Plow helicopter: Every sitting meditator should do this movement at least once a day.

 

Along with shake and bake, I would rate this exercise as one of the most important, because it targets the area modern people build up their worst tension hot spots from sitting too much reading, using computers, thinking, etc.

There's a really vicious cycle going on with declining eyes and vision as well. Your vision is getting worse, then you hunch your back and crane your neck forward to get closer to the computer monitor. This adds massive tension and knots to your neck, shoulders, upper back.  

Also, people aging into the last quarter of their lives, what do you notice prominently? Lots of seriously hunched backs. Even expert yogis,  taiji masters and qigong masters sometimes I see hunched backs, or if not hunched, they may have good superficial posture but when they move around I can see they have really tight upper back tension. It's from a lifetime of tension built in this upper back area without doing the work to dissolve the built up tension there regularly, daily.

Become aware of the process of building up that tension is the most important, stop it at it's source. But then you also need to do the exercises to make that hot spot pliable again. And even if you are aware of tension as it's happening, it's impossible to stop. For example, working on the computer to prepare the video and text, I'm building up tension in that hotspot even though I don't want to. Just like hiking up a big hill, certain areas of the body are going to get tense.

I've been doing some version of  the plow helicopter with superb results for decades, but I never shared it openly before because I was worried people might get injured. 

That worry still applies. Always try any exercise cautiously, slowly, carefully. 

Don't try my version of the plow unless you already can do the basic version of the plow safely and comfortably. 

The other reason I haven't shared this gem of a move, you really have to teach it in person, or  with  video. Pictures and verbal description just doesn't suffice. Here's the video.

This move is so important, I'm even cross posting into the Buddhist part of my blog. 

Plow Helicopter Suite - Yoga Ball Backbend

Forum discussion

dhammawheel -> Re:

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Post by frank k » Fri Feb 25, 2022 2:41 am

Nowhere did I suggest liberation depends on sitting in a particular posture.
What I have said, is that energetic blocks will block, hinder, or limit the physical component of jhana.
Dropping all theory aside, any one can just try out various stretches and exercises and see if they work, in reducing physical tension, knots, and energetic blockages.
I would say if they're not helping, you're probably not doing them correctly.
Anyone who hasn't actually tried out various exercises and just blindly cling to the idea that jhana doesn't depend on physical pliability to some extent, I doubt they're getting the most of their jhana practice, or getting jhana at all.
Mental stress and tension of course will lead to physical tension, but physical tension done under complete mental relaxation also leads to physical tension.
Unconscious tension, no matter how tiny, also calcifies and accumulates over our lifetime, leading to energetic blockages.
The suttas mention cases of jhana meditators losing their jhana, some of them ariya.
You think ariya would somehow be able to have no mental tension and do jhana earlier in life, then later in life lose jhana ability because they suddenly developed mental tension and not physical tension accumulated through aging and physical injuries?

sunnat wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 5:44 pmIf liberation was dependent on a correct posture many would be excluded.

Mental blocks manifest as physical and in letting go of mental stress the physical are let go of. One may go from a complete inability to sit cross legged for any length of time to sitting in full lotus position in a moment of mental relaxation.

Clinging to the idea that one must necessarily engage in stretching exercises (some of which a chiropractor would cringe at endorsing) in order to be able to sit in a position that somehow enables deep meditation itself creates blocks to progress as well as nurturing the idea that there is a posture that is sacrosanct and one’s liberation is dependent on that posture.