In Formal Practice, our purpose is to practice. We put on our jammies, go to our special place, invoke ritual and ceremony and repeat our form, exercise or technique in an iterative fashion.
In this article we are going to dive into how to set up your formal practice for success. We will look at where to practice, what to wear, duration and other key components. The Idea is to integrate Integrated Strength Training with your lifestyle, rather than making it something that disrupts it.
Focus on Solo Practice
Fortunately, the WAY of INTENT requires a focus on solo practice, which coincidentally, is fairly easy to work into even a busy day. If you are creative, you can find ways to practice in your basement, on the porch, in the backyard, at the office, on a plane, in a car or even while lying sleepless in bed. desk
Unlike many arts, the WAY of INTENT does not require a training partner, a dojo, special equipment or even very much space. Especially early on, the focus of Personal Practice should be inducing and developing the Integrated State. There is no reason to dive into Testing Strength or equipment training until there is something to test or try out. Doing so only reinforces the very movement patterns we are trying to change.
Even when Testing Strength become a focus of practice, the takeaways need to be incorporated your solo practice. Nothing remains static, training changes as you do the work, as awareness of your frame deepens and things 'flip on'. In an apparently contradictory fashion we strive to make our largely single movement practice non-repetitive.
Reframing Standing the State
For us, Standing the State is both an inception and destination of our personal Integrated Strength achievements. Its where newbies get started, new ideas introduced, new shapes tested and new feeling states born. StS is paradoxically also where our achievements come to roost. The Integrated State draws together accomplishments with structure, elongation, alignment with gravity, orbit, root & branch, open close, receiving strength, issuing strength and creating intentional connections to name a few.
My Teacher encourages students to recognize that each gesture should ideally express the sum total of their achievements, just like each master painter's brush stroke is done with the totality of the artist skill. Standing the State should be like this: evolving with each practice session while mutually enforcing all other aspects of practice.
The Mutual Dependance of Habit & Practices
Developing a Formal Practice habit is a requirement of the WAY of INTENT. Knowing about Kung Fu is not the same as having Kung Fu in the same way being able to read the map does not mean you can get to the mountain top. The map is helpful but you still need to do the work in order to get the skill.