So now that you have the hammock installed, how the heck do you get into the thing and get comfortable?

I see it everyday at the store; and I know I have to do something about it. I am not, after all, just a merchant of cleverly knotted cords. I am an apostle of stress reduction and relaxation, balance and health, love and happiness, and peace on earth. And to me it all starts with simply knowing how to use a hammock, a skill, humble in conception, yet apparently fiendishly difficult to comprehend for many Americans(mah fellow 'mericans).

Here is how it starts: They come into the store, and at first are reluctant to even try a hammock. Then after some cajoling they get in, aligning themselves with the long hanging axis of the hammock assuming the general shape of an unhappy banana. Now this happens after I have suggested to them that they need to lie in the hammock at a diagonal. I remind them about that piece of advice; and so, eager to please they contort themselves into an even unhappier looking pretzel position until I pull them out of the hammock, and give them the famed hammock demo. And so I think to myself, if things can go this far wrong with me standing here, how about the hundreds of internet and phone order customers every year who have to figure it out for themselves. So below is my patent pending walk through of a lay down in a mayan or amazona style hammock.

First assumption is that the hammock is installed properly according to the instructions given else where. Secondly these instructions are for the larger Mayan hammocks. For smaller hammocks some fairly obvious adjustments will need to be made.

Step one: stand next to the center, or lowest hanging part of the hammock, facing away from it, and reach back and grasp a handful of the far side of the hammock and lift it up over your head. If you were to let go of that part of the hammock at this point it would fall almost to your waist.

Then sit down in the middle of the hammock and gently lie straight back into that bunch of hammock you are holding over your head.

Now swing your feet up in and stretch the hammock out to the full distance between your out stretched hands and feet, making sure you are centered in the hammock and that you are perpendicular to the hanging axis of the hammock. Your head should not be hanging over the edge, nor should your feet.

For some people Nirvana is already happening. But if you plan to sleep in the thing and/or reach the zenith of comfort, you now move slowly toward the hanging axis of the hammock until you find a sweet spot that supports you evenly. This will be approximately a 45 degree angle off axis in the larger hammocks, maybe a 30 degree angle in some of the narrower ones.

Move around, don't be bashful, the hammock will conform to you. Give it a shot.

Once you are used to how the hammock supports you, you can move around into any type of free form position that you like. The above directions, of course are for the beginner in the path of enlightened hammockology. Veterans will find their way to the doorway of bliss, in a manner of their own devising.