Breathing To Prepare Yourself For Something Coming Up

Sometimes when we ride, we have a certain place we are afraid to go, or a certain thing we are afraid to do.

If you know you are habitually afraid in certain areas of your arena or going by/through certain gates, or into a new field etc.

Or you may be terrified of hearing your name being called to go into the ring, or when its your turn to go into the starting box for your cross country round.You can prepare yourself in advance in order to prevent fear arising with some of these exercises, “cultivating” calmness in your body.Just follow this routine or adapt it to suit you.

fear and anticipation is a positive quality its a good thing because it gives your body enough adrenalin to be able to work beyond your usual capacity. its the emotional content which turns it into fear fear that is the problem.

there are certain situations which is ok to feel anticipation its ok its fine, the real problem of fear is paralysis, you need enough adrenaline anticipation, fear make you more alert careful according to tcm. you want those qualities you don’t want to go into the fixated over narratised quality you def don’t want paralysis the trouble with you mind giving a narrative to the emotion is that it can loop and can cause paralyses and it becomes a vicious circle.

Before you even begin to feel frightened make sure you stay aware, so that your fear will not suddenly take you by surprise/ your fear will not come sooner and take you by surprise. (“Tackle things before they have appeared”.)

Bring yourself to the present moment and give yourself a sense of stability by counting the breath.

Remember the principles of Wu Ji and put the tip of your tongue just above where your gums join your teeth, this helps your Chi to flow. Relax the root of your tongue.

Drop your awareness into you Tantien, breathe to and from your Tantien always keeping your awareness there.

Keep your shoulders down and your armpits open.

Don’t hold your hands too closely together. use your thumb and forefinger as an anchor.

Begin to count your breaths, keep your breathing in a nice rhythm, a nice even tempo, not too fast and not too slow.

Then use the techniques you have learned to make sure your body stays relaxed.

Relax your hands by breathing to the centre of your palms, keeping your armpits open.

When your hands have relaxed, relax your hips by breathing into them.

Now breath to your hands and hips together, continue to breathe to your Tantien .

If you feel tense, breathe to the different body parts where you feel tension.

You are now breathing to the Tantien, counting the breath, breathing to the hands and breathing to the hips.

While you do this, begin breathing to your feet?

You are now breathing to the Tantien, counting the breath, breathing to the hands and breathing to the hips,
Focus on doing all of this very well, to the best of your ability as you perform whatever it is that was worrying you.

By focusing on your body and consciously relaxing it like this, the physical symptoms of the emotion of fear are prevented from manifesting, then your relaxed body will allow you to do what ever it is you have to do.

You may find another combination of exercises work for you, this particular combination that has proved to be successful.

Focus on doing all of this very well, to the best of your ability make it your main focus and then either go by or do whatever it was that you were worried about.

Almost have the thing you were worried about in the back of your mind as if it is has no significance, it is just something that has to be done while you are concentrating on your more important job of breathing and keeping your alignments. Let it become just part of the background noise.

You need attention to know of anything coming that you might need to deal with or is a hurdle of some sort.

diminish the negative in order to emphasise the positve.