Open your Body, Mind and Spirit

Expanding Life

We aim to increase awareness of expansion and contraction powers into ourselves.

Expansion and contracting happen everywhere in the universe and at all times.
Whether we know it or not, it affects our bodies, minds and spirits.
Usually, we don’t even notice how these powers affect our lives.
It gives an awareness of these powers and opens you to a new dimension of being and new freedom.

Expand

/ɪkˈspand,ɛkˈspand/ verb

Become or make larger or more extensive. Open, relax, lightness, fire, movement, flow, supple, youthful, yang…

Contract

/kənˈdɛns/ verb

Make something denser or more concentrated. Close, stress, tension, pressure, gravity, stillness, resist, rigid, old, yin…

Today, most people are too contracted, tensed and closed.
To reach balance, we must expand to life like a sunflower opens to the Sun…

Open the body to let the vital energy flow freely.
Open the mind, enjoy the present and be in the flow.
Open the heart to Love.

Benefits

Conscious control over expanding and contracting powers helps you flow and be more efficient, lighter, stronger, quicker and healthier. Higher is an extensive list of the advantages you can reach.

It is an independent wellness program, or it can be added as a new dimension to existing activities such as yoga, sports, dance, or everyday life.

Power of the fasciae

Fasciae exhibit different qualities depending on your emotional state.

In a state of fear, the fasciae contract.
When you are happy, the fasciae often expand.

We can control the fascia actively by becoming aware of its quality.
We can add expanding fascia tissue from the other side of the arm to the regular muscle contraction.
We can add a third power source: the contracting fasciae to the muscle contractions and the expanding fasciae.

  • Muscles contraction
  • Fascia expanding
  • Fascia contracting 

You can combine the muscle and fasciae powers into One unitedefficient movement.
Using less muscle power, you become more efficient and create less undesirable tension.
The liquid quality of the body allows us to accumulate and store kinetic energy.

The power of the expanding and contracting fasciae is the secret of ‘the superhuman power’ that  Systema and Chi Kung masters demonstrate.

 

 

 

Power of Tensegrity

  

 

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 is based on these powers:

  1. Expanding
  2. Inner Fire
  3. Muscles

 

Tensegrity helps to hold your body weight.
In addition, functional tensegrity allows for less pressure on your discs, vertebrae & joints.

 

Thus, movements are easier and smoother by decreasing the chance of injuries. In addition, it makes you feel lighter.

Expanding higher reduces pressure on discs and joints. We can fly..!

 

 

 

Supple or rigid body construction

 

There are two ways how to build up 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

 

Inner Fire

  

 

We are relaxed but 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 energy is known as Yang energy, Chi (Qi) or Ki, Kundalini… In Slavic culture, it is called  Zhiva*.
Because we understand fire, 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 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, 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…

 

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 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