Tips for sitting seiza?

Anything you can offer for helping to sit seiza will be greatly appreciated.

What exactly is your problem with seiza? bended legs? knees? ankle?

When you have trouble bending your legs for extended period of time you can practise at home and use a (small) pillow to sit on (e.g. yoga does this) and reduce pressure on the knees and legs.

Barring health complications, and if you are just concerned with sitting for an extended period of time, best bet is to not fidget and let your feet go numb.

Tim Ruijs wrote: What exactly is your problem with seiza? bended legs? knees? ankle? When you have trouble bending your legs for extended period of time you can practise at home and use a (small) pillow to sit on (e.g. yoga does this) and reduce pressure on the knees and legs.

The tops of the feet bending under and facing the ground. The part that is facing upward when you walk, now being sat on is what hurts. Knees and legs are strong.

When I sit seiza my feet rotate slightly so I'm not directly on the bone at the top of my foot. YMMMV

So, the tops of your feet? Mine tend to cramp up if I don't stretch them out a bit. My wife taught me some pointe stretches from ballet (shut up, they work). Mostly the ones I need just involve pointing the toes to stretch out that part of the foot. Plus I'll set in seiza a bit before class to make sure they're not going to go nuts on me when we bow in. That would be embarrassing.

But even with that, I still tend to pull my right foot in a good bit or I just can't stay in that postion for long.

Greg Maroda wrote: So, the tops of your feet? Mine tend to cramp up if I don't stretch them out a bit. My wife taught me some pointe stretches from ballet (shut up, they work). Mostly the ones I need just involve pointing the toes to stretch out that part of the foot. Plus I'll set in seiza a bit before class to make sure they're not going to go nuts on me when we bow in. That would be embarrassing. But even with that, I still tend to pull my right foot in a good bit or I just can't stay in that postion for long.

Overlapping my feet is much more comfortable, but less martially desirable.
Crossing my toes, (or feet close together, but not crossing) tends to lead to cramps. Could be hydrations, poor stretching, low potassium, lots of things, but my solution is usually to go ahead and overlay my right foot over my left.

(My knees have their own issue with seiza, but that's arthritis, and just a fact of my lift).

Brian Sutton wrote: The tops of the feet bending under and facing the ground. The part that is facing upward when you walk, now being sat on is what hurts. Knees and legs are strong.

My best advice is to practice sitting that way as much as possible, getting as close to the position you're looking for, but without overdoing it. My ankles have to roll a bit because I'm too flat-footed, but I just make sure not to overdo anything and I find my body sorts itself out more or less. It's when I've forced myself to sit painfully that I've found the biggest, longest-lasting problems develop.
Stretching slowly and alternating between opposing directions seems to help me.
Good luck!

There is an exercise where you roll your toes into the tatami and reverse to stretch your toes (front end on tatami and lift heel upwards). This might as preparation. Also 'rotating' the front of your of foot in the tatami and flex in your heel. Hope this makes sense :-)
But whatever you do: do not force it, you might do more damage than good....

Freezing a bottle of water and rolling it under your arches is an old trick we used to do in track and cross country. Very soothing for plantar fasciitis, for those that suffer collapsing arches.

Thanks for the tips..

Greg Maroda wrote: So, the tops of your feet? Mine tend to cramp up if I don't stretch them out a bit. My wife taught me some pointe stretches from ballet (shut up, they work). Mostly the ones I need just involve pointing the toes to stretch out that part of the foot. Plus I'll set in seiza a bit before class to make sure they're not going to go nuts on me when we bow in. That would be embarrassing. But even with that, I still tend to pull my right foot in a good bit or I just can't stay in that postion for long.

No need for the comment "shut up, they work. I have nothing but respect for the ballet. They have some of the best body mechanic training in the world. Thanks for the tips.

Are you experiencing muscle soreness, or surface/skin discomfort?

All of the tips above for muscle soreness are good. But the skin on the tops of the feet is also naturally very soft and not accustomed to contact. So you may just need to develop some toughness there, especially if your dojo has a relatively abrasive mat surface, such as canvas.

If that's the case, there's really nothing for it but time. Have someone check your posture to make sure your weight is distributed properly -- not putting too much pressure on any one point -- and make sure that any actual abraded ("mat burned") skin is protected so that it can heal properly.

Katherine

Brian Sutton wrote: No need for the comment "shut up, they work. I have nothing but respect for the ballet. They have some of the best body mechanic training in the world. Thanks for the tips.

Just wait until I start talking about belly dancing and Aikido!

Something that works fairly well for me is to move my knees closer or farther apart during seiza. I sometimes go from knees actually touching to a foot apart and so forth. It still hurts, but just a little less.

While holding onto something for support, I stand on one leg, bend my other leg up into the position it will be in seiza and use my hand to stretch the ankle. Even a bit of this before class seems to help.

Brian Sutton wrote: Anything you can offer for helping to sit seiza will be greatly appreciated.

keep training at the beginning everything hurts but as the times go by your body will get use to it