When practicing standing postures such as ’embrace the tree’ there’s the temptation to slightly raise up out of the posture to ease the ‘discomfort’ you may feel in your legs.
The ‘discomfort’ here is usually located in the quadricep muscles, front of the thigh area, and the longer you stay in the stance the more they will feel like heavy logs. But that’s okay because that ‘discomfort’ is really a workout and it’s a normal feeling in stance work. Obviously if you are feeling pain in the joints, such as the knees and ankles then you should stop and come out of the stance.
One way to stop yourself from raising up out of the stance is to practice in front of a mirror by;
- adopting the correct positioning for your stance
- aligning the reflection of the top of your head with a reflection of a specific spot behind you
- maintaining that position
For example when I practice at home I stand in front of the mirror, adopt the correct stance, then look at the mirror and align the reflection of the top of my head with a reflection from a spot behind me, which in my house, is usually the edge of a window. Then I occasionaly check to see if I’ve kept that alignment of head and window edge. If I do this I’ll know I kept the correct stance height as when I started.
It doesn’t matter what spot you choose to align your head to; as long as you maintain that alignment you will be in the correct position for your stance.
It’s a simple exercise that works for me.
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