No-Form is a standing form of meditation borrowed from Antero’s Paratheatre, which borrowed it from Zen. I have been experimenting with applying it to various movement and awareness practice outside of the Paratheatre context.

It seems any movement practice achieves a greater wholeness and perspective when incorporating stillness – the lack of movement, or the lack of apparent movement.

No-Form can also be viewed as a space to work with our righting reflex. Sitting also engages our righting reflex and allows us to focus more on the spine with the legs removed from the maintenance of uprightness to a large extent, but standing on two legs is central to our experience as humans.

Humans are fairly unique in the way we walk on two legs and stand upright. The apes, our nearest animal cousins, do not approach life from the same basic posture. Our bodies have adapted to uprightness over the epochs. What core wisdom lies within our bones in this basic posture, waiting for us to take time to feel into?

Standing seems obviously the most important posture to master. Standing serves as a dividing line between us and the rest of the animal species.

Humans have the potential for exquisite fine motor control. Most of us are significantly weaker relative to size than our fellow apes. Standing expresses an ability to coordinate fine motor skills and sensory data from head to toe in a beautiful, complex way. The vast majority of us can do amazing things while standing, yet do not need to pay attention to it at all.

Exploring our experiential understanding of the standing pose seems vital for any attempts to discover our unconscious in an embodied, useful way.

I use standing as my base pose. It is the pose I compare everything else to.

No-Form can be done in a variety of ways, and is approached on a case by case basis. In No-Form, we attempt to do nothing. Enjoy the oxymoron. From a biological perspective, that is hilariously impossible. How can you do nothing, while at the same time doing all that standing entails?

We find ourselves at a more nuanced understanding of what we are doing in No-Form.

*** I must admit I have been given a great gift. Attending the Center for Neurosomatic Studies absolutely transformed the way I view and experience my body and the world, under the guise of teaching me an unorthodox yet clinically advanced style of massage therapy. By no means has it been the only experience that has transformed my existence, but they took a chance on me and I could never repay them enough. The best way I can see is to share what I have learned with those interested.

One of the keys to Neurosomatic Therapy is studying in detail what each client is doing with their bodies without realizing it. Study how they stand, how they sit, how they lie down, how they walk, and discover a whole world most of us only get glimpses of. If this knowledge and understanding integrated into modern medicine. . . .the sky could be the limit on what we could accomplish from a health care perspective. ***

Wrapping up this cloud of thoughts for now, some practical suggestions from Antero on No-Form:

“Though no language exists to adequately describe this No-Form state,
the following adjustments have been known to support the experience:

THE PHYSICAL STANCE
Stand in any way that supports vertical rest — find the point of minimal effort to remain standing; stand at rest. The following physical adjustments can support emptying: 1) unlock the knees 2) widen the stance 3) drop the pelvis 4) let the spine drop, relaxed and suspended 5) focus on a full exhale, allowing the inhale to occur as a reflex and 6) eyes shut or open as a slit to minimize external stimuli.

Notes on breath: Emphasize the exhale in the standing no-form process so as to allow the inhale to occur as a reflex. In this way, the vagus nerve secretes a transmitter substance (ACh) which causes deceleration within beat-to-beat intervals of the heart via the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).

INTERNAL ADJUSTMENTS
Once the outer actions of the physical stance are established, the following internal adjustments can support the inner action of No-Form: 1) withdraw attention from the external environment and reconnect attention within 2) relax the desire to control the outcome of the experience 3) relax the desire to control 4) find your anchor or comfort at being nothing and 6) be nothing.”

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