Problem with seiza bench

MMe

After about a month of daily exercise(one hour), I start to fell pain on the instep of the foot(more on the left one): very strong at the end of the exercise and much less during the day.
Does it happens to you too?

MMe

@Iugum said

"Daily exercise of what? Asana?"

Yes.

@Iugum said

"what pose are you using?"

Dragon Asana.

@Iugum said

"Is there a more specific question in there or are you just asking if others have had pain during Asana?"

I rephrase my question: Has anyone had problems in the instep, practicing dragon asana using the seiza bench after some time?

@Iugum said

"That is very common especially early on and at lengths of an hour it would almost seem superhuman if one did not have some type of annoyance or pain from it"

I'm not talking about small cramps, but severe pain in the instep.

Archaeus

I used a Seiza bench for about a week, before deciding that it was more trouble than it was worth, because it allows you to sit in an unbalanced posture for long periods and doesn't train you in the correct way to sit in Seiza, (Which is a bit more complex than Crowley's brief instructions would lead you to believe).

It takes a while for the tendons to adjust to sitting seiza, and its easy to strain yourself at first by sitting too long, so go easy on yourself.

Also, I recommend going to an experienced practitioner of either meditation, or one of the Japanese Martial arts (where they sit in seiza quite a lot, and good schools will teach the correct way to do this).

But for a some simple rules of thumb, here are the basics:

Sit with knees about two fists width apart, and don't settle your weight on your ankles, but stop just short, you should have a sort of floating feeling.
lean forward a little, so that your weight is evenly distributed, not all on the ankles, think of yourself as a pyramid with a wide base, where all the weight is evenly distributed. when correctly seated you should become naturally rigid quite quickly, and if someone gives you a push you should not topple over, but should absorb the pressure and feel it disperse into the floor, (This is difficult to describe, hence the importance of personal tuition).
Maybe rigid is not quite the right word, because what you want is a sort of relaxed readiness, as if you might get up at any moment, the feeling should be something like living relaxation instead of dead relaxation, a feeling of heaviness in the limbs, weight underside, is what you should be aiming for (again, sorry for the vagueness of these terms).

Hope this helps some

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Jason R

93

I always do this Asana (dragon) sitting between my heels and with tops of my feet upon the ground. I do not sit upon the heels directly and with the toes pointing forward and soles pointing back. I have seen the posture (the Dragon) demonstrated in Gems for example yet in Yoga for Yahoos, I understood that one didn't necessarily have to do a posture exactly as described. Is this true? Am I doing it wrong?

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Archaeus

@Daegal said

"93

I always do this Asana (dragon) sitting between my heels and with tops of my feet upon the ground. I do not sit upon the heels directly and with the toes pointing forward and soles pointing back. I have seen the posture (the Dragon) demonstrated in Gems for example yet in Yoga for Yahoos, I understood that one didn't necessarily have to do a posture exactly as described. Is this true? Am I doing it wrong?

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I think I know what your doing, In Hatha they call it "The hero", and it looks like the dragon except your bum is on the ground.
Its good in short doses but it hyper-extends the tendons in the knees, not to mention what you might do to your toes! so I wouldn't want to do it for a long period of time.
I have actually seen some really painful and stupid postures put forward as "The Dragon", and have come to the conclusion that it's far simpler to simply sit in Seiza a la Japanese, which is pretty much how it is described in Liber E anyway albeit not in much detail.
Crowleys instructions in Liber E are very sparce, and don't really go into details such as how to sit down properly, how to balance the body and whatnot, without which the posture can do more harm than good; most people put far too much weight on the ankles and cut of the circulation, but performed properly the effects of this are minimal.

Learning to do it properly takes time, but once achieved the feeling is one of poised, living relaxation; there are tests that a instructor can use to see that your posture is correct, and they have little to do with balancing a cup of water on your head.

Jason R

Archaeus,

93

I really appreciate your description of the Dragon. It actually makes great sense, and I'm going to try it as you describe! I think I have been doing it wrong. I don't sit actually on the floor, as in with bum between feet etc., but more of on arches or soles of feet. However my feet become rather numb after 20 minutes and I push through. I'm thinking your advice about "floating" and weight distribution is what I'm doing wrong. Thanks for the great information!

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