Magical Passes or Tensegrity

[Pierre]

I dont think one ever practices only Tensegrity, I mean the fact that you came to the idea or intent to practice tensegrity usually means that you did alot of other work, otherwise you wouldnt be there

I agree, Tensegrity can be a positive complementary tool and certainly requires some preparatory practices. I prefered to emphasize this complementary dimension because now you can find very easily some "Tensegrity" classes and videos.

Do you have your own experience and can you be more specific about it?

Prima non nocere.

Most Tensegrity passes are based on a basic posture, the standing (wo)man posture. Before going into dynamics passes the practicioner should manage this apparently simple posture and finally stand this way without strain and with a good alignment of legs (knees particularly) and back (particularly lower area). Some tips can help : not being able to see the feet, feet breadth slighlty higher than shoulders breadth, slight hips retroversion, same constraint on toes and heels,... Once the practicioner reaches strainless and aligned back and legs in this static posture he'll have to keep it while moving (doing passes). For upper back and shoulders, practictioners could give attention to passes involving the elbows to raise above the shoulders. Before going for such passes, upper back and neck should be aligned enough and involved joints flexible enough.

This posturing is important because it will reduce pains and injuries risks and also because the backbone plays a major role in those energetic build up and transduction processes.

I guess that for Tensegrity activities (like most human activities) network is a real plus, if a practioner can find a reliable tensegrity school (it might be rare) it could help his progresses.

 

[Rauno]

I found your post very unclear if not contradictive. Can you please try and be more specific.
Once we talk about first hand transmission of the knowledge I beleive that true knowledge can never be wrapped in mystery and that anything can be explained as long as there is a patient teacher and willing pupil.

If anyone can learn tensegrity why do we need to attend work shops to learn it?

I have Castaneda's book in front of me. All I need to know about tensegrity is in it, why would I need to pay big money and attend work shop held by people I dont know anything about ?

And lastly what do you exactly mean when you refer to inner psychological work?

Yes, I am little bit obscure. The main reason is that english is not my first language.

To learn something new...we have to pay a lot. A lot of attention for example. A quite a big amount of time, usually. View it as a learning of new language. It is much easier to learn a foreign language in group with an instructor than alone by yourself with dictionary and textbook. It doesn't mean that you have to attend workshops. There are lot of people who haven't been in any official Cleargreen workshop and still practice tensegrity. What I didn't mention is that newcomers commonly get aquainted with magical passes through their local practice groups, depending where they live. If you are eager to give a hand to the unknown then you should find a way...
I am a bit skeptical in learning magical passes only from a book "Magical Passes". It is very hard. It is like learning some sort of folk dance from a plain description with few photos. The effect of mass really helps.

The workshop is a very effective way to give an initial impulse.

Modern practitioners of Tensegrity have the astounding benefit denied to all previous practitioners of other generations: the benefit of mass. The newcomers should trust, and it's recommended that they trust implicitly, the enormous power of human mass. The greater the number of participants, the easier it is for anyone to absorb anything presented to them, be it through the medium of the intellect, or the medium of kinesthesia. Participants remember everything that is said, and everything that is done in terms of movement with immensely more facility than they would if they were doing all of it by themselves.

Is it necessary to practice in a group to receive the full benefits of the magical passes?

No, it is not necessary. As Carlos Castaneda writes in Magical Passes:
"Practicing in groups is beneficial in many aspects and deleterious in others. It is beneficial because it allows the creation of a consensus of movement and the opportunity to learn by examination and comparison. It is deleterious because it fosters the reliance on others, and the emergence of syntactic commands and solicitations dealing with hierarchy." (p. 26)
The idea of syntactic commands is further explained on the same page, along with some of the advantages of practicing in large groups. The choice of the best way to practice is left to the individual:
"Tensegrity should be practiced in whatever form is easiest: either in groups or alone, or both." (p. 26)
We have found that practicing alone allows us to perform magical passes that seem to suit us best individually at any given moment, while working together helps us to balance our practice by performing magical passes we might not otherwise practice on our own, or by helping us to adjust our speed to match the group.
These adaptations and adjustments can bring a movement of the assemblage point. They can allow us to form a new link with intent: the intent to perceive and act in a new way, with affection and gratitude for our fellow beings.

At the present moment there is so much more in this system. What was being referred as inner psychological work is actually a sort of recapitualtion. The very brief description of this work could be such:

1) Try to find a situation in your past when you lost a significant amount of energy.
2) Remember your body position, your breathing, how your jaw felt, how your eyes felt, were they predatorial, fixed into one point, were you grounded, did you feel your legs, your belly and middlesection, your neck, your shoulders. Your tone of voice.
3) Actually you should write it down and talk about this event to another practitioner. And take this body position which you had at this moment, imitiate everything...

From these initial steps a lot of work can be down. The bad news is that we have thousands of such situation in our life. The good news is that they usually follow few similar patterns. Through such excersises we realize that we live in a kind of behaviorial loops. The goal is to start recognizing those elements in our life. To stop them at the beginning. How, you would ask? Such a negative habit needs all its components to exist. If you eliminate one. Everything crashes. Those habits are deeply grooved into our bodily functions.

This description is a peak of the iceberg? As time goes you'll start to go deeper and deeper into yourself. Knowing yourself is the point. This kind of work was introduced into masses only a few years ago. It is said by instructurs of tensegrity that if you are a asshole and do a lot of magical passes then you become a bigger asshole. Because you have more energy.

This whole thing can be also very effectively understood by Fourth Way terms. Film of life, self remembering, chief feature etc.

 

[kenlee]

I think Tensegrity uses slightly diferent principle then martial arts therfore you cant really make such comparison.
I havent gone through all exercises but what I saw so far seems preety straight forward

When I was young I was involved in full contact kickboxing (not professionally). I realize now that the main reason I participated in these activities is that the intense struggle during sparring put me in touch with my 'center' or (I guess you can say) my 'I.' So for that brief moment I was aware that I had a center and I wanted to be in touch with this part of myself, since the vast majority of time I was out of touch with it (which is true to the present day). But I know that even though I am out of touch with my center most of the time there are times I am in touch with it, especially in dangerous (or what I perceive to be dangerous) situations. So for me, the martial arts were only valuable (essentially speaking) in this respect even though I didn't realize it at the time.

I think want matters the most though is objectivity. When one can see the universe as it sees itself and if one can hold that awareness and see things for what they are, without looking away, then this may lead naturally to all those different states of consciousness that various schools of thought promise with all their varied methodologies. I think that if we seek different states of consciousness (tensegrity being one example) then we can lose objectivity and in its place we may indulge in subjective experiences. When we seek only objectivity, without prejudice, then I think everything else (different experiences) may come on their own only because we are not seeking these experiences. Then we may be more able to objectively evaluate our experiences because our central aim is to be objective. So Tensegrity may just lead to more and more subjectivity only because it is seeking experience rather then seeking the best ways to objectively evaluate our experiences and how they relate to the world in which we live.

 

[Tigersoap]

I think want matters the most though is objectivity. When one can see the universe as it sees itself and if one can hold that awareness and see things for what they are, without looking away, then this may lead naturally to all those different states of consciousness that various schools of thought promise with all their varied methodologies. I think that if we seek different states of consciousness (tensegrity being one example) then we can lose objectivity and in its place we may indulge in subjective experiences.

I agree with this because I think that techniques to expand your awareness must only be seen as a treshold or beacon then to be discarded (or modified ?) when you've gotten to the point that you don't need it anymore.
But as we are easily dragged into endless rituals of our own devices without even be aware of them, I do think it's quite difficult to realize this, especially if you don't practice some self-observation imho.

how many people practice techniques (you name it, yoga, karate...) for years without being better person ? or being better at seeing themselves
and the world around them ?

I am not saying that not to do anything is better but it requires vigilance from our part to see when they don't bring anything more than a kind of spiritual high.
To each his own.

I guess that's why, apart from self-observation I haven't pursued any other techniques (ok, I am a bit lazy as well) because it does not fit with me.