Between Sky and Earth by Tibi Moravcik Flow Our posture can be created as stiff and solid as a tree. It is not a good idea to be rigid like wood. It’s much healthier to have a fluid quality in the body and mind, to be relaxed, soft – and flow like water and flicker like fire. Read more about liquid power… Liquid Power Uplift However, we stay. We do not passively hang on the skeleton like jellyfish or melting ice cream! We understand how the gravitational force pulls our physical bodies down, but which force pulls us up??? It’s Vital energy. Spirit. Light. In Vedic culture, it is called Puruṣha. This Inner Fire is known as Yang energy, Chi (Qi) or Ki, Kundalini… In Slavic culture, it is called Zhiva*. We understand fire, and we can easily visualise the quality of fire; therefore, we will call this quality Inner Fire. This Inner Fire gives life to every animal; it pulls all plants up to the sky. Inner Fire pulls us up, similar to how fire lifts a hot air balloon… So, we acted upon two main forces: Gravity pulls us down, and Inner Fire pulls us up. The Fire is lifting us, and we wave with our bodies as the wind waves a flag… A relaxed, flowing body posture directly affects your emotions. You will believe in yourself- your feelings; you will see your life more positively, etc. We don’t need to exert special effort; we just relax and let the Inner Fire create our postures. We can feel how the Inner Fire lifts our bodies if we are sensitive. A better position increases Inner Fire, pulling you up more… Letting the Inner Fire lift you up creates a virtuous circle. We desire to flow up the same way that fish swim… We don’t just swim horizontally, but vertically up to the sky… Let it flow Inner Fire flows better through a relaxed, straight body. We tend to passively hang down on the skeleton; we do not use the Inner Fire to lift us! A collapsed position causes deformation of our posture and is often a cause of a backache. In a collapsed position, the flow of the Inner Fire is restricted – we have less vital energy – Inner Fire, we trust ourselves less, we are ‘down’. In hanging position, via a screwed body, we are like a fireplace with a blocked chimney. A good chimney creates a draft to pull the fire upwards. Therefore, we must keep a nice, straight, relaxed position. The Inner Fire flows nicely and easily via the nice straight body. Also, undesirable tension restricts not just our movements; it restricts the flow of Inner Fire. Tension makes our ‘chimney’ narrower. Read more about Inner Fire… Inner Fire Balance The Inner Fire helps you automatically flow to your optimum balance without active movement. Read more about Active and Passive Movement… Active and Passive Movements Expand like fire You can expand like fire. Expand is the opposite force to condense force which creates stress. Inner Fire expanding us to the sky improves our tensegrity and lowers the pressure on our discs and joints. Read more about Tensgity… Tensegrity Read more about Expand & Condense… Expand & Condense Where does the concept of Inner Fire come from? I learned the concept of vital Inner Fire from the Cossack masters. Old Slavic culture and philosophy are preserved in the Cossack tradition. Traditional Slavic culture (before the spread of Christianity) comes from Vedic culture. The aspect in Slavic culture is called ‘Zhiva’* and is called ‘Purusha’ in Sanskrit; in English, we would call it Inner Fire or Light, Spirit. In Vedic culture, life is created by Purusha and Prakrti. Purusha is the energy of Inner Fire, Light or Spirit which lifts matter (Prakṛti). This is how Fire and Matter together create Life… The Path of the Cossack is the path of the Light… Cossacks let the Inner Fire uplift them and make them lighter. Therefore, Cossacks have a different quality of body; subsequently, Cossacks flow and move so lightly… We are lucky that today, the Cossack culture is open to us, and we can follow Cossacks on the path of Light and be pulled by Zhiva to the sky… In martial arts, dance, etc., we can see which works with Inner Fire and which works on a solid mechanical basis… *ZHIVA (Živa/Жива), DIVA, SIVA – zhee-vah | dee-vah | see-vah) from Slavic “zhiv” = alive; “zhivot” = life. Goddess of life, birth, spring, fertility and love. She embodies the universal vital powers and brings live-giving forces. Read more about Veda… Where Veda comes from? Read more about related aspects… Flow of balance The Flow of Balance in a Fight Accept or Resist Focused & Expanded Awareness Aspects of movement Try online classes… Do it
Energies flow freely if our bodies are open – expanded, and relaxed. On the other hand, condensing power creates tension, stagnates and restricts flows. These qualities affect practically all the flows: waves of kinetic energy, the flow of vital energy, the flow of breathing, blood, lymph, etc. The same is valid for flow as a mental state of mind. Therefore, being aware of expanding and condensing powers is beneficial if you want to be fluid. If you are relaxed enough, you can flow like water. Nay, you can flow like a flame! The fire quality can help us hold our body mass and strengthen tensegrity. It uplifts us and makes our movements even lighter, smoother and more efficient. Life with flow is easier, happier and healthier. The quality of fire can also automatically bring us to a balanced position. We can have a fluid body without expanding and ‘fire quality’; however, a body like this is much heavier. The expanded, relaxed body could be very soft and adaptable. The wave of kinetic energy and another flow streams freely via that body. We much more easily harmonise and synchronise with our surroundings. Kinetic energy could work for you or against you. If you accept kinetic energy, it can power your movement – you can surf on the wave of kinetic energy. If we can’t work with kinetic energy, we tend to absorb it with muscle power and move just by muscles. Many of us believe that strength is pressure (tension). However, real power comes from softness. When you are relaxed, expanded, and soft, you are more sensitive and can quickly change the direction of your movement. In the same way, as pressure makes diamonds, it crystallises tissue. Every tension is written into our tissue in the form of crystallisation. That process is one of the most characteristic parts of getting old. Crystallisation restricts our movements and often causes pain. Therefore, it’s crucial to avoid undesirable tension and stress-condensing power. And actively decrystallize our tissue. The best ways to decrystallize are expanding, waving movements and massage. The quality of your body is a reflection of the quality of your mind. To have a fluid body, you need a fluid mind! The fluid mind doesn’t have expectations; it can be in the present. If you let your body and intuition react instead of rational mind, your movement will be much quicker. Actually, you would flow instead of reacting. Read More…
There are two ways to build a strong body construction… The first one is building up by shrinking and tensing up. This construction is rigid. It could be firm like stone, but it also can be brittle, like a mud house. The second one is building up by expanding. Then, our bodies are supple, elastic and light like a bouncing castle. It is valid not just for the body but also for the mind. “Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus, whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.” Lao Tzu
Vision is the closest physical aspect linked to our mind. It follows that vision is a helpful tool to switch between focused and expanded awareness. A focused vision leads to focused awareness. Peripheral vision leads to expanded awareness. With focused (tunnel) vision, you can see sharp details of a small point. Your view is narrower. Your attention flows to the point. With (expanded) peripheral vision, everything is slightly blurred, but your view is much wider. Your attention expands – you can work with more perceptions/impulses. Focused vision is good when you need to focus on one thing (e.g. one arm, one ball or one body). The problem arises when you try, with a focused vision, to keep track of more than one object, e.g. 3 limbs, 8 balls or a crowd of people. Peripheral vision is much more suitable for multitasking. You have much better spatial awareness in the expanded vision mode.
In essence, two mechanical systems can maintain weight: 1. compression – bracing – bracing maintains your posture primarily via the bones, joints and discs. 2. tension – hanging – hanging maintains your posture via our fasciae, tendons and muscles – tensegrity. Tensegrity helps to hold your body weight. In addition, functional tensegrity decompresses your discs, vertebrae & joints. Thus, movements are easier and smoother by decreasing the chance of injuries. In addition, it makes you feel lighter. With strong tensegrity, you can flow much smoother! Tensegrity makes our structures stronger and more elastic, similar to ropes, which strengthen the structure of tents. How do you build up stronger Tensegrity? Expand from the ground to the sky with muscles. That would demand a lot of muscle power (vital energy) and create undesirable tension. Expand from the ground to the sky by conscious expanding (especially fasciae), which is much more efficient. Using the uplifting power of Inner Fire (fire flows to the sky). It demands an expanded and relaxed body and mind to create space for Inner Fire. And be able to feel the flow of Inner Fire to harness it and let it uplift us.
From outside – suspending There are many ways to suspend. We can use a bar, branch, wall, ground, or bone structure. We have a whole program about how to suspend. From inside – muscle contraction We expand with the desire to touch as far as possible with some part of our bodies. In the beginning, we usually do it with muscles. From inside – without muscle contraction Expanding and condensing of tissue is not muscle contraction! These qualities can be reached and move us without muscle contraction. Or they can support muscle contraction to move more efficiently – with less tension, to be stronger or quicker. Expanding and condensing can be set up without movement as a predisposition or energetic circles. Expanded, condensed or statical tissue has different qualities and will react differently. In some Chi Kung systems, energy expands from Ming Men via jang tissue and condenses back via jin tissue to Dan Tien Dantian to make an energy circle. Expanding and condensing usually happen subconsciously as a reaction to our emotions. However, with a specific meditation, we can learn to control these qualities consciously, which is not easy but opens up a long list of benefits… From inside by Inner Fire Our expanding and condensing qualities have an eminent influence on our Inner Fire. Inner Fire has expansive quality. If we have a strong Inner Fire, we expand more easily. When we have a smaller Inner Fire, we tend to condense. On the other hand, when we expand, Inner Fire will have more space and will be stronger.
Sqeesed Spirit in shrank body and closed mind is weak. With expanding body and mind is the grooving power of Spirit. It helps to find the power to live according to heart. Vital energy flows much better into the relaxed and expanded body and mind. We are happier and more enthusiastic. So, as we see, the mental effect of Pravilo is no less significant than the effect on physical bodies.
Pravilo usually pulls our bodies symmetrically from every limb. The body naturally flows most efficiently into the space between the attachments. Pravilo balances the whole myofascial body (e.g. shortens/ loosens and weak/ strong tissue). (E.g. I had a hip injury, and all the tissue around my hips was shrinking. I couldn’t stay straight; it made my torso bend slightly, and my hip was rotated and tilted. I tried to stretch it traditionally, but it had little effect. When I started to use Pravilo to heal myself, I realised that I didn’t just have shortened tissue around my hip but across my entire legs, torso and arms! Using Pravilo balanced me so I could walk straight, in the correct movement pattern, and not damage my hips more! – Tibi) When you use Pravilo for the first time, Pravilo helps to diagnose your disbalance. It is essential to feel where it pulls you so that in the future, you know where or on which body part you need to work to balance yourself. Using Pravilo helps straighten the spine and correct movement patterns, which can be very helpful in healing many posture issues, such as scoliosis. Relaxing and expanding help to lower high blood pressure (hypertension).
Breathing is a crucial aspect that strongly influences the expanding and condensing qualities of our body, mind and emotions. Holding or suppressing breath usually tenses you up and closes you. Vice versa: When you are tensed, stressed, and shrink, you naturally tend to hold or suppress your breath. Therefore, it is crucial to breathe deeply and smoothly during stressful situations (when it is good to be open and relaxed). Our lungs and whole torso usually expand when we inhale and condense when we exhale. However, expanding and condensing is a different aspect. So, you can expand your body, mind, and emotions while you exhale and vice versa. Anyway, breathing is closely linked to expanding and condensing quality. Therefore, it’s easier to train expanding with inhaling and condensing with exhaling. Later, to be free, we train opposite, and in the end, breathing flows in an independent rhythm from expanding and condensing.
Pravilo is, for most people, something new. However, the concept is very ancient. Cossacks used the concept of Pravilo for hundreds of years to heal, strengthen, and open their potential. The construction was different, but the concept was the same. The simplest way was four friends grabbing one limb of another and pulling him away. Then they used trees, bags with weights or horses to expand… Firstly, it is good to understand that Pravilo is like a crutch that helps us open and expand our bodies, minds, and spirits. It gives you the experience of deep expansion and helps you to develop this quality. However, we aim to learn to expand life consciously from the inside. These powers could be used as additional power, in addition to muscle power, to make us stronger and more efficient… Expanding and condensing powers are not working mechanically as muscles by contractions. Therefore, the body spends less energy (oxygen and nutrients) and can be much more relaxed and fluent. These powers are feeding consciousness. So, we are developing them through mental training – meditation. The expanded body is soft and elastic but very strong, similar to a bouncy castle for kids. Expanding power is similar to fluid, hydraulic power. That allowed the Cossacks to be so adaptable – liquid but very strong with unbelievable endurance – they used less muscle power. In Cossack tradition, knowledge from the mother of Indo-European civilisation – from ancient Vedic civilisation– survived! While our modern civilisation focuses on developing technology, Vedic civilisation focuses on developing consciousness.
