The Way of the Warrior: “Look Up & Lengthen by Mark Hatmaker

 

[Excerpted from The Suakhet’u Program: Indigenous Warriorship, available now or see The Black Box Subscription Service. This is only a single aspect of the daily 8-minute carry-it-forward Warrior practice.

Buckle up as we venture forth with…

·        Sailors the world over

·        Scout & Tracker Advice

·        Comanche Warriorship Practices

·        Insights from Zen Practitioner Surveys

·        And a bit of brain science.

Our Sailors

“Men in a ship are always looking up, and men ashore generally looking down.”—John Masefield, The Bird of Dawning

The wisdom behind the observation being that nothing [nothing] will open your eyes to the vagaries of the wind than learning to sail or having to rely on the wind to get you from point A to point B.

The reading of tell-tales tied to the shrouds and sail itself, the hint of cat’s paws in the offing, the wedge in the cumulus cloud that signals a change in the upper wind that may bode good or ill for the surface winds, and…

Well, when wind is your gas pedal and also the source of peril [in the form of knockdowns, etc.] a habit of looking down is the equivalent of staring at your lap while driving.

[Yeah, many do that, more on that to come.]

Our Scouts & Trackers

Experienced indigenous trackers, mountain men, Kenyan Man-Trackers, in short, those wise in bushcraft the world over for eons begin their day with a Sky Scan and return to this evaluation often.

The Sky-Scan is simply beginning all [all]surveys of territory [and each shift into new territory] with an examination of the heavens that gradually moves downward to see what is beneath the feet.

The Wisdom behind the Sky-Scan is that because sun, moon, stars, distant landmarks for marking a transit or to calculate dead reckoning can be obscured by clouds more easily than the ground, we must check what can change first.

Looking groundward and failing to keep scrupulous track of skyward information can result in becoming hopelessly lost if clouds, mountain ranges, tree canopy obscures what we otherwise take for granted as locators.

Looking groundward, again, is the equivalent of driving with eyes in the lap or walking city streets eye on screens. The possible dangers will be seen more readily if the gaze is up and out.

The signs [both literal and figurative] can only be read by upward gazes.

Comanche Kana’ba’it’u tuas’u Punit’i Pat’i

A simplified translation is “Stand Tall, Look Up.”

It is a bit more than mere cosmetic “Warriors stand proud and tall and hold their heads high.”

The true intent is deeper and more functional than that but…the practice leads to being a Warrior who stands tall and holds the head high.

That is simply the appearance to the outsider, the practice is more about a physiological hack to cue hyper-awareness. [We’ll get to that.]

I must clarify, to “Stand Tall” is not merely the standard “Stand Up Straight, throw your shoulders back advice.”

Comanche kana’ba’it’u is closer to a lengthening and balancing act.

[In The Suakhet’u Program we will detail just how this posture is achieved and practices to make it your own as we correct for downward living. Warrior Walking is much ado about the specifics of Warrior posture in motion.]

Side-Note: One is hard-pressed to find a traditional warrior art that does not make much ado about postural work. To be clear though, what we are discussing here is not “martial posture” or stances. We are going a bit more 24/7 with pervasive attention to the lengthening and the up which build a feedback loop of awareness once seated in the aspiring Warrior.

Our Zen Practitioners

Surveys of Zen practitioners regarding when they first experienced true moments of “envelopment” or “involvement” found these common denominators…

·        The vast majority did not experience their “awakening” with closed eyes.

·        They also did not report the downward gaze [the stereotypical “naval-gazing”] being the pathway.

·        The vast majority report their experiences coming from eyes wide open and…

·        Looking up.

·        Looking up could be outdoors or indoors, more reporting successful outdoor experiences over indoor.

·        And those who did report indoor “successes” report that it was often in a novel environment. A different Zen-do than usual, a hotel room, the guest room while visiting a friend, but…

·        The indoor experiences were comprised of looking up and novelty which is surmised that novelty indoors stands in for the ever-evolving novelty of outdoors looking up.

Attempting to clear the mind, break the mold of repetitive/obsessive thinking or “over-thinking” or simply to remove oneself from a self-defined rut, well, indoors, looking down or level with a TV, or down at the intimately familiar phone in the never novel environment of familiar locations, well, that is a recipe for…

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”—attributed to Albert Einstein

At this point, we have two threads running through these seemingly disparate experiences/practices.

Looking up, and in some cases the deliberate addition of postural control.

Some Brain Science Bon-Bons

[Tip of the hat to Dr. James H. Austin, M.D. for dumbing it down for this layman.]

·        The pathways responsible for extending the head and neck start at least as high as the nucleus of Cajal.

·        Impulses are fired from here to motor nerve cells down the spinal cord.

·        These motor nerve cells fire the splenius capitis and other muscles along the back of the neck.

·        These contracted muscles arch the cervical spine leading to…

·        The neck and head rising into an erect position with an upward gaze prominent.

We can choose to adopt this posture as in kana’ba’it’u or outward Zazen or we may find it can occur spontaneously with the pricking of attention—the lift of the head to search for the source of the alien sound in the distance.

We proceed, and I simplify greatly, but the essence is here.

·        Repeated practice of contracting the splenius capitis and the accompanying musculature, leads to increased muscle tone [as we all know from exercise.]

·        This increase of muscle-tone over time leads to the release of excitatory influencers.

·        Along this chain of influences is stimulation of raphe nuclei located low in the medulla.

·        The muscle-tone extension thus in turn promotes a release of serotonin—a major mood boosting and mood-stabilizing chemical messenger.

·        As Healthline puts it…

“[Serotonin is] said to help produce healthy sleeping patterns as well as boost your mood. Research shows that serotonin levels can have an effect on mood and behavior, and the chemical is commonly linked to feeling good and living longer.”

[The muscle tone effect is a bit more involved than mere serotonin release; we also have the excitatory peptide thyrotropin-releasing hormone that stimulates motor nerve cells along the entire spinal column firing the long axial muscles that further lengthen the spine.]

Smoke-Break for Consideration

·        Attention and mood are increased by looking up and lengthening.

·        Tracking ability, navigation, survival are improved by looking up and lengthening.

·        What do the habits of looking down, slumping, and non-novel environments promote?

Where Brain Science & Kana’ba’it’u Meet to Quickly Improve Mood, Posture, Awareness, and, Dare I Say It? Quality of Life.

[Part's 2, 3 & More are included only in The Suakhet’u Program. Can’t give away the milk and the cow.]

[For more Rough& Tumble history, Indigenous Ability hacks, and for pragmatic applications of old school tactics historically accurate and viciously verified see our RAW/Black Box Subscription Service.]

Or our brand-spankin’ new podcast The Rough and Tumble Raconteur available on all platforms.