Body Awareness

Relaxation, localized sensations, standing still

Getting along with your body has a significant multiplier effect on how well you perform in life. Our bodies are our primary anchors in the physical world. It’s important to set things straight at home before moving outwards.

I have gathered the following techniques from various sources, often samizdat books and offprints without any authorship. You may find parts of them strongly reflecting the Alexander Technique, vipassana meditation, and many others.

Exercises

I’d recommend doing these at least 2-3 times a week at first but the more often the better, especially in your first weeks, just to get more accustomed to the sensations and to be able to bring them beyond the time of practice and into your everyday life.

All exercises are flexible, you don’t have to stick to the descriptions obsessively. I’d also love to get your feedback with more suggestions on how to improve them.

Relaxation

You might have heard of Shavasana, or Corpse Pose. This one surely originates from Shavasana but has custom additions to it.

Stage I

Make yourself comfortable and close your eyes. The best position is laying down on your back, with enough space to protract your arms and legs alongside your body. After getting as comfortable as possible, relax your muscles altogether. Don’t focus too much on minor tensions, just let yourself be at ease with laying down.

Now, focus your attention on your left wrist. Feel its weight against what you’re laying on. Sense each of your fingers in turn and relax them as much as you can, one by one. You can imagine a flow of energy entering the part you are working on at the moment if that makes it easier for you. After relaxing your fingers, move on to your palm, then the upper part of the wrist, and so on, upwards, until you reach the shoulder joint.

You should feel how your left arm is much more relaxed and weighty than the rest of your body. Now, repeat the process for your right arm and both of your legs, toes to hips. Then relax your back, shoulder joints, neck, chest, waist, and abdomen. Finally, relax your face, jaws, tongue (but be careful not to get asphyxiated), and scalp. Feel how the muscles kind of slide down your face.

Stay like that for a couple of minutes. It’s important to not move during the exercise, except for slow quiet breathing.

Stage II

Make yourself feel a warm spot in the lower part of your abdomen and a cold one on your forehead, near the bridge of your nose. With each inhale, the warmness, and with each exhale, the coldness should intensify. This is not strictly required but it provides focal points for the mind not to drift off. You may think of some other ways to do that.

Track your breathing but don’t try to control it. When it’s slow and steady for some time, start to listen to your heartbeats. Wait for them to get as unwavering as your breathing, then move on.

Check your body once again, it should be fully relaxed. Optionally, you may picture a pastoral image of yourself floating on the surface of a crystal-clean mountain lake or some other pleasant relaxing scene. Have another couple of minutes in this state.

Stage III

Visualize an infinitesimally thin plane that is perpendicular to the main axis of your body and that moves upwards: starting from your toes, slowly traversing your legs and trunk, and disengaging at the top of your head. Where it has gone, energy and warmth from the first stage are withdrawn, and only the light, weightless sensation is left.

That light sensation may be difficult to achieve on the first several attempts, but you will get it occasionally with practice. You may also try to move the plane several times and change its direction — whatever helps you achieve the desired state (you will be certain you have achieved it once it’s there).

It may be interesting to expand this last stage by mixing the movement of the plane with semantic content you’d like to couple with the otherworldly sense of lightness. For example, I’ve tried to do that with the Litany Against Fear from Dune:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

After staying in that state for some time, make your breathing gradually more intense, “incorporate” yourself back into the environment, open your eyes, and stretch.

Clay Craft

Here, we will be focusing very sharply on a small part of our body and then expand that focused awareness to a greater area, until the whole body is felt.

First, sit in a comfortable position. Then, close your eyes and make several deep, slow breaths. Imagine that your body does not exist, there’s only empty space. Now, feel a faint tingling coming from your little finger (or your ear, or heel, or any part actually, this is up to you but change the starting point from time to time). Start to “sculpt” the part that emits the tingling sensation. Focus on the signals coming from that part of your body as fully as possible. Stay like that for half a minute.

Now, do the same for an adjacent part. Then next one, and so on. Over the course of ten minutes, you will have your whole body “reassembled” and felt anew. Don’t forget to pay your fullest attention to new parts being “sculpted” and added to the whole.

You may want to experiment with different ideas instead of sculpting: wood carving, forging, metal casting — there are many crafts that might inspire you.

Statue

This is one of my favorite exercises. It allows you to notice tension in your muscles in real time, and be aware very clearly of the parts of your body that tend to get tense the most. In the long run, you will notice it in the background much more easily.

The instructions are simple: assume a pose and stand (or sit) still for 2 to 10 minutes without changing it. Don’t try to relax your muscles as you go, allow them to be tense for the time being. Try to remain calm, but do not suppress strong emotions or any discomfort: if becomes unbearable, stop the exercise, stretch and have a rest.

When doing Statue, the only allowed conscious movement is slow breathing. Do not move your jaws, try not to swallow saliva (but of course, do that if it’s too distracting), keep eye blinking to the minimum, and don’t move your eyeballs. All this may be a bit difficult to do at first so don’t reproach yourself for imperfect performance.

Poses may be simple and easy at first — like standing upright or sitting cross-legged. But later, it's nice to start picking arbitrary and complex poses, too.

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Besides, I remind you that it’s important to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Do not forget to do common physical exercises, breathe properly, and have a decent diet.

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