The Cat and THE SCAT

You can see where I got the name for this exercise. It leverages the memory link with a popular children's book character. I was going to name the exercise "safe squats", but this is more memorable, easier for sati (rememberfulness) to recall. And it's a more fun name that brings a smile, great for physical and mental health.

Regular squat exercise from standing

Looks something like this:

disadvantages: can be hard on joints, knees, especially if you're old, overweight, do too much sitting meditation, etc.

The Cat and THE SCAT

looks like this:

The inspiration for this move, comes from the fact that after you do a long sitting meditation, your legs may be numb. You should do some gentle exercises to not only remedy that, but exercise long enough to prevent chronic damage, nerves dying out and partial paralysis of the legs, for long time sitting meditators like monks and nuns who meditate 8 hours a day. Stretching immediately is not advisable, remember the gorilla mantra "always WASTE FREE". (WAS = warm and soft)

Always get your body warm and soft before you stretch. So to do that, starting from sitting on the floor position, you can do some cat cow gentle stretches, or go into 'cat and the scat'.

Like the picture of the cat shows, your arms are going to be the base and support your squatting move, unlike the standard standing squat. So you've effectively taken half your body weight from pressuring your knees. Now the squatting action is just the legs squatting its own lower body weight. So you can do a lot more squats this way. Depending on your flexibility, you can go from a full squat on the ground initially, to an ending position where your legs are full extended into a standing forward bend posture. But don't force it. The idea here is getting enough reps and circulation back into your feet, knees, legs, and undo the damage done from a long sit.

In one set, you can probably do anywhere between 15-50 reps. Experiment with the speed of the movement, number of reps and sets, breathing, etc., to make this a gentle, safe. and fruitful exercise to counter any damage you may have done with long sitting. Certainly spend at least enough time that no part of your leg is numb or uncomfortable, everything is feeling warm and soft and nice.

As a reference point for an example of what to do, right after a long meditation, while still seated on the floor:

* I'll spend about half a minute massaging my legs.

* Then another half minute doing some flying cat cow (regular cat cow with more spinal orientations)

* Then between 30-50 repetitions of 🙀🐈💩. Most of the reps will just be about half of the range of a full length cat scat, at a pretty fast speed. 50 reps is about the point where I start to feel some 'burn' from weaker parts of the leg getting tired, such as knees and ligaments/fascia around the knee. Notice that this kind of 'burn' is different than the 'burn' that a weight lifter who is trying to bulk up and build bigger and stronger muscles is aiming for. I'm doing high reps and a partial range of motion so I can pump a lot of blood into my feet, ankles, knees that were deprived from a long sitting session. The 'burn' I feel from doing 50 reps is because the circulation pathways are atrophied and weak (compared to non sitting meditators), and the goal is to do enough reps so that I can strengthen my circulation pathways, not to get bigger muscles. So if you're a meditator who has decades of long sitting damage to your lower legs, then do more reps, more sets, feel the right kind of 'burn' so you can heal yourself faster. If your feet get cold easily, your knees get sore easily, your balance standing and walking is kind of wobbly, those are signs you have problems and need to do more reps and sets.

If you compare a standard squatting exercise to 🙀🐈💩, you'll see that cat scat gets a fuller range of motion on the ankles and knees.

I spent time in monasteries where monks and nuns sit 10 hours a day. That is the place people really need to do this exercise. It will never catch on for group sits in a meditation hall, for decorum, etc. But in your own sits in your own space, you should do this. I've also notice long time sitters, and this started happening to myself, where parts of your leg get permanently numb and paralyzed, making your balance standing and walking wobbly, and impacting your overall health. I was able to fix these problems doing other physical exercises after many years, but better to prevent that problem from happening in the first place. I wish someone had taught me some of these great exercises.

Verified great results done many times a day

1/10/2021 update

This is currently what I do every day, after each sitting meditation session (typically 30-90 min each sit).

1 set partial range fast set 36 reps to get heat, circulation - note whatever parts of legs start to get burn or fatigue is where qi flow is suboptimal - should see improvement over time.

1 set 9-18 reps, slow speed, full range of motion, depending on your flexibility I go from full cat squat into legs nearly fully standing and heels on ground. On the down part of the rep, I still go slow and controlled, not letting gravity take out my legs from working, unlike the first set where I do partial range fast set.

This gets heat, circulation, legs feeling normal again quickly and efficiently with zero risk of injury, biasing and working the legs which for most people will have been slowly starved of blood and oxygen for the sit session.

Another fun exercise to combo with Cat and the Scat,

I call it bunny hopping:

From the Cat scat position, instead of squatting up into standing, you jump your legs off the floor completely. It's really fun. Land your feet in different spots. Left, right, forward, backward so you gradually even go from a pushup position into cat scat posture. (I'll make a demo video later)

It's really fun, and great exercise.