hirotaka jp en

Hirotaka

Flexibility, and if I compare it to muscles, maybe flexibility, but the heart becomes a bit lighter. Like when there are days during this corona situation when you’re at home all the time, when you move your body a little, when the body becomes a bit more flexible, the heart also becomes a bit more flexible, and extra things kind of fall away. There’s an effect.

Last year I did the Camino in Santiago, contemporary, Spain, the pilgrimage. At that time everyone walks, like 20 kilometers a day, so the muscle soreness is terrible. You can’t walk, you cramp up. So I did forward fold poses and things like that during every break. Then the body becomes lighter.

First, when muscles are tense, it feels heavy, and when that loosens, it feels lighter, so you can walk more. And walking, you’re going to places that aren’t your daily life at all, so doing the same thing as always makes you feel settled, emotionally.

Doing the same poses I do here in Daikanyama in a completely unfamiliar place, how can I say it, it’s like I’m here, that kind of feeling.

Simply put, the level is probably different. When you’re doing the same pose, if there are a hundred checkpoints here, at the place I was going it’s probably about ten.

I think it’s a characteristic here, I’ve been to other places several times, and alignment checkpoints seem to take up quite a large proportion. Even in my sitting posture now, this back part below the neck, I had never been conscious of that until I came to this studio.

After I started coming here, even when drinking or eating with other people, sometimes I wonder where that is now. So then somehow, like for example I used to live like this before, but somehow as a result I’m living like this now. So I think my impression has improved.

And at least in these past few years, people talk to me so much. That’s clearly, for example, if I was like this being threatening, people wouldn’t talk to me. And I think doing those things here is related.

What does it mean to be able to be conscious of here? It means I’ve become conscious of things that don’t usually enter consciousness, or I’ve started to really notice things that aren’t visible. Around that time, what’s easy to understand is smell is one thing, and I think I probably started smelling incense and things like that after coming here too.

There’s one thing that the way of thinking makes sense. Like using opposing forces to create strong poses - that’s in all the poses, the posing here. I think this depends on the person, but at places that are a bit like Ashtanga, when they say “do this, do this, do this” and keep going, I don’t get much satisfaction myself.

Being able to create it and think about it to some extent myself - like when the teacher says this, I chew on it a bit like “this and this and this” before taking the pose. I don’t take poses without chewing on it and being convinced. And that’s allowed here, so when I do it here the satisfaction level is quite high.

The degree of freedom is less - it’s not that it’s completely not allowed or anything, but whether the degree of freedom is more or less, here it feels like various things are allowed for different people.

That the way of thinking makes sense is one thing, and being able to create it and think about it to some extent yourself. So when I do it here, the satisfaction level is quite high.

It feels very proper. It feels properly done. The feeling that they really want to do alignment properly comes through very well. There’s this aspect of making you think and do it. Every teacher really conveys that feeling of wanting to do that. That’s not really elsewhere. I think it’s a good point. It feels very proper. It feels properly done. There’s this aspect of making you think and do it.

At first I did Foundation, and when I could do it I did Elements, and gradually Elements, and then got on to Strategy, and if Strategy was fun I’d only do that. That’s how I was doing it.

When I understood to some extent what it was about, it became part of life, so that’s probably why it became like that. Like in the morning I don’t really want to do Strategy, but when I want to move my body before starting something in the morning, in the morning I do Foundation and Elements.

But if I only do that, my body says “hey,” like when joints want to stretch more here, then sometimes I think “let’s do Strategy” and do it. Then I come to Strategy. Once it’s incorporated into the life cycle, it’s not really about levels, so rather I take the class that fits that.

I haven’t really thought about doing Foundation after doing Strategy, but there’s definitely that effect too. Like because the posing is thought out quite precisely, when there’s a pose A, in Foundation you only do up to here, but in Strategy you do up to here. As a bridge, in Elements it’s like this - it’s thought out like that.

So as you come to understand that and do it, even if you’re doing the posing operationally the same way, it becomes a bit three-dimensional in your head. So it’s interesting.

Like what you’re doing with your body and what you’re thinking with your heart are a bit different, but not different - when you’re conscious of that while doing it, the way you move your body definitely goes in the right direction. Conversely, if you don’t understand that, you can’t get the proper pose. So those secondary good points existed.

I’m doing muscle training. The way of approaching muscle training. When the range of motion of the hip joints expanded when running, it changed quite a bit. The running form changes.

This is good about Baseworks - the balance between moving the body and calming the mind is well achieved. Baseworks has even more checkpoints within that, so I feel like you can calm down relatively according to the method.

So if you follow the method, it’s designed to become that way. So I think you should just do it without thinking too much.