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body wisdom
September 2009 
Personal Log: Ninja Moment
Posted on Apr 18th, 2006
by 
Jordan
Jordan
[I am going to distinguish Personal Logs from my ChiBounding Log, i.e., if it has nothing to do with rebounding, it is a Personal Log. And if it is a blog about blogging, then it will be a Meta-Blog. [I never met a blog I didn't like....]
So, down to San Diego for a weekend of "deep familiy time" with my wife, daughter, and my wife's family. And this is what happened:
I was in a large swimming pool two days ago, with my daughter, watching warily as a weighty rubber football was being tossed the distance of the pool, over our heads, by some teenagers.
Eventually my daughter left the pool, and I relaxed. About ten minutes later I was swimming lazily on my back, and I decided to flip my goggles down to cover my eyes again. At the exact moment that I did that the football came careening towards the corner of my eye, but my simple movement to lower my goggles deflected it harmlessly.
I had no knowledge of what I was doing, and it took zero effort. It felt like a totally "Zen Ninja" moment. I'm pretty sure I would have at least been startled, if not hurt, had I not "accidentally" made the perfect move at the perfect moment.
Was I perhaps somehow aware of what I was doing? It's hard to say. But I am grateful for the skill of my body/mind when I let it do its own thing.
Access: PublicTagged with: ninja, body wisdom
So, did you say something to those teenagers about being more careful? Or did you just go all ninja-style on them and totally flip out!?
I did say something mild, like “please be more careful.” They ignored me, and the pool became a vast sea of blood…
Actually, they just ignored me, but it seemed like they toned it down a notch.
That’s a very funny site you linked to above. And I realize that I am probably misusing the term “Zen Ninja moment,” but I wanted to make a point about how I “luckily” avoided the point (of the football).
Nah, I think yours was a “real” zen ninja moment. The site I linked to is a farce :)
Well, that’s just the thing. Every now and then in my life I’ve done “amazing” things … like the time I threw a Lundberg rice cake right into the palm of my friends hand while we were in two seperate convertibles going 60 MPH on the way to Jones Beach … but I typically have no “control” over what I’ve done.
So, here, I wasn’t thinking about the football any more. i didn’t know it was even still being tossed. All I was doing was moving my goggles … and yet the block was sheer real-time perfection.
So, did “I” do that? I don’t think so. But then, who did do that? The “body” or the “body’s intelligence,” perhaps? Or the part of me that is always watching out for the rest of me? And if so, how come that part of me sometimes fails, that is, sometimes *isn’t* (or doesn’t seem to be) on watch?
Hmmm… yes… “why?” indeed.
The word “why” doesn’t appear in my last post here, so I’m not sure what your ‘“why?” indeed” is referring to.
So, which “why” do you mean?
– Jordan
“how come” = “why?”
I was just re-phrasing to save space.
Got it.
OK, then, either it could be:
* luck
* merit
* external unknown forces
One of these, it seems to me, was turned on in that moment, but, at other times in my life, it has been turned off, or not on duty, or something to that effect.
I’d like to think it was as simple as a mutliple sub-personality explanation, with the answer being that we have to forge some kind of Gurjieffian or Crowleyean type of self or Super-Self or watcher or awareness that will “watch over things” and always, at least to some degree, be monitoring all levels of our current existence. So, just do enough “work” or “meditation” or “prayer” or whatever, and when the bubble finally bursts, you really are forever on a different level playing on a different playing field.
But actually, I think I was just damn lucky.