Wu wei and no mind playing GK

[everything]

Tried playing goalkeeper in casual pickup soccer again.

Tried super hard to "do nothing" and relax, and just see how and if my body would react.

Now I'm not any good or anything, but relative to myself, it worked.

The more I tried to do nothing and not think and not be tense, the faster my hand or foot would just move on their own to the ball. There wasn't any coordination, though, like I couldn't deliberately catch the ball.

I don't play basketball or any hand ball sport where I'd have really automatic movements from training.

This is just messing around with "IMA". I tried to have no tension, "full unbroken qi", silk reeling. Couldn't tell if anything helped except for lack of tension and wuwei and no mind. So not sure "internal" did much. But relaxation and non doing are something.

[windwalker]

good read if you have time.

http://www.alexandrosmarinos.com/TheUnfetteredMind.pdf

[Bao]

The more I tried to do nothing and not think and not be tense, the faster my hand or foot would just move on their own to the ball.
...relaxation and non doing are something.

Yes! It sure is!

I have used my no-mind and relaxation methods many times through the years playing different sports and in other occasions. These methods are also very close to acting methods and improvisation theatre. There are many sports I truly suck at, so I won't say that this is something that can fix it all, but it has surely helped when I played some sports, even pool games and pinball games. You react so much quicker if you have a blank mind state and relax your body. Your body often knows by itself what to do if you let it free, like the body were using the muscle memory directly when you don't interfere with "thinking". ...Or something like that... Don't know if many martial arts schools nowadays have direct methods to practice these things and really teach it in a direct manner. It was probably much more well known and more methodologically taught in the older days. But you can certainly find it in Japanese Sword and Bow arts. Here in the west, probably some schools of acting methods have preserved some of this stuff better than most martial arts schools.

[everything]

oh super cool about improv! do you remember if you had really specific training to have "no mind"? I remember learning improv super briefly and the main lesson I recall was "yes and" (so if someone gives you an offer, you take it up and build on it). I don't think we talked about having no mind, but could be that I forgot.

[Bao]

oh super cool about improv! do you remember if you had really specific training to have "no mind"? I remember learning improv super briefly and the main lesson I recall was "yes and" (so if someone gives you an offer, you take it up and build on it). I don't think we talked about having no mind, but could be that I forgot.

I’ve done plenty of exercises through the years in various kinds of theatre, mostly exercises that aims for stop thinking and getting creative and crazy. We had exercises like one where we should talk loud and fast and say as strange things between set lines or words, like shit, fuck, different curse words and try to say as strange things as possible.

If you can stand watching Mr Trump, there’s a cool and fun episode of Celebrity Apprentice (S5, or The Apprentice S12), the 8th or 9th episode I believe, where the teams improvise with puppets (an adult show from Henson’s Workshop). Here they say something like that the correct state of mind for improvisation is a blank mind where anything possible craziness can pop up.

You learn to respond directly without thinking. I believe that this state of mind is the same that all creative artists regardless form of art experience. And it’s very much the same, or I would say exactly the same, as in the martial arts, or the warriors mind. The correct “Wuxin” or “no mind” is not a lazy, tired, half sleeping mind. Instead, it’s highly alert and fast to respond to what is happening around you.

[everything]

That's great stuff, thanks. I don't know why it's so hard to do. I'll try it again soon.