Ceremony
The first ten minutes are not the session
On arrival as the first and most important part of the hour.
The first ten minutes are not the session. They are the threshold. The session does not begin when hands meet skin; it begins when the body stops checking the exits.
I have learned not to rush this. The temptation, early on, is to be useful immediately, to justify the hour. But usefulness, applied too soon, is just another demand. The body has had enough demands.
Arrival is not a formality before the work. It is the first and most important part of it.
So we wait. We let the room do its slow work. And when the body finally settles, fully, into the surface beneath it, everything that follows has somewhere to land.