Meditation requires translation.

While the practice of mindfulness can and should be learned in calm, quiet settings with few distractions, that’s not what it’s built for. Our lives rarely resemble the artificial environment we find ourselves in when learning these skills, and as such, these skills rarely transfer.

Enter the Juggler

The juggler starts with two balls. And then three. All of the skills needed for more, are learned with three. But with each additional ball, volatility and complexity increase. The awareness and coordination honed for three balls isn’t enough for four with ease. And so one’s sense of internal and external awareness declines as the need for concentration increases.

Speed and complexity (volatility) inhibit sensitivity, awareness, and intuition…

…unless one practices juggling more balls on the regular.

Those who found this newsletter by way of my books hopefully understand that Lightness Training (Advanced Weightlessness) - marked by High Tension Resistance Training, Ballistic Weight Training, Dynamic Flexibility, and Qigong - is built to transfer our deepest internal structures and higher mind capabilities, cultivated via the four pillars and standing meditation, into dynamic, unscripted weightless moments in life.

Lightness is meditation in motion.

And while the disciplines and protocols within that model of training are advanced, the ethos and essence of it can be captured with training wheels.

Enter Lightness Walking

When one learns to meditate, there are rarely metrics and measures outside of one’s own subjective sense of peace and well-being. As such, mindfulness often suffers from survivorship bias… those who make it beyond the discomforts of sitting and confronting revelations of self, which are relatively few, pass on the same approaches to their students. And few of them make it beyond the same stages, and fewer acquire deep skill and lasting results.

Despite this, they almost never ask what those in the domain of performance ask on the regular - what exactly are we optimizing for?

And if speed and complexity (of life) inhibit awareness, and they do, a la our juggler reference, due to the shift in focus to a concentrated, or alpha brain wave dominant, state of mind, then how do we use this superpower of mindfulness, of nonjudgmental awareness, during real life stuff?

The answer, just as it is when learning to ride a bike - and juggle pedals, handlebars, breaks, and gears - is to start with training wheels.

Those training wheels in the world of meditation need not be more complicated than applying the same structural cues, breath, and perception practiced in meditation (ideally standing meditation) while in motion.

I’m intentionally avoiding the term ‘walking meditation’ here, which is its own thing, to try to relay relevant performance principles applicable to all. Walking meditation is generally performed extremely slowly, each step taking 10 to 20 seconds, and carrying with it a world of sensate data, felt kinetic coordination, attention to dormant sensations and subtle muscular contractions, and eventually, a mind that can perceive not only the world within, but can take in all that one might while seated - sights, sounds, smells, etc - while moving.

This is a process that gradually silences the complexity of pedaling, steering, breaking, and shifting so that the mind can explore the horizon. At one with the bike. At one with the body.

Lightness Walking isn’t so tedious. It’s merely the addition of three primary meditation cues that I’ve been harping on a lot recently, applied during walking, and can be integrated at any time, for any length of time.

Here’s How:

Throughout your leisurely walk, pay attention.
Pay attention to the placement of your eyes - under control and spotting your distance.

Pay attention to your structure - shoulders back and down, head drawn up, elongating the torso, feet straight, and ankles relaxed, allowing for flexion and articulation of the feet.

Pay attention to your breath, which should be facilitated by a loose, relaxed lower abdomen that oscillates with each breath, rather than the chest. One may need to pay additional attention to the diaphragm, to make sure it isn’t tense or contracted, and can drop down to expand the lungs with ease.

No further cues are needed.
If you’re practicing standing meditation, just do that, only walking.

There are a lot of balls to juggle here, and maintaining awareness of all cues at once will be impossible in the beginning. But after some time less attention and energy will be needed to maintain the structure and the breath of Lightness. 

And with the eyes fixed on the horizon, you’ll discover a lightness in body and mind that is truly liberating and wholly addictive.

Now... for those interested in Lightness RUNNING, now or in the future, well, the next cohort of The Weightlessness Process is just around the corner. Reach out ASAP to see if it's a good fit. And...

Be Weightless!

Tom Fazio
Weightlessness | Mind Body Performance