@Jim Eshelman said
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@jg93 said
"My back used to kill during 1/2 lotus. I sat through the pain, slowly increasing my time, and after a few weeks it went away. My legs still go numb about 15 minutes in though. You could try leaning up against a wall, or sitting on a cushion. But you have to sit through the pain - that's one of the points of this work."
Just to clarify... Pain isn't part of the work. There is no particular NEED for the pain. But it will usually be there at one point, and getting through it is part of the work.
This shouldn't be confused with a real orthopedic problem. Remember that Libri E & O instruct you to start from a place of health before commencing the practices. If there is something structurally wrong, you need to work on fixing it first.
Beyond that... find any position at all that is comfortable FOR YOU."
Pardon me... I'm a noob. But I completely disagree. Pain isn't part of the work? That's silliness. No pain, no gain. There is sometimes a great deal of pain. That doesn't mean you are doing it completely wrong, but is entirely up to you to determine a safe threshold. I'm a freestyler myself, with some pretty crazy and at times very painful and disturbing results. Embrace the pain as much as you can manage to.
Just remember to put it down and walk away for periods of time when it gets too intense. It's like a kid sipping beer. Enlightenment has an aquired taste. Took me two years of physical and mental agony before I started to accept the taste.
I'm sure it is different for everybody. All depends on your subconscious mind state. We are in complete control of our bodily functions at a certain level.... and if you can stand the pain, eventually, you'll literally find that your body IS held in its state by your mind. You will begin to FEEL all this tension in relation to your mental state.... it's hard to descibe, but you can observe the correlations very subtlely. Eventually, like any muscle, physical or otherwise, it strengthens and fine tunes itself....
It's currently a work in progress on my end. Common sense dictates whether you are going too far for your own good or not. If you can't stand the heat, step away from the flames.