The
benefits of being seated on 3 bases of support (11)
1 You can experience the integrating potential of your body when you’re seated in the best cross-legged position that you can maintain comfortably in your present physical condition and you stand your backbone upright and curved or leaned forward far enough so that when you contract the muscles of your abdomen inward to exhale the following inhalation can be effortless. When you’re seated in a beginner’s cross-legged position and you stand your backbone upright and curved or leaned forward far enough to press the ends of your shins as near as possible to your knees downward on the upper side of your ankles and feet beneath them you can experience the integrating potential of your cross-legged position.
A strong tripod inside your body formed by your legs, hips and backbone based on the supports beneath your posterior and the ends of your shins as near as possible to your knees supports your backbone on three firm bases. Each more developed cross-legged position gathers your ankles together slightly nearer to your hips and abdomen and supports slightly more of your weight beneath the ends of your shins progressively nearer to your knees. The combined positions, muscular effort and rest of your legs, hips and backbone form a pyramidal structure that supports your backbone progressively more thoroughly.
More muscles exert effort to support your backbone upright when you’re seated in a beneficial cross-legged position than when you’re walking, standing or seated on a chair. Standing your backbone upright and curved or leaned forward slightly engages the muscles beneath your thighs and posterior and at the sides and back of your body to exert more effort or stretch to support your backbone upright than they exert to support your position upright ordinarily. That allows the muscles at the front of your body to rest more than they rest when you support your position upright ordinarily and your breathing becomes more free and thorough.
The proportions of length and range of motion of your thighs and legs have the potential to be gathered together into progressively more integrated positions. The architecture of your legs, hips and backbone when you’re seated in a beneficial cross-legged position and the potential of your legs to be gathered into progressively more integrated positions enable the nearly effortless development of a beneficial cross-legged position that’s described in this text.
A beneficial cross-legged position develops naturally to become a more integrated position while you remain still. When you’re seated still in a beneficial cross-legged position and you become tired your legs, hips and backbone fall minutely into improved positions.
You experience the benefits of this yoga at every stage of progress of your physical position. Experiencing the most integrated position of your body that you can maintain comfortably in your present physical condition for even one cycle of inhaling and exhaling your breathing is thoroughly beneficial.
2 The method of simple yoga is founded on the principle that every cross-legged position that’s as near to a completely developed cross-legged position as you can experience comfortably in your present physical condition supports and improves your body thoroughly. When you’re seated in a beneficial cross-legged position your ankles and wrists are gathered as close together and as near to your hips and abdomen as you can support them comfortably.
The integrating benefit of a cross-legged position is that the energy terminals at your ankles are located as near one to the other and as near to your energy center at your abdomen as you can support your ankles firmly and comfortably. That connects the energy terminals at your ankles and wrists together and to your energy center at your abdomen and to the major channel of your energy located parallel to and in front of your backbone. The integrated positions, muscular effort and rest of your legs, hips and backbone when you’re seated in a beneficial cross-legged position integrate the motion and rest of energy throughout your entire body.
The method is applied here to describe the
benefits of being seated on a chair with your feet supported on the floor like
when you’re standing, and to a position of kneeling, as much
as the method can be applied to positions that are not cross-legged.
3 Energy as the word is used here is the vitality or power that you have in you to exert the muscular effort that you need to breathe and to support the position and motions of your body.
The major channel of energy in your body is located parallel to and in front of your backbone extending from the lowest level of your backbone to the highest level and your head. A minor channel is located at each side of the major channel.
Centers of energy are located at five levels of the major channel. The lowest center of energy is located at the lowest level of your backbone and the highest level is located at the crown of your head. Each energy center has some unique characteristics and contributes to your awareness and control of your body.
Your center of energy at the level of your abdomen is where the positions, motions and rest of your legs, hips and backbone can be integrated. Energy terminals are located at each joint of your left and right hips, knees and ankles, shoulders, elbows and wrists. Energy pathways branch outward from the energy centers and terminals to every part of your body.
4 When you’re seated on a chair with your feet supported on the floor like when you’re standing, and when you’re kneeling, your weight is supported on 2 bases, one base beneath your posterior (hips and the ends of your thighs at your hips) and another base beneath the ends of your shins and thighs at your knees. In each of those positions your thighs are extended straight forward and parallel one thigh with the other. Your knees are close together so the ends of your shins and thighs at your knees provide only one base of support. Even when your knees are separated apart to some degree when you’re seated on a chair your knees don’t each provide a separate base of support. Both of your knees together provide only one base of support at the front of your body when you’re seated on a chair and when you’re kneeling.
When you’re seated on only 2 bases of support you can support your backbone upright nearly effortlessly for a relatively short time and your breathing can be nearly effortless for a relatively short time. 5 When you’re seated on a chair as described in this text your posterior is supported firmly and your thighs and legs are supported firmly on your feet that are supported on the floor like when you’re standing. When you’re seated on a chair with your feet supported on the floor like when you’re standing, most of your weight is supported beneath your posterior and comparatively less of your weight is supported beneath your knees and beneath your ankles and feet that are located directly beneath your knees.
Your posterior provides one base of support
and your knees supported on your ankles and feet provide one base of support. Your knees are located relatively close
together and your ankles and feet are located relatively close together so your
knees, ankles and feet together provide one base of support. Your posterior and
your knees, ankles and feet together provide only 2 bases of support. Standing
your backbone upright and curved or leaned forward far enough to press your
knees downward causes the muscles beneath your thighs and posterior and at the
back of your body to exert more effort or stretch to support your position
upright than they exert ordinarily, and allows the muscles at the front of your
body to rest more than they rest when you support your position upright
ordinarily, so you can stand your backbone upright and curved or leaned forward
slightly nearly effortlessly for a short time and your breathing can be nearly
effortless for a short time.
When you’re seated on a chair your ankles are located far from your hips and abdomen, and your ankles are separate one from the other; the energy terminals at your ankles are far from your major energy center at the level of your abdomen. Don’t place your ankles one near the other to connect the energy terminals at your ankles together when you’re seated on a chair with your feet supported on the floor like when you’re standing. Your ankles located one near the other or crossed over the other when you’re seated on a chair does not help to diminish the loss of energy from your ankles nor help to recycle the energy in your legs and thighs into harmony with the motion and rest of the energy in your entire body.
Your wrists and hands are supported on your knees or thighs or gathered together and supported one hand on the other –palms upward- on your thighs at your hips and pressed lightly on your abdomen. Your wrists and hands located at your hips and pressed lightly on your abdomen connect the energy terminals at your wrists to your major energy center at the level of your abdomen and to the major channel of your energy located parallel to and in front of your backbone and help to maintain the position of the upper levels of your body still.
A position seated on a chair does not allow free motion and rest of energy in your thighs and legs and becomes uncomfortable or numb relatively soon, and the experience of being seated on a chair does not enable you to be seated cross-legged more easily. A position seated on a chair is described in this text because you can experience many of the benefits of yoga for a short time when you’re seated on a chair. When you know how to be seated in a beneficial position on a chair you can improve many of your experiences of being seated on a chair. Even moment of maintaining the most integrated position of your body that you can is thoroughly beneficial.
6 When you support your body in a kneeling position as described in this text your posterior is supported firmly on a raised seat, your knees are folded and supported firmly on the surface beneath them and your ankles and feet are also supported firmly and comfortably beneath your posterior.
An improvement of a position of kneeling compared with a position seated on a chair is that your ankles and feet are located relatively near to your hips and abdomen in a kneeling position. When you’re kneeling your ankles and feet are located one beside the other beneath your posterior and located relatively near to your hips and abdomen. That connects the energy terminals at your ankles to your major energy center at the level of your abdomen to some degree and to the major channel of your energy located parallel to and in front of your backbone and helps to isolate the beneficial motion and rest of energy in your body from being affected by conditions of your external environment while you remain still.
Another improvement of a position of kneeling compared with a position seated on a chair is that when you’re kneeling you can support your posterior elevated higher than your knees so that your knees support comparatively more of your weight when you’re kneeling than your knees support when you’re seated on a chair. When your posterior is elevated higher than your knees in a kneeling position that causes the weight of your body to be supported comparatively more beneath your knees when you’re kneeling than your weight is supported beneath your knees when you’re seated on a chair. The transfer of your weight from being supported beneath your posterior most of all to being supported more beneath your knees in a kneeling position allows the energy in your body to move and rest more freely when you’re kneeling than when you’re seated on a chair.
When you’re kneeling your weight is supported
on only 2 bases, one base beneath your posterior and another base beneath the
ends of your shins at your knees. When
you’re kneeling, standing your backbone upright and curved or leaned forward
far enough to press your knees downward engages relatively few of the muscles
beneath your thighs and posterior and at the back of your body to exert more
effort to support your backbone upright. The muscles at the front of your body
don’t rest much more than they rest when you support your backbone upright
ordinarily so your breathing can be nearly effortless for only a short time
when you remain still a kneeling position to benefit from the position of your
body.
Your wrists and hands are supported on your knees or thighs or gathered together and supported one hand on the other –palms upward- on your thighs at your hips and pressed lightly on your abdomen. Your wrists and hands located together at your hips and pressed lightly on your abdomen connect the energy terminals at your wrists to your major energy center at the level of your abdomen and to the major channel of your energy located parallel to and in front of your backbone and help to maintain the position of the upper levels of your body still.
A position of kneeling does not allow free motion and rest of energy in your thighs and legs and becomes uncomfortable or numb relatively soon, and the experience of kneeling does not enable you to be seated cross-legged more easily. 7 Straightening your backbone as well as you can with a small muscular effort is the most important cause of beneficial motion and rest of energy in your body.
When you intend to be the best person that you can be and allow your breathing to be free and thorough you might straighten your backbone spontaneously. When you straighten your backbone as well as you can with a small muscular effort the spaces between the vertebrae of your backbone expand minutely and the joints of your hips, knees and ankles and your shoulders, elbows and wrists become more flexible minutely.
Straightening in this context refers to real muscular effort that you exert in the muscles that adjoin your backbone and that you can feel when you exert it, even though the position of your backbone might not appear to become straighter. Don’t straighten your backbone to an extreme that your backbone becomes rigid or inflexible. Straightening your backbone as described in this text refers to real muscular effort that you exert to straighten your backbone that does not interfere with moving your backbone flexibly while you’re placing your body in a position to remain seated still.
You need to straighten your backbone as well as you can with a small muscular effort to place your body in a position to remain seated still to benefit from the position of your body. You can intend to straighten your backbone as well as you can with a small muscular effort during all of the time that you’re actually sitting down onto a firm support and while you’re gathering your legs together to support your body in a position to remain seated still. When you do any part of the method of simple yoga as well as you can you’re doing that part of the method well enough to experience the benefits.
Difficulty placing your legs in a comfortable cross-legged position might be caused by not straightening your backbone as well as you can. You cannot place your body in a beneficial position to remain still while you entertain ideas that deny that you’re essentially limitlessly good at this present moment and that you have limitless positive potential. You might not enjoy enough inner peace or self-esteem to allow your breathing to be free or to straighten your backbone.
A position of remaining seated still to benefit from the position of your body that’s not comfortable is not reliably beneficial.
A beneficial position of your body that you hold still improves while you hold the position still. This chapter is being written.