"My forehead and cheeks were clenched, and my neck was a bit stiff. My shoulders seemed heavy and tense. My upper back was a bit tight and uncomfortable apart from my latissimus, which were relaxed. My lower back was relaxed as well but there was barely any sensation to go off on. My abs were somewhat exhausted.
I felt the pressure of my body on my butt, but it wasn't uncomfortable. My legs were a bit restless and sore, and I could barely feel any sensation of my feet other than being cold. My arms, hands and chest were the most relaxed."
Lenny and Shunlei had a concerned look on their face as Leo seemed the most troubled but what they didn't know was the fact that Leo had unconsciously relaxed his muscles after feeling its state.
He became aware of the tense muscles and automatically released its tension afterwards. With every breath he softened a body part and then moved on to the next section.
He was already experienced after all. He had been using mindful meditation for the last few months and the body scan was part of his routine. However, he will still go get a massage soon to help release some tension. Obviously, that caught Mang Tou's attention, who was surprised by two things.
Usually, when a person starts to use this meditation technique, they have to learn to recognize each muscle first. Beginners have problems especially with the back. So being able to feel the sensation of each limb accurately would be difficult for a first timer. The next thing was how the tension seemed to leave Leo's body. He had observed them during this session, so he could easily recognize the change.
He knew that Leo shouldn't have any prior experience as he hadn't taught his father that technique. There was simply nobody to teach Leo willingly.
"As I have already said use this meditation every day to scan your body. In the future you will even be able to detect illness and hidden injuries, so keep it up diligently. Also, if you can, try to relax any tenseness and calm down any restlessness in your body. It will be very important in the future. You will need to be able to relax any body part on command."
'Relax any body part on command, what use has that? Perhaps for reciprocal inhibition? It is about throwing relaxed attacks to maximize speed and power after all. If I punch out too stiff it will dampen my speed and power than if I did it relaxed and fluidly. It is all about the muscles used and the coordination of the movement.
After all, if my whole body is tense when I attack, the antagonistic muscles, the muscles that are used for the opposite movement, will resist the movement that I want to perform.
Ignoring the rotational force, for a punch the triceps, shoulders and pecks will push the punch forward, while the biceps and the latissimus pull the punch back in. If somebody isn't used to the movement pattern, all these muscles are tense and would fight against one another. The biceps and lats would therefore slow down the punch.
A pro athlete benefits from the reciprocal inhibition meaning the necessary muscles contract while the others relax. That is why one would hear the metaphor of whipping a towel or throwing a ball.
It is a similar pattern as one has to relax until the moment of impact, creating the maximum force your body can generate. Not only would one gain speed and power, but one would spend less energy as one doesn't tighten up their muscles. So, if one wanted to be a top-level fighter this was a must learn.
It is something that fighters usually know intuitively and was backed by research in my past life. Maybe by being able to relax it consciously and more precisely they can relax their muscles more efficiently than one could naturally?
But is that really how this world achieved such a high level of martial arts?'
Mang Tou explained more variants of the body scan and progressively harder techniques they could try at home. He wanted them to try it out until next week, so he could guide them and clear up some doubts.
Leo already knew the variants that Mang Tou introduced to them, so he wasn't that interested. He still listened attentively to recognize any beneficial differences, but he quickly realized that most differences were either detrimental or just a manner of preference.
He also didn't really need tips or tricks that Mang Tou presented as he already knew what was most effective for him personally and had aided him in his past.
Obviously, he still would try out every trick he had learned in the past. His mind was a bit different than it was used to be, so a different meditation variant or trick might be more affective.
After about 45 minutes their session was concluded. Lenny and Shunlei were deep in thoughts as they tried to memorize everything they had just learned. Of course, they wouldn't be able to remember everything and do it perfectly instantly, which was why this extra training day would be continuing for a few more weeks or even months before they were left to their own device.
Leo was also deep in thoughts, but he was already thinking about how to adapt his meditation sessions. If they were the first step to supernatural power, he would need to put more time into it. The first thing now was to master instant relaxation.
'I should probably continue meditating while being motion. I already know how to relax while sitting but that won't be as beneficial in combat where I am constantly moving about. Something like Tai-Chi would be a good idea to learn.'
In Tai-Chi the aim is to move using the minimal amount of tension and as much relaxation as possible. One fluidly moves around while being consciously aware of every muscle in one's body while trying to relax anything that wasn't crucial for the movement, well at least in theory.
In simpler terms it could be seen as moving meditation. Its concept of controlling the movement of chi around the body utilizing visualization could also be interpreted as a way to improve the mind-muscle connection.
It helps visualize the muscle and thereby contract or loosen, as necessary. Also, by focusing on the center of gravity, their dantien, they could better ground themselves and therefore balance.
Meditation had always been a great way to unearth hidden potential of the body and mind. So, it wasn't surprising that Leo made up his mind and prioritized meditation even higher than it was initially.
He always knew of the benefits, but it was easy to dismiss and forget about it as its benefits weren't immediately noticeable or tangible.
When he arrived back home and started surfing the internet, he realized one problem. Leo had taught his little sister how to meditate. It was only to prevent her annoying him when he was meditating. This way the two just sat down next to each other and meditated together, although Rosy fell asleep most of the times.
But having her fall asleep leaning against Leo was less distracting than her jumping around and calling him to play.
Either way, he just hoped that Mang Tou didn't think that Leo had taught Rosy how to meditate. It will be a real problem if somebody got to know of this since there wasn't even one meditation technique on the internet. Well, except for the religious chanting which was rather seen as prayers but could be regarded as meditation as well.
Leo became a bit anxious after not finding it on the internet, after all one could find any- and everything on the internet. He even searched the darknet with no success. There were also some other things he had searched on the web.
Games and bitcoins for starters. He wanted to either invest in bitcoins as most of the world seemed very similar to his past life and if it stays similar something like bitcoin would go through the roof in the future.
He also searched for games that he could replicate. He was a software engineer in the past, so he had the necessary skill to quickly learn a programming language and recreate whatever he needed.
There wasn't much he could recreate in a short amount of time, but he saw that there was no flappy bird equivalent on the market which would be a perfect start for him.
Flappy bird was such an easy game to create that one could do it as a beginner, so after convincing his parents to extend his time on the family computer, he started learning.
Obviously, he didn't neglect his workout routine as that would be detrimental for his goal to become the greatest fighter.
He barely had any time left in his day-to-day routine. He needed to train his body, his martial arts, needed relearn all his meditation variants and socialize with friends and family and now he needed to learn to program games from his past life. Additionally, a young body needed a lot of sleep.
Even after optimizing his routine his days were packed but like most things, humans adapt to their circumstances. To be honest he still couldn't complain. His life was going exceptionally well.
…
It has been a year since Leo started training Lethwei. In the last few months, he had completed his flappy bird and angry bird clone while convincing his parents to spend some money so he could publish it.
He also created some social media account which was just there to post some ads for the next feature or some other announcement. It also became the target for insults when people became frustrated with the games.
His games didn't become as popular as it was in his past, but they still did phenomenal well. Any other current developer would envy his 'lucky' success.
His martial arts developed even better than he had initially thought. He had learned Tai-Chi from a friend of his father who wanted to take Leo in as a disciple but since Leo was already a student learning under Mang Tou Leo declined.
With Tai-Chi his skill in meditation grew exponentially. A few days ago, he even surpassed his past life's body awareness. He once again could activate and relax any muscle in his body but diverging from his past he could do it in motion now. Even in a heated sparring match he had great control of his body.
Currently his body awareness seemed to be just as great as or even greater than Lenny's. Lenny still was as prodigious as ever. He learned quickly, and his determination never wavered. It was admirable for someone this young to be this consistent.
In truth it made Leo a lot more confident in his progress. Since he was dividing his attention towards multiple different variants of meditation and still was surpassing a prodigy. It was not a small achievement. He consciously ignored that Lenny was a child.
Shunlei was lagging behind the two but her control over her legs were still the greatest in their age bracket. She could unleash a storm of kicks while turning around to any direction she pleases, which she named her lightning kicks. She seemed to focus more on kicks nowadays as it was her advantage over Leo and Lenny.
Since she preferred her kicks, she started to incorporate other martial arts, especially Chinese Kenpo from her brother as Lethwei focused more on the upper body.
The three grew closer as they rivaled with each other. Lenny and Shunlei were a bit frustrated as Leo always seemed to have an edge over them, even after they had started meditating with Mang Tou.
In the beginning, Leo's biggest advantage was his physique and it still is but now his punches were not something they wanted to be hit with. He threw hands like canon shots.
It forced the other two to develop their speed to catch him off-guard and quickly move in and out which was why Shunlei created her lightning kicks while Lenny trained his snapping jab to the best he could.
He probably had the fastest jab of them all even if his normal punches were lacking compared to Leo's.
The jabs were so annoying that Leo, who used to prefer to tank some shots to return a heavy hit was keeping his distance with kicks as well.
Lenny's head movement was usually too good to be hit by a kick that wasn't sent out by Shunlei, which forced Leo to feint a lot, quickly transition into another kick or to just target Lenny's legs.