Aerialist-in-training

When most people create their 30-something fitness goal, it seems that it always includes running and ends in "-thon."

So not my style.

But yoga is my style and I'm at the point where strength is my greatest hurdle.
I also realized that I am a frustrated acro/gymnast/balancing artist.
With barely any balance to speak of.

I looked into finding a suspended yoga class, but alas, there are none that were easily found. What I found was aerial silks.

I've been at it since mid-January. We do it when we can, since the teacher is a medical resident and has a wonky schedule. But I love the class and it's motivation for building strength. I'm not too terribly impressive, but I'm learning...

Climbing...


Wrapping for something called "Man in the Moon"




Hip lock...


Splits...



Crazy, right?

You all can keep your "-thons," I prefer to defy gravity.

Meltaway

One of the perks of working for a healthcare institution is that they prioritize preventative care and wellness - so much so that it's harder work to make unhealthy choices than healthy ones.
There's no sugar soda available, and the on-site options stress whole grains, low fat and low sodium. And they offer free Weight Watchers.

Ok, so a bit about me and size. I have been of greater than average size for my height since I was about 9 years old. I was never athletic, but I wasn't a slug, either. I've always been active, and relied mostly on activity to keep my weight in check, since I never really felt that I ate an unhealthy diet. In fact, I've often been somewhat proud of my weight, since 98% of those who find out what it is blanche because it's a number we have incredibly low expectations for, expectations that I shatter.

So I carry it well - yay me.

When I get tired of it or stumble into some motivator for change, I would join a gym and live there 4-5 days a week. Elliptical, weight training, 2000 meters in the pool - I would do it all and put everything else on hold for 3 months to lose a hard-earned 15-20 lbs.

So I joined Weight Watchers at work to see what it was all about. I had low expectations for losing weight through diet and figured if I came out 5-7 lbs smaller in January, that would be good enough.

Well.

I'm midway though week four and have lost 8 lbs without single visit to the gym. Yoga, of course, continues twice a week - and since I've been at it long enough for the flexibility stuff to be easy, I've asked my instructors to challenge me to gain strength (it's totally working, too. I can get into, hold, and come out of wheel pose without shaking. My goal... firefly.)

I found a pedometer outside my building (with instructions!) and have been making an effort to get to the suggested 10,000 steps. I average 7,000, but I can get to 8,200 without trying too hard. And I think that's the point. I want to make a change, but one that doesn't hijack my existing stable of interests.

I value my time and the things I normally do with it: knitting, reading, exploring, spending time with friends, cooking, and tinkering - all things that are generally at odds with being at the gym or highly active. I'm sure I could listen to books on my iPod or get my friends to go on a long hike with me - but history tells me that's a long shot.

I value Thin, but inconsistently. I highly value it when I come back from a store where they didn't have my size or the things in my size were unflattering. Or when I thought that Thin would make my life better. But that was a different time - pre-Physicist, pre-career-change, and pre-Oh-my-goodness-my-life-is-really-pretty-great-what-am-I-complaining-about. Lacking that high value on Thin, I just haven't had the incentive to sacrifice all that other great stuff to a gym membership.

Surprisingly, Weight Watchers allows me both: I clearly see the road to Thin without sacrificing the things I usually give up to slog my way to a measly 10% reduction in body mass. Based on how I'm doing so far, the ultimate goal they set (based on BMI - but don't get me started on that measure) seems totally doable - scary as hell (because what happens when you actually get the thing you thought would both a) change your life and b) be impossible to achieve without fundamentally changing who you are.) - but doable.

Here's to shattered expectations...

Physical Meditation

In the past year, I kept befriending people who regularly practice meditation.

I've tried it - sitting on the floor -silent- trying to clear my mind. I've even experienced moments where there was nothing but my counting (I do that instead of Om-ing). But meditation never really worked for me. I was never really sure what I was supposed to get out it.

I know that I like other forms of meditation. How I feel at the end of yoga class, in the guided meditation, or in the silent times during the UU service on Sundays.

I like it, I like it alot, and I know with all the changes I'm experiencing that quiet meditation is something I need to do more of.

Off subject, but related - I've returned to regular workouts at the gym this month.
It's been about a year.

I was inspired by the realization that I no longer felt like I was inhabiting my body.

I used to have a very physical career - climbing scaffolding, carrying artifacts around, basically on my feet all day and constantly aware of my three-dimensionality. Something about that made me walk taller and feel more at home as me, and after I went into administrative work, I felt that my body and my mind seemed to be at odds. When my body was happy at work, my mind was often bored, but my mind was challenged, I found my body losing its necessity - a brain in a jar.

That said, I knew it was time to go back to the gym. I don't mind working out, but for whatever reason, I usually come up with reasons to skip it.

This time, it's been different. This time, working out has been like meditation.

Swimming is especially mind-clearing. Tonight, I found a rhythm with my breathing, stokes and kicks that seemed lock my body into a perpetual motion machine.

It was...

transcendent.

I always said somewhere inside me was an athlete - but I never thought that physicality could be a path to clarity - its own form of meditation.

Weight

Like most women, I have a weight/self-esteem identity war constantly waging in the nether regions of my mind.
Sometimes I think I just need to own it.
Sometimes I think I am a horrible person who wasted a perfectly healthy body.
Sometimes I think it's not too late.

That said, I thought this was a fascinating comparison of women's bodies, weights and BMIs...

So, how long do you think I have?

I read a great essay in the Times about longevity, and what it takes to get the most out of our short time in the mortal coil.

Given the 6+ hours last night I spent fretting about everything, I thought I should take the suggested Blue Zones quiz to determine my projected lifespan. According to my current status, I am currently 29.6 years old (almost 3 years younger than I actually am) and I'm projected to live 88.7 years, with 74.9 years described as "healthy."

I don't like the idea of 14 years of "unhealthy" - but I think I can affect that with obvious changes I've already incorporated in my life, such as more exercise and an increased intake of fresh foods.

What I found most interesting were the two determiners of the outcome that are somewhat (but not really) surprising: stress/outlook and belonging.

I took the quiz a few times and played with the answers to see what happened.

They predict that those who consume between 1-2 drinks daily will achieve a longer span than those who abstained or overdid it.
They correlate a higher level of education with a longer life.
Those married or in long-term loving relationships gain points over those single, widowed or divorced - although all three land on the same point on the scale.
Those who have a more solid sense of belonging to community (they have two indicators: church and group activities) also correlate to a longer life.

So here's what I think...

Maybe a drink now and then would ease stress. And belonging to a community increases your safety net, and gives you a place to vent your frustrations and accomplish something beyond yourself - you know that you have a place to receive unconditional love and acceptance, and what about that WON'T make you want to hold out a few more years.

The education appears to correlate to community as well, although it may tie into the portion that has to do with annual earnings. Having increased my personal communities greatly through both my masters and undergraduate education, I can say that my education was an excellent predictor for "belonging."

As for coupledom, I think that's a hard call, because a bad one will increase stress levels and therefore decease life span (according to this model) whereas I think (strike that, I KNOW) that a solid friend/family community can be a more than an ample replacement for a partner.

That said, I'm solidly in The Blue Zone, but I need to find a way to let go of stress, frustration and the anger they create together.

I'm going to retake the test in July and see if anything has changed...

acro yoga

New goal.
Don't know when.
Don't know how.
But it's beautiful.

PM Yoga

A friend gifted me a copy of AM/PM Yoga for Beginners, as an Amazon.com mixup left him with two copies.
It took me a while to get it into the DVD player, but last night I tried it.
It's been almost... well... 9 years since I did yoga with any regularity.
Wow! Almost a decade - that's unconscionable!
I've dropped in to the Atma Center now and then for their free yoga week, and I have a book on poses I occasionally crack open and relearn sun salutations - but regular practice rarely sticks.

I did it with such regularity when I lived in Arizona, and again when I moved back to Ohio that I've somehow been in denial that I no longer practice it.
Isn't that funny? That something you did with regularity in a formative period can implant itself into your mind in a way that makes you think... "I do this thing," even if you haven't regularly done it for quite some time.

I'm proud to say that despite a mini-sabbatical, I have gone back to Modern Dance Monday at Studio 11 and it has been reminding me how sedentary my life has become. So last night, recovering from a muddy hike on Sunday and following a solid hour of dance, I gave the DVD a chance.

It's broken into a number of chapters, and I tried the 25 minute "Good Night's Sleep" since that's what I need more than anything these days. It was mostly breathing exersizes and restful poses, and calmed me down quite a bit, but I have enough chatter in my head to cut right through true restfulness.

Tonight I did the 40 minute "Energizing Evening" and I can see myself doing this regularly. It's like a full yoga class without worrying if your top is falling off when you do downward dog. Barbara Benagh has a wonderful voice, and assumes you know most poses, so there's little wasted time teaching you how to get from pose to pose (much appreciated.) I have that wonderful rested/focused feeling I always got after class, the one that immediately went away when I got in the car and drove home... except I have it in my jammies, 20 steps from bed.

Overall, I enjoy it, and I think it'll keep me from my bad habit of getting into some 10pm show I don't really want to watch then watch anyway because 10pm always seems so early to sleep. It may actually enable me to replace a bad habit with a good one.

... and increase flexibility and core muscles to boot!

More to come on the AM when I become the person who can wake up with enough time to do yoga before work. Although, if I keep going to bed at a decent hour, that might actually come to pass.

Wouldn't it be great if yoga begot yoga?

Trying something new

For years I had jobs that were physical. Despite my own misgivings about my body's aesthetic, I always knew I could count on my muscles and bones to lift, hold and balance me. It was distinct sense of truly inhabiting my physical self. And, now, in my office job, it's a sense I miss.

I've come to believe that a disconnect from the body is a disconnect from something deeper and I've come to the conclusion that I will now decidedly inhabit my own skin.

For years I've had fantasies of being a dancer: ballet, jazz, modern... maybe a gymnast? The grace and solid carriage of being they have has always awed me, and I need to stop daydreaming and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

Around mid-December, I received an email blast from a local modern dance studio for a show at CPT, the concept resonated with me, as did the fact that they are located in my neighborhood and have a beginners' class on Monday nights.

So tonight, I arrived with a bottle of water, a good deal of resolve and oodles of trepidation. Luckily, it was a small class: me, the teacher, and a dancer in town for the show. It was moderately difficult, with the alignment of the body proving most challenging. By the end I was remembering... is it "combinations" in modern dance?

I walked home on this unseasonably warm evening, thinking about how my back stays tall when I walk, how to align my feet to hips, and my hips to my shoulders.

I had this thought about 4 years ago that I would be my most healthy and most athletic in my 40s, and here I am, 31, and a modern dance class has begun to break down the 4-year silent estrangement between my mind and my body. Hurrah for resolve!

not entirely broken

thank goodness for ice packs

my back is getting better, but i feel like a slug

i spent the better part of the day watching 30 rock episodes online
and i think i drank my volume in coke zero

i did go for a walk with a neighbor who has a slipped disk,
it was nice to share a hobble with a friend

and a friend dropped by with a heating pad

back to work tomorrow
staying home isn't fun when you're actually sick/wounded

ouch

So I thrashed my lower back yesterday
and I do NOT feel like a badass

I feel like a gimp

I normally do stretches on my excercise ball, including a backbend...
my right lower back twinged a little
and i continued to stretch and then clean my living room

and it got worse

and worse

so now I can only bend over by doing a grand plie

home from work

with an ice pack

this sucks

chicka chicka yeah

2000 meters freestyle

*holla*

that was my Oct 1 goal