Mike, I quite literally followed the instructions. Pavel mentions that the end of your day is a good time to stretch, and 2-3 times per week, so that's what I did.
At the time, my children were young, so after they'd gone to sleep around 10 PM, 2-3 times per week, I'd work on my stretches on an exercise mat either in front of the television or reading. I'd do a few split switches (martial arts split, switching from side to side), then get myself into whatever side split I could manage, do a few tension/relaxations cycles, rest a little, and repeat the split switches followed by the tension/relaxation cycles of the side split. Sometimes I'd practice tension/relaxation cycles for the split switches, sometimes not. After my last side split, I waited out the tension - I just hung out in whatever my best side split was for a while, and I mean a good while, probably 15 minutes.
And the devil is in the details - if you don't practice prying, lengthening your spine, lifting up out of your hips, pulling your thighs out of the sockets, and other techniques and visualizations taught in RIS, then you aren't maximizing your stretching time.
My maintenance isn't usually tension/relaxation work, just going through a comfortable range of motion on the Cossack Sequence from Super Joints most mornings. If you look at your groin and the angle of your thighs, and if you do your Cossacks properly, you'll see that you're not far from a side split already.
-S-