Well, having given it some thought for a few days I'm still uncertain as to what exactly to recommend as exercises, I'm no expert, so just some thoughts for what they may be worth.
I think the clues are there in the excerpts from G, it seems very much about developing awareness and control over the body, which is of course closely linked to self remembering. So we learn to take our awareness to the body, its movements, postures, habits, what 'it' likes and what 'it' does not like. Remember Gs imperative to "do what 'it' does not like!"
It should amaze us really what the body, the moving centre, can do on its own without our conscious input. Yet we never really marvel at, or are shocked by it. Take for example the action of driving a vehicle, once the skill is learned and has gone into the moving centre, it becomes fully automatic. We are not driving, simply sitting in a seat and traveling along, the moving centre takes care of everything else.
What should be shocking in this is realising that many many other things that we 'do' are just as automatic. The task at hand has gone into the moving centre and is carried out from there, if we haven't consciously
chosen to do a thing, or at least
how to do it, it is purely mechanical, we should be left in no doubt that we are indeed automatons. Yet this realisation seems to pass us by, as if it doesn't apply, that the way we move or are 'moved' in general is somehow different to the experience of driving. But how could it be so? Now we are driving, now walking, now making a cup of tea, now sitting, now standing up again, and off to make another cup of tea, and so it goes.
So perhaps there is something in aiming to control movements, or tackle tasks in a more conscious way. As G points out, do do things in a way to which we are not accustomed. And that can be anything from eating, to walking, do doing the dishes. The way we sit when we read a book, when we are in conversation, and so on. If we tend to eat quickly, then slow it down, if on the other hand we tend to be slow, then make efforts to be quicker. If we tend to sit with legs crossed in a certain pose when sitting try always to change to another position. Sit upright if you slouch. Control excess movements, fidgeting, automatic talk.
But wait! We
do have some exercises for developing awareness of the body! We already have the warm up exercises for Éiriú Eolas. There is much more to be gained here than simply going through the motions, both in terms of growing awareness and in making the most of EE.
Take for example the first exercise of rotating the hands, how much attention can be brought to it?
- How much of the body are you aware of?
- Is the mind wandering?
- Are you aware of your breathing?
- Is is just the hands that rotate from the wrist or is the rest of the arm trying to join in and move around too?
- Are you clenching you teeth?
- Are the shoulders tense where they needn't be?
- Same for tension in the back, the buttocks, the legs, knees,?
- Are you aware of your feet making contact with the floor while you do the exercise?
- Are you clenching your toes?
- And now that your attention has gone all the way down to your toes have your shoulders tensed up again while you weren't looking?!
...and so on through all the other exercises. Be aware of the body, its impulses and habits and learn to
relax. Relaxation is after all a large part of the programme, and the more attention one can bring to it, the more relaxed one can become. We should be developing that level of awareness to the body in our daily activities, if your constantly checking in with your moving centre, consciously monitoring it throughout the day it should become easier to get a handle of what it likes/doesn't like and how to gain better control over it. I think.
