Kit_L

Welcome, @holenother. You've started; that's the big one. You'll get plenty of help here. And read this: https://stretchtherapy.net/relaxation-wiki/ And if you're sore from an earlier workout, skip today's and go for a walk, or a swim, instead. All this takes time.

@aw000: https://kitlaughlin.com/forums/index.php?/topic/374-the-daily-five/ We added the hip flexor stretch because it was needed with all the sitting everyone's doing these days! So it's really the Daily Six now.

Perfect!

Ned, IMO if you are doing the straight-arm plank well, you can drop the elbow one—it's usually the beginner's way in, and is easier than the straight-arm version.

Core teachings from Theravada. Together with the Four Noble Truths, probably the most important teachings of Buddhism. If the prerecorded LRPs do not resonate, or are not experienced as useful, ditch them. Olivia never uses them—she does three rounds of 108 breaths. These numbers depend on how quickly you breathe—108 breaths is enough for one session for me presently. BTW, when you are really tired, a longer practise can be better than sleep and can be substituted for it. And if you wake up around 03:00 thinking about something, re-start the practise then—and tell yourself, "I'm resting." Very likely you'll go back to sleep, and if you don't, you'll be practising, not worrying about not sleeping, and giving the mind something useful to do.

No, this is not accurate. The five hindrances are sensory desire, ill will, sloth and torpor (my favourite; will comment on this later), restlessness and worry, and skeptical doubt. Two of the three poisons, in contrast, are attraction (sometimes labelled greed, or craving), and aversion (sometimes cast as hatred or anger). These are driven by the third poison, ignorance or delusion; together these three "unwholesome roots" are the primary causes of all suffering, and why we pay attention to them. While talking to Olivia this morning, she immediately described boredom as aversion, and on brief reflection, she is right, I feel. Leaving aside the theoretical/explanatory roots of this (we are confining ourselves here to the Buddhist perspective; there are many others), her suggestion is to try breath counting, instead of listening to a pre-recorded LRP, or doing one while trying to hold attention on the breath. Breath counting may just do what @Matt Chung needs. It is simplicity itself. In addition to feeling all the movements I described above, after you have breathed in, relax and breathe out, and somewhere in between starting to breathe out, count to yourself, "one". And on the next breath our, increment the count to "two", and so on. Multiples of 27 are considered auspicious. If you lose the count, either go back to "one" (harsh, perhaps, but this will show you your current capacity to hold your awareness on one thing), or go back to the last number you remember clearly. A Zen roshi once told me breath counting was his sole practise for 14 years, so you'll be in good company!

Is boredom an emotion, I wonder? I know it is described this way often. I feel it's the ego wriggling away from being seen—in fact wanting to be anywhere than where it is—here and now. Much human activity is what the psychologists label "displacement activity", usually seen to be the result of two conflicting motivations (wanting to practise, and the ego wanting to stay hidden, perhaps?). If you are really here, and now, there's nowhere to hide and what will be happening is anything but boring, in my experience. As soon as you feel this (the next time you practice, probably), take a breath in, and feel all the movements in the body we label "breathing", and as you breathe out, let every part of your body go soft and melt into the floor. Feel the body get heavier instantly, feel the body moving sideways and down, contacting the floor more closely, and really feel this. A huge number things are happening while you do this, and if you look hard, these are extremely interesting. Being curious is the antithesis of boredom, in my view. Really look and try to see what's there. Thanks for reporting this; it's really helpful in trying to understand what's going on. In my experience, this is completely accurate. And this takes us into new territory, what the Buddha calls "aversion". For next time. Please re-read what I wrote here a few times, and if anything is not clear, please ask me to clarify.

A warm welcome to you, and best wishes for the new year (in these crazy times). The most important part of the system. Strength training is THE ideal way to warm up for stretching, so definitely do not abandon it. KBs are excellent.

"The Rod of Correction" is a hard core, heroic, always effective finisher. On your chin ups: do try weighted chin ups as well – they alternate extremely well with the band ones you mention (which allow the kind of volume that really moves the blood through the working muscles to help recovery) but weighted chin ups will do more for your total chin up number (and real pulling power) than anything else you can do. At one point I did three or four reps from memory with 60 kg around my waist. 10 perfect chin ups then at my body weight of 85Kg was literally a warm-up.

Yes. Set this as your meditation object, and remember to return to it when you get distracted. Do not make too much of an effort.

Of course you can avoid this, and nothing will change, but equally it can be changed, too. Personally, I choose to not live in fear.

Precisely, what you report here is what the practise is designed to change, permanently, in time. The majority are inundated with obsessive thinking and all report "negative emotions and thoughts" (and the doomscrolling you mention later simply supercharges this habit, and that's all it is). This thinking cannot be turned off, and you cannot force yourself to stop it. A Zen roshi once remarked to me, "Ah the mind: a worthy opponent". So, next time, sink into it and experience this deluge with your whole heart—this can't hurt you. As you see the thoughts and feel the emotions, simply relax more. The mind (actually, what Western psychology calls "the ego") is running the show, and it does not want to be seen (revealed). The ego's reaction to possible exposure is fear—this is the resistance to practise you and others have mentioned. The ego does not want to be seen. And it is not you. The lying relaxation practise is designed to show you that, in one sense, this is real, and to an extent that it is controlling you, from the background. Use the free recordings from the site: they are designed to give the mind something useful to do while the body relaxes. Continue the practise, and when you can relax sufficiently, this deluge of thoughts will slow, eventually to a trickle, and some time later the sun will come out.

Not at all. Thinking is the root of unhappiness, but very few can stop obsessive thinking. Thinking/believing that happiness needs hard work will guarantee that it will. A genuine chicken and egg situation. And this next bit of advice is for everyone: if you relax sufficiently, thinking simply drops away, and you are left with one of the two natural states of the heart: simple happiness, or peacefulness. There is more to be said on this topic, but this is the deep reason behind my recommendation to learn what deep relaxation actually feels like, and bring this into your life more often. It is as simple as that. I will comment further on the source of resistance when I hear back from the others, but what you wrote above points in what I believe to be the right direction. More to come.

@Gareth O Connor: if you cite someone, please include a link to representative work to save everyone's time. And without having any experience of this author, I can tell you that a practical path to happiness is simply to eliminate everything that makes you unhappy. It is identical to working out what you want – being clear about what you don't want immediately excludes a huge fraction of options, making finding the right one for you easier. @Matt Chung and @Ned: soon thanks for sharing your thoughts on this subject – can you please, both of you, describe as well as you can what you think the source of this resistance is? I have some ideas on the subject, but I want to hear from you. The context here is of all the practices we teach, the lying relaxation practice has to be the easiest to implement – you just lie down – and yet from the many reports on this Forum over many years a large number of people have experienced incredible internal resistance to doing just this simple thing. I would really like to understand this more deeply. And thank you all for contributing here; you are the Forum. Best wishes for the New Year to all.

Thank you. And best wishes to you, too.

I enjoy your posts immensely, @Ned. I hope you continue them in the New Year (and best wishes for that).

That cracked me up; best laugh of the day, so far!

All good. If you have access to the gym – I can't remember that detail – you may consider putting relatively heavy dumbbells on your knees and lifting them rather than doing contractions statically. Increasing strength in this particular line usually allows the muscles to relax relatively quickly. Definitely worth trying I think. On workshops, I normally stand on people's legs from behind, supporting myself with my hands on their shoulders, with my bare feet at the creases that the legs make with body – and then do contractions from there. As the person relaxes more, I walk my feet out more towards the knees until they're at the limit of their capacity to support my weight. This is extremely effective.

Matt, if the single-leg RDL does not affect the problem area, perhaps it's not the biceps femoris tendon. What else might cause this pain? And can you do the advanced piriformis movement on the affected side?

Most definitely. I am working on this myself presently. Re. box bridge: start with 300mm (1 ft, for Americans) and adjust. For many people, this is the perfect height—above this and the upper body strength required seems to go up exponentially!

Best of luck and remember the even split. And stay as relaxed as possible of course.

Against a load.

The reason these muscles are so important is that they do all the deceleration of the foot every stride. Don't do too many the first time, and make sure you stretch them out after (the first part of the floor quad stretch is all you need).

Yes. And I'd add a strengthening exercise for anterior tibialis, too: The ATG guy has excellent exercises, and he's quite the athlete, too. It should be easy to duplicate the slant board (or do as I do, and find a steep hill!).

Yes, it can. It is compression. "Pinching" is squashing, or compression.