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Principles, Learning and Comfort
Safety and Efficacy
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To be an effective practice, the body has to be relaxed, in control, and engaged with awareness
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Move in easy gradual ways
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Stay comfortable at all times
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Explore your own inner sensations
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Respect your body
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Listen, and honor your journey
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Experience the feelings
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Enjoy
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Open yourself wholeheartedly, mindfully, patiently and completely
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Let the body adjust
Fun and Practical
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It can be a great way to rehabilitate injury
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It is attainable at any age
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Works for anyone of any size, gender or athletic ability
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It gets us back to play!
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It is participatory, non-competitive, and requires cooperation to play
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It's a great way to activate a "couch potato" or a "desk potato"
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And if you are not juggling... you can 'work out'! - what a great side-effect!
Coordination and Agility
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Improves reaction time
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Makes your body move in new ways
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Encourages sequencing of movement
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It develops and innate sense of grace and rhythm
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It stimulates neural pathways through touch and movement
Mental Skills
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Improves concentration
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It coordinates Left and Right brain functions
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Teaches a mind-set for growth
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It helps break out of mental ruts
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It gives the brain a break
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It provides a great model for how to learn: By differentiating tasks, building skills in a step-wise approach and practicing
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Like solving a puzzle, it unlocks the brain
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Mastery offers its next goal. It sets intention, and inspiration for future learning
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It gives you simple, immediate feedback to evaluate your "errors"
Emotional Well-Being
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Play can make us happy
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Challenges our beliefs about what is possible
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Helps you be more open to new possibilities
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It improves self-esteem, giving a sense of accomplishment
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It helps us learn that we can accomplish things with practice
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Builds confidence
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Alleviate stress
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It allows everyone to be a teacher
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It gives you skills for coping with blockages and setbacks
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It helps you re-work your relationship to yourself when you make a "mistake"
Seeing Skills
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Builds hand-eye coordination
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Improves spacial awareness
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Sharpens peripheral vision
Manageable Consequences
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Now that's a relief.
Learning
How to Make it Fun and Efficient
Practicalities
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Keep you hands low, elbows tucked in
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Use your wrist to flick up the ball (not just your elbow)
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Practice over a couch (the balls are easier to retrieve, and you won't meander forward as you throw)
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Or practice over a table, letting the ball land, and then pick-up at a pace that is more manageable.
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Body catches count!
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Practice in a way that enhances control
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Be willing to adapt to something easier
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Complete a number of reps, and stop
Approach with Play
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invite play into every part of it
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When does humor come in? can it?
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Play with variety
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Notice if it stops being fun - what is happening?
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A gentle approach works best
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Keep a good relationship with it all
Mistakes are Expected
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Accept that this is a practice with many "mistakes"
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A gentle. forgiving attitude around failure is part of the practice
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What just happened in the "oops"? ... that's curious! What can I notice?
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If you are at a place of diminishing returns, practices something else
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Choose your level of control and risk
A Somatic Approach to Self-Care
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Try getting on the floor and moving how your body needs to.
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Listen for what it asks for.
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Discover your own movement.
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Slowly move into that feeling.
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Avoid increased pain.
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However slow and calm that needs to be.
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Take time to rest.
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Lift your body weight from the floor. Small lifts, slow little lifts.
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Gradually improvement comes.
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Gently get stronger.
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Try comparing and balancing your different sides.
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Use your own common sense.
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Healing can take time. There are few heroic cures.
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Stay aware, focused, connected.
Body Wisdom
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Start on the "weaker" side, it's more interesting!
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Train your eyes, let your eyes move
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Or keep your eyes fixed and broaden your peripheral vision
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Reflexes are exciting. Let this inspire you!
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Use your ears. Listen for the patterns (sounds of catches for example)
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Don't think too much, let your body act
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And conversely, visualize the trick as "exactly" as you can
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Stop and regroup if it gets too "wild"
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Take a momentary centering pause before starting the trick again
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Be curious about what you can see: the ball stopped at the top of its arc, its landing, the curve of its motion
Congratulations!
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This doesn't happen very often in life, - so now's your chance.
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Say it: "Well Done Joe!"
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Use your name!
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Say it because you deserve it, you do!
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No joke, and you'll improve faster with praise!
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Take it in.
Enhancing Creativity
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Use the concept of "planes" - notice a plane you are moving in, then change the plane
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Use the concept of circles - we tend to move in circles, notice that, then change the direction, speed, diameter
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Keep the sensation of touch acute - throwing and catching, tapping... and change the nature of that expression.
Important
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Try for everything to be easeful.
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If something is not easeful, pause, and just do what is easy.
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Find the enjoyment in sensation.
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The slower you go the safer it is.
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Pain is never beneficial.
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Explore with peace of mind areas of discomfort.
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Adapt your practices to accommodate where you are at.
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Let things take some time to heal.
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As you get better, continue to never push yourself into pain, or do things despite pain.
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Pain is a message to stop what you are doing.
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Make an agreement with yourself that you will take care.
Adaptations
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If there is something you can't do, stay within the part of it that you can.
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The parts of movements that you can do are the beneficial parts of the practice.
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Everybody starts less able than they wish, and deals with limitation right away.
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Develop a good, peaceful, respectful relationship with your limitations.
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Use your internal sensory experience to sense and feel what is ok.
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Try other practices, for other body areas, or other toys too.
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These practices are subtle. They are designed to be exploratory. If it curious to you, how is it that you are supposed to feel something - then good, that is the practice.
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If you are patient with your limitations, you will also be surprised by how readily your body is willing to adapt and improve.
It Doesn't Matter
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It's great to practice something that, at the end of the day, doesn't matter that much.
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It's great to practice something that you can keep 'light', and that can give you perspective on what actually does matter.
Picking Up Your Toys:
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The idea is to try to minimize repetitive movements (like leaning over the same way every time) picking up a ball.
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Here are some other fun ways to get something off the floor.
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All parts of your play time adds to your agility - even picking up the toys.
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Practicing these are foundational, and you will improve and master them quickly.
Chillin' on the Catch
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sometimes we get anxious and catch the ball up high.
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it's hard to trust that if we let something "go", that we can still get to it.
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track the ball going down.
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notice when you want to lurch, and for how long you can wait.
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it's refreshing to delay the catch.
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you can also just let the ball(s) drop if you want. It's nice to not have to catch it.
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and, taking this to the edge, you'll drop a few more and it's ok.
The Release!
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Sometimes it's hard to get the ball to release. It can open up all this uncertainty and expectations for the catch.
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Practice by easily letting the ball roll up and off your fingers.
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Give your wrist a little flick with the launch.
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Let the toss ripple your body loose.
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Also practice with mini tosses that barely leave your hand.
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Hone in on the earliest part of your toss. Sense it as it leaves.
Smile, yes, do it, Smile
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This exercise requires trying it
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Just try it, ... smile..., even for 5 seconds if you doubt this
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5 seconds: smile and juggle and see what happens
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Then keep smiling and juggling
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It won't make your problems go away, but it will change how you feel
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