still busy

had been feeling a squished feeling in chest, all bent over in the thoracic, oldish, what old people do, bent over, head forward, eyes toward ground.

what to do?  the morning routines, the aikido, the attention, still squished.

today i did the morning routine with the long stick, because i felt like it.  so,
1. for the attention directionals i held the stick at base of skull level behind the head.  continued through the head movements.  immediately some numbness in left upper arm, of course the shoulders get tired immediately.  keeping the stick in that position, relaxing the hands, keeping the stick not quite touching base of skull, arrange the rest of the back & pelvis, in all the stick helps to define the vertical & horizontal, the chest is lifted & spread by the needs of the shoulders, so the whole experiment with the stick is immediately rewarding (because a real experiment does not "succeed" or "fail" except if data is not obtained).

6-8 minutes of arms up at shoulder level gives some comfortable-with-discomfort practice.

2.contiuing into the torso movements the forced relationship of the 2 arms creates a different set of effects in the torso, increased burn in the side to side bendovers & some interesting where-do-i-put-my-head situations in the side leg stretches.

Planning to do again with the stick.  There is stuff there.