Be the change you want to see.

wow.
this weekend I went with my friend Chelsea to a 3-day workshop for the dance form we both study in, called Open Floor, or Five Rhythms...
it was such an amazing experience, that I still can't, partly don't want to, wrap words around it.
the kind of time that feels like you'll break the spell if you try too hard to describe it, too precious to try to explain.

Here's the KIND of weekend it was though: flirty fun floaty flowy.

I danced and moved and explored and stretched and didn't take long breaks for the entirety of the session. Fri 7-10 pm, Sat 11-2 and 3-6, Sunday 2-7 with a break at 4:30-5.

So call it thirteen hours of being carried along by the dance and the moving and the community and the exploration of what my physical self is capable of. Beautiful, ugly, silly, boring, all of it, range of motion, all the different moods and impulses that the music and our teachers encouraged to come out.

Aside from emotional and self esteem shift-change-improvements, the physical improvements are tremendous.
my shoulders feel totally liberated, I can move them n all kinds of directions, watch my collarbones be mobile (what??)
and late on Saturday I had THE most painful kind of muscle cramp, in my low right abdominals, at first I was like, shit I overworked them but I dug my fingers into the muscle to try to support them (through the deep belly fat) while they cramped, breathed and hollered a little (I was actually sat down in the loo when this triggered, heh)

but when the cramp finally released me and I was able to stand up again, there was this... only way to describe it, freedom, open space, liberation? in my belly and my hip and leg and belly and back were straighter, looser, more limber... I had a new rotation in that hip, as I discovered when we returned to the dance floor, a new violence was possible in my movements, explosive and HUGE.

I need to move this some more, because it's immense and gorgeous, after seventeen years after the initial injury, this precious body has found strength and release and liberation.

I wasn't larger than this body, or smaller than this body, but exactly body-sized; and everything was full of flow and amazement.

I have a completely different belief about what I'm physically capable of now, and the crunchy painful fear and worry has softened and melted and released and ALLOWED.

...Right now, if you're reading this: for just a moment, roll your neck gently, move your shoulders around in circles, twist your torso, wiggle your hips, flex your feet. If like me, you tend to sit a lot, take a moment to check in with your body and love it with some movement.

and that's what I have for now. Got a busy day today, looking forward to it.

Body has been tightening up and giving me pain. Have only had one even half-serious workout in the last month, today was my second time in the gym since before Burning Man.

I didn't task myself with making up for lost time. I climbed on the elliptical machine for 18 minutes, made a point of keeping it at a rate that raised my temperature and heartrate without making me stressed ... lunch was too close to when I went to workout, but I modified accordingly. And I was sufficiently warmed up before heading to the Gentle Yoga class, which was a LOT of what I needed. Not everything, not quite, but gave me a great workout and let me check in with all the tight places to see what they wanted. (more moving, of course!)

And there was a substitute teacher who was really quite excellent. She was kind enough to give me a good demonstration of bakasana (Crow Pose) which several friends have been practicing and posting photos of on FB and now I have a fairly good idea of what I need to do in order to have the basics down. I need a strong tight core, strong triceps, strong inner thighs... and a willingness to fall on my head while practicing this radical arm-balance.

Okay.
Time to work on looking ridiculous sometimes. And since I also wanna get to the point of doing forearm, head and handstands? this is a good intermediate step, feels like to me.

so I will work on moving enough tonight that today's yoga won't make muscles too stiff, and try starting to practice the things I need tomorrow.

I've been writing these posts for about a year now, I believe. (correction: since April 2012, so 18 months or so)
I have had difficult time rebuilding a fitness habit since I damaged my leg taking TaeKwonDo in 1998. It was the first time I could remember in my life where my whole body felt strong, balanced, powerful. My feelings about fitness and strength got very complicated after that injury, for various reasons. As feelings often are the motivation for actions...

Well. Due to the Waldorf teacher training, I shored up the foundation of my emotional life, started to take better care of my health, discovered my knee was indeed borked. Had surgery two years ago to replace my ACL, and worked to build my strength up in "pre-hab" and also in re-hab...

I started this 100 things series, like a lot of people did, to write many posts about something that interested me. But I had a sneaky second reason.

I was writing with much more regularity than I was exercising.
*shrug*
So I decided to chain the two habits together.
The one motivated the other, you know? I had an excellent excuse to write, IF I got off my duff and got out or got to the gym. It did work, and I wrote a lot about how I was changing, what body part hurt the most this week and why I thought that was, my hopes and dreams and goals for the whole endeavor, and so on.

But this post today, is because I have realized that I now... I just GO to the gym.
I've successfully built a habit that I wanted to build, and I am seeing remarkable results. I am SO much STRONGER than I once was. Body looks better, functions better, than it has in nearly 20 years.

Building for the future, me. And I'm glad to be doing it for ME (and for Jeff... Keeping up with a younger man can sometimes be *ahem* arduous) and not to fit into a wedding dress or to please someone else.

The other habit I'm proud of building, over the last few years, is the habit of speaking to myself with kindness, of touching my body with kindness. I noticed, today at the gym, gently massaging my tight shoulder and tight knee, that I was speaking gently and encouragingly to my body, moving slowly and gradually stretching as well as I could without judging... "There now, you can do this... It's okay, breathe... Relax, honey... There you go!"

I had to teach myself so much of this. Respect for the body, love of self, valuing self, and what self can do, what bodymind can do together... *wry* was not in the toolbox we got at my house growing up.

So now, having freshly turned 44, it feels as though I have a baseline of fundamental self confidence and physical strength that some lucky bastards have by the time they finish their teens.

Gonna keep moving, keep building strength, enjoy this being embodied thing, spread joy and help out where I can.

Okay. Step out in faith and Get Some Shit Done, now I've got the tools.

Yesterday I went to fyrekaaat's 21st birthday party, and bailed on my usual Monday dance class at 5rhythms. (For the record, I really miss the dancing, but I don't get invited to such a special birthday party very often, so I made a tough choice.

I'm really proud of myself for hauling my butt to the gym in the late afternoon to make up for missing the dance class. And incidentally, because my joints have been HURTING. and I know that if I move intentionally, my muscles limber and stretch, stop hurting so bloody much, and my joints get relief also.
I'm lucky that way, as I have friends for whom this isn't true.

But I just wanted to brag a little about what I accomplished.
1) I spent a full 30 minutes on the machine-that-is-the-bastard-child-of-elliptical-and-exercisebike (I gotta find out what the hell to call that thing, because it is FUN). This is almost ten more minutes of cardio than I usually do. Had it set on level 1; I must admit that it wasn't uber challenging. I think that's okay, because my shoulders and neck and back have been so twingy that I wanted to be gentle and prolonged with the warm up.

2) I did a little bit of work on the weights, added some weight on a couple of machines (d'oh! just realized I completely skipped the adductors and abductors machines!) and helped some of the tight sore muscles to relax. Generally quite gentle with myself after almost 3 weeks away.

3) Found an open space off in a secluded corner with nobody in it, and yoga mats hanging. I love this spot. I did a variety of my yoga warmups until the remaining stiff muscles felt better, then did some of the wonderful stretches. My core muscles must be reasonably strong, because I can hold my legs up in the air firmly without any wobbles and without *thinking* about it. This is so much yay.

4) Finished off with rocking up into a shoulder stand again, and made the effort to try and straighten my legs and torso up more vertically... can't get there yet, but nothing hurt and I wasn't very wobbly, and this was A New Thing that made me chuckle with pleasure at my own body.

(and then Jeff and I went to the pub in Oakland with ag_unicorn and zpdiduda and fyrekaaat and her friends and tried some new kinds of beer. Nom nom nom Blood Orange Cider and Purple Haze, which is a raspberry-wheat-beer.)

A very good evening, well spent in good company.

Jeff and I BOTH made it to the gym tonight.
WOO
(and he made noises like he was amenable to doing this every Sunday, DOUBLE WOO)

NOTES:
I stretched before getting on the exerbicycle, I think I'll be trying to do that consistently in future.
My foot hurt less (plantar fasciitis AGAIN), and I believe it's because I pre-stretched. 22 minutes on the bicycle.

Nearly 2 months since I lifted with any regularity. *sigh* I've been getting 2 days of loving movement pretty reliably, with dance on Mondays and Yoga on Tuesdays, so I'm not in horrible shape, but I have specific muscles that are very very crunchy. I tried to work those specifically (various around the shoulder capsule, and pectorals, plus hip flexors and all these needed to open the hips). Still feel crunchy.

We'll see how I feel after dance tomorrow night and yoga on Tuesday.

I'm going to try to add Sundays reliably to the schedule, and after that, hopefully Thursdays. That would mean 4 days a week with significant exercise, if I can do this on a consistent basis.

Two days a week is not quite enough to make steady progress in strength and flexibility, HOWEVER...

... I did manage to put my foot WITH EASE onto the top bar of the stretching fence. Yup, my foot at shoulder height, easily, and stretching there felt strong, stable, and good.

that was friggin' COOL.

Made it to the gym kind of late for me tonight... lots of, I guess you'd call it social interaction and/or networking and/or problemsolving happening around the late afternoon when I originally intended to go. Very quiet space in the evening after 7 pm.

only there for a brief visit, about 10 minutes on the ellipticals again, damn! that makes me pant like a dog who's been running on the beach. got my pulse up past 150, that's pretty rare, especially for only 10 minutes.

Light work on upper body on the nautilus-style weight machines, and light yoga work out in the foyer, still I was there almost an hour, and left the place in a much mellower and more centered frame of mind than when I went in. Working out is a good way of helping me manage my stress and mood, I'm glad I have the chance to get myself to such an attractive space. Since it's a beautiful place, it makes it more restful and appealing to actually go and move (and sweat).

Time to wash the workout clothes, methinks, and (le sad) the pretty new bright blue brushed cotton trousers I got on the recent shopping trip with runeshower. First time wearing them, and I think I got peanut butter all down the leg. Argh.

I'm also dead pleased to be 1/4 of the way through my 100 things posts. I was hoping that engaging in this posting endeavor would be of help in actually building a regular habit of exercise, and it seems to be doing so.

Got to go to Merry Pryankster practice tonight in Alameda. Link Here and here and oh, here, if you're curious. YAY DANCING

I danced EIGHT TIMES. INCLUDING the bouncy dances, y'all. This was so much fun. And it has been so frigging LONG.

I have explicit permission both from my physical therapist (who I see tomorrow morning) and from my surgeon (who I got to check in with this morning) that I can return to low and medium impact activities.

MOAR DANCING PLZ KTHX.
flirting and moving and music and friends and fun?
YES PLZ.