Brain Gym® Diary
Liang Jun(Dalian)
May 29, 2012
“For the healthy growth of my child!” This was the declaration I made in front of all my fellow classmates in the Brain Gym® Basic class. However, the first day of class didn’t make me feel good. Though Instructor Conrad Ho tried his best to teach vividly and attractively, the many theories completely overturned my initial understanding of Brain Gym®. “Do not pay too much attention to details; instead, look at the big picture”; “Do not reject things that you do not understand; put it in your heart, give it some time, and slowly appreciate it in life”; these words confused me and I questioned, what could Brain Gym® offer me? I didn’t know how I could help my son after I returned home. After the first day of class, my brain was blank and my head hurt badly. I didn’t consider the teacher’s feelings at that time, and I expressed my feelings to Instructor Ho directly in front of all of my classmates.
The lessons in the following two days were more feeling-oriented, with fewer theories and more practical operations. In order not to miss out on anything, I exerted my learning capacity to the fullest, using all of my eyes, ears, hands and brain, lest I missed any detail.
On Friday night, I decided to take my son with me to the Brain Gym® Basic class during the weekend. He was very excited, and his excitement made me very happy too.
We decided to ride our bikes to class. I had gone through much internal struggle before making the decision, because my son was thin, weak, and lacked experience, and could not control his bike very well. Furthermore, there were a lot more cars on the road in these few years, and the traffic condition was harsh. I almost gave up doing so, but Brain Gym®’s concept “to live is to move” helped me put away all negative thoughts.
I went to this Brain Gym® Basic course for my son, wishing to improve his living and learning abilities. I was especially attentive during the course in the morning, and my son also carefully jotted things down. After Mr. Ho did a demonstration, students paired up and began to balance.
It was my son’s turn to help me balance in the afternoon. My son held the course manual and was very serious, lest he missed any detail. He was like an authoritative and knowledgeable teacher, or a respected old sage. I lay on the floor and looked up at him. He directed me to do all kinds of actions, and I was very cooperative. At home, I was always the one to dominate, telling him to do this and do that. Yet, at that time, I felt respect and trust towards him; it was as if I was the son, and I especially wanted him to touch me and hold me, like a baby who needed its mother’s love. This feeling was very strong. When I was in a superior position, I never trusted him, but when our positions switched, I realized that he was trustworthy to me, and I needed his love as well. When turned on, my cell phone shows a quote, “Responsibility is greater than ability.” I considered my responsibility to be two-fold: first, responsibility towards my family; second, responsibility towards society. However, I didn’t consider myself. I was the kind of person “who would rather the world mistreat me, but I must not mistreat the world.” I was overly harsh towards myself and I forgot that I needed love too. My subconscious craved love, and at that moment, this craving was met like rain after a long drought, or finding an oasis in the middle of a desert. We finished the balance under trust and love. When Mr. Ho came and asked how I did, I smiled brightly and told him, “We were very successful.” I told him my feelings and he was very happy for us too. He encouraged us to continue to feel the benefits of Brain Gym® balance.
After the day’s class, I took with me the trust for my son and we rode home on our bikes. Soon the sun went down behind us, the lights came up, and the cars continued to flow on the road like an endless stream. My son and I followed one another, and crisscrossed among the people and cars on the road in twilight.
The sky soon became dark. The burning desire to return home made us speed up, and although cars flew past us time and time again, I was no longer worried about my son’s safety as in the morning; instead, I enjoyed the fun of riding.
Spring is a beautiful season, an imaginative season, and a season full of hope. Spring night brings a deeper meaning to the beauty of spring. The fresh buds on the trees looked so confident in the moonlight; they must be thinking, “Tomorrow’s sun will be even brighter.”
The smell of the sea rushed up to us; we were not far from home. I sped up together with my son. “Dad, can you ride a little more to the right? I feel that’ll be safer.”
“What makes you feel unsafe?”
“If you can ride more to the right, should there be an emergency in front of us and we need to brake urgently, I will have more time to handle the situation.”
My son and I had cycled more than 100 kilometers. Every time we cycled, I kept to the left of the cycling road (as Dalian drove on the right side of the road). I did so to better protect my son. I had always cycled like so, and my son had never mentioned that it was unsafe.
he wonderful aroma of dinner and my wife’s smiling face let me forget all the exhaustion during the day. Delicious food, happy laughter; our family sat around the table and enjoyed the evening. I am an introspective person. Before I fell asleep, the things that happened during the day inadvertently came back to me. “During the Brain Gym® balance, when I put aside my haughtiness as a parent, why did I feel a strong and refreshing love? On our way home, I wanted to protect my son, but why did such protection make him feel unsafe?” Question mark after question mark attacked me like ghosts in the dark, and I felt fear. In the ten-plus years of my son’s growth, what had I done for him? What did he really need? I asked myself constantly, was it “freedom”, “equality”, “openness”, “good academic results”, or “being a good child in the eyes of the parents”? When I communicated with other parents, they all tended to agree with me that: “Parents only have one responsibility towards their children in their entire life – and that is to teach them well.” In daily life, whenever I discovered a weakness of my son’s, I analyzed it seriously and argued with him heatedly, yet he was stubborn in his ways and never changed. The two of us treated each other like enemies, and this troubled me greatly. Mr. Ho emphasized again and again in the Brain Gym® class, “Do not pay too much attention to details; instead, look at the big picture.” At that time I could not understand the meaning of this statement, but now I see that I focused too much on details and ignored the big picture. Once I put aside my haughtiness as a parent and began trusting my son, the love between us started to flow again. Wasn¡¦t this the “big picture”?
When I decided to ride my bike to class with my son, I needed a lot of determination. If we hadn’t ridden our bikes but chose other transportation instead, then could that scene have happened? Wasn’t the reason I chose to ride a bike this: “to live is to move”? This seemed to be a strange cycle; Instructor Ho was like a coach who trained 400-meter runners, and let us run on the 400-meter track, from the start to the end, and the end became the start. He had placed a lot on our way. As we ran, experienced hardships and persisted, we eventually got the victory we wanted.
A month has passed, and the effects of Brain Gym® balance are showing. My son has improved in terms of self-confidence and organization, and I found a source of love. Love is the basis of human’s survival; it is the cornerstone of a skyscraper, and it decides how high our life’s happiness can go. As a child, my parents gave me their selfless love; 40 years later, I receive love again from my son. This “love” makes me feel like I’m reborn.
Thank you Mr. Conrad Ho, thank you Brain Gym® Basic
