In my last letter I talked about eyes (Attention & Mental State), the first of 3 meta-regulators of mental, physical, and emotional control that dictate mind-body connection, and comprise your Jedi toolkit - the remaining two being how physical structure and breathing regulate emotion.

And today I’m following up with a deeper look at the second - your structural alignment. While close in function, structure differs from posture in a few key ways. First, it’s possible to have great posture yet poor structure. It's not possible, however, to have great structure yet poor posture.

Where structure and posture agree is in the strong stacking of compression members in the body - bone - against gravity. Remove all soft tissue from the body, and your skeletal frame should be extended, centered, and symmetrical.

From the outside, and to the untrained eye, there may be no marked difference between structure and posture.

Structure, however, indicates internal organization of not only compression members of the body but also tension members (soft tissue, or myofascia), that hold the body together and distribute force and strain across one’s entire frame.

These differences are often imperceptible, but they can be felt in physical conflict, perceived in sport, and measured in fitness. Two people of 150 pounds could have near identical posture, but one might collapse under the pressures of added weight, while the other could deadlift 2 times their bodyweight.

So I just want to make clear that structure assumes good posture, but there are nuances here that differentiate them.

In Weightlessness Training, and within The Weightlessness Process in particular, we take months to learn to stand via standing meditation. We break down the structural alignment of the feet, hips, shoulders, and head placement to design effortless lift in the body.

This practice, even if we ignore the meditative elements and look solely at the structural, is magical. A lifetime of thought, habit, effort, injury, insecurity, and trauma, is programmed into our nervous system and even molded into soft tissue, and carries emotional connotations that make growing beyond lesser developed versions of ourselves damn near impossible.

We are the patterns we live and practice.

To transform we need two things. We need to cultivate new patterns - skills and habits - that are the operating software with which we approach the same types of problems with less effort and greater effectiveness.

And we need to undue patterns that bind us to inferior strategies - reactivity, anger, and anxiety, to name a few.

Most in the self help game focus on the former - new skills and habits (or for those fans of Joseph Campbell - collecting friends and weapons) - the sexy side of growth. But unless one unwinds detrimental conditioning that impedes new programming, growth is but an illusion.

Examples we can all understand:

I’m not losing weight, but I’m eating chicken salad every night.
Are you also eating chocolate?
Yes.
Ok…

I’m earning more money than ever but I'm still broke.
Are you spending more?
Maybe.
Ok…

It’s great to add in positive practices, but unless you eliminate, or at least reduce, those that are detrimental, we have the illusion of growth minus deep and lasting change.

How you stand - your structure - is the grand reset. It’s ground neutral for mind-body patterning, and is the foundation of healing and performance on all levels.

The Healer Within

The healer in you thrives in the absence of stress and pressure. BUT! And this is important, the healer in you does not reach her highest form in the absence of stress and pressure!

One must add weight to unburden, and one must embrace stress to heal.

Structural integration involves the marrying of two diametric forces in the body. Tension in the body generates rising force. Relaxation in the body generates sinking force. The most powerful and healthy version of you lives amidst the harmony of these two. But, and again, this is important, both forces must be cultivated to a high level in order to maximize harmony, balance, and healing.

The strength and structure of your body will optimize what millions of years of evolution have gifted you with - effortless lift against the force of gravity. In so doing you’ll remove the need for chronic tensions (chronic stress carried in your frame) generated to compensate for weakness and structural misalignments.

This is a process that takes time, sensitivity, and curiosity. But with patience, less and less effort and therefore energy is required for the support of your frame. With less effort comes more relaxation, a force that stimulates sensitivity in the body, awareness in the mind, and parasympathetic up-regulation, the outcome of which is the literal healing of the mind-body - physical pains and injuries, trauma, and outdated patterns based on the egocentric need to self-preserve.

The Warrior Without

It also improves coordination, which, at its bare bones basics, is the efficient oscillation between tension and relaxation at a neuromuscular level. Good structure improves neural signaling by minimizing starting-tension, and the balance and symmetry therein facilitates efficient and explosive coordination of power from dead neutral.

As I noted in In Pursuit of Weightlessness: "The loudest sound arises from the deepest silence. A contracted muscle cannot contract. A tense muscle is incapable of generating power. It’s encumbered by its own tension. Tension and relaxation are necessary correlates. Without one, the other cannot exist. The Tao of extreme physical power lies in one’s capacity to actualize deep relaxation. From the stillness explodes a scream of power, committed and holistic as a newborn’s cry or a lion’s roar before battle."

While these are levels of training that still excite me, many people just want a little less stress and a little more control over their lives, so let me come back down to earth for my lovely readers.

The Lay Jedi

The ferocious dog has its back arched, it’s eyes fixed, it's molars clenched, it's paws flexed, and it’s shoulders rounded.

The beaten dog has it’s tail tucked, it’s eyes diverted, and it’s shoulders slumped.

The happy dog has it’s tail up, it’s shoulders back, its eyes softened and raised, and it’s chest open.

Not to compare you to a dog… but if the postures fit.

The Lay Jedi is conscious of highs and lows, moments of joy and compulsive reaction. She knows that all of it - the good, the bad, and the ugly - is not externally dictated, but made of the fleeting impulses of an ego hungry for meaning, security, and recognition.

And she knows that to take control over these impulses, her path is not one of countless hours of reflection, introspection and analysis only, which are all attacking problems of thought at the same level of consciousness - more thought.

No, her path is rather to un-ask the problem itself, to transcend the ego with moments of intentional re-connection throughout the day - fixing her gaze, setting her structure, and basing her breath.

Just as we discussed in my last letter, your internal state as well as that of those around you, is betrayed by your eyes - their steadiness, focus, and intent. So too does your structure, like that of those around you, betray your psychoemotional state in the same way a dog will carry it’s anger, guilt, trauma, and happiness in its body.

Taking back control over your mind-body begins with unwinding these obvious patterns played out day after day. Control doesn’t require better algorithms built from new skills and strategies. It requires the emptiness born of neutral - a body that carries no patterns, and a mind present and sensitive to the fleeting moments of passing time.

A mind-body unburdened... weightless.

Observe in yourself the forms you take in moments of frustration, anger, and joy. Observe in these moments whether your breath is relaxed and full, or upper chest and constrained. And notice how those strong and weak around you carry themselves - heart open and exposed in the joyous, and shoulders hunched protecting viscera in the angry, anxious, and fearful.

While this is a practice that has infinite depth, its merit doesn’t require more than a few active attempts at resetting your posture TODAY.

For the point of this letter isn’t merely to celebrate the relationship between our thoughts, emotions, and physical form, but to remind you that you can take back control over your mind-body states by first recognizing that your thoughts are embodied, they’re alive in your physical form, and second, by resetting your posture to break the bonds governing your current mental or emotional state.

The novice is a walking, talking head, whose body molds and forms to thoughts as whimsical and fleeting as a breeze.

The Lay Jedi is conscious of the forms they embody, and takes radical ownership of her thoughts and emotions through the conscious correction of asymmetry and misalignment in the body.

Novice or Jedi, the choice is yours.
Be Weightless!

Tom Fazio
Weightlessness | Mind Body Performance