#budotraining #kihon #meditation #mindfulness #wellbeing

It seems like you can’t hit a wellness-themed feed on social media these days without being forcibly told that you need to be more "mindful", and there is merit in the mantra. Way back in 2014, Helen Langer, a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University gave an interview to Harvard Business Review in which she gave one of the most succinct, yet accurate, accounts of what "mindfulness" actually is.  Langer said, “Mindfulness is the process of actively noticing new things.  When you do that, it puts you in the present.  It makes you more sensitive to context and perspective. It’s the essence of engagement”.  She goes on to say, “We all seek stability.  We want to hold things still, thinking that if we do, we can control them.  But since everything is always changing, that doesn’t work.  Actually, it causes you to lose control.”.

There is now a wealth of empirical research that demonstrates that mindfulness can improve memory and learning, as well as reducing stress, increasing creativity, and all of the other well espoused virtues.  However, clearly, it is not always easy to by mindful doing everyday things, with all of the pressures and distractions of the day pulling at our attention.  The same can sometimes be true when it comes to our Budo study.  When we are doing things that we are familiar with, we tend to find our way to auto-pilot.  How many times, for example, have you found yourself having to bring your mind back to the task in hand during, say, stretching exercises, or while rehearsing a solo kata that you are thoroughly familiar with.

Humans are built to be progressive.  We learn through experience, lock-in that learning, and then move on to the next thing.  This is usually a good thing - it is how we grow and develop.  However, the unintended consequence of this is the parallel tendency for us to free up mental space by quickly assessing our new experiences, assimilating them, and then categorising and prioritising them.  This is why, for example, when you view a prospective new house or apartment for the first time you notice all of those exciting details: layout, features, colours, and smells, but after you have lived in it for a while all of those vibrant initial elements start to fade into the background.  They are simply overtaken by the “new noise” of daily life.  The corollary in Budo is that the very same practice and constant repetition that we use to build our core skills, and then hone them, inevitably draws us away from being alert, in the moment, to their inherent richness.

It is possible to intercept the mind’s wanderings; not just in pursuit of being more mindful, but to also rediscover the brilliance in our kihon which, in turn, helps to create an even deeper understanding.  Consciously choosing to not go through the motions is the first step.  Think of it in terms of how you would prepare one of your daily meals: if you are in a rush and are eating purely for sustenance in order to get onto your next daily task, you will be much more likely to just grab something quick to prepare, consume it and move on with your day (with the additional downside that, food-wise, convenience, more often than not, equals less healthy).  Contrast this with the experience of mindfully creating a meal that you have put some prior thought into preparing, by hand, with freshly sourced ingredients.  Not only are you likely to produce a meal that is specifically to your individual taste, which you are likely to enjoy more than something produced for the masses from the supermarket shelf, but you get to experience the art of creating, the textures found in  preparation, and the sensory uplift of the subsequent glorious smells of cooking.   It might be slightly less convenient this way but at a fundamental level, as well as probably being more wholesome, it will always be more rewarding and more pleasurable.

The same approach can be taken in Budo practice of every kind.  You can choose to "consciously" go through the motions.  By this, I don’t mean simply focusing on what you are doing (I expect many practitioners, even in “non-mindful” Budo practice will still find themselves correcting their mistakes, or keeping in mind correct balance and proper form) but, rather, take in the whole picture.  Mentally consider:  Can you feel your body from within, what do your muscles feel like, where is your balance, do you feel hot or cold, what are your other senses telling you, are you using proper visualisation methods, and so on.  Additionally, find ways to introduce some planned difficulty to something you would normally do without thinking. 

Yes, progress and progressiveness is important, but it should never be at the expense of losing sight of the value and virtues contained within the basics of Budo arts.  “Mindfulness” might be relatively new in buzzword terms but it has been present in Budo for a very long time and remains one of the very best disciplines to adopt as a daily, and training, way of being.