Standstill and its companion hexagram Peace open with the same image and take it in opposite directions. Legge's translation gives grass pulled up, bringing with it other stalks whose roots are connected, and promises good fortune and progress where the subject holds firm correctness. In Peace, that tangle of roots describes capable people drawing one another into service. Here, with heaven and earth already moving apart, it describes them withdrawing together, none of them going alone.
The small commentary refuses to let this read as a retreat from duty. It states that the mind of the line is bent on serving the ruler, which is the whole distinction the line turns on. Withdrawal at the start of a stagnant time is not an abandonment of responsibility but a recognition that responsibility cannot be discharged in present conditions, and that leaving in company preserves what will be needed when conditions change.
Yielding at the base of the lower trigram Kun, the line stands at the very beginning of the obstruction, before the closure has hardened and while movement is still cheap. The Great Symbolism tells the superior man to restrain the display of his virtue and avoid the calamities threatening him, adding that there is no opportunity for the glory of office. The first line is where that counsel is easiest to follow, and the good fortune promised to it belongs to acting early rather than to enduring well under pressure later.