This is the center of the universe at this moment unless you’re looking in another direction, or are thinking about something from a long time ago, in which case it will wait quietly right here for you until you return. ~ Brian Andreas
Finding your own center is much easier said than done. Especially in the rush of our daily lives; it is far too easy to be moving onto the next task before becoming engaged in the one at hand. Moving from your center is a much different concept than that of focus. Although, often used interchangeably this is inaccurate. To be in and of your center is to move away from the cerebral concept of focusing and shift into the emotional connection of being. Your focus can bring you in and out of center, but your center remains, “quietly right there waiting for you to return”. While your focus holds you in a position, your center is of that position. The difference being the cognitive shift of understanding that actually allows you to remain and move from the place of center.
When practicing Elephant on the reformer, a shape we see reiterated in many exercises, I first must rely on focus to recruit my abdominals in and up, tuck my pelvis under, trunk rounded and toes lifted. I am focusing on achieving these positions in my body and finding those deeper connections. Once my focus brings me to that position, it is the center of these findings that I must work from, in order to move from the place of center. Focus must make way for center to take place and become. If I continue to think, “abs in, pelvis tuck, round and toes lifted,” I will not be able to accomplish proper fluidity or precision and the exercise will not be achieved.
We rush about focusing on all the things we have to do, going from one to the next, checking each off the list but then completely blowing past the point of convergence. We never allow ourselves into this space of center and are left depleted. Focus will exhaust us if we never renew ourselves by arriving at center.
Allow the work of your focus to come together to move you efficiently with grace and ease.
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