I’ve always intuited the “more is more” idea and notice the difference in my practice when I’m putting in the hours. More energy, more subtlety, more curiosity, more momentum. Definitely not the popular thing to say though…so thanks for voicing it!
It's fascinating how almost biologically determinant it is what happens in the standing. I've been working with my students the last while on developing a good approach to standing - how they approach the tension and learning to permit the body to change as it wants and observing it with the mind instead of interfering. Once they've got that I encourage them to go longer and see what happens. For me the uninterrupted longer zhang zhuang sessions (>35 minutes), have consistently been powerful trips for me. Before that there are a few stages I notice: 5 - 10 minutes a settling and release of superficial tension, 15 - 20 the body starting to heat up. And I've become really familiar and comfortable with those depths/periods. Only in the last year, have I been working more towards longer single zhang zhuan poses and the experience is profoundly different - a maddening loss on perception of time, depending on the shape of the pose, a feeling of boiling/intense heat in specific spots of my body, trauma release style tremors... I don't feel familiar enough with them to say that it will always feel like this; I suspect no.
I’ve always intuited the “more is more” idea and notice the difference in my practice when I’m putting in the hours. More energy, more subtlety, more curiosity, more momentum. Definitely not the popular thing to say though…so thanks for voicing it!
Thanks Kevin! Totally! Yeah, probably annoying some people out there who don't want to practice with this one! LOL!
It's fascinating how almost biologically determinant it is what happens in the standing. I've been working with my students the last while on developing a good approach to standing - how they approach the tension and learning to permit the body to change as it wants and observing it with the mind instead of interfering. Once they've got that I encourage them to go longer and see what happens. For me the uninterrupted longer zhang zhuang sessions (>35 minutes), have consistently been powerful trips for me. Before that there are a few stages I notice: 5 - 10 minutes a settling and release of superficial tension, 15 - 20 the body starting to heat up. And I've become really familiar and comfortable with those depths/periods. Only in the last year, have I been working more towards longer single zhang zhuan poses and the experience is profoundly different - a maddening loss on perception of time, depending on the shape of the pose, a feeling of boiling/intense heat in specific spots of my body, trauma release style tremors... I don't feel familiar enough with them to say that it will always feel like this; I suspect no.