Insights on Grounding and Neurological Stimulus

I had some insights about grounding after giving my conference presentation, “Is Grounding Weighing You Down? How to Lighten up Your T’ai Chi Chih.”

First: the body pressing into the floor and the support of the floor pressing into the body are both “grounding” if we use the definition of grounding I gave during my presentation as “relating to the ground.”

Second: the soles of the feet offer a tangible experience of the equal and opposite forces as stated in Newton’s third law of motion. What determines which is felt depends on how the attention is directed. Daniel Pienciak wrote to me and called it the yin and yang of grounding which I like. Then the “advanced” level is experiencing the equal and opposite at the tan t’ien. Pam Towne shared with me that Justin would say “rooted” from the waist down and light from the waist up. I also experienced it as where the support of the earth meets the inspiration from the sky/heavens (i.e., where heaven and earth meet). This was especially true for the “Taffies” when I would feel the support of the earth come up and the heavens come down to create the gathering motion of the arms in front of the tan t’ien. I kept finding as I practiced over the weekend that the upward support from the earth allowed more softening into gravity.

Seijaku: This may have been the first time I experienced a full Seijaku practice. I participated in sessions with Pam and Daniel. With Daniel where he included Fast Track, it reminded me of my studies in the neurocentric body of work called Z-Health. Part of the work involves getting better mapping of the body in the brain which allows for increased strength, coordination, mobility, and flexibility – because the brain can better predict what is going to happen as one moves. In the mobility drill work of Z-Health, they recommend moving at a full variety of speeds and with different loading of the movement. A Seijaku practice that incorporates TCC and Fast Track provides those same variables: moving with resistance and with softness and moving slowly and then quickly with Fast Track. It was definitely a neurologic stimulus.