Learning to relax has been about the hardest focus I needed to learn while trying to develop my Chi Running skills. In a world that is instant satisfaction and sometimes very stressful you would think the chance to relax all your muscles except your core would be a great escape for most individuals. But after years of caring around the stress and tension, it actually takes a lot of practice to learn to let go. 

When I first started practicing Chi Running I thought the relaxation part was going to be the easiest to learn. But I soon discovered that I would actually have to mentally work at releasing the muscular tension in my body. Working on my form would challenge me but learning to trust myself balancing in my forward fall without engaging my legs was by far the most challenging. I tried different things to get myself to just let go of the tension I held in my legs. I worked on keeping my ankles relaxed, bending my knees, lifting from my crown to name a few. But down the road, the thing that best worked for me was to slow down, shorten my stride and think relax. I would feel for the tension and try to see if I could recognize what I was doing and then try get my body to just let it go.

I equate the tension like layers of an onion peeling back one layer and there will be another layer. Eventually, I began to feel my legs relaxing and noticed that my pace would increase just by me relaxing. I think sometimes we put so much unnecessary pressure on ourselves in life that we might miss the bigger picture. If we just slow down and take in what is around us we might begin to release some of that unnecessary daily stress we put upon ourselves.