Neutral Standing: Drain Tension, Clear the Slate
By Sharon Kraus
About the time I entered acupuncture school in 1990, I also encountered my first serious Tai Chi teacher in New Mexico. Michael Vasquez had studied extensively with a fellow named Bruce Frantzis and introduced me to the concept of Neutral Standing on my first day of class with him. This standing practice turned out to be one of the most simple and accessible tools for settling and reconnecting with myself. Decades later the Neutral Standing exercise still shines as one of my favorite ways to come “home” to my body and my breath. It is an excellent standing meditation at the start or end of any day, when you are tired or wired, or it can be a gateway to a more complex set of practices by clearing and opening your body before you begin.
Neutral Standing is a Taoist Yoga for opening the physical and energetic channels. It’s like pure liquid light! Simple yet powerful, meditative yet dynamic, cleansing, grounding, and strengthening all at the same time.
My teacher Michael Vasquez later went on to introduce me to the Taiwanese internal arts master whom we would both study Tai Chi and Baguazhang under for another 8 to 10 years, but that’s a story for another time!
Suffice it to say that after a decade or so, my consistent, grounding and regenerative internal arts practice got swallowed up by the demands of my busy acupuncture clinic in Texas. The end result was less than pretty. Two words: BURN OUT. In 2008 I went on to sell my clinic in Dallas and migrated to the beautiful Pacific Northwest for the next chapter in my career. Over time I reclaimed my footing and some of the simple practices that were so revitalizing early on.
Now, during the COVID-19 shut down, I have had time to appreciate and reconnect with this energizing yet relaxing gem of a standing meditation. I write it here to encourage myself, as well as you, to remember to practice it daily for profound self regulating, tension draining results. OK! Let’s get started…
First, something happens in your physical body and awareness after 20 minutes of standing that really won’t happen before that, so I often set a timer. If you need to start with 5 minutes or less, however, do that! Most importantly, JUST START! This is the hardest part.
[Note: If during your practice you begin to feel nauseous, waves of heat or dizziness or other uncomfortable sensations, no worries! You are doing a great job and stuck qi, or energy, is starting to move. It may, however, be time to stop and rest for the day and begin anew tomorrow.]
Begin with your feet parallel to one another. Open your eyes and check your feet! Habitual patterns of standing may often cause you to feel like your feet are parallel when in fact they are not.
Relax your awareness. Take a breath with your whole body and notice, in a global sense, what is present in your whole system. Breathe. Make sure your knees are soft and not locked, tailbone drops, chin drops and imagine a string gently pulling from the top of your head.
*Some days when I am tired this is as far as I get and I never even begin the visualization. Ideally, when you have the focus, let your awareness travel through the body as described below, remembering to take time to breathe through every inch of your skin.
Begin establishing alignment in your system, starting from the soles of your feet. Go back down to your feet and begin taking a quick imaginary journey up through perfectly aligned bones of your skeleton (even if they don’t feel aligned), beginning with your feet, into your ankles, shins, knees, thighs, pelvis, tailbone and sacrum. Gently imagine each bone in your spine as you travel upwards toward your head. Don’t linger now, just imagine each bone in perfect balanced alignment floating above the next as you move your awareness into the upper back and cervical spine of your neck. Imagine your skull floating on top of your spine.
Now the stage is set, bring your awareness up two to three feet above your head. Here you may imagine clear sparkling water, or white light as you prefer, pouring from above into the top of your skull.
Let your awareness penetrate and melt slowly, like the liquid light it is, through every inch of your system, beginning from the head to toe, through your face, the back of your skull, your ears and jaw, into the bones and muscles of your neck and shoulders. If you encounter tension just stay with it. Witness, observe, allow it to melt if you will, or not. You might use the imagery of ice melting, or simply bring in a breath to the uncomfortable areas. This is the time to linger, breathe, be present with yourself.
Keep melting downward through your trunk and appendages – arms, elbows, wrists fingers, feeling the energy dripping off your fingertips. Come back to your throat and chest and continue noticing and melting through every inch. Let the melting continue down through your back and spine. Take your time.
What’s happening in your pelvis and at the center below the navel? Soften through your groin and abdomen and into your thighs. Take special care through the knees, which can hold so much stress, and at every juncture you encounter. Soften into your feet and ankles. Let all the tension melt out of you into the ground below.
Rest in your standing and whole body breathing. Let patterns of torsion you may be holding come to your awareness and unwind as they will. Notice whatever arises and go back into the melting process as needed.
Enjoy your connection to the ground and the bidirectional flow that can exist between you and your ever present ally, the earth. I have also heard it said that for every one time that your awareness moves upward through your system, it is wise to balance it with 10 times of letting the energy pour back toward your feet - so important is the need for grounding and connection to the earth.
Now that you have read about the process, and I have written about it, it’s time for both of us to begin! Feel free to try it out and write me about your experience.
