key points standing ignition 2 suspension a

6.5. Key Points: Standing Ignition 2 - Suspension A — Transcript (English)

Summary:

---

Transcript

Welcome to another Key Points lesson.

And today we’re going to look at another standing Ignition, which is called suspension A.

And it’s going to be full stillness, but with effort.

So let’s take a look at what we’re going to do.

We’re going to start in a standing position.

We will bring the legs a little bit wider and bend the knees.

And again, you can see bend the knees a little bit more than Satoko.

Both variations are okay.

You still want to keep the weight closer to your heels, so the weight is not on your toes.

So you can see that Satoko was showing that she’s almost falling backward.

And it’s very important that your torso is above your pelvis.

So the rib cage stays above the pelvis.

At no point we want to tilt forward like this.

So because it’s a stillness practice, the more you bend the knees here, the more challenging it’s going to be.

So if at any point your thighs begin to get tired in this Ignition, you can extend the knees a little bit more closer to what Satoko is doing, but you still don’t keep the knees completely straight.

So you want them micro-bent at the very least.

So once we find the leg position and we’re sure that the rib cage is just above the pelvis, we let the arms kind of drop completely, so we don’t really actively draw the shoulders down here.

We just allow the shoulders to relax, feel the weight of the arms.

And then from here you will imagine as if there are strings tied to your wrist like this.

And we’ll start lifting the arms as if somebody started pulling on the strings which are attached to your hand.

So when the movement begins, watch the dynamics of the movement.

See, so it’s a very special sensation.

You’re not just bringing your arms to the shoulder height, you’re really imagining these strings and these are the strings which are moving your hand.

So the arms come to this about shoulder height position.

And as you can see, first the wrists are just hanging, right?

So the the arms were relaxed.

It was an external force which lifted the arms.

And then we spread the fingers out.

So from this position, we open the fingers as if we’re holding something in our hand like a ball.

So Satoko does it with slight delay, so she also lifts the fingers.

And then from here, we are going to turn the wrist.

And the wrist will turn a little bit forward like this.

So one more time.

When you lift your arm, your wrist is hanging like this.

Then you activate your wrist as if you’re holding something.

And then from here, maybe it’s better if I show you like this.

So the wrist is hanging, then you do this.

And then you will turn your wrist forward.

And by doing this movement, you should feel activation here.

So now your wrist is slightly turned forward and you’re imagining that you’re holding something in your hands, like balls.

And then basically we spend some time in this position.

And again, the time can vary.

We typically do it from one to three minutes, but sometimes we do it for longer.

The key point here is that you don’t want to feel tired.

It’s very important that you feel relaxed here, even though your knees are bent, your arms are up, the shoulders are relaxed, they’re heavy, but so you don’t have to actively draw the shoulders down.

Here you just allow the shoulders to drop.

You keep holding these balls.

At first it is quite intense.

When it becomes intense, you just bring your arms down and your rest.

But the more you do it, the less intense it becomes.

And it’s actually very, very interesting where at some point this position becomes very, very light.

And you know, you can spend five minutes, 10 minutes in it.

And it is a very, very interesting practice to observe how you feel in this stillness.

And then… so after we spend maybe about a minute here with the arms at the shoulder height, we’re going to move our arms.

So this is suspension a in this pattern arms from here, they will move in a position like this.

And then we also have other patterns where the arms do slightly different movements, but let’s take a look.

So at some point, we begin to move our arms.

And very, very slowly, we begin to move the arms to a position where we form kind of like a circle.

And if we look from the side, the arms are at maybe 45 degrees.

And you imagine that you’re pressing something with your hands, like there’s a, like a cloud or something soft in front of you, and you’re pressing into it kind of away from you.

And again, the shoulders are just, they’re dropping towards the floor.

And we try to let all the tension go and spend some time in this position.

And again, if at some point this becomes very, very tiring, you just bring your arms down and you rest a little bit.

And it is just by continuing to do it day by day, that you build the strength to be able to spend more time in this position.

And then when we finish, so arms are here, we are going to open the arms out slowly and then through the sides, bring them down.

So let’s watch that movement.

It feels a little bit like you’re opening a curtain, it’s a very slow movement.

So our breathing all this time is relaxed.

As the arms go down, you can see that we extend the knees and then at the very end the arms return to just relaxed position next to the legs.

So we’ll let all the tension go because you know the muscles they were working.

They heated up a little bit because they needed more blood to sustain all the activity.

And then again if you feel comfortable you close your eyes.

If it’s difficult to balance with your eyes closed, then you can keep them lightly open.

And then once again, even though you’re standing, you’re trying to relax every muscle you can relax completely, and you just observe.

And compared to the previous Ignition where we did the dynamic movement, the way you will feel in this Ignition will be different, right?

So we never do one Ignition and the other Ignition to compare, but through continuity, you know, one day you do one Ignition, another day you do another Ignition and then you perform the first one again.

So you keep remembering how you felt before through comparing those experiences, eventually you will begin to feel the differences of how these different practices make you feel.

And again, in this key points lesson, you can observe that there is a little bit of a sway here and there, so the body is not really completely still.

And then we open our eyes and we will return the feet back to hip-width apart.

And this is where we would normally enter a practice session.

But because right now we’re just training these patterns so that they’re not new to us when we encounter them in practice sessions, you’re just going to perform just this one Ignition in the next practice lesson.

And again, as I said before, make sure that you review the dynamics and the key points lesson so that when you go to practice, you expect what the movements are going to be and so that the guidance is not explaining you what to do but just lets you follow the movement.

You really don’t want to be “ah, what am I supposed to do?”

You know, keep checking the screen.

You want to know what the movement is and then the practice video just provides you the audio cue so that you know at which point you need to do which movement.

Okay, so please review the video again if you need to and then move on to the next practice lesson.