Mind-body connection

[Jesse Kim]

Do you guys believe this so called "mind-body connection" can be applied to GST and not just BB, or is it a load of bs?

[Vytautas Pilkauskas]

From my experience, the more present and mindful you are at your training, the more you get out of it and the better you become at it. Listening to music, chatting or having your phone with you while you train is bs. Absolute focus and mindfulness on your duty at hand, however, are superior qualities.

[Cole Dano]

You don't have to be an Fakir to realise there is a mind body connect, it just is nothing mystical or magical.

 

A huge portion of our brain is dedicated to motor control; input and output from sensation sensors, temperature sensors, accelerometers etc.  There also a part of the mind that is really good at watching objectively, put the two together and there's your mind body connection/observation system.

[Michail Michailidis]

From my experience, the more present and mindful you are at your training, the more you get out of it and the better you become at it. Listening to music, chatting or having your phone with you while you train is bs. Absolute focus and mindfulness on your duty at hand, however, are superior qualities.

 

I also agree with this. Especially now where we have become so detached from our body and true self. Exercise can be like meditation especially if you can do it in nature.

[Guillaume Schollier]

Mind over matter.

 

By this is meant, mind activity (such as thought processes) precedes action (matter). 

 

Simply said, you have to think about something before you will act upon it and see the effect on the physical plane.

The more aware you are of the mind processes, the more efficiently you can use the mind to affect outcomes in the physical realm.

 

A simple practical example: You hold FL/PE1 making a small mistake. If you're not present of your bodily posture (because you're thinking about lunch, the pain or anything unrelated to the exercise itself), you don't observe the mistake, and repeat it over and over. If you're very aware of your entire bodily structure you will spot the mistake instantly and rectify it accordingly. Over time, these corrections make all the difference in your performance. The more advanced exercises become, the more important this will be. One with less physical advantage but greater awareness can often outperform the physically more endowed through the power of his presence.

The presence carries over to all aspects of life. He can be more aware of good and bad habits affecting his performance outside of training and control his behaviour more easily (for instance regarding addictions of all kinds). If you add it all up, it quickly amounts and you can easily see how some reach levels most could barely imagined had they not been given the opportunity to see it (during Olympic games for instance).

 

The great ones in any field all have one thing in common: they are present (have strong awareness), which is beyond mind and matter.

 

Examples:

One of the ways (apart from his technical knowledge and expertise) a successful coach influences  his athletes is through his clear direction and presence of mind which transfers into the practice of his athletes. 

 

Martial artists doing special skills often comes from the combination of laser focused concentration and awareness of subtleties most do not perceive.

 

Advanced yogis can even control processes that are considered involuntary by the comman man, such as the heartbeat.

 

You can read more about this here: http://listverse.com/2013/05/21/10-amazing-examples-of-mind-over-matter/

 

 

Now, as for the practicality of your question: Yes, implementing a daily meditation practice can enhance your GST performance by exercising your awareness "muscle". Gymnastics as a sports requires plentiful awareness to excel. So many micro level subtleties play underneath. Much of the bodily awareness has taken  years to cultivate to become a second nature that remains with the athlete. If your awareness is high, it can make a great difference over time in how you will excel, especially if you go beyond conditioning into the complexities of gymnastics.

 

 

Some scenes in Way of the Peaceful Warrior  (a movie about an Olympic gymnast (Dan Millman)) illustrate the importance of presence for excellence.

[Domenic Palazzolo]

I also agree with this. Especially now where we have become so detached from our body and true self. Exercise can be like meditation especially if you can do it in nature.

Agreed..

[Jesse Kim]

I agree with you all. I also believe that a mind-body connection exists but it's not as mystical as we'd believe. Yup, definitely something more on the neurological side.

[Jesse Frigo]

I've made mention around the forums that I have some pretty noticeable imbalances, especially with regards to my left shoulder and left side of my back.  Part of the problem is a lack of strength, but part of it is a lack of mental control over some of those muscles- it has taken a lot of focus for me to be able to feel my left lat working in rows and pullups.  I can do pullups, and I'm sure that my left lat is working, but I couldn't feel it until recently.  That makes it much harder to gauge output and progress if you can't even tell at what level your muscle is activated.  I haven't quite got there with my left spinal erector muscle.  There are all kinds of tricks that physical trainers and fitness trainers can use to fix this, a key one of them involving a very light touch on the muscle that is not activating like it should be.  It brings mental focus to that muscle and promotes a better mental connection with it.