Relaxed Power

“I sailed my ship of safety ‘til I sank it.” ~ Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine

My husband Frank is 6’2.” His nickname is “Arms,” and we joke that he has an 8-foot wingspan. When he stands on the other side of a pickleball net, he looms. And when he reaches overhead to smash that little plastic ball back, it’s hard for me not to yelp, squeeze my eyes shut and jump out of the way. Let’s be honest, that’s usually what I do.

The body’s paradox is that the best way to defend against a Frank Smash is to relax.

The human body is full of paradox: press down to go up, press left to go right, more freedom comes from more groundedness…and relax for more power.

When faced with a Frank Smash, the more tightly I hold my paddle, the less control I have. The ball just ricochets off — usually into the net or over the fence. But if I hold the paddle loosely, some of the force of Frank’s Smash is absorbed, my wrist is more responsive, and I can more skillfully return it.

After years of moving with other bodies, I know that if someone comes in tense and rigid, they will have fewer movement options than someone who is relaxed and fluid. Their tension impacts both mind and muscle and leaves them with the bare minimum of ways to move.

As an advocate for embodiment, I have followed the work of writer, embodiment facilitator, political organizer, and therapist Prentis Hemphill, for years. They recently published a book: What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World and I’m awaiting a copy (on hold at the library!) with anticipation. In an interview about the book on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast, they said

“One of my teachers says, ‘A relaxed body is the most powerful body that we have.’ …Because when we are relaxed, we can do almost anything. I can make any kind of move from a relaxed body. I have a lot of choices from a relaxed body. From a body that is tight, tense, or protective, has taken on a protective shell, there’s only a limited number of moves we can make from that body. We’ve already foreclosed certain options.”

Ah yes, there it is. You can armor up and protect yourself (and there are times when all of us have to do that). Just know that the price of protection is choice. Your options are far fewer when you are armored up.

You can feel this in your body right now. Squeeze your hand into a tight fist, as tight as you can make it. And then with that tightness, move your fist (and even your wrist and arm) around. You can move it, sure, but the range of movement and the variety of movement is incredibly narrow.

Now shake your hand out. Take a couple breaths and relax your hand. Now move your hand (and wrist and arm) around. Notice the huge range of motion you have now that you didn’t have when you were tight and protected. Notice the variety of movements you can do with your fingers, your palm, your whole hand.

The difference is striking, right?

My long-armed husband loves to smack a pickleball across the net and I have a whole collection of little round bruises to prove it. When he goes up with his paddle, my first reflex is to brace and protect against the incoming ball. But the more I breathe and relax, not only the less likely it is that the ball will hit me, but the more likely I can return it. I have more options for movement and more resources to make choices.

This is true in any sport, any physical experience, and any mental, emotional or relational experience: the more I can relax, the more power I have.

For Prentis Hemphill, when they teach embodiment and “...what it means to be awake in ourselves, living inside of ourselves, [it comes back to] that relaxed body.”

The next time you are in a situation when you find yourself gripping and tense, see if you can find a way to relax, even a little. Notice if it gives you more options, physically, mentally or emotionally. Instead of paying the price of choice for protection, see if you can tap into your body’s inherent relaxed power.

Trust Your Body

“When I fight off a disease bent on my cellular destruction, when I marvelously distribute energy and collect waste with astonishing alacrity even in my most seemingly fatigued moments, when I slip on ice and gyrate crazily but do not fall, when I unconsciously counter-steer my way into a sharp bicycle turn, taking advantage of physics I do not understand using a technique I am not even aware of using, when I somehow catch the dropped oranges before I know I've dropped them, when my wounds heal in my ignorance, I realize how much bigger I am than I think I am. And how much more important, nine times out of ten, those lower-level processes are to my overall well-being than the higher-level ones that tend to be the ones getting me bent out of shape or making me feel disappointed or proud.”
– Brian Christian, The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive

In all my years of body-centered training, I heard things like “listen to your body,” “respond with kindness to your body,” and “love your body” on the regular. One thing I don’t ever remember hearing:

“Trust your body.”

Even in the world of somatics, we were taught to lead from the mind to the body, not the other way around.

In Reclaiming Body Trust: Break Free from a Culture of Body Perfection, Disordered Eating, and Other Traumas, Hilary Kinavey and Dana Sturtevant write about rebuilding our relationship with the body based on balance, respect, and trust. They write:

Much of what we are taught about living in a body is focused on doing things to and on the body as opposed to for and with the body. You do not need to overcome your body nor do you have to dominate it.

This is absolutely the case in traditional fitness and diet culture, but perhaps surprisingly it holds true even in the realm of body-mind practices. If I want to perform a movement like a yoga pose, I give myself detailed instructions to get my body to do it. For example, this might be running through my head: “Stand with the outer edges of the feet parallel, press down into the big toe mounds, shift the weight into the left leg, lift the right knee, pull the right toes toward the shin, push out through the right heel….” You get the idea.

Yet as I create and lead classes beyond the prescriptive practices I was trained in and as I learn a new sport myself, I’m finding that there is a different way: trust your body.

If you’ve never done a front kick or a two-handed backhand, you will need some instruction to get started but it’s not about keeping that instruction on a loop in your head. Instead, give your body an image and a feeling, then trust it to figure out the details.

In The Inner Game of Tennis, W. Timothy Gallwey writes

“...the physical body, including the brain, memory bank (conscious and unconscious) and the nervous system—is a tremendously sophisticated and competent collection of potentialities. Inherent within it is an inner intelligence which is staggering. What it doesn’t already know, this inner intelligence learns with childlike ease. It uses billions of cells and neurological communication circuits in every action. No computer yet made can come close to performing the complex physical actions accomplished by even a beginning tennis player, much less a professional.”

So, if there is something you want to learn to do with your body – say, a dance move, or a pickleball shot, or how to make dumplings —experiment with approaching it this way:

First, watch someone competent do the move. Look for details. Notice body position. But also soften your eyes and take in the overall “feel” of the movement.

Second, do it a bunch of times yourself. Maybe start slowly, or without a ball, or doing just part of the movement. This might be bumpy at first but the key is to keep your attention on your body position and what you are doing rather than the result. Is your foot pointed or flexed? Is your paddle pulled back high or low? Is your thumb pressing into or cradling the dumpling? Then, look for a feeling when you get it and when you don’t. It’s those feelings that teach the body, not the words.

Sometimes an image helps give you the feeling (slide your arm into a coat sleeve; angle your paddle edge like you were going to peel an orange with it; hold the dumpling like you are holding a raw egg).

Once you’ve felt the feeling of the move, then ask your body to duplicate the feeling. Your mind might get all tight and want to tell you all the steps and details. But trust your body and ask it to do it again. It takes practice, of course, but it is an effective and less frustrating way to learn a physical move.

Trust is built within the context of a relationship – with a friend, a child or with your body. Gallwey suggests that,

“...[F]or many of us, a new relationship needs to be forged with [the body]. And building new relationships involves new ways of communicating. If the former relationship was characterized by criticism and control, the symptoms of mistrust, then the more desired relationship is one of respect and trust.”

In our thinking-centered culture, it’s easy to get caught in the idea that words and information are the way to learn something. The intelligence of the body, however, actually responds to images and feelings. See it. Get the feeling. Trust your body.

The Myth of Catharsis

“Sweet mother of mystery, Susan! What was THAT?”

“Great googly moogly, Susan. That was ugly.”

“Mother FATHER, Susan! You can do better than that!”

“Ugghhhhh! SUSAN!”

On the pickleball court, I have lots of commentary on my wayward shots. I do my best not to swear but even when I’m not actually using profanity, the expletive sentiment is there. Lots of judgment and criticism and attention to all the ways I mess up.

But here’s what I’m finding: outbursts and yelling at myself (even in my head) doesn’t help me. On the contrary, it’s like getting yelled at by a coach or a parent. It just upsets me and makes me feel (and play) worse.

Just like any hypercritical words or thoughts I direct at myself, they are what I call “pre-emptive strikes.” If I acknowledge my mistakes vociferously first, no one else can beat me to it. It’s a protective measure that says you can’t be meaner to me than I already am to myself. And it’s a measure that is admittedly ass-backwards.

Hyper self criticism is an old, maladaptive behavior I started as a kid (obviously, given that it carries with it the logic of a 7-year-old). In my mind, it makes sense but really, it doesn’t.

In my mind’s defense, for years I thought self-criticism was cathartic: a way of processing and expelling frustration and anger rather than keeping it bottled up inside. Catharsis theory suggests that release of anger and other strong emotions (sometimes called "venting") is a way of letting those emotions go. Freud was a proponent of the catharsis theory but with all due respect to Sigmund, that is not my internal experience.

When I yell at myself on the court or curse drivers on the highway or politicians on the radio, it doesn’t dispel my anger; it revs it up. Punching a pillow (or hitting a pickleball as hard as I can) might seem like it would be helpful for letting go of my anger but it actually makes it worse. It throws gas on the fire of frustration.

And it’s not just me. Research shows again and again that catharsis is a myth. In a recent Ohio State University meta-analysis of more than 150 studies researchers “found that what really works to reduce anger is lowering physiological arousal -- in other words, turning down the heat.”

"I think it's really important to bust the myth that if you're angry you should blow off steam -- get it off your chest," said senior author Brad Bushman, professor of communication at The Ohio State University. "Venting anger might sound like a good idea, but there's not a shred of scientific evidence to support catharsis theory.”

In my pickleball experience, when I “vent” my frustrations, I tend to slide down a slope into both feeling worse emotionally and playing worse, too. Instead, when I pause, breathe, shake or bounce my body and come back to the now of the next shot, I play better – and I feel better.

The Ohio State meta-analysis concurs that “techniques often used to address stress -- deep breathing, mindfulness, meditation, yoga or even counting to 10 -- have been shown to be more effective at decreasing anger and aggression.” I’m not doing any Down Dogs on the pickleball court or stopping to sit in meditation, but I am doing my best to be mindful of my body, the sun on my skin, as I take a deep breath.

I recognize that anger can become a habit and that moving to a more mindful approach to big emotions will take time. I’m likely to continue to use my creative cuss words sometimes but my intention is to lower arousal, not fire it up.

And as we move deeper into the 2024 election season, I am taking both my experience on the court and the research with me. When I feel the heat of anger, fear and frustration, let myself acknowledge it and then pause, breathe and let it simmer down on its own...before I rear-end the Chevy with those bumper stickers.