Dan Harden Seminar 1/6/2017 – 1/8/2017

I was going through my notes because I have not kept up with my seminar postings. I see that I missed posting this Dan Harden seminar at Randall Smith’s dojo, Aikido of Palm Beach County. Anyone who knows Dan knows his Ancient Traditions * Modern Combatives work located here.

So, this post is out of chronological order. And its going to bug me eternally that it is so.

I did not attend this seminar because I had other obligations that weekend.  I did go up on Sunday morning before church to see what was going on. I saw Dan Harden for an hour and still picked up a few nuggets of great information.

I also don’t have pictures to post. Arrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!

While I was there standing in the door and interrupting the class,  Dan was going over the iron mountain pose. This pose is where you drop your weight from the perineum and stretch your spine up, creating two opposing forces and a stable body structure.

One of my questions I asked Dan was about stretching your shoulders from the biceps as your doing the mountain pose. In classic Dan style, he said that is correct to do that but that was not what he was showing. I still pestered him for an answer. For those of you that know Dan you will understand. It’s all good.

Stretching from the biceps while in mountain pose is accomplished thusly:  rotate your arms out by twisting your biceps out. This has the effect of dropping your shoulders down, flattening your scapulas on your back, widening your chest and stretching your chest muscles.

Most of us twist our arms out by merely twisting our palms out. This is no where near correct and does not produce the profound effect Dan teaches.

Dan further went on to say that stretching the muscles to the point of exhaustion is where you find the connection between yin and yang.

It is highly effective and feels awesome. I do this exercise on a regular basis and will continue to do so.