I looked at videos 1 and 2 but focused my practice on the contents of Video 1.
The Backstop: When I began to experience what I think of as "the backstop," it felt a bit like the strong support my heavy winter mountain boots give up the heel/Achilles area, below the calf. As the week went on, my sense of this area became clearer. By including an awareness of it as a live, online part of the structure, the support I got from my floor/feet/legs improved.
Possibly not relevant, but something I found interesting: when playing around with the backstop area, I got the idea to try the Downward Dog yoga pose. In this pose, you balance on your toes and palms with your heels off the ground. I’m not a yoga practitioner, but I like playing with Dog as it highlights breath-holding in the transition to make shapes. When I’ve played around with that before, I’ve mostly used toe contact to support the legs/spine. However, I was curious to find what bringing awareness of the backstop as part of the support structure would do. Even though the backstop wasn’t on the ground, using it lessened the need to rely on the breath in the transition off the ground and fed support into the spine. This contrasts with "toes only" contact, where the support is mostly into the pelvic region.
Picture of dog from internet - not me.
Foot Couple. It took me a while to find the feeling of the bones pushing and the tendons pulling. I started by focusing on the bones as I at least knew where the bones were, and once that feeling was stabilised I started to look for ‘else is going on’ I think I have a beginning ‘sense’ of it, it’s not super clear.
Make's me wonder that if so much of my foot structure, backstop/footcouple, isn't developed what huge compensations i must be bringing into play.
Playing with Bending. In terms of the 5 hollows I have found it interesting to play around with bending and with the intention to bend and did find the the MC starts moving back wards in response to a strong intention to bend before the bending moving starts. Bending and Pitcher Breathing is helping reveal sections of the U that were way outside of my awareness. Obviously at this stage I am still mapping out the U, I only have bits, with the back of the perineum to back of spine being far more obvious than the front of the U.
Arm swings: These are great and have shown up some real tightness on the top of my shoulders and running up the side of the neck. As the week progressed I found making sure that I maintained the wrist pressing out in as much of the movement as possible led to a fuller sense of extension and connection into the body.
Only one question at this stage there's still a lot of finding out going on. Still fuzzy about foot couple but I'm pretty sure that following the videos in progression will help me discover more.
My question is about the backstop, I'm aware that I might be off base with this and have been bringing the awareness to it in every day life task like emptying the dishwasher, when standing stirring pots etc but maybe I should only attend to it in the standing practice at this stage untill it's further clarified?
Thanks
Steve