Hi Alvin,
You should take a break and let the wound heal completely. Then you will notice the frenum come back to the surface as a ridge. You should feel a lot less pain then if any at all.
With Peace,
Paul
Thanks for your reply, Paul. But that doesn’t work for me, I think. Every time I snip, I will get some length immediately. But I will just lose my length everytime I let it heal. Then by the time I snip again, it amounts to no progress at all! How’s your experience?
Alvin,
here I am finally. I looked up the dates in the old forum and I know my timeline:
Around 1990, started doing Kechari mudra stage 1.
Continued, on-and off for years
Around Feb 2005, discovered AYP and started snipping pretty much straight away. I did some of the ‘snipping in multiple spots’ which I have explained elsewhere. (It’s in the REALLY LONG thread on Kechari mudra.) This gave me considerable extension.
I also did regular ‘milking of the tongue’. This also gave me the muscle-extension to back up the removal of the limiting fibers.
Also started doing some pretty heavy clipping. (‘Grasp and snip’ – not recommended for general use).
Probably around May or so, my tongue was actually long enough for stage 2. But I hadn;t gotten the technique right and didn’t make it. Victor corrected my access, and I got in, some time in July.
Then I deveoped and started ‘tooled talavya’ some time after that.
So I’ve been in stage 2 for about a year, and I think my tongue was long enough after a few months.
Now, to get back to your case. One question that comes to mind is whether you are doing any ‘milking the tongue’, for tongue-muscle extension. Perhaps you are tongue-muscle bound? ( Still, that wouldn’t explain to me why you lose extension shortly after gaining it.)
You say some connective tissue grows to fill some of the gap made by the removed frenum. That’s surely true, but it would be scar tissue. Scar tissue is not strong at all, unlike the frenum fibers themselves. However, one possible explanation for losing the extension is that the scar tissue is limiting you. Here again, milking the tongue might be just the thing for stretching the scar tissue.
An alternative to milking the tongue is to just grab the tongue and hold steady and pull. If your tongue extension is only muscle-limited, that might be the best way to go.
A question arises why the tradition is not so much to apply a steady pull on the tongue but rather to ‘milk’ it. One speculation I have is that the ‘milking’ is better for removing scar tissue, and bringing frenum fibers to the surface. The steady pulling is probably best for stretching the muscles.
Are you milking or pulling the tongue at all? How long do you do it for?
Thanks for your timeline. Sound pretty–just a few months is enough for you to enter stage 2!
I didn’t milk my tongue, and that seems to be the most obvious difference. (I’m doing multiple snipping too: stretching and pulling my tongue in different directions to expose all limiting fibers I could find and snip at each snipping session.)
In the first few days(when they are somewhat white in color), they are not strong, but they become stronger and gradually are just like other connective tissues. Though they don’t hurt much if I snip them, they are strong enough to hold my tongue back!
Ok, sound like I have to milk my tongue. You pointed out the difference between milking and pulling that I was aware of before: I do pull my tongue occasionally, usually right before and after snipping.
Finding the leisure to milk my tongue is certainly a problem. At least I can’t do it outside my apartment.
May be you can share your regimen, especially during your days of fastest progress?
Alvin, my regimen was pretty varied, but what I was generally doing is some major snipping, followed by a healing time. I also tried snipping again before healing completed but I found that that didn’t really help.
Something which may be of interest to you is to check to what extent your tongue is frenum-limited, and to what extent muscle-limited.
Here’s an experiment for you. Grasp your tongue, using say a cotton handkerchief or some other cloth, with both hands close to but not too close to the tip. And pull it. Hold it steady and pull fairly strongly. What do you feel? You may notice a dull ache, which is muscle pain. And you may notice sharper pain, which is from pulling on the frenum. If you have the dull ache, your muscles are being stretched by the pull, and your tongue is muscle-limited; the sharper pain indicates that your tongue is frenum-limited.
Maybe you’ll find that your tongue is both frenum- and muscle- limited. It is very easy to overcome the muscle-limitation by pulling the tongue. For that, a sustained pull for say three minutes in the morning (easy to do while you still lie in bed on your back) will overcome the muscle-limitation rather rapidly, maybe even within say a month, and it could be even faster (or slower) depending on how hard you pull and how long you pull.
So it’s very easy to overcome muscle-limitation. If you do the above exercise, you’ll start to find in fairly short order that the dull ache is disappearing, and all you have left is the sharp pang of frenum-limitation. At that point, pulling won’t help stretch the muscle any more, because the frenum is blocking the stretch. Of course, a major cut of the frenum, reducing the frenum limitation, will make your tongue more muscle-limited immediately, making the tongue ready for further stretching through the sustained pull.
In the earlier days, I did some of the sustained pull exercise, to good effect to stretch the muscle. Later, the ‘milking of the tongue’ doubled for muscle-stretching also.
So in summary, if you are highly muscle-limited, the sustained pull may be better. When the muscle-limitation is over, snipping is needed to reduce frenum-limitation, and ‘milking the tongue’ I believe helps to stretch the scar tissue, bring the fibers near the surface, and serves to do some muscle-stretching too.
Thanks for your detailed reply. I was always wondering whether I’m muscle or frenum-limited. Just couldn’t judge it well by the feeling. It seems to be both… But the REALLY sharp pain (when I pull it hard) under my tongue indicates that it’s more frenum-limited.
Do you notice also, that if we pull it too close at the tip, the surface skin of the tongue may slip over the muscles? Then I may just be pulling (and extending) the skin without pulling the core part of the tongue? Since I somehow feel that the strongest limiting connective tissues are connected not just to the skin but to the core, I prefer to grip (with clean tissues) as large an area as I can and pull it as hard as I can bear.
What do you think about that?
3 mins per day? Certainly I can afford that, may be much more. I just mistook it as something like my hamstring which resist any attempt to lengthen it…
But the REALLY sharp pain (when I pull it hard) under my tongue indicates that it’s more frenum-limited.
You’re welcome, Alvin. Yes, you are probably more frenum-limited. Three minutes a day for a month did stretch the muscle adequately for me; it will be an interesting experiment for you to try it. These kinds of times do produce good results in stretching muscles, as we know from stretching in hatha yoga. But it won’t give you much length if you are heavily frenum-limited. But worth a try even if only to check the results.
Yes, it’s best to grasp with as much surface area as you can.
Hi David and other Kechari practioners,
Now I’m a bit confused, and frustrated. I had been pulling and milking and snipping all these 10 days or so. But still no improvement whatsoever. (again gaining some length right after snipping, but healed just after a few days…)
The biggest problem lies on snipping, still. I’ve come to a point where all the limiting connective tissues are under the surface. And when I reach there, they’re extremely painful to snip. To ensure that I’m not cutting my tongue, I pull my tongue tight with my left hand and let those tissues come taut (and thus somehow away from the tongue) But they’re still painful to snip that I refrain from cutting more than a tiny bit. I think there are many nerves around those tissues.
Did you, David (or anyone else), experienced this during the days of aggressive snipping? I’m willing to withstand pain that I’m considering taking a breath and then cut through them all despite the pain. Just refrain from doing so because the pain seems to warning me. Do you guys think it’s safe to cut through those tissues (other than an obvious risk of infection)?
Alvin
I don’t think cutting your tongue apart is going to make things easier. You have to be patient with the process. The more you relax, the further your tongue will be able to reach. You say that it’s painful to snip…maybe you should actually be snipping less than you already are.
Just my two cents. I hope you don’t damage yourself.
Alvin,
I agree with Scott. If it is painful, you are probably snipping too often. Take it slow, it takes some time.
With Peace,
Paul
Yes Alvin, please take it easy. It’s not pleasant to further pain. Perhaps taking it slower would help. Stage one produces conductivity. Be at peace with where you are right now.
Alan
Hi Alvin:
You are getting the right advice – time to slow down and take it easy.
You know, as I look back, significant progress with kechari in my case was measured in decades, not even years, and certainly not in months or weeks. I was on the path 15 years before there was enough ecstatic conductivity occurring to send me in the direction of kechari. And it has been a couple of decades of gradual development since then. The point is, this is a long term gig, not an overnight event.
On the other hand, times are changing, and I think everyone is on a much faster track now. It is obvious around here, isn’t it? That is great! But there are limits in everything. We’d like to be on the leading edge, not necessarily the bleeding edge. If kechari snipping is done prudently there will be practically no pain and no blood. If there is much of either, it is a clear signal to self-pace the whole thing. The limiting tendon will present itself when it is time to take the next easy step forward.
I suggest healing up and waiting at least a few months before pressing kechari. Give inner silence and the inner energies a chance to stabilize and mingle, and all will become clear.
Sometimes we need to self-pace our bhakti to balance progress with safety. Kechari stage 1 is a powerful practice also, warranting self-pacing sometimes as well.
Practice wisely, and enjoy!
The guru is in you.
Thanks for the replys. I just want to reach stage 2 first, so that I can maintain Kechari without any muscular effort. But my body seems to be holding me back in my progress. I’ll give it some time before I proceed further.
Hi Alvin:
Check here for my most recent suggestions: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1649
Don’t sweat it too much. You have plenty of time.
The guru is in you.