Not too simply and diagrams may help so a google search might be best . But if you can think of the standstills as being similar to solstices .We have just experienced the moon rising and setting far in the north and south , by 2015 ,the next minor standstill , it will be rising and setting in a more confined area of the horizon it will then continue to widening the area until it will be back at the extremes of last year .The whole thing takes 18.6 years so a lot of observation and recording would have been required to calculate it and may have taken generations . Hope that helps .