's normal for one person, is abnormal of the others'. Drop the 'common' and be the 'sense'. So long as our behavior is authentically from us, and making full sense to us; it may be total nonsensical to others.

Who cares? If the others wants to understand it, they'll ask. No worry.