Why Studying with a Master Is Like Jumping off a Cliff

If you attended the Gods Playing in the Clouds training with Bruce Frantzis last week, you will probably go through a funny, and at times frustrating, process in your practice in the coming weeks and months.

When you study with a Lineage Master like Bruce, you get exposed to a lot of material in a short amount of time. It's like being taken up to the top of a cliff and shown the horizon from a vantage point you've never seen before.

However, in the days and weeks and months after, you're not practicing from the top of the cliff anymore. That was just a preview. Now, you're back at the bottom of the cliff now and you've got to claw your way back up the rock face. You feel a dramatic change in what it's like to do the movements. On Sunday, each move felt fluid and you were tuning in in ways you've never paid attention to before. By Friday, you might feel stiff, disconnected, and a little sluggish. What happened to those sensations of the mind clearing or the nervous system releasing?

While some of the incredible things you experienced during the training now feel out of reach, don't worry. If you've had the experience once, you can get there again.

So here's the best advice my teachers have given me to make the whole process feel less frustrating: over the next week, focus your practice on the first thing you remember Bruce teaching. Start there and then work through the material piece by piece, in the order he taught. It might feel like a slow climb, but you'll have the surest footing and make stable progress this way.

And maybe in a few months you'll look out from the top of the cliff again....Happy Shaking!