Embracing Weakness to Become Strong

Today while running something amazing happened. I had this breakthrough realization/connection. In order to explain it I must first delve into the concept of form.

In most physical disciplines there is the idea of kinaesthetic form. For example, if you are practicing yoga asanas, you know that you can practice an asana with good form, or else you can slop through it and not really put much attention and care into it. This holds for many things including music and other physical activities.

As a person who has been physically active most of her life I have always been aware of the importance of good form in whatever I do. Yet how that form expresses itself through the body can vary, as I have discovered.

Discovering and exploring form when I first became physically active in fitness as an adolescent male, over the years certain kinaesthetic values related to form have become engrained in my body and spirit. But as I am now a woman, I have encountered the reality that the female expression of form is different than male.

Often when I run I like to jab my arms in sequence with the running. Usually its a left-left right-right type of pattern which seems to work naturally with the rhythm of running.

However I have noticed that it has been difficult to jab as intensely as I wanted to. If you’ve ever taken a kickboxing class and have been shown the basic jab and hook style punches then you know what I mean. These are the basic punches that one throws while practicing. But I have been finding it difficult to be able to throw such punches while running and maintaining my level.

There is another way of jabbing with the arms – a more sort-of girly way to do it. This is where the kinasethetic thing comes in. In the past, I would have felt that such a way of doing jabs while running is poorer form. It is a kind of wimpy way of doing it.

But then today I had a realization: Maybe that’s the way it is for me. Because I am now a girl. So instead of thinking that the wimpy way of doing jabs while running is bad form, maybe its exactly the form that is right for me because I am after all a woman.

So today after that realization I really started getting into these wimpy, girly-type jabs which are less like formal boxing punches and more just really fun extending the arms out while running, in rhythm with the rest of my body.

And I found through this a new power. Instead of forcing the form that I thought was more kinaesthetically proper, instead I allowed myself to be a little bit weaker, and this was the key to unlocking a more intense level of energy.

So I guess this might have something to do with going from male to female, from having acquired deep kinaesthetic values in my body and spirit first as a male with a capacity for awesome bursts of power, and now being a woman where a different set of values is needed to attain my highest form.