About Balance

[Sevi]

When you design a ship or a yacht, if you want it to be a very fast vehicle; you might simply think: ok, I'm gonna put the biggest propeller possible and the most powerful engine: done! Well,no.

The more powerfully you push the object in the water, the stronger resistance you're gonna get; then ironically your design will end up being a slow one.

So you need to balance the opposing concepts for an optimal result.

Ok, so what is this design for? A motor yacht for leisure? An overseas bulk carrier for a corporation? Then now the size and the weight will effect your ideal speed too. Voila! New parameters, a new re- balancing activity for you.

Let's say it's a bulk carrier and the buyer wants the lightest ship possible to be able to carry the most load; but yet your ship should be strong enough to handle the ocean waves which will make it heavier.

Every single aspect of your design will gonna require a massive balancing action among the related variables.

When we wanna sail in our lives, the contradicting parameters are surely much more complex and we are far more complicated vehicles than ships.

So that, without knowing our life purpose to sail will be an unnecessarily tough journey. Coming across to someone who can show you the way and teach you how to design a life is such a fortunate coincidence.

The floating principle is also simply a balancing act. It's balancing the nature of the object and the external situation (which is the fluid here). In life by balancing your inner self with the conditions you are in; you, at least, can float. But if you wanna fly high; the principle of flying will require a reasonable amount of speed which will cause a decrease in the pressure of the external environment.

 

Teaching balance in dancing

In dancing, static balance depends on the muscle strength. The stronger the muscle, the better the balance. How do we get stronger muscles? Well, we put the muscle under the pressure: weight lifting, push ups and so on.

So in life; the situations which creates pressure on you, are the opportunities to become more stable, chances to improve your static balance.

 

What about the dynamic balance?

Dynamic balance is required (during motion) in directional changes, in spins; in connecting to partners and so on.

To achieve that; simply you need to be fulfilling the very last action, the one just before one of those movements to happen.

Let's say we're gonna do a sudden directional change and it's a ballroom dance; you need to get on your foot 100% ( meaning putting all your body weight on that foot) then the next thing happens perfectly.

Let's say you're gonna jump off the floor and spin; so your last move is bending the both knees well and be very grounded before taking off.

Often dancers get off- balance and wobbly because their mind goes right into "the difficult" element but doesn't pay attention what's goes on and has to happen at each single moment; especially the moment just before "The action" which requires balance.

Long story short, being at the present moment and doing the requirements of that moment and keeping the mind just on it, always creates the perfect dynamic balance in dancing.

 

As a teacher:

As a teacher,  to teach your students especially the dynamic balance, you always need to remember this idea:

So you need to be at the moment with them: for every beat (even every half beat) you hold them (physically) like a statue for seconds (which feels like minutes to them) for every single beat of the music; one by one, every single beat. You have them be statues for every moment.

So, that means, as a teacher you ever rush. Without having them to achieve that one beat, you just do not continue (and it might be 16 counts away, before the key motion happens) you just hold them there. 

If your mind moves just a little forward; for sure your student will wobble a lot.

So, you don't get impatient about the fluidity of the storyline.

You stay with them and freeze the time there and in a sense it creates a feeling of acceptance for them.

After such an emotional exchange, in most of the cases, the student starts to let go of the ideas which causes tension in the body and becomes more mobilized to move forward 'balancely'.

Of course the essential thing for the teacher is to never put away any hope about any student. 

In my life, I've taught balance to very different variety of students of different age groups, different disabilities.. I've never seen any of them not achieving it. So, as silly as it sounds but if there is a breath there is hope.

It is the best and the strongest position in life to be hopeful about anything where no-one can even attempt to imagine that, isn't it?

[Nahm]

[Mats]

On 7.2.2017 at 11:11 AM, Sevi said:

About Balance

Did you write this? Either way, thank you for sharing. It made me think deep about the art of balance and gave me some worthful insight.

Edited February 9, 2017 by Mats

[Salaam]

@Sevi

Great post!

I wish more people valued and invested in understanding balance and then applied it to their lives. It's the best way to grow and foster an environment of harmony and synergy. This is especially true when working on our minds and balancing who we are.

The most honest and real thing in the world is movement, and even if you can't see it, you can feel it, track it, balance, and harmonize it. 

So what are the movements and actions of the mind that we need to balance and harmonize and what capabilities do we need to develop, harmonize, and synergize to carry out those ends?

Well those capabilities are things like sensitivity, awareness, flow, form, pacing, pressure, differentiation, internalization, traction/restraint, dimensioniality, attraction and repulsion of inter-connection, resiliency/elasticity, fragility/limitation, and many others. 

All of the above things rely and depend on each other and balance each other out, and are in the mix at all times, having an influence within a person as we move/live.

In order to expand our awareness we have to develop our sensitivity. In order to make sense of what we sense, we have to differentiate and develop contrast. In order to make use of those differentiations we have to understand how they connect. Understanding how they connect and move together creates flow. However in order to move about in flow and foster depth, you must have traction, however too much traction can create drag and must be balanced and harmonized with flow in each different situation.

Then you have how all those things are influenced and modulated by what we connect with. Our attractive or repulsive chemistry with those things and how the intensity of it can either limit or expand things like awareness, population of detail, and ability to differentiate. It also has a huge effect on dimensionality and your perspective of dimensionality, which is the amount of layers and dimensions being considered in one-self contained awareness, not just the size of each person's bubble of awareness, but the amount of tiers within that bubble or the amount of bubbles within bubbles. 

Then once you have all those different things differentiated and developed to a certain threshold, you develop them more and as each one raises another also must be raised so it can counterbalance and mirror it's sibling, so we don't become one-dimensional.

Without the development and balance of these things, you will not grow beyond a certain point. People can believe what they want about gods and voids and nirvana and enlightenment, but none of that is as real and integral to actual evolution as the things I've listed above and none of them negate the reality of having to take action and put in effort towards balance. 

Literally everything in the universe is influenced by these co-factors in some way, because everything that exists MOVES.

[Sevi]

@Mats

It's from some of my experiences, thank you. I like this forum, exchange of our ideas gives me a lot of new insights too. 

[Sevi]

@Salaam

Salaam, such a profound contribution of yours, I appreciated it a lot. It has already expanded my awareness; but actually I need to read it couple of more times. Very helpful! Thank you.

4 hours ago, Salaam said:

4 hours ago, Salaam said:

Without the development and balance of these things, you will not grow beyond a certain point. People can believe what they want about gods and voids and nirvana and enlightenment, but none of that is as real and integral to actual evolution as the things I've listed above and none of them negate the reality of having to take action and put in effort towards balance

 

Really, without approaching holistically to the matters, we can not talk about any real growth of anything; so the balancing act represents itself as such a key factor.

None of the domains of life or matters is less important; all of them need the same attention and effort; of course prioritizing them will depend on different variables but balancing them will surely require mastery and much more delicate grasp of our minds.

And Salaam, you have pointed  so significantly, the importance of creating the harmony and synergy through balancing act; because the healing of the most of the micro or macro wounds will definitely depend on that. 

Thank you.

[Sevi]

@Phil

Haha! 

Phil! Listen. If you choose to put some time on this, the pay-off will definitely gonna please you! It doubles the pleasures in life. Guaranteed?

[Nahm]

what about the path of inspiration and action that is joyous....inspired action? why does any progress have to be thought of as work? connect first vision second enjoy third. there is no for balance when you act from connection and inspiration since this way does not accumulate resistance.   

[Sevi]

Without joy and inspiration, there won't be any meaningful action. It's for sure. But without balance, there won't be continuity either. As long as you balance the contradicting ends you do continue to live your life.

To sleep - be awake, to be hungry - to eat, to have fun - to get back to work, the day and the night...

When describing the balance I might have been gotten a little boring and dull but as an act itself it is fun too?