It is possible for a person to make their center more clear by spinning.
Life may seem like an unorganized storm, but an unorganized storm can be organized into a hurricane simply by spinning.
Once organized, at the center of that hurricane can be found a clear center, a peaceful place known as the eye.
It is also possible for people to learn to spin, and by spinning, to become established with their own clear center, a steady place of relaxation and balance within.
This improved balance is way good for surfing and board sports.
One of the best teaching examples for how hurricanes work is using the smaller example of a centrifuge machine.
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Sufi Magic Discovered In A Small Machine
A centrifuge is like a mini hurricane. It is a machine that is used to spin tubes containing blood samples.
The spinning separates what’s in the tubes into organized layers.
When the blood sample is first put in there, no one can guess what the results are gonna be in each tube.
Without turning on the machine, it is very difficult or even impossible to know.
But when the machine is turned on, the magic begins.
In the spinning of the centrifuge, all things are thrown to the outside, and that which is at the center becomes clearer and clearer.
The elements within the tubes become organized into different, understandable layers, easy to know and evaluate.
The heavier to the outside, the lighter, and clearer to the inside.
And like a spinning top, the spinning brings stability.
After the spinning, it’s simply way easy to know and understand what that sample is all about.
Just spin it, and it’s easy.
If you don’t spin it, then it is difficult.
Our Life Experience Is Like An Unorganized Storm.
It’s like a weather report.
If you’ve ever watched a weather radar map, you’ve seen that as soon as they plot one approaching cloud, it disappears, and a different one pops up on the other side of town.
So if you get all set for that first cloud, and bring your monster umbrella for the storm that just disappeared, you end up preparing for nothing.
Carrying the extra baggage of that umbrella all day long, and mismatching the world.
And how can anyone find or mark the center of such an unpredictable storm like that?
Without even knowing where it is, or where it’s gonna be, how can a person respond to it, and be in the right place at the right time?
The person ends up mismatching the world.
When A Person Mismatches The World, They Get Beat Up In Life.
They jump when they should sit, turn right when they should turn left, etc., and struggle unnecessarily.
Basically either colliding with the world or disconnecting and being out of touch with it.
Those extremes are like the extremes of that weather report.
It isn’t quality living.
It’s how to get scarred up by one response, or disconnected and left out by another.
Beat up in life – the result of mismatching the world and the environment.
Surfing is the same.
The world is going to present itself to you in ever-new ways while you are trying to surf life.
New sights, sounds, feelings, smells, thoughts, etc.
If mismatched, each one could be a distraction or a cause for loss of balance.
The real achievement in surfing, and life’s game itself, is to abide as steady despite it all, despite life’s changing circumstances, or anything the world can throw.
There is a systematic way to do this.
To start as balanced, abide as balanced, and then from the freedom of that balance to make it happen.
Each Moment, The Presentation Of The Wave Is New.
There has never been that exact wave presentation before.
There is a different set of fish within the waves, swimming in different places.
The day and time are different, the planets have moved, the wind and weather are different.
You are even different.
Your hair may be longer than yesterday.
You have different food in you too.
That is what makes life, surfing, and boardsports fun.
It’s ever-new.
That also means that with the right training it’s not boring.
Having a meaningful life can be learned, can be trained in.
And you don’t always have to figure a lot of stuff out.
Just do the virtuous thing: Keep doing lots of Surfing, Skating, and Board Sports.
You see, there is a close connection between body, mind, and spirit, and learning to move the body in the right way can improve everything else. Confidence, posture, relaxation, etc…
If there are days when you get tired, or when the waves are no good, there are new learnings too.
New options and new ways.
And those same elements that rock life’s storm can also be surfed, organized and spun.
As humans, we can spin, and thus bring about our own change of state.
Why Do Whirling Dervishes Spin And Whirl?
The most famous for doing this are the Sufi Mystics or whirling dervishes.
Whirling Dervishes spin as a way to commune with God. It is a form of Sufi Mystic Meditation.
Spinning or whirling helps the Sufi devotee find, and become established at the center.
It is a steady, comfortable, changeless place from which to experience life.
The Way of the Sufi is a way of worship, meditation, and communion with God.
Sufi Dancing and whirling can provide the joy of training, and also a great sense of culture, tradition, community, and camaraderie.
Resting there, in the center, while life continually changes around them, they are at peace.
That center is a place of peace, right at the core of where they are.
It corresponds to the eye of the hurricane.
And it is a way to commune with God.
Spinning Like A Sufi Helps Improve Balance And Stepping.
This is way helpful in boardsports.
In spinning, the Sufi use steadiness of stepping and footwork, integrated with the entire body.
It is great training for moving the feet with surety and steadiness on a surfboard, and also for changing direction, turning on a dime without losing balance.
Why Do Sufis Wear A Skirt When They Spin?
Sufis also often wear special clothing.
The Sufis wear a special garment called a tenure, which can resemble a skirt.
It expands outwardly or contracts inwardly corresponding to how they spin.
Subtly accelerating or decelerating while spinning will bring about a change in the outfit’s display, and so will lifting or lowering the height, as will leaning.
The practice is to abide as steady. Not to lean, and to have the height and speed steady.
With the tenure spinning outwardly, they can surf the place that keeps that pattern and actually abide with that display, keeping it going, by finding the place that is not too soon and not too late.
This is called maintaining a steady speed.
From there, they may also modify it by subtly altering the speed or height.
That will result in varied changes unfolding around them.
Altering the height can alter the display of the tenure, causing it to rise or fall.
The Sufi isn’t necessarily looking down trying to externally manipulate the appearance of the spinning garment.
The garment is an outward extension of the spinning Sufi, in much the same way that the arms of a hurricane extend out from the hurricane’s center.
Practicing steadiness of height allows the Sufi Mystic to surf the place between too high and too low.
It is the place that for that application is just exactly right.
This steadiness of speed and height training is way valuable in board sports.
The Sufi mystic surfs the place between opposites.
So seeking the pristine place that is not too high or too low, not early and not late, that person, the Sufi Mystic learns to abide there, in the place between opposites.
People Will Tend To Feel Peace In That Sufi’s Presence. Why?
The Sufi mystic becomes established in steadiness, stillness, and peace.
That is their nature.
Discovered in their spinning practice.
So they get to experience a clear center amid a changing world.
They also experience the timeless place that existed before too fast and too slow departed from each other, before the arising of early and late.
It is a place that can be surfed and enjoyed steadily, as the world itself unfolds in ever new ways and presentations.
It is the zone, and with training, it is available and accessible on demand.
Final thoughts:
Spinning a storm organizes it around a center, and allows a peaceful center to be realized without having to figure a lot of things out.
Sufi Magic Begins Right Where You Are.
The close connection between the body, mind, and spirit works its Sufi magic and helps sort life out, very much the same as the spinning of a centrifuge throws things outward, organizing them, and revealing a clear center.
The eye of the hurricane corresponds to the place of peace at the center within each of us, which both surfers and spinning mystics down through the ages have sought.
And as for hurricanes, though people from the outside cannot always predict where an actual hurricane may make landfall, the hurricane itself is fully arrived, resting exactly where it is.
It is capable, powerful and at its center is a place of unearthly peace.
Though others are ignorant as to its path, it’s always possible to put a dot right in the center of the eye of the hurricane and say with certainty that this is where the center of the hurricane is.
Something similar can be found and made clear within us by spinning.
Spinning blurs away concerns, as even visually the world is blurred away in the spin.
It does look different. It goes by.
That Restful Place Was Always There.
That restful place was always there, beyond the appearance of the world.
The spinning just helped in its discovery.
Spinning like a Sufi Mystic can help improve balance, create a sense of a clear center, and a feeling of being totally and completely arrived, in one place, and all together.
Though the beginning whirling mystic spinner may be crumby at it at first, may get their feet tripped up, get dizzy and wipe out, eventually they can get good at it, stay upright and stay balanced.
And they can keep that profound state, and increased balance when they step out into the world to go surfing, do boardsports or serve their fellow man.
Think about it, how steady is someone gonna be who can spin like that and still stay steady?
That may be exactly what you need to improve your boardsports.
Have A Safe Area To Spin In.
Be careful of your surroundings, make sure there is nothing harmful to crash into, and have a spotter so you don’t wipe out.
Also only attempt such a thing at your own risk, under supervision, and after consulting with your doctor or other qualified health professional.
What if you don’t want to get dizzy.
Are there other ways to experience something similar, if someone doesn’t like to spin?
Yes.
How to surf or skateboard without a board is one of them.
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