Accountability : Intentionality
Perhaps the most difficult and important thing I ever set myself to learn can be wrapped up in that one word.
I don't remember much about Yoga or Tai Chi, for a guy who was an instructor for several years in the 70s. There was a lot of pot and beer involved. Let us speak no more of this.
I have a few words rattling around my brain, often mis-attached to positions or movements, and a general sense of how to do things. Honestly, my body remembers more than my brain. I could probably reinvent a good part of both just by playing around with motions and editing the video tape afterward.
But one thing I remember clearly from both. It's really been the lesson of my whole life.
Do things with intentionality.
This image is not quite it,
but pretty close.
Push with your body
and with your mind
There are other obvious things that this kind of thinking extends too, and I became very skilled in a lot of things, then one day I realized that I never applied that process to my job. I didn't apply it to learning things in my new hobby of programming computers (TRS 80!), I didn't apply it to my relationships, my pet ownership, my housecleaning. I was missing out.
I still have a tendency to drift through life, only partly aware. I don't mind. Because I also have a habit of turning on the intentionality when there is something important happening. It's become so much a part of my life that I barely notice it.
But 4-5 minutes into re-learning Yoga and Tai Chi, and it all came back into focus. If that is all I ever get out of this, I will be well rewarded.
Oh, my alarm went off, it's time to make the embarrassing "Old Crippled up Fat Man does Yoga" video for the night. Have fun.Image from pixabay
Please try my Future History stories - Enmity
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20 mins walk to retail outlets for some errands. 20 mins walk back, into a head wind, to more shops for grocery shopping. Walk home carrying heavy groceries. Total time on my feet, moving, about 2 hours. Food. Rest. Then some light stretching of leg muscles. And that was my rest day ;-}
Yay! I would be in bed for a week after that.
I was pretty shattered. But we have been without a car since a car accident in May, so have got used to doing our shopping and errands that way. Luckily the supermarket is only 2 mins walk away and the organic shop 5 mins. Though 5 mins seems a long way when you're carrying two or 3 heavy bags of meat and veg.
I totally get that. I have to take the bus, but it's still an ordeal. I try to spread it out so I don't have to carry so much and use my backpack to prevent side to side stress, which hurts me pretty quickly.
If we go into the city, it's by bus. There's a grocery store there where we get things like grain free sausages, turkey mince, fresh fish and occasionally a duck from, that we can't get closer to home. That's rather a mission. My limitations are more fatigue, since adrenal fatigue about 20 years ago. Brought on I think by 2 years of going to the gym 5 days a week, combined with a low fat diet. I have to be careful with my thyroid and adrenals now. So a long walk like yesterday, at most once a week.
Shortly, I'll be doing a meal plan for the next couple of days, which leads to shopping list. Then my daily walk, followed by shopping. Then some stretching for today's extras. Will report back when done.
But first, a couple of things I want to blather on about. I know this is accountability, not coaching. I know you're a bit tongue in cheek in some of what you say, and I know you already know everything I'm about to say. But I want to say it anyway, mainly to remind myself.
Yesterday's thought was - why are you doing asanas that hurt, when there are asanas you could choose to start with that don't hurt? At this stage, we want to make progress and do things that encourage us to continue, rather than make it unpleasant. How that related to me was - I kept doing bicep curls till it burned right up into the shoulder, when I could have said, this is day 2, just do 10 and do more next week.
Today's thought - please stop calling yourself "Old Crippled up Fat Man". Again I'm being selfish - I'm only 3 years younger than you and I'm starting to fall into the trap of thinking of myself as getting old. Nah-ah! We gotta stop doing that. Our subconsciouses (subconscii???) don't have a sense of humour, remember. Can we have something like the the "Young pup choosing to heal and get leaner" video series? We can still giggle at ourselves, but instruct that subconscious!
Actually, there are none that don't hurt. I have chosen the ones that hurt the least.
So the upper body hurts as well?
Yeah, I had a fall about 20 years ago which required surgery for my neck and the base of my skull. It's a whole thing.
It was Workers Compensation, so they mostly tried to prove I was malingering, then they found the damage and talked me into settling. Then the damage was worse than we thought. Took 12 years to get everything taken care of, but left me mostly only able to walk for exercise. I have a long way to go.
Bugger.
Ya, sucks to be me, but it could be worse.
Good teachers can make all the difference. And for that twisting pose thing I have always pushed it with the arm as it's part of my morning stretch routine and I also use it to crack my back out. Going to try to remember holding with the spine once it's all clicked in :D
The thing I eventually learned from David (who turned out to be a good friend for years) was that the pose doesn't stretch you, you stretch into the pose. I remember doing this - http://www.theyogaposes.com/yoga_poses.php?input_page=yoga-extended-side-angle-pose - and saying, "I never get much of a stretch from this" and he told me to push down with the heel and reach out with the fingertips. Suddenly, without changing the relative position of my body parts, it was a stretch. Just by changing my intentionality.
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I think that is the secret of everything. I'm more likely to call it presence and totality, but intentionality works too. And for yoga and any movement meditation, that presence fills the body with chi, promotes healing, alignment, and all that good stuff!!! :)