Day 1: Setting the Stage

Notes/Observations: Saturday morning practice
Relaxation:

When relaxing, i initially did not get too much out of it. Tensing releasing, tensing releasing itself felt somewhat lacking in getting myself to physically relax.I don't know but i just felt like i was going through motions and something was missing.

Although after tensing/relaxing a few times, the action of doing that reminded me of the same thing that your body does naturally when winding down at the end of the day prior to going to bed and upon waking in the morning, with a good stretch and yawn.

Instead of just tensing and relaxing i found myself starting to mimic my pre-bedtime get-lazy routine which basically consists of a very good full body stretch/tense and release coupled with a big yawn and full deep breath, sometimes i wrap my arms around myself too kind of like a self hug??Don't ask me why but it just feels relaxing to do that.Please note that this was all happening somewhat automatically once i let myself forget about trying to do what the book said(Sorry, bruce and mercer).I wasn't conciously going through the motions that i do when winding down for bedtime, it just felt like this is how i should be getting nice and toasty and relaxed.

Doing all this sort of put myself into that sleepy, wet noodle, almost lazy body mode but i was quite alert as well. Once i was nice and toasty and relaxed i noticed my head was pretty clear too and it felt natural transitioning on to breath awareness.

Breath Awareness:

It was actually a little restful to notice my breathing when i wasn't getting distracted by random thoughts. I found myself trying to force my awareness back to my breath when i got distracted but doing this tensed up my muscles a little.I just pretty much said "whatever" to myself and if random thoughts pop in my head i just forgot about them and felt for my breathing again.I did definitely notice a difference in the quality in clarity of awareness on watching breathing versus random thought patterns though.Eventually the distractions became more frequent and i moved on to mobile body awareness.

Mobile Body Awareness:

The sensations of brushing were very subtle for me.I could only feel very trace and faint sensations.For the most part i felt like i was just sitting there trying to focus on my knee or trying to feel a brushing sensation as close to the real thing as possible.

There was a few times when something interesting happened and it is a little hard to describe. Basically it felt like a very internal awareness but somewhat detached too. It caught me a little off guard because this happened as soon as i was bringing my attention to my left knee. Instead of just thinking about my knee i felt very internal and clear and it felt as if my awareness was moving from my brain down through my torso to my hips and legs.It felt as if my body was hallow and my mind was moving through it down to my knee, literally.

This was very new and threw me off a little and i felt like i was getting "deep" so i pulled back a little and my awareness felt like it was closer to it's surface level or a normal everyday awareness level.


Conclusion:
Overall i was surprised how easy everything went. I learned how to relax by playing out how my body gets lazy on its own.I had a few interesting moments during mobile body awareness where i was feeling like i was "going in deep" but don't quite understand what was happening and this is the only way i can describe it at the moment.