When I was a child, I used to enjoy being active so it came as quite a surprise to my parents when I began to regularly accompany my grandfather on fishing trips. They often remarked that they could not imagine me sitting still on a riverbank for any length of time. In fact, I used to find the experience very enjoyable. After baiting the hook and casting in the line, it was necessary to sit for quite long periods of time, gazing at the tip of a float that was attached to the line. The tip was bright orange or red and any movement of the float indicated that a fish might be nibbling at the bait below, in which case the float might wobble or disappear below the surface. If you were not alert and giving the float sufficient5 attention then, when you pulled in the line, you would find that the bait had gone. If you were going to catch the fish it was necessary to sit quietly but be ready to react quickly.
Strangely, in spite of my rather active childhood, some of my most vivid memories come from moments of stillness. To this day, if I lie down in long grass or hear the sound of skylarks, it takes me back to my childhood. I remember lying in the long grass outside the boundary of a cricket pitch up on the moors. Sometimes you would hear them first and would need to scan the sky very carefully to pick out the skylarks as dots high above. If you were lucky you would see them as they started to rise and could then lie back and watch them as they went higher and higher into the sky sometimes disappearing altogether.
It occurs to me now how that training in sitting quietly but remaining alert was very useful in later years when observing the meditation object.