| | Hi Fitter, this is something I have been thinking about as well lately, namely using the HIIT (high intensity interval training) technique, which is very effective at building physical strength, endurance etc., in the realm of meditative skill development.
I can attest to the usefulness of the technique in the physical area - it seems that the body adapts a lot better to short bursts of intense demands at the outer edge of one's current abilities compared to long averaged-out training at low or medium intensity (say, running on a treadmill for 30mins). By pushing oneself to the absolute maximum, the body constantly keeps over-compensating (muscle growth), whereas it will very quickly get used to the less intense training, even if stretched out over longer training time (body stops adapting quickly, which results in less than optimal training yields given the invested time and energy).
Now obviously training one's concentration is different from trying to get a sixpack, but I still think that the same principles should apply. There is something to be said about brain plasticity and our mental ability to adapt and improve when challenged in certain ways, just as the body adapts when repeatedly faced with physical demands.
Your proposals are interesting, however I think what might be improved upon is the stressed amount of intensity in the "active" periods (as opposed to the periods of rest, where you basically just do nothing). Of course I am aware of the fact that the super intense bear-down on the object kind of concentration is not the suggested and skillful way to go, but maybe these ideas can somehow be tweaked somewhat to challenge the practitioner a little bit more, if not in intensity than at least in continuity of concentration (which as you have shown yourself is the real key to getting somewhere useful).
Anyways, I think this could really be helpful for a lot of yogis. It ist really easy to waste a lot of time basically daydreaming for 45mins (half-assedly coming back to your breath from time to time) until the timer goes off, and thinking you are doing great concentration practice. (I at least am certainly guilty of this) |