Sitting

SITTING
 Getting Up from Sitting To avoid wobble when sitting down or getting up imagine you are naked between two rough walls.

Imagine the supporting chair is on a slippery floor (although your feet are on a dry surface). When sitting down or getting up take care not to move the chair or loose balance yourself.

Weight is transferred onto both feet equally and simultaneously.

 Zen Sitting Sit steady!

Don't wobble!

 Sitting Imaging Sit on a firm chair that is low enough to make your knees slightly higher than your thigh/hip crease. Rest palms on thighs. Establish the centre line image and balance head.

Feel or image the weight of the body falling down the centre line. (Drop shoulders release buttocks)

As it reaches the pelvis the body weight is transfered laterally through the buttresses of the pelvic girdle, down to the two sitting bones. Feel or image this. (it may help to locate the two sitting bones with your finger tips)

Rock very slightly from one sitting bone to the other.

Then, sitting still, image the spine dropping through the iliac (the pelvic area of the spine) to form a stabilising third leg. (this does not actually exist !)

REST ON YOUR SITTING BONES with the weight balanced around your centre line.

 Sitting Down and Getting Up 1 The sitting action is an incompleted movement. It is really a half squat. The squatting action, being a fully completed movement brings more muscles into play. Try the squat and see how it lowers your body through your centre line, if you allow your thigh and knee joints to fold sufficiently.

This experiment demonstrates the need of keeping the thigh joints flexible. It forces you to begin getting more action into the upper part of your legs. The chair allows you to be careless in this because you are unconsciously thinking of too short a distance in going to the chair seat in contrast to your thinking in going into the squat. You are not using the trick of balancing weights all sides of your center line as you get into a chair.

Picture a juggler as he goes into action. He starts an object moving and then follows it with another one, timed in good rhythm. He can keep two or more objects in the air by properly timing the distance, between them and understanding the effect of gravity on each. You have bones in your body with which to carry out the same trick. Start with the center line as it is the body's lead off in the launching of any movement.

Use a wooden chair or bench as it will give greater freedom of movement while you are learning a new way. The movement is as follows:


 * 1. Stand in front of the chair with your back towards it.


 * 2. In your imagination picture the central line. Relax your left sitting bone and then the right one.


 * 3. Place the heel of one foot two or three inches nearer the chair than is the other.


 * 4. Imagine that the sitting bones are leading you down to the chair. Give them the go signal. (The head follows the vertebrae by remaining in the center line)


 * 5. Slide back in the chair by first relaxing the left sitting bone and placing it back a bit, and then by relaxing the right sitting bone as you place it back a bit. Continue to slide back in this way until you are comfortably seated. (This is excellent exercise as it uses your deep abdominal muscles close to your centre line. It will flatten your abdomen and slim your figure.)

To stand up from sitting:


 * 1. Imagine the center line to be lengthening down. Relax the shoulders and rest your hands in your lap, palms down.


 * 2. Relax the left sitting bone and think, up into the traffic bridge to very slightly lift ihe bone and place it forward a trifle. Relax the right sitting bone and think up into the traffic bridge to very slightly lift that bone and place it forward a trifle. Continue with one side and then the other until you are near to the edge of the chair


 * 3. Place one heel 2 to 3 inches behind the other


 * 4. Keep your head in the centre line as it takes the lead in going up.


 * 5. Think up through the traffic bridge and give your the thighs the go signal, as you rise to your feet. This movement is difficult until your legs have the power to boost you from below. The sitting bones need first to relax under you before the legs can take over the booster thrust.

 Sitting Down and Getting Up 2 It is easier to sit down or get up if the center of the thigh - knee - ankle joints follow one over the other in sequence from the top down; so that the movement at one joint carries the impulse to the others.

The first impulse in movement should come from deep in the abdomen where the thigh is slung to the spine. From the thigh socket it falls to the knee and then to the ankle. This allows flexibility of the lower leg and greater ease of movement at the ankle. The reason why the middle line of the legs is a good image to follow is because it allows action to fall in sequence through all three leg joints, thigh - knee - ankle.

Many men instinctively use the following folding movement in tying their shoes. It is a wonderful exercise for keeping the leg joints supple, and because of the fact that it is a daily necessity it does not become boring or forgotten.

Movement for tying shoe laces: Stand sideways at the front corner of a chair after you have put on your shoes and are ready to tie them. Stand close to the chair, but give yourself room to swing the leg next to the chair directly forward. Swing your leg forward visualizing the action as high in the psoas muscle of that side as you can. When, through the bending of the knee, the foot is on a level with the chair seat, drop your foot on to the seat. Now with the foot resting on the chair you are in a favorable position to go into the squatting action. Do this by lowering the body.

Think of the center line and when you have a nice awareness of it, including the balance of your head, lower the line as straight down as you can toward the floor. Your position is now low enough to put your hands in place to begin tying your shoes. The inner edge of the shoe should be parallel with the edge of the chair seat. To tie the other shoe, stand in front of the chair facing in the opposite direction and follow the same instructions.

This movement done every day will be very rewarding in keeping the joints supple and in maintaining good body alignment. It relaxes the muscles in which you are over contracted and strengthens those in which you are weak.