One thing I'd forgotten about body -centered meditation:
It makes the body do really weird shit, autonomously.
Conversation
Standing one moment, gesticulating wildly the next, doing crouches the third.
It's something of a trip.
1
6
Another thing: once gotten into, you often have to stop deliberately for it to end.
Body will just keep finding new shit to do. Currently swaying on an axis as I'm writing this.
1
7
Different meditation techniques have different levels of "stickiness", and shorter or longer half-lives.
It's interesting that the body-centered ones seem to be on the stickier end.
1
4
It feels almost mantra-like, although mantras need to be revved up for much longer before they start self-perpetuating.
1
4
I wonder if ecstatic dance works on the same principle.
I wonder if I've tried ecstatic dance while dancing around to Lana Del Rey everywhere last summer.
1
4
Still doing weird shit while actively tweeting and having multiple other threads open in awareness.
This is definitely not replicable with every technique, at least after so little practice.
1
4
Feels almost like it's... litigating past movement errors? These are all recognizable movement patterns that are happening.
Curious. Most curious.
2
3
Breathing and rhythm keeps changing, tonally as well, with each new pattern.
Almost like some sort of automatic troubleshooting process.
Correction: exactly like that.
1
3
I don't feel like I'm qualified to say much more right now, but I'll definitely do a few hundred hours of this now.
Replying to
All this is my experience too. I'll end up tweeting with one leg wrap around the other or between my legs as I'm bent fully over. The body just starts doing stuff.
Really neat when I start with deep sitting meditation first then sustain that as the body starts moving.
Replying to
fascinating. what IS body-centred meditation though? a technique? a school of thought? any links i could read to learn more?
2
1
Replying to
Good question! So there are some approaches (Alexander Technique, various improvisational acting tools) that seem focused on this, but I don't know them well.
I've been doing sitting meditation for over a decade. I just apply techniques used in those contexts to the body itself.
1
Show replies