Body-Mind-Spirit-Houston

I had never worked as hard in my life as I did in the SEAL PT Navigator program. But I liked the challenge and felt slow, often achingly slow, progress. I was getting stronger and my stamina improved. Marlene said it took about six weeks for the body to acclimate to the intensity of the workouts.

As I jogged along through Memorial Park that July morning, I recalled how it had taken every ounce of energy I could muster to conquer that platform and hand trolley ten years earlier. Now here I was, enrolled in a Navy SEAL workout program, and I was actually enjoying it. Even calisthenics, the bane of high school gym classes, had become an invaluable part of the development of my physical IQ. As the slogan said, I’d “come a long way, baby.” And all these efforts provided the added benefit of mending my aching back. I smiled to myself as I contemplated this amazing turn of events.

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)’

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Back Strength in Body Mind Spirit Integration

My friends Gibbie and Marlene are SEAL PT Lifers. They met at SEAL PT and later married. I had always blown off the whole boot-camp-and-exercise-at-5:30-in-the-morning thing. When Marlene was ready to return to SEAL PT after Emily, their daughter, was born, she opted to start with the Navigators, which met at a more civilized 6:30 am. I was intrigued as Marlene described the easier pace and lighter attitude. I wasn’t sure I could even handle Navigators with my back, but knew I wanted to try something different. So there I was, my clothes plastered to my body on a hot-and-humid July morning.

I was shocked that I liked SEAL PT. But most surprising was my back. I was very careful with the exercises; I did as many reps as I could and would rest or modify the movement when my back started to hurt. The overall calisthenics strengthened my back, which in turn greatly reduced the pain.

Ironically, strengthening my abdominal muscles--my bid to strengthen my back--had over-developed my hip flexor muscles. Your abdominals, or abs, are the four layers of muscle that span your sides and belly, from the lower rib cage to the hip and pubic bones. Strong abs are important for good back support and good breathing. (The more toned and supple your ab muscles, the deeper your breath exhalation, which in turn gives you a fuller inhalation. This simple improvement in breathing alone yields a dramatic improvement in vitality).

The hip flexors are the muscles that raise the thigh up toward the belly. Some of the hip flexors attach to the back along the lumbar spine. My overly strong hip flexor muscles had actually strained and pulled the lower vertebrae out of alignment, and this miscalculation had caused much of my back pain. The remedy was to focus on strengthening the back muscles themselves and ab exercises that counter-strengthened the hip extensors: the muscles that lift your thigh backward and up.

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)’

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Weight Training in Body Mind Spirit Integration

One morning a few months later, Alexander and I were out walking, and I heard the Voice in the back of my mind again. This time it said, “Ask Gary to work out with you. Get a trainer.”

It was no surprise to me when Gary Archer, my old friend, said, “Great idea.” In a few weeks I joined the Downtown YMCA, and Gary and I had a trainer and a regular workout program. Our trainer, Mary Hodge, was a nationally ranked mountain biker. After a few months of working with her I dusted off my bicycle and started riding.

As I began to see pleasing changes in my body, that positive reinforcement led me to maintain an exercise regimen. My program has ebbed and flowed along with my weight, but I keep coming back to exercising my body.

Eventually I changed trainers and gyms. Alvin Reuben, my new trainer, is a massive, handsome black man and a former pro football player. I wanted the results I saw in his body and the clients he trained. He also worked carefully with my back injury, a chronic condition I had suffered with for years. Alvin’s method of training requires the mind to perform the exercise, slowly and carefully, and let the body build its strength naturally. Master the movement and you carefully build the body. With Alvin’s technique, weight lifting became a meditation. Every exercise began with my body relaxed. I would use light weights and attentive focus and breathing through each movement. Under Alvin’s firm gaze he would stop me if I lost control of the exercise, or if I sped up to use momentum rather than my strength. Using Alvin’s technique in the gym turned working out into a spiritual practice.

Through those years I lived with a compressed spinal disc in my back, a chronic pain that would sometimes flair up with excruciating spasms. For the most part I just lived with the discomfort, but after a long bout of chronic pain I took a few months off from the gym to nurse my back. Not surprisingly my weight began to rise without regular exercise.

Be Brilliant.
Love your way, ad
Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Whisper: Body Mind and Spirit

In December 1997, I went to visit my good friends Creighton Edwards and Michael Fife at their home. Both are regular massage clients. Creighton is an internationally respected surgeon. Once after an angioplasty he asked me to come to the hospital to deliver some aromatherapy oils for his sutures and give him a reflexology foot massage. I wasn’t about to miss a surgeon asking for natural treatments in addition to his hospital care.

As I was leaving he asked me to come to his house to give him a massage, noting that he wouldn’t be able to drive for a few weeks. When he felt a bit better I went to their home. As I said my hellos I met their three dogs: Willie, Waylon, and Hank. Hank was a half-greyhound mix.

Later, as I was winding up the massage with Creighton, I was holding his feet, feeling the energy move through me and nurturing his body. Suddenly the Voice that I sometimes hear at the back of my mind said to me, “Adopt a greyhound.” This came as quite a surprise to me. I hadn’t had a dog since the seventh grade. I considered myself a cat person, although my last cat, Charlie, had disappeared.

The more I researched greyhounds the more I thought I could live with a dog like that. They are beautiful, they are quiet, and they are loyal and affectionate. And they need to be walked regularly—not just let out into the yard but actual exercise. Greyhounds are athletes, after all. I also knew to trust my Voice.

Two weeks later, just a few a days before Christmas, I brought home a handsome greyhound We started exploring the old Montrose neighborhood, walking from Miramar Street to Hermann Park, or we’d cut across to North and South Boulevards. Every day we explored new routes. I loved being out in the cold of winter. Alexander, a handsome fawn color, looked smart in his black jacket, collar, and leash.

Be Brilliant.
Love your way, ad
Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Seal PT Body Camp in Body Mind Spirit Integration

There are two levels of entry: Boot Camp and Body Camp. Boot Camp is a two-week intensive, some might say exhaustive, mental and fitness training program. After finishing Boot Camp graduates may choose to continue in the ongoing “Lifers” program. The “Lifers” workout at 5:30 AM is intense (I would say grueling) and doesn’t leave time or energy for socializing.

Body Camp is billed as a four-week workout for those too injured or out of shape to complete Boot Camp. Body Camp graduates can join the “Navigators,” designed as an ongoing, easier program. I opted for the Body Camp, and It was hard work. And to my surprise, I liked it.

What a turnaround. I took two years of Air Force ROTC in high school so I could skip the required phys-ed classes, partly because I felt embarrassed about my body and partially because I hated the exercises. As a kid I did like to hike and ride horses when we lived in the country, but overall I was lazy. I would just as soon watch TV or read as to exercise. After years of neglecting my body I was disgusted with it. When I reached a weight of 320-plus pounds, when climbing a flight of stairs left me winded, I realized that if I was ever to be fit and trim (which I’d always dreamed of) exercise would have to become my friend.

Be Brilliant.

Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Seal PT in Body MInd Spirit Integration

HOUSTON, July 2004: It was 7:30 in the morning, and I was plastered again. I don’t mean plastered in the usual sense of “way too many beers,” but plastered as in soaking wet, of every fiber of my clothes drenched in sweat. I was half way though an hour of military-style maneuvers. My chest was heaving from a vigorous blend of calisthenics and running/walking. Welcome to SEAL Physical Training (PT), the exercise (some might say torture) program developed by a former U.S. Navy SEAL (Sea, Air and Land).

“Wide-grip push-ups,” called the instructor, “Twenty of them. Starting position. Ready! One, two, three,” he droned. “One,” we completed the four-count chant. “One, two, three,” he repeated. “Two,” we counted the reps. The count volleyed until we reached the magic finishing number of twenty.

With just a millisecond to breathe, the instructor barked, “Close-grip push-ups, twenty of them. Starting position. Ready! One, two, three,” started the chant. “One,” we called back. And so it went as we worked our way through a series of chest exercises, abdominal workouts, tricep dips on the bleachers, step-ups using the benches of picnic tables. I was momentarily relieved when he called for a run/walk (how tragic is that—who would have thought?). “Intervals, at your own pace. Two laps.”

SEAL PT in Memorial Park is the brainchild of Jack Walston, the former Navy SEAL. Walston created the exercise program to give civilians a taste of military physical fitness. Each class is led by a crack former military instructor--a U.S. Army Ranger, a U.S. Navy SEAL, a Navy medic, a couple of Marines.

Be Brilliant.

Love your way, ad
Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Wilma Rudolph-The Physical Intelligence of an Olympic Champion

From Polio Braces to Gold Medalist--

Wilma Rudolph-The Physical Intelligence of an Olympic Champion


By Alan Davidson

http://www.throughyourbody.com/

© Alan Davidson- All Rights reserved

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ROME, Italy: On September 7, 1960, Wilma Rudolph made Olympic history by becoming the first woman, not to mention the first African-American woman, to win three gold medals.
Her accomplishments in track and field-taking first place in both the 100-meter and 200-meter dash and in the 4x100 relay-opened the door for women and girls in previously all- male track and field events. Graceful, fast and slender, the Italian press called her La Gazzella-the gazelle.

"Gazelle" would not have been young Wilma's nickname, however. Born in segregated Clarksville, Tennessee, on June 23, 1940, the twentieth of twenty-two children, she weighed just four-and-a-half pounds. Her parents were hardworking but quite poor.

Wilma's mother nursed her sickly child through the measles, chicken pox, double pneumonia and scarlet fever. When Wilma's left foot and leg drew up and turned in, the diagnosis of polio seemed final. Doctors gave the little girl no hope of ever walking without braces or crutches, if at all.

But her mother didn't accept the doctors' opinions.
Twice a week for two years she drove Wilma the fifty miles to Nashville for treatment at Meharry Hospital, part of Fisk University, a black college.

The doctors showed Mrs. Rudolph how to exercise Wilma's muscles, and she in turn taught the therapies to Wilma's brothers and sisters. Every day Wilma got those exercises, done with love and the conviction that she would be healthy and whole.

Everyone helped, and by age eight Wilma was not only walking without crutches and braces, but playing basketball in the backyard.

Wilma joined her junior-high basketball team, but the coach didn't put her in a single game. By her sophomore year in high school Wilma started as guard. Her performance caught the attention of Ed Temple, coach of the Tennessee State University Tigerbells, who offered her a full scholarship when she graduated.

Besides guiding the basketball team to a championship Wilma also excelled at track and field, earning a spot in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, where the sixteen-year-old brought home a bronze medal in the 4x4 relay.
But it was her outstanding accomplishments in Rome that brought Rudolph fame and influence.

When her hometown of Clarksville wanted to have a parade in her honor, Rudolph insisted that the celebration be open to whites and blacks, not just one or the other as was customary; the parade and dinner following were the first integrated events in Clarksville.

Rudolph returned to ennessee State and earned her B.A. in education in 1963.

She was a lifelong advocate of racial and gender equality.
Rudolph's successful pursuit of her athletic goals, coupled with her mother's fierce determination, serve as a testament to the body's capacity for greatness when the power of physical energy is in harmony with one's emotional and spiritual centers.

Such alignment allows not only health and well-being but the knowledge that we can count on our bodies as a foundation for further growth. In Wilma Rudolph's case, developing her physical capabilities probably saved her life.
These levels of energy represent the layers of our "intelligences," or the Essential IQs.

According to Howard Gardner, the Harvard Psychologist, in his book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, humans do not have just mental intelligence- the ability for thinking and learning-but emotional, physical and spiritual intelligences.

We have the potential for being fit, for seeing ourselves through others' eyes, for the journey toward contentment and enlightenment. I add moral intelligence to Gardner's list:
a level of intelligence that enables not only to understand another's pain but the desire for justice, too.
I call these our Five Vital IQs: Physical, Emotional, Mental, Moral, and Spiritual Intelligences.

Wilma Rudolph, like so many of our Olympic and professional athletes, was a Physical IQ genius. Physical Intelligences rests on six qualities. The foundation is Sense and Center.
On this foundation are four pillars: Strength, Flexibility, Grace and Bearing.

" Sensation is the language of the body; a language many of
us have ignored for most of our lives. To feel the sensations of our bodies is to actually experience ourselves; raw, life coursing through us, present in our most immediate sense.

" Centering is a key element of all the martial arts, from
Aikido, Tai Chi, to Tae Kwan Do. This simple, yet profound, practice asks us to drop into our center of gravity. The Asian traditions call this part of the body, about two inches below the navel, the tan 'tien in China or the hara in Japan.

" Strength relies on "Calisthenics" which comes from the
Greek words kallos for beauty and thenos for strength.
These healthful exercises are designed to create muscle fitness, which includes muscular strength, gracefulness, and physical well being.

" Flexibility represents much more than just stretching the
muscles or connective tissues. Good stretching affects three different parts of our bodies: the nerves, the muscle fibers and the connective tissues.

" Grace is often simply called balance, conscious movement,
or skillful movement. It's ease and suppleness of movement and bearing."

" Bearing is the stance and posture of the body in space. It
is the natural alignment of the skeleton. Balance is the interplay of gravity and our bones, and a reflection of our
overall sense of wholeness and ease.

By tending these six simple qualities you can begin to peak your Physical Intelligence. By peaking this vital IQ you create energy in our body, and our lives, that we can then use to grow and develop our other IQs. The body is the foundation for each of the other Intelligences.

If tending her Physical Intelligence--exercises done every day with love and convition--can turn Wilma Rudolph, a girl diagnosed as a cripple into a gold medalist, think what they can do for you.

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Alan Davidson is the author of the Free report "Body Breakthroughs for Life Breakthroughs: How to Peak Your Physical, Emotional, Mental, Moral, and Spiritual IQs for a Sensational Life" available at http://www.throughyourbody.com/.

Alan's also the author of Body Brilliance: Mastering Your Five Vital Intelligences, the #1 Health and Wellness book and Winner of Two 2007 Book-of-the-Year Awards.

=> http://www.throughyourbody.com/

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Body Mind Spirit Ropes Course

Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise
will sooner or later have to find time for illness.
Edward Stanley


PETALUMA, California, July 1994: Struggling thirty-five feet in the air, I tried to reach the platform above me. I was only half way up the pine tree, and the rope ladder proved a rascal to climb. Unattached at the ground, it twisted and turned as I tried to climb it. My breath was labored, and my arms were tired. I rested a moment, my arms woven through the ropes. The ladder bent almost ninety degrees as my weight forced my feet straight out from my arm hold. I wasn’t scared of falling, exactly, because I was strapped to a safety belt that was anchored by four of my teammates on the ground. I had some small concern that my three hundred pounds (I’d lost twenty pounds since the training began) will uproot my teammates if I should slip, but I expected they could handle it.

Our guide up on the platform gently encouraged me to keep climbing. My team, below me on the ground, shouted their encouragement as well. I untangled my arms and pulled myself up another rung. My progress was slow, but I was climbing. My energy stalled a few feet from the platform as my arms trembled from what seemed a Herculean effort to pull my weight this far into the sky, almost seventy feet up now. I wove my arms through the ropes to rest one more time.

I didn’t know if I could climb another rung. I thought, “I will hate myself for giving up,” but I was exhausted. My arms, back, and legs ached. The four rungs to the platform seemed like a mile. I focused my attention on my breath to calm my mind, and with a last-ditch effort I summoned a glimmer of energy and climbed the last four rungs. Apparently, the mind gives up before the body does. I was so grateful to feel the solid wood platform under my arms. Our guide helped me to swing my legs onto the perch, while the entire team let loose a raucous cheer seventy feet below me.

I quietly gloated to myself. Finally, mind triumphed over matter; my willpower was stronger than my “fat” body. Now I stood to face the next challenge: grab a handheld trolley, step off the platform, and ride a cable across an open meadow to the ground. I could hear the ocean off to my right. Richard stood on a ladder across an open field at the base of the cable. I had been so focused on scaling the rope ladder that I forgot to dread stepping off seventy feet into space.

My guide deftly disconnected my safety belt from my teammates on the ground and strapped me to the hand trolley. I stepped up to the edge. Fear gripped my belly and tightened my throat as I looked at the ground, my teammates tiny in the distance. What the hell? This has got to be easier than climbing that damn ladder. Before I can think about it any more I stepped off. The fear immediately gave way to the blast of shooting down the cable.

The thrilling sensation was better than any roller coaster. I shot past Richard on the ladder and hurtled toward the tree that anchored the cable. My momentum slowed, and I swung back toward the ground. With a few swings back and forth, Richard grabbed me from his post on the ladder. I was breathless with my feats and proudly declared to him, “I can never call myself a sissy again.” Richard promised, “I’ll bear witness to that.”

Body Mind Spirit Fitness Program

The important goal of any fitness program or spiritual practice is to stick with it. Play around with the different exercises to see which ones you like and that work for you. The following five-step program is good for anyone, whether you’re doing high-intensity training and sports competitions or just an easy workout.

· Warm up with any light aerobic exercise, like a brisk walk, easy jog, bike ride, or swim
· Do some warm-up stretches (see Chapter Fourteen for some good examples)
· Proceed to your high-intensity workout, which could be vigorous sprinting, regular calisthenics or the Five Tibetans (see Chapter Twelve)
· Start a warm-down with any light aerobic activity like those suggested for the warm-up
· End with deep stretches like those in traditional hatha yoga.

You will notice good changes if you commit to just fifty minutes for your routine: a ten-minute walk, ten minutes of light stretching, ten minutes of whatever high-intensity work you want to do, ten minutes of warm-down aerobics, and ten minutes of deep stretching. You can start with less and add more minutes as you progress.

Next, set a weekly goal of how often to do the exercises. Decide how many days you can really do your routine: two, three, four times a week. Start modestly and work up to more exercises and more days when it feels good to you. It is better to consistently meet your simple goal of a few exercises a couple of times a week than to occasionally do a longer and more vigorous program, one you can’t or won’t maintain.

As you live through your body, improving your five essential layers of intelligence, you will feel the echoes of your childhood vitality start to bubble up. Let your longing for a brighter and healthier life pull you forward. If you get discouraged, just remember that your mind gives up long before your body does, so keep going. You can do this.

Be Brilliant.
Love your way, ad
Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Somatic Body Mind Spirit Exercise

The exercises for peaking this first layer of essential intelligence are like many exercises found in the physical fitness canon. They focus on building muscle strength and endurance, stretching, and balance. In most physical fitness programs there is an emphasis on mindless repetitions or laps. The difference with somatic exercise is the attention given to the raw experiences of our body as we exercise. The intention is not only to build muscle strength, flexibility and balance, but also to unify those skills with our feelings, thoughts and soul. The more our attention is engaged during these exercises, the greater our experience and the benefit.

Read about the different exercises for fitness and increasing your essential physical IQ. Think about how you can design a conscious exercise program that works best for you. Start as easy as you like. My best reason for doing anything in life is to feel good, or better yet, to feel great. The point of living through your body is to enjoy yourself day in and day out, not to suffer through agony to finally arrive at happiness, or enlightenment, or something, somewhere, sometime in the future. Feel better now.

Be Brilliant.
Love your way, ad
Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Body Mind Spirit Foundation

The four chapters covering physical intelligence are Strength, Flexibility, Grace and Bearing. I think of them as the four pillars of our body’s foundation. The Zhangs, the amazing Chinese Olympic skaters profiled above, have these qualities in spades. But each of us can peak these proficiencies to our best abilities and grow this layer of intelligence.

The coastal soil along this stretch of the Gulf of Mexico near Houston is reclaimed swampland: layers of wet clay, rocks and dirt. Here in the Montrose, a neighborhood near downtown, many of the old houses are built on pier-and-beam foundations. Large pillars are sunk deep into the earth and rise vertically above the ground’s surface. Beams are fastened horizontally to the pillars to create a stable foundation, one that can provide equal stability during long, hot summers and cold, wet winters. The house is then built on top of the pier-and-beam structure.

Like the old foundations in Houston, the four pillars of Strength, Flexibility, Grace and Bearing, working in harmony, create a dynamic platform for our body’s physical, emotional, mental, moral, and spiritual health. Chapter Ten, “Strength,” covers the importance of building our muscles, followed by a discussion of conscious calisthenics in Chapter Eleven. “Flexibility,” Chapter Twelve, explains the importance of stretching and the body’s full range of motion. “Grace” in Chapter Fifteen covers our joints, balance and coordination. And Chapter Sixteen, “Bearing,” explores good posture and the natural position of our bones and how the muscles and connective tissue supports or distorts them. This chapter also explores the effects of touch and deep-tissue bodywork on this layer of intelligence.

Be Brilliant.
Love your way, ad
Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Body Mind Spirit Play

HOUSTON, Spring 2004: The stained-glass windows in my studio were flung open on a crisp spring day. I was dressing the massage table for my next client when I heard the faint sound of laughter. My third-story walk-up studio was near Woodrow Wilson Elementary School, and I had a bird’s-eye view of the playground from my bathroom window. It sprawled over an entire half block along Fairview Street. Kids were out for recess doing what kids have done for recess since the Dark Ages, or at least since I was a kid in the 1960s. I paused at the window to enjoy the sights and sounds of kids playing and having fun.

Two teams of kids scampered across the grass playing kick ball. Three girls added giggles of delight to their cartwheels. Phys-ed teams leaped like frogs, racing each other to a finish line; the winning team let loose a whoop. A gang of girls practiced cheers, stacking themselves into a human pyramid and laughing when it fell down. The playground could have been any circus, with the acrobats wearing red or blue school uniforms instead of colorful sequins and feathers. The breeze carried the sounds of squealing, happy children.

I pondered a mystery of life. Sometimes I still wonder why I was in such a hurry to grow up. Somewhere along the way the carefree play of children shifted to the march of adulthood. We traded running, jumping and tumbling for walking, standing, and sitting. Instead of crawling through bushes like kids, as grown-ups we lean against water-coolers. Rather than stomp around the great outdoors, we sit at our desks for too-long hours. We trade glee for the safety of our paychecks.

At a certain age we began to really slow down. The normal movements of our every day suddenly caused a dull ache that often, over time, spasmed into full-blown pain. We attributed these accumulating aches and pains to “getting old.” We resigned ourselves to the march of time without ever asking, “Does it have to be this way?”

The answer is, “No. It doesn’t.” I don’t believe in “getting old,” per se. I believe that with our minds focused on the daily rat race, our bodies simply forget how to feel vital and free: a classic case of “You lose what you don’t use.” Those once young and limber bodies have become tired and brittle.

One natural antidote to the ravages of time is to realize consciousness throughout the body’s five essential intelligences. A somatic life empowers a man or woman to live with a relaxed and concentrated mind; a strong, flexible body, and with sparkling, mature emotions that enables that person to share their love with others. It is a life that is dynamic, creative and harmonious. The bedrock of this vital life is our physical intelligence, the first layer of consciousness. The physical IQ is the densest of the five layers so that it can provide a stable foundation. It includes our muscles, joints, and bones, as well as the connective tissues: the tendons, ligaments, and fascia.

Be Brilliant.
Love your way, ad
Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019713-942-0923

Zhang Dan: Body, Mind, Spirit Champion

TORINO, Italy, February, 2006: Representing China, at the Winter Olympic Games, Zhang Dan and her partner, Zhang Hao, stepped onto the ice for their free-skate performance. They ranked second after their dazzling performance in the short program, and since the pair skated last, the silver and bronze medals were still very much in play. The young couple’s skating is punched by their power, speed, and grace. The Zhangs (they are not related) are famous for their quadruple twist, a very difficult maneuver during which Hao spins Dan four times as her body is almost horizontal and parallel to the ice.

A few seconds into their program, they attempted something never before tried in Olympic competition: an unprecedented quadruple-throw salchow, in which the man throws his partner into the air as she launches from the back edge of her skates, spins four times and lands gracefully on the ice. As the crowd gasped, Zhang Dan missed the graceful landing. She crashed, her left knee slammed into the ice and her legs splayed out. Dan spun across the ice and rammed into the sideboards surrounding the rink.

Visibly stunned and doubled over in pain, Dan struggled to her feet with her partner’s help. Hao held her gently from behind, as they glided to the sidelines, seemingly finished. Five minutes later, after consulting with coaches, a medic, and officials, 20-year-old Dan gingerly returned to the ice. The crowd roared and she even managed a timid smile. The pair continued their performance to the thundering applause of the crowd.

No one could have expected much from Zhang and Zhang after such a shocking accident. I can’t imagine what high demands are placed on all the elite Chinese athletes, or what Dan’s life has been like to create this kind of sheer willpower. "We are challenging the extreme limits of what a human being can do," said Zhang Dan. "We were still empty in our minds. When the music started again we didn't know where to start our elements, but we gave a gesture and then we carried on.” Hao added, “Gradually after we restarted, it became more clear in our minds how we could continue.”

Following a display of bravery seldom seen on an ice rink, the Zhangs began again and nailed every move. Four minutes later, the entire crowd was standing and cheering their effort, which gave them second place and China's first-ever Olympic figure skating silver medal. By the time they came out to receive their medals, Dan's left leg was heavily iced and bandaged. The plucky skater, however, limped a victory lap around the rink to still more applause.

Through training and sheer will Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao mastered their physical intelligences. They were ambassadors representing the four qualities that make up this vital IQ: Strength, Flexibility, Grace and Bearing.

Vipassana, The Lomi School, and Body Mind Spirit Integration

Vipassana, which means “insight,” was a body-centered meditation technique attributed to Buddha. Vipassana, often called mindfulness meditation, focused on the many sensations and feelings of the body. Meditation calmed the mind and strengthened concentration. The mind was able to “stop and see” (remember the power of a well-intentioned pause in Chapter Five?), ready to receive the spirit’s insight. In this calm centeredness, the practitioner gained knowledge of whatever disturbed his mind, which led to pure wisdom and eventual healing. Followers of Vipassana eliminate the desires and emotions of greed, anger, and ignorance that corrupt the mind.

The last century of the millennium ushered in a valuable shift in the way we humans experience our bodies, yet in many ways our physical selves remain a mystery. For many women, the intricate interdependence of their complicated systems remains uncharted territory. It is a recent phenomenon for women to demand control of their physiology and anatomy. But for men or women, our bodies are the only concrete reality we can know. They are always with us, constant, living and breathing in present time. Our bodies never lie, and with careful stewardship they will reveal all the secrets leading to truth. And when we work to achieve body brilliance, mastering our five essential IQs, our bodies shine.

As Lomi founder Robert Hall noted to me, “Enlightenment is, after all, a bodily process.”

Lomi School: Yoga and Body Mind Spirit Integration

The Lomi curriculum also featured the Asian ways of aikido, Hatha yoga and Vipassana sitting meditation. Aikido, developed by Morihei Ueshiba, is a Japanese martial art for self defense that harnessed universal love to heal conflict, create fluidity of the body, and strengthen personal energy. Aikido was often translated as “the way of spiritual harmony.” This translation pointed to a practitioner’s skill at controlling an attacker by redirecting his energy rather than by blocking an attack. (See the anecdote about aikido and emotional brilliance in Chapter One.)

To understand this skill, visualize the way a flexible willow bends with the storm, whereas the stout oak breaks if the wind blows too hard. Ueshiba taught that the principles of aikido should be applied to every aspect of one's life, and he once remarked that he was teaching students not how to move their feet but how to move their minds.

In the West, the term yoga was associated with the stretching postures of Hatha, one branch of India’s classical spiritual disciplines. Most Western yoga classes had little or nothing to do with Hinduism or spirituality, but were simply a way of keeping healthy and fit. Traditional Hatha yoga was a complete yogic path, including moral disciplines, physical exercises (e.g., postures and breath control) and meditation, encompassing far more than the yoga of postures and exercises practiced in Western physical culture.

Yoga lovers see daily practice as beneficial in itself, leading to good health, emotional well-being, mental clarity and joy in living. Yoga adepts progress towards samdhi, a high state of meditation and inner ecstasy. For the average person still far from enlightenment, yoga can be a way of increasing one's spiritual awareness. While the history of yoga strongly connects it with Hinduism, yoga lovers claim that it is not a religion itself, but contains practical steps which can benefit everyone.

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Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

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Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

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Dr. Randolph Stone, Polarity Therapy, and Body Mind Spirit Integration

By the late 1940s Stone had synthesized his collected information into his first book, Energy, published in 1947, theorizing that the polarized fields of attraction and repulsion, as found in all magnetic relationships and in the atomic sub-structure, were the underlying reality of all physical phenomena, especially health. A series of seven books and pamphlets followed, further explaining his basic ideas about energy and providing numerous healing techniques.

In the mid 1950s Stone tried to interest the medical community in his ideas, offering free lectures, writing journal articles and repeatedly attempting to engage his colleagues in dialogue.
These efforts were largely unsuccessful, as medical professionals from that era confidently pursued the miracles of drugs and surgery that characterized Western treatment.

In the 1960s, already in his mid-seventies, Stone suddenly found popularity for the first time with a new generation of health seekers for whom his blend of science and spirituality was not so unpalatable. In seminars in California he vigorously preached his message of holistic health. The seed of Polarity Therapy finally found enough fertile soil to survive. Dr. Stone retired in 1974 and moved to an Indian meditation community, where he offered free medical services in a public clinic. He gradually withdrew from public life, dying of natural causes.

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Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

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Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

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1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Polarity Therapy in Body Mind Spirit Integration

The fourth major bodywork program adopted by the Lomi School, Polarity Therapy, concentrated on the energetic grid of the body and relieving blocks in it.

Dr. Randolph Stone (1890-1981), the founder of Polarity Therapy, emigrated to America as a youngster around 1898. He completed his primary medical certifications in the early 1920s, including Doctor of Osteopathy, Doctor of Chiropractic and Doctor of Naturopathy, but he was a lifelong student, eventually adding certifications in a wide range of topics including massage and midwifery. His love of travel took him in search of medical insights from other cultures. The good doctor maintained a medical practice in Chicago for over 50 years, where his motto of “Whatever works, works!” established his reputation for taking otherwise hopeless cases, many of whom responded to his unconventional techniques and multicultural approaches.

Endlessly curious, Stone was fascinated by spiritual studies and mysticism. In the 1940s he deepened his knowledge of and commitment to esoteric understanding by accepting initiation in a meditation system based in India. His dedication to this yogic path continued uninterrupted for almost 40 years, and he made frequent visits to India to study and develop his inner knowledge.

***Illustration by Goro Sasaki

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Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
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http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

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Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Rolfing: Structural Changes in Body Mind Spirit

Rolfing involved a series of ten bodywork sessions. The therapist photographed the patient’s body before the first session, assessing posture and imbalances. Each session focused on a different part of the body, with the first session devoted to the chest in order to open and relax the patient’s breathing.

Next the therapist worked to build a solid “foundation” by focusing on the feet, ankles and legs. Once these stabilized the therapist turned to the pelvis to create a solid base for the torso and arms. Later the head was “put on straight.” Final photographs revealed the changes in posture. You could see, as well as feel, the physical benefits of this work. After the muscles, tissues and bones had settled for a period of time, the patient could schedule five advanced sessions or the occasional “tune up.”

As Ida Rolf worked with people, she discovered a link between muscle tension and suppressed emotion. When muscle tension was released, she found that some people experienced "flashback" memories of the original situations that first caused the need to tense the muscles. A sudden release of the trapped emotion cleared the need for the tension to be held by the tissues. As a result, Rolf said, the body returned to a more natural posture.

Both The Rolf Institute and the Guild for Structural Integration, continue to teach Rolf’s method, and many other groups which offer deep-tissue bodywork trace their lineage to Rolfing.

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Alan Davidson, founder of
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and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
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http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

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1103 Peveto St.
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Ida Rolf: Body Mind Spirit Therapist

Ida Rolf (1896-1979) obtained her Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1922. By the mid-1950s Rolf had developed a method for realigning the human structure in relation to gravity, originally called the Structural Integration of the Human Body but commonly referred to as “Rolfing.”

The Lomi School curriculum included Rolf’s bodywork program because it provided an excellent way to break up the emotional armoring in the muscles and connective tissues by employing deep-tissue massage. These techniques realigned the body’s posture, muscles and bones.
According to Rolf, bound-up connective tissue or “fascia” restricted opposing muscles from functioning independently from each other.

Rolf claimed she could separate the bound-up fascia by separating the fibers manually through her technique and then re-engaging effective movement patterns. Adequate knowledge of living anatomy and hands-on training were required, Rolf said, in order for a practitioner to safely negotiate appropriate techniques and the depths necessary to loosen the bound-up fascia.

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Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
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http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

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Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

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1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Claudio Naranjo, Gestalt Body Mind Spirit Therapist

Claudio Naranjo, a Chilean-born anthropologist and psychiatrist, organized Gestalt therapy into three basic principles:

· Actuality: nothing exists outside the present moment

· Attention: awareness of feelings, thoughts, body posture, breathing rhythm, physical sensations, sights, sounds, tastes, smells and so forth to enhance day-to-day experience

· Responsibility: taking full responsibility for your own actions, feelings and thoughts.

In addition to his work with Gestalt therapy, Naranjo experimented with mind-altering susbstances and was a major figure in the Human Potential Movement and the Fourth Way.

Perls, meanwhile, became associated with The Esalen Institute in California in 1964. People who had no conection to psychotherapy often recognized Perls as the author of a 1969 quotation described as the “Gestalt Prayer”:

I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped.

Be Brilliant.

Love your way, ad

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
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713-942-0923

Key Points of Gestalt and Body Mind Spirit Integration

The key points of Gestalt therapy are:

· Live now, in the moment
· Live here, in the present
· Stop imagining and experience reality
· Stop unnecessary thinking; decide and act
· Start expressing and avoid manipulating, explaining, justifying or judging
· Stop restricting awareness and accept unpleasantness
· Resist accepting “should” or “ought” from others
· Begin taking full responsibility for actions, feelings and thoughts
· Begin surrendering to who you are right now.

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Love your way, ad
Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

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1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Body Mind Spirit Pioneer: Gestalt Therapist Fritz Perls

Fritz Perls (1893-1970), a psychiatrist and student of Reich’s, helped found Gestalt Therapy. Gestalt in German means “an irreducible experience,” and Perls adopted the term to name the method he had developed with his wife Laura, also a psychiatrist. Their approach emphasized the person as a whole—with the mind and emotions equally connected to the body—which differed from the importance of “knowing” stressed in Hans-Juergen Walter’s Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy.

Perls theorized that the exhilarating experience of living fully alive, aware, and in the present was actually derailed by our habitual thinking mind. (“I think, and that gets in the way of who I am”—apologies to Descartes.) Our thoughts about life created a barrier to experiencing life full tilt, and Gestalt therapy emphasized the removal of obstacles that prevented people from maximizing their potential.

The method involved working in real time as opposed to focusing on past experiences, the norm for psychoanalysis. His 1951 book, Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality, also featured contributions from Paul Goodman, an anarchist and political writer, and from Ralph Hefferline, a psychology professor and patient. Perls was quoted as saying, “Lose your mind and come to your senses.”

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
www.ThroughYourBody.com
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)’

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Nazi's Ban Body Mind Spirit Pioneer Welhelm Reich's Book

The Nazis banned Reich’s second book, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, in 1933. German newspapers branded him a Communist Jew who advocated the dangerous idea of “free love;” fearful for his life, Reich emigrated to the United States to continue his orgone research.

Unfortunately, Reich did not escape harassment in America. In 1947, following a series of articles about orgone in The New Republic and Harper’s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began an investigation into Reich's claims about orgone therapy, and won an injunction against its promotion as a medical treatment.

Charged with contempt of court for violating the injunction, Reich conducted his own defense, which involved sending the judge all his books to read. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. In August 1956, several tons of his publications were burned by the FDA. He died of heart failure in jail just over a year later, one day before his parole hearing.

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)’

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

Body Mind Spirit Centered Therapies: Wilhelm Reich

The Lomi School was the first to synthesize different approaches of body-centered therapies into one curriculum. The importance of attention, or focus, lay at the center of Lomi proficiency, but the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, Fritz Perls, and Asian training in meditation and aikido also influenced the method. Additionally, Lomi co-founders Robert Hall and Richard Heckler borrowed from Randolph Stone’s Polarity Therapy and the structural massage work of Ida Rolf.

Wilhem Reich

Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), known as the grandfather of somatic psychoanalysis, was an Austrian psychiatrist trained by Sigmund Freud in Vienna. In 1922, Reich established a private practice in psychoanalysis as part of Freud’s Polyanalytic Clinic, where he researched the social causes of neuroses. Individual neurotic symptoms comprised the focus of early psychoanalysis.

Reich came to believe, however, that a person’s entire character or personality could be examined and treated. Reich’s first book, Character Analysis, outlined his theory, called “ego psychology,” and started a small revolution in psychoanalysis. Reich also discussed what he called “body armoring”: the theory that unreleased emotions, especially those related to sexual energy, actually produced “armor,” or blocks in the muscles and organs, and became stored in seven parts of the body—eyes, jaws, neck, chest, diaphragm, belly and pelvis—preventing the release of energy. Reich believed that orgasm as part of a healthy, mutually satisfying sex life was one way to break through the body armor—a seemingly simple solution that initiated a great deal of controversy among his peers. During the 1930s Reich also claimed to have found the physical energy orgone, which he said was contained in the atmosphere and in all living matter.

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)’

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923

The Tenets of Somatics: Body, Mind, Spirit Integration

The tenets of somatics can be summarized as follows:

· Vitality, in the form of energy currents, flows through every body; when that vitality is fully realized we experience a natural state of health and well being. If our vital energy becomes clogged or blocked we experience disease.

· Somatic exercises, principally concentration or attention, strengthen the body, charge the spirit and relax the mind.

· A relaxed mind is interested and engaged in the present moment, with a tender attention to subtle change—not just differences in the body, the ebb and flow of emotions or fleeting thoughts, but to the laws of change that govern life and the world we live in.

· The primary goal of somatics is the union of body, mind and spirit: to achieve harmony outside oneself by finding harmony within.

The idea that the body itself had value—alone or in concert with the mind—resurfaced in the 20th Century. In particular, the relatively recent blending of Western psychology and medicine with Asian philosophies dramatically shifted the way we viewed and experienced our bodies. In traditional Western thought, the connection between body and mind was “psychosomatic,” which referred to health problems caused by distress or other manifestations from the mind (it’s all in your head). Many Asian cultures, on the contrary, saw the body as the very foundation of health and spiritual life.

Love your way,

Alan Davidson, founder of
http://www.throughyourbody.com/
and author of Body Brilliance:
Mastering Your Five Vital
Intelligences (IQs)’

http://bodybrilliancebook.com/bbb_movie/

Watch the Body Brilliance Movie

Dedicated to our healthy, happy, and prosperous world through the full enlightenment of every human being.

Through Your Body
1103 Peveto St.
Houston, TX 77019
713-942-0923