The brain houses the mind, which in turn comprises of the volatile mixture of emotional and logical thinking processes. Playing a game of chess involves the logical
mind, while playing a game of Table Tennis uses the instinctive reflexes brought
about through the emotional mind, which allows the body to react instantaneously
to the ever changing responses of the game. The body then sets into a rhythm, and
if the tempo of this rhythm is correct, it increases the fluidity in the body to enable
the player to react much faster than his opponent.
The very instant your eyes perceive an opening in your opponent’s defense, your
control switch board or the nervous system goes into hyper drive. Your eyes are
your body’s primary organ for the assessment of all that is happening around you,
and it is for this reason that you must learn to use your peripheral vision, which
works far better than using focused vision, during fast bodily movement. Messages
from the Ophthalmic centre are relayed through the spinal cord to the nerve centers
in all the muscles of the body. Some muscles contract, and others lengthen, still
others stabilize and control the body all at the same time. This complex wizardry
happens thanks to the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the nervous
system. Whilst the former operates from the cervical, thoracic and lumbar vertebra,
the latter operates from the top of the spinal column namely the Atlas and at the
lower end of the vertebral column, the Sacrum vertebra. If the muscles around the
spinal column are normally tensed either through bad posture, injury, or poor technique, the free-flow of messages and the speed of transfer will be curtailed to a
marked extent, resulting in poor performance.
Our mind and body combines the “Holy Trinity” that makes each one of us what we
are. The integration of the mental, emotional and physical all combining together
gives us the fulfillment of thinking, feeling and being.
Our mental faculties comes from the head within which lies the brain, and is thanks
to the chemical and electrical communication between the millions of brain cells
that sensory information is gathered, analyzed and assimilated.
Our feelings that are the basis of our emotions literally and figuratively come from
the heart. During times of extreme happiness or extreme sadness, we literally feel
our heart stop and re-start, or even race along. This comes from the electrical impulses given by the sinoatrial node(SA) also called the natural peace-maker us our sense
When we become emotional our endocrine system
secretes hormones, which in turn affects the SA node,
giving us the feeling of extreme depression or
happiness. Martial Art training gives the practitioners
control of their emotional content, anger is channeled
into focus, fear into cautiousness and pride into compassion. Shihan Higaonna on one of his trips to India,
had presented me with his work of Japanese Calligraphy, which says “FUDOSHIN”, and when I asked him
what it meant, he said in his inimitable style “Poker
Face”.
Our physical strength is located an inch below the
naval, and is also the center of gravity of the body. It is
at this location that that gives us our sense of being. It
is the source of our “gut feelings”, that keeps our
honesty and morality on an even keel.