Balance is the quest to bring together forces that both oppose and complement one another. In our world of form, we live in and among countless opposing factors – the yin/yang forces you’re familiar with: light/dark, contracting/expanding, levity/gravity, inward/outward, male/female, and so on.
When these forces are not balanced (complemented by their polarity-partner, where they can triumph in balanced unity), stagnation and the decay cycle sets in. Over polarization of one of the forces undermines life.
So we must be vigilant not to over polarize toward one force, forsaking its counterbalancing mate. This much you know. Moving along…
When the counter balancing mates are used consciously, something amazing happens: we can actually grow dynamically and exponentially when we stretch one force along with it’s complementary force equally! For example, if you take a long stride with your right leg and then an equally long stride with your left leg and what happens? Well, you get farther, your limbs realize a greater potential than when you were taking smaller steps and, from there, you can continue to challenge yourself and reach greater potential! Again, you know this…
But now, I want to invite you to look at how this applies to muscle development in the fitness category.
Good exercise physiologists and trainers will guide their clients to “opposing muscle development” which creates a supportive netowork for the musculature, preventing injury and many other problems. Opposing muscle development is what is what is done when one strengthens the abdominals along with the lower back, the hamstrings with the quadriceps, the biceps with the triceps, you get the idea.
But there is an aspect to muscular development that is still missing and because it is missing, fitness enthusiasts are actually fast tracking their own decay by the very way they are aiming to strengthen themselves and attempt to increase their longevity.
The missing element is applying the complementary, counter-polarity-partner of absolute malleability with muscular increase/development. Muscles must only be increased with absolute malleability, which requires an absence of obstruction in the muscle tissue. When you combine development/increase with absolute malleability (which at the outset may sound like an totally incompatible concept) you will have a truly enviable muscular system both cosmetically and mechanically. I like to call it a bionic muscular system (even though “bionic” connotes something artificial, I still like the ring of it and the image of a dynamically powerful muscle it conjures up for me).
A life-generating musculature has nothing in common with the traditional, modern muscle building approach which breeds stagnation with every lift and crunch and is rather a menace to the conductivity and flow in your body which give you your youth juice.
Granted, most body builders and gym-goers are consuming highly toxic shakes, bars and meals designed to encourage muscle development so they are already doomed as these ingredients will destroy healthy tissue and are the harbingers of rapid aging. But for you, who are not mismatching strength training with toxicity, you could be getting so much more bionic power circulating in your body!
As you develop your clean-celled musculature, make a point of keeping your muscles very, very supple. You don’t want armor, you want strength and true strength is primal fire flowing through your physical form – the primal fire (Qi, life force, force from the Source, as you like) is the big boss.
Your muscles should be developed as part of your body’s endeavor to express each of it’s systems as the primal fire would have it done. In this light, your lungs are a servant of the primal fire; your kidney’s are a servant of the primal fire, as are your bones and muscles. When we invert that truth we have big problems! Put the primal fire’s requirements first (which are, namely to conduct, move, express, expand, experience) and you’ll know how to support your body’s systems on behalf of the primal fire that depends on them. You’ll be living life in your body right side up instead of upside down.
So, by all means, increase the fortitude of your muscles. But do it by consciously complimenting development with malleability. Note bene: flow is the cousin of malleability; flexibility serves these cousins – flexibility is a tool to increase flow and malleability, not the other way around.
There are several excellent, easy, free practices you can do daily to make sure you are optimising your malleability as you train. Daily massage is an obvious first stop (self massage more than suffices and can be done whenever it suits you). Intuitive dance and intuitive yoga for even a few minutes is a great way to ensure fluidity!
But, this is one area where visualisation is highly effective! Take some time once or twice a day to visualize all the condensation of energy, all the stagnation, emotional residue and mental tension leaving your muscle tissue.
If we want to become living embodiments of the primal fire (which we do, believe me), we have to live the primal fire lifestyle and think like primal fire thinks. We can’t let anti-primal fire stuff set in – not in our organs, not in our connective tissue, our joints, our hearts, our minds or our muscles. Best of all, you can expect your muscles to be stronger. So, lift your weights, sculpt your yoga muscles, run, cycle, climb, row, whatever suits you best but remember for all the development you do, you need to clear, clear, clear stagnation from that muscle tissue.
If you’ve read the Socrates book series by Dan Millman (one of my all time favorite set of books – I cannot recommend it highly enough), you may remember that the main character, Socrates explains that our bodies should be so malleable that we should be able to be massaged right to the bone! That’s a good image to keep in mind – to strive for. With muscles, increase and malleability = strength. Those are the complementary forces for bionic muscles.
I love my bionic muscles. They make me feel almost other-worldy, like I’ve got a secret in them, like they can do things that I’m not even fully aware of yet. Ah the ever unfolding mysteries of the inspired, syntropic, ecstatic life!
