Grounded Presence: Open Hands
I am available for nothing less than the integral way. Integral means comprehensive, means connecting inside and outside, I and We.
Funnily enough, this comprehensive path does not spill over into unbridled diversity. The fact that it doesn’t has to do with the framework in which I practise: integral dynamics. The word "to integrate" appears twice in this framework, and everything always works towards integration.
What this means in concrete terms is not that it steers towards "essence", as is fashionable today, but towards the existential. In concrete terms, this means the meaningful, the significant.
The meaningful also comes across as unexcited. You could puff it up and make it complicated. But it is basically very simple. We free the body into its natural freedom of movement, and we free the mind from its constraints of doing/thinking into its own expanse of being.
This does not require complicated systems. It needs devotion.
Devotion is the result of seeing the meaning in what you do. I see the meaning when I do something and feel the effect. Not because someone explains it to me. This also fits in nicely with the second basic principle of RIVERS.
THE SIMPLEST WAY IS PREFERABLE
For me, the simplest and most integral way is Open Hands.
Open Hands is a grounded, dynamic, open and dialogical presence. It is the simplest system of an embodied-cognitive feedback loop that differentiates perception and generates learning fodder every second.
I recently experienced again how important the quality of grounded, dynamic, open and dialoguing presence is in life when a person had the opportunity to attack me for a good hour. Not physically, but otherwise on all levels. I remained grounded, calm and open and never attacked. And instead of me falling, the person collapsed more and more. Instead of undermining me, they dug themselves a hole. Before she fell in, we found a solution.
This presence was not a strategy, it was part of me. Not because I was born with it, but because I am still working on it. The path is integral movement and at the heart of it is open hands.
OPEN HANDS VISIBILITY
When I want to get depressed, I watch Push Hands videos on Youtube. Open Hands is not Push Hands (Tui Shou). When I watch Push Hands on YouTube, I am filled with deep sadness. Sometimes it also makes me feel embarrassed. The roots of Taiji and Daoism, the principles of receiving and relaxing, seem to have been completely forgotten.
OPEN HANDS SOLO PRACTICE
The Open Hands Solo Practice is a good exercise to familiarize yourself with the movements. Standing is also wonderful, and of course Taiji. And qigong. And floorwork. Yes, even yoga, if you do it grounded. (A little tip here: Use the grounding, the gravity, to sink deeper into asanas). You can find all this on @Home.