Tag: self confidence

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Reclaim Your Nature

Reclaim Your Nature

I was a lucky child. I was born and raised in a big city where I had almost everything a child wanted. But every summer holiday my parents would send me to the countryside to spend 3 months with my grandparents.

The little poor village had 2 small shops. There was no cinema, not many buses, the closest city was pretty far away. We didn’t have cell phone network and there was not internet and we didn’t have electricity or sewage system (my grandparents were building the house themselves).

However that place was a paradise for me and my friends. I used to forget about my shoes for days and days, going barefoot on the hills, through rivers and lakes, sand, stones and earth. Everywhere at any time in the day or night.

There were 2 activities I enjoyed the most though:

1. Building tunnels through thorny bushes and crawling through them

2. Climbing trees

Nowadays when I climb trees I do it a bit more elegant let’s say, refining my climbing technique through coaching.

The video below, Tree Scrambling, shows how we train and condition our body here at Urban Women Fitness through the Natural Movement Principle part of the six guiding principles of The Merisoiu Technique.

tree-scrambling

Benefits of tree scrambling

Among the benefits of tree scrambling you have  core strength, arm and shoulder strength, coordination, agility, flexibility, mobility and even lower body strength depending on the tree and how you climb through it.

But you get more out of tree scrambling than physical benefits. These are:

Focus
Precision
Patience
Creativity
Self-confidence
Elegance
Learning new skills which makes training enjoyable and less monotonous and boring.

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5 lessons I learnt from balancing exercises

5 lessons I learnt from balancing exercises

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For an athlete who has practiced many sports in the past 20 years, particularly martial arts, balancing is probably one of the most important lessons when it comes to fine tuning movement.

 

However balancing is not only for athletes and not only for the body. You see, if your mind is busy ere are good chances you will lose that balance.

 

But when your mind is calm, clear and focused balancing becomes easy. It’s really that simple….or is it?

 

So these are 5 lessons I learnt from balancing exercises:

 

1. Clearing the mind. As I said before, a busy mind leads to an imbalanced body. And the opposite is also true, a balanced body leads to a balanced, calmer mind.

 

2. Self-confidence. Nowadays this is particularly true when I balance at heights that are less comfortable for me. We all have our comfort zones even when we balance.

 

3. Relaxation. Relaxing the body is so important when balancing and results in a relaxed mind as well.

 

4. Fluidity. When I walk up and down branches, relaxed and focused, is a bliss, I am in another world.

 

5. Patience. When I began balancing as a part of my coached routine I used to get so frustrated because I could not make it to the end of that wobbly branch. But as times passed I became more and more relaxed, more aware, more under control and patient.

 

It really is a wonderful feeling when you reach a point where you know that in the past a certain event would have made you angry and lose patience and now you are calm and relaxed, no sign of negativity in sight. But alone this would have been a difficult task, I wouldn’t have had the patience to keep going with it.

 

Nowadays I take others through difficult and challenging moment either physical or psychological. I believe that once we learn or master something and we are good at it we should pass it to others, otherwise what’s the purpose if we keep everything for ourselves. That my opinion anyway.

 

Incorporate balancing in your life. But before you start balancing make sure you are safe, there is nothing for you to fall on and hurt yourself. It is important to be responsible and mindful of your actions and the consequences.

 

These are things I might do throughout the day:

 

1. Walking on tree roots I find in parks.

 

2. Standing on one leg when I wait for the bus or tube. Just stay at a good distance from the street or railway.

 

3. Standing on one leg while I brush your teeth. Again make sure there is nothing around you can fall on and injure yourself.

 

4. Stand on one leg when I read, watch a movie or tv. Yep…I do that quite often.

 

Don’t forget to alternate legs. Everything in balance.

 

 

Be creative and incorporate balancing in your daily routine, don’t save everything for the gym.

 

So if you’d like to know more about my philosophies and approaches please download my free ebook The Merisoiu Technique or book a free call with me and let’s chat.