Stokastikos (Pope Pete) threw out a hint in the first MLA CMT course that he had picked up on his travels, and I have used it successfully, and have integrated it with my martial arts (blending it with my study of Aikido, i.e. the Dynamic Sphere).
If you remember spinning as a child, or if you watch a child spin, you should notice that they tend to "center" the spin along their main central axis, i.e. the inertia tends to pull both sides of the body out with the same force and children have the tendancy to "pull" their arms in to increase the velocity of the spin, which they then usually loose control of, stumbling over dizzy, or as you have experienced, puking. We can most likey explain this by saying that the fluid in the inner ear rotates in different directions, as one ear rotates towards the back of your head, with the other roating towards the front, having the focal point between them.
The key seems (stressing
seems) to lie in keeping the center axis of the spin
away from your central axis.One can acheive this by focusing the spin on the left hand held near/ just below navel level (or Hara if you prefer the eastern term, btw I ran across a beautiful little Zen text explaining one of the esoteric reasons that eastern arts teach you to focus there just before, and all through Acting i.e kata and combat, I'll post it in this thread if anyone's interested). When focusing on the left hand held thus, one tends to want to spin in a widdershins (counterclockwise) rotation by stepping lightly, almost dancing, forward and leading with the right foot so that the body turns towards your left. If one uses the right hand, try to dance deosil (clockwise). One may also focus one's attention onto a sigil held or drawn on the hand, as Stokastikos sugested.
Thus, you have your Hara (center) whirling around an envisioned "center" at a distence a little longer than your forearm or bent arm.
I'll quote
http://www.parashakti.org/training.htm for the "origin story" of the wirling technique, as this may make my explanation a bit clearer.
The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, has become one of the best selling volumes of poetry in the English language today. Imagine that! By what extraordinary means does the poetry of an Islamic mystic, Jelaludin al Rumi, writing in 12th century Persia, come to speak to Americans so powerfully today?
Rumi is an ecstatic poet. His voice speaks unmistakably from his heart. He is a passionate celebrant of Creation, of the Creator, of life, food, love, alchemy, music, and dancing. He is a lover of paradox. Through paradox we can challenge what we assume to be true. We can turn away from our customary ways of being, and turn instead to a higher plane. Passion, creativity, dancing, paradox, turning - these constitute both the symbol and the substance of the tradition of the Whirling Dervish.
Rumi was the first Whirling Dervish. Several accounts of Rumi‚s first whirling experience have been reported. My favorite tells us that Rumi was standing in the courtyard outside his family home, early one morning. It had been two years since he had last spoken, having fallen into silence after the disappearance and presumed death of his beloved spiritual teacher and friend, Shams of Tabriz. His family and students thought that Rumi had "lost his mind." On this morning he is said to have been holding onto a post, when he heard the hammering of a goldsmith somewhere in the village. He began moving his feet to the cadence of the hammer. Since he was holding onto the post, he began going in circles, eventually letting go and spinning. He spun and spun, and soon started to speak. Those nearby began writing down what he said. The words he spoke early that morning in 123? - and most mornings afterward throughout the remainder of his life - comprise the volumes we now read. This was the inaugural spin, the birth of the Whirling Dervishes, the moving meditation practice of the Sufis,the mystical branch of Islam
I have noticed when trying this (and it's been a while since I practiced it) that setting up a spherical inertia around a focus point _outside_ the trunk of your body generated a feeling of my feet wanting to lift up into the air of their own accord. This _felt_ as if the force I was generating eroded or lessended the force of gravity. I beleive that what actually happened I could better describe this way; once my rate of spin approached closer to that of the roation of the earth, my vector of innertia (normally directly towards the center of the earth, with a slight pull towards the east as that's the "leading horizon") changed in a way that seems hard to describe(Yaaah! Esoteric Ineffability, or "I can't Eff'ing think of the Words"). Practice slowly so that you can control this feeling, allowing you to sustain the balance of forces without loosing control. Once you attain balance at a slow or medium spin you can try to increase the speed to see at which point you begin to loose control.
I think this subject has a lot to do with the techniques taught by Capoeira (Brazilian martial art) which combines short spins along the center "Hara" line to add torque to kicks strung together with wider spins along an axis just outside the body trunk to generate inertia. Here's a Google Video Link to some Capoeira clips:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=capoeiraI wasn't able to find a Google Video Link to "sufi spin", but here's a couple of html pages for the MerKaBa Meditation:
http://www.greatdreams.com/merkaba.htmhttp://www.chapeltibet.cnchost.com/ct/MerKaBa_Meditation.html(Note to self, read through these, looks interesting)
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p.s. -jamarda,
I wanted to become more active in this and the MRL Simpy exhange, but loss of internet suddenly changed points of contact.
haven't got internet at home worked out, but that should change this week or next. glad I could throw in my experinces. expect to hear more from me.
-everybody
I'd really like to hear from you if you try this or any variation on this technique that you find. I could be totally off in this info, so corrective feedback could seriously help develop this as a technique that we can perfect or teach to others.
Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia! Spin with the balanced Push-Pull of the Sacred Chao!
