a walk in the park

A recent newsletter from my State Senator began with this bit of understatement: “Dear Friend: New York City is known worldwide as an exciting, vibrant city. Those of us who live here know that day to day challenges come along with that excitement.” No kidding.

Having been transplanted into this environment from the Midwest almost 30 years ago, I have become adept at negotiating my daily journeys through busy streets and crowded subways.

The first few years found me often frightened, upset by a scene of homelessness or chaos or unusual behavior from types of people not encountered so readily out in the Heartland. Time and experience have helped, but aikido training has been particularly useful, giving me a new sense of myself and expanding my perspective on my surroundings. Now it is not often that I lose my composure on the street or feel unsafe or uncomfortable anymore.

Recently, my toolbox of urban coping techniques has expanded to include many powerful images from Centered Riding®, and even more recently Eric Franklin’s work. The hierarchy of techniques seems to start with centering -- a sense of my whole self, facilitated by using soft eyes which expands awareness and brings in a tremendous amount of information about my surroundings. Invoking soft eyes also has the effect of releasing tension in the primary head-neck relationship, which puts me more in touch with my breathing and my grounding. So a kind of chain of awareness events begins to unfold and it is almost as if I become an observer, yet I know that I am also orchestrating my experience.

Because I have relatively limited time actually riding a horse, I have found renewed motivation to use my City life in any way which might contribute to becoming a better rider; of course the practical application of body awareness techniques has been part of my way of life since my early Alexander training with Marj Barstow in Nebraska. Remembering to apply what you have been learning, or slowing down enough to apply – finding the spaces and moments within your activities – these are the challenges to growth, and change.

And application while safely inside your practice room, or even on the aikido mat may seem easier than having the presence to overlay some of the imagery in the midst of a noisy and crowded city street or sidewalk or on a packed subway platform. But, it can be done and to great effect. By starting simply and returning gently to basics, I am discovering that I can continue to experiment, adding more layers of images and awareness. Then, if something unexpected or startling does occur I am in a much more responsive space to deal with it.

Everyone must find the awareness tools which work for them and the moments to apply them within their lives. A few examples from my morning commute: Subway stairs – lots of them, and a great opportunity to use the “bubbling spring”, the balance point in the center of each foot, just behind the ball. Place it on each step and notice all your joints working more easily – ankle, knee, and hip – and notice the spring it gives you; contrast that with trudging flat-footed up the steps. Negotiating crowds – lots of these too. First invoke soft eyes and then use an image of your center guiding you easily through the chaos; sometimes my center is a large glowing sphere (give it a color!), which is spinning to generate my movement. In order to turn, my center changes its rotation – I notice that sometimes when I try to negotiate a turn without my center, I find my neck tensing slightly and my chin jutting forward.

Allowing the center take you through is a different experience altogether. Feeling the pressure of tense and hurried people (a way of life in NYC). I sometimes experiment with becoming s-l-o-w-e-r and allow my weight to also sink down (weight underside); I consciously resist the urge to jump ahead, instead allowing people to go in front of me, or holding a door for someone coming up from behind – I find this certainly improves my experience, but I have also had encounters where I felt others calm down as well. I recently had this experience while riding – for me it was a waiting, an expanding of time, a not rushing ahead or trying to make my horse do something – much more of a cooperative kind of leadership.

So, the photo above is the view from my office – I am near Central Park, so close that I can take a little walk there each day and create another small piece of sanity in the City. Of course, I often work through my lunch time and do not take this opportunity, so my entry here is to remind myself that this might be a good use of 15 minutes of my time – even though life in New York City is not “a walk in the park!”