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I’m hoping some of the more experienced practitioners can shed some light on this.
The other day I posted about an experience I had with doing the Standing like a Tree position daily for a prolonged period. I got to a point where I could hold that position for quite a while per session, then had to just stop the practice.
That was more than 2 years ago. In the past week, I’ve been drawn back to that practice for the first time since then. I had expected to have to start from square one. That does not seem to be the case. I haven’t been tempted to push my limits yet, but it is still rather easy to hold that my arms in that period in the 15-20 minutes.
Having lifted weights for years, I found this a little unusual. Often it takes my body less than 4 days of complete rest from a particular exercise to notice drops in performance, and obviously with too much time you lose the mass too. I figured, “well, okay, lets take it as a gift and not gonna bitch about it!”
But today, something different came up. I tried a different position, holding my arms out to the sides (I don’t know the position’s name, but you look like a cross). My arms felt heavy in that position and the shoulders begin efforting within seconds.
I found this to be somewhat strange. My deltoids obviously didn’t care about holding my arms up in the front, so why should holding this new position be so dramatically different? Then I think anatomy… okay, maybe the anterior deltoid fibers would be doing more of the work to hold the arms to the front, and the middle deltoid fibers would be doing more work if you’re out to the side. But I’m clearly not overdeveloped at the anterior tendon. If anything, it’s slightly softer to the touch when I’m actively using it, than the middle deltoid, in both positions.
I’ve since heard that the point of the practice is to learn how to use chi to hold a position, vs. muscle strength. Knowing that, and feeling this… it’s strange and exciting at the same time. 🙂
Is this a phenomenon of chi? Is what I’m noticing the difference between developing tendon strength vs. muscle strength? Does this relate to what I’ve heard called “tendon changing” practices? I’d be grateful for any advice or experience you could share.
Thanks,
Brian“Is this a phenomenon of chi? Is what I’m noticing the difference between developing tendon strength vs. muscle strength? Does this relate to what I’ve heard called “tendon changing” practices? I’d be grateful for any advice or experience you could share.”
I don’t think it’s a phenomenon of chi. It may be about tendon strength or about “different” muscle strength or even “different combinations” of muscle strength.
If you’ve worked out a lot you know you can be in pretty great shape, working out all the time, and then try a new exercise and have muscles or parts of muscles that you never knew you had ache for days. That is I think what’s going on.
Standing practice isn’t an endurance practice. Physical endurance and muscle/tendon stength builds up but it’s not about that. And it’s not about chi holding you up either.
Really, and somewhat counter-intuitively, it’s about relaxation. Obviously to stand you need to flex certain muscles and tendons. But the more everthing — including those muscles and tendons — are relaxed, the easier it is (and yes, the more the chi flows as well).
By the way, if you don’t have it, The Way of Energy by Lam Kan Chuen is the best overall book on standing meditation I’ve seen. I’d reccomend it to anyone.
Hope that helped.
spyrelx
“If you’ve worked out a lot you know you can be in pretty great shape, working out all the time, and then try a new exercise and have muscles or parts of muscles that you never knew you had ache for days. That is I think what’s going on.”
That’s true. But what threw me was in that same model if you don’t do your regular exercises for a time you have losses there.
So am I following correctly if I say that standing practice is more about re-learning how to use groups of muscles without using effort. If you can relax while keeping a muscle active, endurance is less a consideration, because endurance implies muscle effort which you’re not doing.
I am pretty sure I have that book lying around somewhere. have to find it again.
I appreciate the perspective, spyrelx!
Brian
“So am I following correctly if I say that standing practice is more about re-learning how to use groups of muscles without using effort. If you can relax while keeping a muscle active, endurance is less a consideration, because endurance implies muscle effort which you’re not doing.”
Yes. But just stand. Don’t try to actively “do” or “relearn” anything. Another way to look at this is in terms of “openess”. Your muscles, joints and bones should feel “open”, all without straining.
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