Nicole Tomlinson: What do you get when you combine the strength and agility of the martial art, with the grace and flexibility of yoga. In the first of this two part series we will take a look at Budokon and then work out for the mind and body. I would like you to meet John Barton, one of the teacher's of Budokon. Hi John!
John Barton: Hi, how are you, Nicole.
Nicole Tomlinson: I am great and I am really interested to know, what is Budokon?
John Barton: Well, Budokon is a marshal art system that uses yoga, some meditation, and brings it all together into a comprehensive conditioning class.
Nicole Tomlinson: So it really combines all elements of this mind and body together.
John Barton: Absolutely, absolutely.
Nicole Tomlinson: Where does it originated?
John Barton: Well it originated with Kancho Cameron Shayne who is the creator of this system. Just a combination of all the different places.
Nicole Tomlinson: So what is the basic philosophy of Budokon?
John Barton: The basic philosophy is the Zen philosophy. One beginners mind coming to the practice not necessarily that you are trying to gain something new, as much as it is rediscovering an old treasure that has been buried for a long.
Nicole Tomlinson: So you say a beginners mind, you don't have to be very strong into yoga or martial art practice?
John Barton: No you don't. The conditioning aspect of the class is really open to all levels. You set the cadence and the practice at the level that you really is taking the challenge yourself.
Nicole Tomlinson: How is this better than just yoga alone or marshal arts alone?
John Barton: Well just yoga alone is really marshal art frozen, right. So when you are in a specific posture there is no transition really with any type of real intension. You are either coming up off the mat or your are going down on the mat to transition to something else, what Budokon is really dynamic and it's integrated where you are constantly transitioning from one position to the next. So it's can really become seamless and this practice once you cultivated it enough.
Nicole Tomlinson: And how is it different from marshal art?
John Barton: We look at Budokon as having the ability to express movement in many different ways to often being yogic elements of our movement and then there is marshal elements of our movement. So we did a yogic practice, a conditioning class and that prepares us more for more grace and efficiency when we are doing our Budokon or our marshal movements.
Nicole Tomlinson: Seems like this is something really have to physically do to understand all the way.
John Barton: You have to absolutely get your hands on the practice to understand what it's about.
Nicole Tomlinson: If there are couple of basic things you can tell me.
John Barton: Sure.
Nicole Tomlinson: Let's get down and do it.
John Barton: Let's do it. So the first one we are going to do is Rolling Wave. It's sort of on a down dog. Make sure your shoulders are laterally rotated in a nice firm grip with the mat. You draw the feet together. So on an inhale I will rise upon the balls of my feet. How this is reaching high, tailbone is reaching low. Perhaps it is posteriorly checked up how this nice and then one vertebra at a time, I am following my finger. Keep that chin touched to the chest. Keep it touched, keep looking, keep looking and then hold around here. Once you get to a plank, well this is called a cobra hood. You see how that come, you can feel my hand, is that scapula is really move laterally.
From here you release your chin slowly, drop the pelvis down. Come into an up dog, so that you are pushing the ground, you are not collapsing your shoulder, but you are pushing, nice, you are pushing the ground away. I have come up, extend up to there you go, all the way. So this is where you are from here, the chin touches the chest, you pushed the ground away so that you reach out here slowly, slowly, nice and you are reaching, yeah that's it, you are reaching and then you roll all the way back nice and slow. We are not in a hurry. Heels come down to the mat, th
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