(My Question has been answered in a later video! )
Hi Sifu Kelley,
I am looking for advice regarding the 'when' of training standing when also training the stillness model.
If I have understood the videos so far, you mention that a student will find that on some days they will know or feel that then want to go back to standing and other days they will just do stillness.
Is it too much of an interference to refer to both within a single training session?
I have been finding that, as I explore the shoulders, and what seems to be a desire for them to stretch out, that my shoulders feel like they are creeping upwards. To check if this this is actually happening I have been going back to standing to locate the Head/Neck/Shoulders, and sometimes they have and I have therfore continued with the standing to relocate them before continuing with stillness. I don't have the knowledge or experience to guage whether this approach is helpful or not. In your experience is it better just to get on with stillness practice and do any check/correct using standing on a different day?
What has come out of the stillness/standing so far is that am feelng how the pelvis likes to stretch up out of the hips rather than rest on them, my back wants to spread open. and I seem to feeling how the head is 'held on elastically' against the upward vector of the spine produced by the foot couple / anti gravity forces.
Thanks
I almost forgot to add an anecdote around 'Stillness'
Last Friday I checked in with my work partner at 8:45 am as he'd messaged me about a 'quick job' and 'Could I fit it in?', 'It needed doing by the end of the day'.
I had a quick look at it and it seemed straight forward so gave him the thumbs up and said 'I'll do that first then get on with my day'.
At 9am I got ready for work. I'd done my Stillness practice before work and had felt the 'stillness' in the lower ribs and had been keeping checking in with the 'residual' feeling, trying to maintain some kind of anchor or connection to the state.
I sat down to work and wasn't even 5 mins in when I hit the first problem and then another. I began to feel this subtle 'frustation' attitude rise from the background and become more foreground. It wasn't huge but it was enough to notice. I was still checking in with 'was there any stillness feeling left in my ribs', and because of this contrast, I had the thought that 'I don't actually want to be doing this frustration thing, it's pointless'.
Normally, if I had noticed agitation/frustration around work, I would have been content with not trying to add to it and then just get on with things, but this time it 'hit' at a different level, more at the 'being / personal ontology ' level than 'doing / behavioural' and involved consideration of life going forwards and not just that single incindent. And seeing the 'doing of frustration' through this different frame just completely cancelled it there and then. I also formed the resolve that 'that kind habitual response should not be allowed carry to on in the background and should be examined and dropped where approproriate' As to the 'appropriate / not approproate' I am still thinking through, I guess these feelings have some evolutionary background and usefulness as a signal. We shall see.
Dinnae mess wi' stillness ! ;-)