Today I realized a simple way to solidify my personal practice, get a better workout,and slow down. What’s this miracle? Something stupid like “take more time” again?

No. instead, stop in each posture. And find something that needs to change.

Wow. It sounds really simple, and it’s not. It was actually very hard. I only got halfway through the form before I had to stop, and just do it regularly. But I do see the potential and the potency in this as a method.

Here’s how it worked. I paused on each movement or posture, and double-checked my stance. Where should my left hand be? What about right hand? Are the hips twisted left or right? And little by little I corrected my form and posture. Where I couldn’t find anything wrong. I hardened my arms or my legs or my abdominals. Or I corrected my breathing.

A lot of little mistakes have crept into my form over the last year, when I was concerned about completion rather than technique. Now I have to make other kinds of progress, and a lot of that sloppiness has to be edited out.

But the beauty of this is that even though it’s exhausting to doctor the whole form at once this way, it can be done in stages and sections. I can decide to start at any time, or stop at any time. I break the form down by day, and concentrate on different sections on different days. I like this potential, a lot. It feels like it has more meat on its bones than just “take more time” or “go hard”, because at Its core it’s defining a way to do both of those things at the same time.

Liked it? Take a second to support Andrew on Patreon!