Lazy Tension: How to move with effortless efficiency

Pete is as stiff as a board. Tony is as floppy and heavy as a sack of potatoes. Are you like Pete or like Tony?

…or are you like both at once: stiff in some places and floppy in others?

So I exaggerate, but you get the picture and, remove the exaggeration, and I'm sure you can see yourself in there. It's normal: most people are like that.

What can you do about it? Do you relax and get more like a sack of potatoes or do you stand to attention and look like you're tied to a pole behind your back?

If only there were a third way. There must be a third way. How else do you account for the agility of a tiger or the easy, matchless performance of an athlete “in the zone”?

There is a third way. In fact, we've already met it an earlier article. The third way is commonly known as…

“being in the zone”

But “being in the zone” is normally considered an amazing feat, something only occasionally attainable and, even then, only by a fortunate few. It's a rarity, a freak to be gawped at, like the trapeze artistes in the circus.

What we need is a normal state that anybody who cares to put in the necessary work can attain.

Wouldn't it be nice if little old you and little old me could not only get “in the zone” but be there most of our waking hours?

Well it can happen and it will happen. When it happens, “being in the zone” will no longer be a good name for it.

When “being in the zone” becomes normal

When “being in the zone” becomes normal, not for just a privileged few, but for anyone who has found out what they need to do and done it, we will need a new name for it. We need a name that describes it as normal and easy — not freakish and unattainable.

Since I'm not only putting forward the idea but also mapping out the means to attain it, I feel I have the right to name it too.

I name it…

Lazy Tension

The essence of Lazy Tension lies in that apparent dissonance: how can you be both lazy and highly strung at the same time?

I've been teaching Lazy Tension to my pupils this last month or two. Already the results are quite startling — both to me and to my pupils. Neither I nor they were expecting anything quite so powerful.

The more I think about it, though, the more I see the results shouldn't have been surprising. The apparent dissonance in putting “lazy” alongside “tension” comes, I think, from our false association of tension with stiffness.

Tension and stiffness are two completely different things

Remember the archery bow from my “in the zone” article. It packs such an incredible amount of power precisely because the bow does tighten the bowstring so strongly. Remember also the champion archer exerting all his strength to draw that bow — yet holding it rock-steady while he aims and then releases the arrow with pin-point accuracy.

Think of a swan. Would it ever leave the water if its body weren't stretched so incredibly taut when taking off? The same goes for every outstanding example of high performance both in exceptional humans and amongst wild animals. Can you think of a single example where the activity didn't involve amazing stretch and tautness?

The essential element in all these examples is stretch, extension — lengthening in other words. Stiffness is quite different. Stiffness is all about shortening and compression.

What about the “lazy”?

What's lazy about a swan taking off?

True, the swan is clearly putting every bit of energy it has into getting airborne. But it isn't wasting a single ounce of that energy. All of that power is beautifully and appropriately applied. In fact the wonder is that it has that much power

…and it only possesses that power by virtue of the fact it is moving so tautly and efficiently — so like the archer's drawn bow. Next time you see a big bird taking off, take the time to admire its easy, confident action. See how it doesn't waste a single ounce of energy.

When less energy is required, the ease is still there. Visualise that same swan gliding over the lake or a tiger prowling through the jungle — or indeed Robin Hood getting ready to split his opponent's arrow that's already sitting on the bull's-eye.

Lazy Tension has nothing in common with board-like Pete or sack-of-potatoes Tony. It has everything to do with Robin's confident hidden power.

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