Said the Spider...

Lao Tse, currently spelled Laozi, according to Wikipedia, said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

What he didn’t say is that that single step can set off profound changes.  Imagine kicking a pebble with that first step and starting a rock slide.  Not that all change is bad.  (Except on my computer; software update has crashed it twice today.)  Sometimes that first step seems to be into an elevator heading for the sky.

Fitness can be a profound change.  We may not recognize ourselves.  We may find that the strength we have gained in our bodies has changed our power in the world.  Other people may treat us differently, in both good and less good ways.

We can react to that with fear, ice cream, and blankets, or we can gird up for adventure.  I vote for adventure.

Oh, yeah, that

I love lists.  Things to cross off!  A visual record that I didn’t spend all day sitting around eating pizza, unless that is what was on the list for the day, which hasn’t happened so far!

The only problem is that things on the list, unlike sitting around eating pizza, suddenly take on the aspect of work.  I have plenty of actual work things on my list for the week, but I also have cardio on my list every day.  Cardio, in my world, means riding my bike, going swimming, listening to loud music, and generally feeling good.  In other words, it is fun and good for me.  It makes me happier and clears my head.

I was talking to a friend yesterday and she said she just needs to remember that once she is out there doing, it is fun.

Fun!  That’s what it is all about.

What are we going to do for fun today?

I need a miracle every day...

Last night I went to see the Grateful Dead.  Despite the five hours I spent in my car yesterday, I managed to surpass my step goal for the day by hiking from my parking spot in roughly San Mateo County to the stadium at Levi’s and then dancing like a happy fool.  There is a reason that one of the smells that makes up the composite “Deadhead” is sweat (and I like it better than the parts that are incense and spilled beer and dust).  The crowd definitely dances like no one is watching.  I got my exercise.

My step count is not the official marker of whether I have Done Enough, however.  I can get my steps pretty easily on the days when I catch up on laundry, carrying baskets up and down the stairs.  I don’t break a sweat.

We like to think that we have active lifestyles.  Maybe we do.  But maybe we are overestimating, just a little, how much we are doing.  If we were so active strolling through the street festival and getting our 10,000 steps, why aren’t we sore the next day?  Did we ever have to interrupt our conversation while doing the yard work because we had to focus on breathing for a minute?

I needed to do some work on my studio floor on Saturday.  A bunch of the weights had to be moved, some sections of floor needed to come up and get replaced, and everything had to be returned to its rightful place on the new flooring and mats.  I got in plenty of steps, but since I am still letting my hand/wrist/arm stuff heal, it was Brent who actually got the ambient workout shifting weight plates and dumbbells.

I am not trying to say that taking the stairs or schlepping the groceries doesn’t help contribute to our health and wellbeing, just that it doesn’t get us out of doing some crazy dancing or heavy lifting from time to time.

Even the air is thin...

I was reading an article yesterday about mountain climbing as a sport that requires extreme fitness.  (The article is in the current issue of this magazine.)  What I found fascinating in the sample week of workouts was the determined inclusion of yoga.

While yoga has obvious fitness benefits in building a lean, strong, and flexible body, one of the points of its inclusion in the workout plan was its development of mental focus.  Mountaineering is not just a whole body sport; it is a whole person sport, requiring as much from the brain as the muscles and bones.

Taking the time to meditate, to tune in, to move purposefully and mindfully builds our fitness.  We need those qualities of mind as well as body in our daily lives.

Tree pose, anyone?

Sting Like Bee

I’m a girl.  (This just in…)  Culturally, this means that I do not include in my definition of superawesomefitnessness the ability to win a physical fight.  I have never watched a pay-per-view MMA match or boxing match.  I have, however, seen most of the Rocky movies and When We Were Kings.  I admire, in a casual way, Muhammad Ali, in part because of his poetic way of speaking and in part because I adopt his beat-Foreman philosophy (take whatever he dishes out until he’s exhausted; then punch him out) in my life.

My son loves boxing.  He joined a boxing gym a while back and he comes home drenched in sweat and exhausted and happy.  Which made me want to try it.  And not just because I like to try new things.  Yesterday he took me with him.

It was incredibly humbling and fun.  I jumped rope and found out I’ve been doing it wrong.  It’s also much harder than it was in the “Not last night but the night before” days.  The speed bag may be possessed and my exorcism ability needs some work.  The big gloves thwack into the padded thingie (did not learn the technical term for the big bar covered in red and black duct tape on the wall) with such a pleasing sound.  The only part where I felt competent was when I finally got to do the circuit:  crunches, pushups, squats, mountain climbers, no problem.

I came home two hours later both wiped out and energized.  I may do it again.  But I draw the line at the soggy gray sweatpants and the raw eggs for breakfast.

Look at the weights

Some days go better than others.  We go to bed full of excellent plans for the morning and we wake up feeling like Wile E. Coyote under the piano, cliff chunk, safe, and obligatory pink umbrella.  We may not have cartoon-like ability to reinflate our bodies after that kind of flattening, but we can pick ourselves up and make the best of it.  Occasionally, very occasionally, that means going back to bed until we feel better.  The rest of the time, we just have to start small.

A wise woman I spoke with once told me about her favorite advice from a trainer, ever.  He told her, on those less-cheerful days, just to go look at the weights in the gym.  Go look at them.  Then go home.

There’s a trick in there.  Once we make it to the gym and look at the weights, we are up, dressed, moving.  Lifting them doesn’t seem so bad anymore.  We find ourselves starting the workout and feeling maybe a little better.  Maybe not, but at least we are doing something.

Go look at the weights.

Now if I can only remember where I left them...

I have progressive lenses in my glasses, which means, for those blessed with better vision than I, that my glasses are like bifocals but without the obvious line between the distance and the close vision sections.  They work great.  I do not notice the shift from one focus to the other.

No, this is not just gratuitous sharing of more information than anyone wants to know about my eyeballs.  It’s a metaphor, of course.  My glasses allow me to focus on what is immediately in front of me and on what is off in the distance, much like we all need to do when we consider fitness (See!  I made the connection!).

We need to know that we have that marathon or bikini or weight lifting triumph or reunion wowing coming, but we also need to focus in on what we have to do today to get there.  Maybe that means patiently doing our physical therapy exercises, or pushing for the extra ten minutes of swimming, or passing up the pie.  The now and the later give meaning to each other.

Pick your focus today!