I’ve just come back from a week long training camp lead by an extraordinary person. A person who has had the tenacity to delve deeply into many areas of study, including traditional methods of conditioning the body which came originally from ancient practices of India and China.

He possesses some extraordinary abilities… How would it feel if someone pushed on you, and your body held firm without you pushing back? What if you had trained your body so that when you push with the palm of your hand you could transmit 100% of your body’s weight through it? If we could all increase the efficiency of our body’s actions, how would that affect our lives?

The question then is, ‘how much do I want such a body? and how much effort am I willing to make to get it?’ If we are in pain, we have a strong motivation to get better and we’ll do whatever it takes to make the pain go away. We call the process of moving from pain to relief Rehabilitation. If we are happy with being free from pain, we will quit doing ‘rehab’ and go on with our lives. Unfortunately, making no correction to the bad habits which hurt us before leaves us vulnerable to having that pain return again in the future.

If we keep the long term goal in sight, of having pain free movement for life, then we probably realise that we should do what we can to correct the cause of the problem. This is what I would call Corrective Care, and this would see you maintain a strategy to help you keep your body in good condition without the need for pain as a motivation.

The seminar I have just attended was lead by a man who took the function of his body far beyond simply ‘correcting problems’. I would describe what he does as Conditioning, and the desire to reach such a level of performance in your body can only come from your mind. It’s not bad if you don’t want to do this, and the reality is that very few people can achieve what this man has done. That doesn’t matter, as we all have our own lives and we all have a unique contribution to make.

The ultimate goal for all of us should be our health, so that we can continue to do the things that we love for as long as possible. To have health, we need to look after the only vehicle we can’t replace… our body. In this seminar I attended, we were told that the knowledge of the Conditioning methods from ancient Asia were originally realised by religious monks. They insisted that a high level of bodily control needs a clear mind… ‘where the mind goes the body will follow!’ A clear mind is such a powerful force, but not so easy to attain. How can the mind become powerful?

The monks knew that the heart is the base of our human experience. Our emotions, reactions, desires, instincts etc. all influence our deep levels of feeling towards ourselves and the world. To build this idea from the foundation, we need to clear our heart of negative emotion. An open heart and clear purpose will allow the mind to achieve the full power it is capable of. A mind at full power can make the body do extraordinary things. Extraordinary things include doing what you love, having great relationships and living a long and healthy life!

Am I talking about your heart? your mind? your body? your health? I don’t think these things can be separated. So… are you ‘Rehabilitating’ your life so it doesn’t get too bad? Are you ‘Correcting’ your life so that the sailing is smooth? Or are you ‘Conditioning’ your life so that it becomes the best possible version that it can be? Finding the answer to this question, probably starts in your heart.