46. breathing

 I am breathing.


Last week I started my new lab position at the university and I've never had to be so focused on my breathing over such a sustained time period. Sure, in class we are constantly reminded to take butterfly breaths, to really breathe deeply and pay attention to how we're breathing, but with so much else to focus on that only adds up to maybe 30 seconds of uninterrupted focus on breathing over the whole class? 

When I'm in the lab the procedures we carry out all require extreme precision and incredibly small movements: drawing up 2 microliters of liquid in a pipette tip, not making contact with the centrifuge tube lids, making incisions on invertebrates smaller than a centimeter, all of these actions could be impaired by any stray twitch in my muscles or a ragged breath at the wrong time. 

So when I put on my lab coat and gloves for the day I am trying to apply how I move in kung fu, to how I move myself in the lab. 

I am trying to hone my control. It feels very different than the control needed to pull a punch just shy of a target, but closer to the control needed when doing a form, trying to move my muscles precisely where I want them, making my body listen me, rather than reacting and then responding to whatever my body does in the moment.

I am trying to hone my focus. The 2 most important questions in kung fu where am I? and what am I doing? has been an incredible help in the lab. Sometimes I find my mind beginning to wander from the task at hand. Thoughts start to pop up I can relax a little, I haven't messed up yet, this is just a practice run it won't matter if you mess up, can be satiated by re-grounding myself, and asking those two questions. I am in the lab, I am doing this step, I am focused and I am capable. Or on the opposite end this is the last step, if you mess up now you'll have to start from scratch, you'll have wasted everyone's time and resources, you'll be a failure get stopped because through training I know that each individual step is equally as important, later steps can't be carried out at all if you don't have focus and intent behind the initial steps, and every step after that. 

And just like it says in the title, I am trying to hone my breathing. Focusing on drawing deep breaths, releasing long slow controlled breaths that manifest as control in my limbs, and realizing that something as small as the air in my lungs can change how my body moves.


11/30

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