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Stretching
Here is a good stretching set. Sometimes you might want to do this before meditating; at other times you might sense that the stretching and breathing would consume too much of the meditation energy.
1. Begin by slowly getting into cobra position. Lay on your stomach, propped on your elbows with your hands under your chest, and begin relaxing your spine by stages, letting it sort of sag downward. When it is quite relaxed, pick the shoulders up some more, and repeat the relaxation process. Then place your hands under your shoulders and raise the upper part of the body upward, continuing to relax the spine by stages (stop halfway up, stop three-quarters up) until you are all the way up and you continue relaxing the spine forward, until it is completely relaxed and quite arched.
Bend the head back, and turn the gaze inward, looking back and up diagonally. (If your head were a brick, standing on its end, you would be looking toward the back upper edge.) Hold this position for 30 seconds to a minute.
2. Stand up and arch your body forward, pointing your fingers toward the ground as though you were going to touch your toes. But instead of exerting an effort to stretch the knee joints and touch your toes, simply allow the spine to progressively relax, which it will do, steadily but imperceptibly. After a few minutes, much to your surprise, you will find your fingers grazing your toes. This has been done, not by stretching, but by slowly opening the spaces between your vertebrae.
Continue to relax and allow the spaces to open, touching first knuckles, second knuckles, back knuckles to the ground, then bending your wrists forward until they almost or completely touch the ground, then turn your hands around and lay your palms flat upon the ground.
3. Get on your hands and knees and slowly arch the back up all the way, then sag it downwards, bending the head back. Continue alternating up and down, increasing your speed very gradually until you are almost whipping the spine. Do not get too extreme with this.
4. Go into easy pose, sitting on your feet, and bend your right arm over your head, arching the spine out to the right side. Do the same with the left arm, arching to the left. Repeat this a few times.
5. Grip the left elbow with the right hand, and the right elbow with the left. Slowly begin twisting from side to side as though you were a washing machine. Increase the speed somewhat as you feel comfortable doing so.
6. In the same easy pose, drop your chin to your chest, and slowly bend your head to the left and right, stretching the sides of the neck. Do not strain, or you could pull a muscle. Then slowly roll the head completely around, 360 degrees. Repeat in the other direction, again dropping the head to the chest and rolling in the other direction.
7. Raise the head up and turn it to the left until you feel a strain, then do the same to the right. Then thrust the head backwards and forwards.
This completes the stretching set.
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