Dan Richards

I've got a bunch of notes, and I'm going to stick some here for discussion.

Think of yourself as a drum. Your skin - the whole thing - is one big drum head - aka "skin."

Things we can forget about:

Skeleton. Doesn't matter. The skeleton is a frame, but it is not the structure. Get the drum tuned right, and the skeleton will align naturally.

Grounding: Doesn't matter. The ground is already there. It's not going anywhere.

Muscles: Forget them. Don't use them.

Tendons: Gone. Poof

Fascia: Like the skeleton, the fascia will all align over time. Forget it.

Some things we can think about and notice: Key areas where the skin slacks, and where we can focus on tuning:

Lower back: If it's arched, it's dead. Tuck the pelvis in, and the lower back skin stretches into place.

Wrists: Notice as you turn them, where they stretch the skin, and where they slack.

Shoulders: If they're up, they're slack. Keep them down.

Back of the neck: Tuck the chin under, and the neck skin will stretch into place.

Knees: If they're straight, they're slack. If they're bent - to various degrees, they are tuned.

Feet: Notice little differences...

With a properly-tuned drum, then when the dantian is moved, everything moves with it. If not tuned properly, we can move the dantien all day long - and it will just move inside a layer of loose goop. Sort of like trying to play a drum that has a head that's so loose, it doesn't really do anything except sound "dead." In fact there's a term in drumming when the head is too loose to make any sort of sustained tone - it's called "dead."