Muscle awareness

[Hansu]

So, long story short I have a muscle pinch in my back caused by spinal disc herniation and while I was sitting in sauna, I noticed that my abdomen is slightly tilted. I then used my hands to lift my left asscheek off the chair and straighten my abdomen, and then I felt how a muscle on the left side of my lower back relaxed, which caused my right leg to begin going numb. So good! My subconscious is doing its job tensing up the muscle in order to prevent further damage so my spine can heal. I stopped trying to relax the muscle.

But then I remembered how in a book "way of the warrior" a fictional Japanese Zen master said how he noticed that his kidney was acting up so he flushed it by drinking some kind of traditional remedy. Then it came to my mind that some use martial arts to mindfully inspect their body and learn it, maybe to build awareness of their muscles?

And then I thought; "I can say which muscles are tensed when I look at my posture, straighten it and relax, but I can not close my eyes and use my awareness to tell which muscles are tensed. Is it possible to build enough awareness to simply notice which muscles are tensed up?"

I feel like this kind of awareness -along with building core strenght- would lower my changes of breaking my back again in the future. If it is possible, how would one practice it? Simply by doing the mindfulness meditation? Working out mindfully? Mindful Tai Chi?

Edited October 1, 2019 by Hansu

[DrewNows]

Learning body mechanics is not only long term beneficial, it's a way of meditation. Find something you would enjoy learning and see what you learn from your body, I recommend yoga to get your breath involved. 

[Nahm]

@Hansu Strengthen the muscle. Tension tends to find the weakest link in the body. 

This might be the greatest video in the entire universe. 

[Forestluv]

I've found shamanic breathing to help reveal muscle awareness and memory. For me, thinking awareness/memory often masks muscle awareness/memory. Shamanic breathing can shift awareness/memory from thoughts to body. 

[MAYA EL]

Martial arts is wonderful for learning body mechanics and body awareness. I did martial arts from 15 to 21yr old  and competitively for a while as well as taught Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I even got to the point where I could release adrenaline just standing still as well as not release adrenaline during a excited moment as a demonstration of how you can control your body this was done with stress monitor on in order to show reaction on screen. You can also he's so everybody not only can you find what's wrong with it but you can figure out how to fix it.

[Hansu]

@DrewNows

Would you recommend Kriya Yoga for this purpose?

@Nahm

Funny thing, this video is what brought back my back pains. I never fully recovered from my lower back problems, so the tensions became permanent. When I began to relax my lower back while driving a car, it didn't take long after that for the herniated disc to pop again. It was my own fault tho, since I never really strenghtened my lower core muscles like the fyseotherapeut instructed. I "threw away my scrutches before my leg was healed"

Thanks for for reminding me that video exists, gonna rewatch it right away!

 

Edit: Oh boy im tense

@Serotoninluv

How does that exactly work? By doing shamanic breathing with a goal in mind? Im a little afraid of doing shamanic breathing. I guess im afraid of what waits for me in the shadows

@MAYA EL

Sounds cool! Did you build awareness without really trying, or was mindfulness practice a part of your martial arts school?

I practiced Hapkido for 1 year before my back pains came back, but it takes a looong time before the breath work etc come into the practice in that art

Edited October 2, 2019 by Hansu

[Forestluv]

2 minutes ago, Hansu said:

 

@Serotoninluv

How does that exactly work? By doing shamanic breathing with a goal in mind? Im a little afraid of doing shamanic breathing. I guess im afraid of what waits for me in the shadows

 

 

[MAYA EL]

7 hours ago, Hansu said:

Sounds cool! Did you build awareness without really trying, or was mindfulness practice a part of your martial arts school?

I practiced Hapkido for 1 year before my back pains came back, but it takes a looong time before the breath work etc come into the practice in that art

We practiced alot .... including body hardening and I'm not sure how much the body hardening helped if it even helped at all but it did alow you to block pain to an extremely high amount unfortunately body hardening training is brutal I did 3x a week for 45 minutes and usually threw up once possibly dry heaved two or three more times after that each session x3 a week. 

And I didn't notice one thing that I haven't seen anybody discuss about human body that is how the body's ability to bruise can change what I mean by that is usually whatever amount of impact will leave in a nice purple bruise on you well if you do about a year or two of body hardening and then receive that same impact you won't even see a change in color to your skin matter fact after several years you'll lose the ability to bruise unless something's broken I find that very very odd I did not expect to experience that.

But I also didn't expect when I stopped body hardening that all the nerves after about six months started to regenerate and so I would get sharp shooting pains at random making me do things like drop my phone or limp or fall out the car and we're quite common for about 2 years