Practice Makes…
Examining the impact of practice on the body (physical), mind (mental), and soul (spiritual)
--
There is an old joke I recall, that goes like this:
“How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.”
They also say that practice makes perfect. I don’t know about that. Or more specifically, I don’t know if striving for perfection should be the end goal of any given practice.
Why does practice matter? Because it is how you develop new habits, new skills, new abilities…and hone those you already have.
Practice is not necessarily a physical act. You can do many, many things that are a practice. They bear that title for a reason.
Everyone practices something. Whether you acknowledge it as such is another matter.
Being aware of a thing as a practice can be an excellent pathway to mindfulness. That, in turn, opens a door to conscious reality creation.
How? Let’s explore this, shall we?
Physical practice
I have been practicing the arte of defense for 28 years. It is not just fencing, but sword combat.
As such, I have studied and worked with different weapons in different ways. You wield a katana far differently from a rapier, which is totally different from a two-handed sword, which is alien to a curved blade like a cutlass or saber.
Practicing this arte is very similar to any other martial art. The body learns specific muscle memory and you gain more proficiency and ease of movement the more you study.
Physical practice is all about getting your body attuned to the act. But it’s not just the body, because the mind gets involved as well.
In Miyamoto Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings, he writes frequently about getting yourself to the place of “no mind.” It is a place familiar to people who meditate that’s also referred to as “the void.” In this place, thought and feeling fade away, and you simply are. Ultimately, you are totally in the moment and your body is doing what it does virtually automatically.
