Ataraxia

Sandbag breathing sounds interesting, i'll try that. I am glad that i finally learned some barbell last year, interesting experience. I particularly enjoyed the olympic lifts. Squats and deadlifts are fine, but i personally enjoy bodyweight training much more. For squats i do pistols, which i love, and also goblet squats with a kettleball.

I have had 10 Feldenkrais-sessions and they were a very unique experience. One thing that is unique to it is that it is very hard to put in words what exactly the benefit is, at least for beginners. The general consensus in my class was that it was it was great even though the people couldn't name why. My 2 cents on it: Feldenkrais is very sublte and gentle. It allows you to experience your body in a new way, free of preformed conceptions or ideas, and to experience your blockades very gently. It reconnects you with your body on a very basic level, it's almost more like you give your body the opportunity to experience itself and the things it can and can't do. At least for beginners, the effects seem to be below the threshold of consciousness. I'd say it differs a lot from the above mentioned martial arts. I can well see it having spiritual benefits, but i would see it mainly as a great way of "resetting" the body, establishing a link with it, before starting more elaborate practices.

Hello! My name is Martin, i'm in my forties and am from Germany. I've been dabbling with meditation, chinese medicine and particularly the I Ching for many years, without getting too deep into it. I also have a little background in western tradition, particularly astrology, but i've also had some exposure to the work of Wilhelm Reich, for example. (Although that's probably not tradition, but the real western tradition seems more alien to us that the chinese tradition or so i appears at times...) I picked up a chinese martial art a few years back. This led me to the point that i want to understand chinese tradition better, in order to make sense of my experiences. I'm here to learn. I'm also looking forward to discussions with you!