Knees

I haven't run for weeks.

My IT band is messed up, my knee is messed up and I have come to wonder why I didn't pursue power walking instead of running...

Oh ya, cuz running makes me happy, walking makes me bored.

But now there is no running and not very much walking.

This is the true meaning of boredom.

Change

I am reading Geneen Roth's excellent book, Women, Food and God. I like what she has to say and what she writes about change:

The shape of your body obeys the shape of your beliefs about love, value and possibility. To change your body, you must first understand that which is shaping it. Not fight it. Not force it. Not deprive it. Not shame it... Change, if it is to be long lasting, must occur on the unseen levels first. With understanding, inquiry, openness.

I find every sidelining injury makes me inquisitive. As I type I am icing my flared up IT band/wonky knee. This wasn't a sudden injury, the inflammation was created over time. Every time I didn't stretch enough, every time I pushed past the pain in my knee to try that kneeling yoga pose, every time I ignored the aches and kept on going.

Now I'm going nowhere. Stuck on the couch with ice. I recognize old unhelpful thinking - the no pain, no gain mentality or the "I must work very hard and push my body very hard to lose weight" thoughts.

I want to change that mindset.
I want to stop fighting with my body.

I am seeking something that feels quite mysterious. How can my body get stronger without damage and injury? This is indeed unseen. But now I am looking.

Being in a rush

I am in a rush.

A rush to be fit, to be thin, to be a yogini, to run fast, to lift heavy weights, to do the dancer's pose and on and on the list goes...

Being in a rush isn't helpful. In fact it's worse than not being helpful, it's detrimental. I'm reading The Power of Now and intellectually agree with Tolle's wisdom but haven't quite internalized it.

I wonder if remaining in the present is as important as sweating and stretching and 10 servings of fruit and vegetables every day. I think it is.

You can't rush the present. So if I don't spend my day thinking about the future, imaging another kind of life in another kind of body than I am left with today, right now...

It is a constant mind tugging to stay here, right here, right now and not zip off into the future.

A 24/7 mental workout.

My lote

Boot/Butt Camp Week #2
Hated it and loved it - in equal parts, hence my new word, lote. I lote boot camp. Lote it with all my heart, soul and ridiculously sore, tired, inflamed, angry muscles.

The walk to the top of Citadel Hill got my heart going crazy and that was merely the warm-up. When the new leader of the day said, "We're going to do 100 push-ups" I was sure she was kidding. She wasn't.

I did 100 push ups today. That's a wow. Another wow is how oddly happy my body feels with this kind of workout. I didn't run once this week (except to first base on baseball night). This week was all about hot yoga with my kid and then today's boot camp.

Four sessions of hot yoga and I am addicted. Addicted to the mystery of what will happen on my mat. A week ago, yoga made me so angry. Angry with my bulk and inability to move in the way I thought I should.

This week Moksha Yoga has made me sweaty and strong,amazed at the strength of my body.

And then I did butt camp - I wanted to weep at my weakness, my noodle arms trying heft my body for another 10.

I am on a roller coast of body learning. It's quite a ride.

New is good

Butt camp was brutal - as challenging and fun for my body as I'd hoped. After, my inability to walk without groaning or sit without moaning proved the true term for the experience is indeed butt not boot camp.

That was Saturday. Sunday brought another unexpected adventure in the story of surprising my body.

Moksha yoga - hot, sweaty yoga. It's my newest addiction. I am literally counting the minutes until me and my kid go back tomorrow for the 6:30 a.m. class.

When I arrived for the Karma class last night (you make a donation, minimum $5) I was a tad nervous. Saunas make me nauseous and I could barely bend over. I wondered if more exercise was the right thing to do or if laying on the couch would be better. Recognizing that laying on the couch really hasn't worked for me, me and my petunia ventured into the Dresden Row studio.

After 60 minutes of sweating profusely and laughing occasionally in a room of 50 strangers I left different, loose and light and wanting to dance.

What the hell was I thinking?

I am off for my first ever boot camp this morning.

I find myself in a similar space as when I faced my first long run. I keep asking myself, "What the hell was I thinking?", I keep repeating this question in my mind.

The battle of the bulge typically finds the bulge the ultimate winner.

This round, I'm going for gold. Victory will be mine; my body will beat the bulge. To achieve this, I know I must use new tactics.

Boot camp is one of my secret weapons.

Since I may not be able to move for an extended period of time apres, I thought I better do this update now.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, away I go...

Me and my yoga mat

Once upon a time I went to my local rec centre and learned easy, relaxing yoga moves. I had a great teacher; she encouraged the class to do what we wanted on any given night - slow down, speed up or just lay on the mat. I often laid on my mat, not moving.

I first heard the expression, "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got" at a Weight Watchers meeting many moons ago. While I agreed with the sentiment, I wasn't ready to not do what I'd always done.

Now I am.

Changing ain't easy, though nobody said it would be. I want more from my body, less of it. I want to run fast, it so prefers to plod. I want to contort myself into a pretzel, my bulk blocks me.

I swore ever so silently while on my yoga mat this past Sunday. I struggled with the poses, with my shape, with the holds, twists and lunges. I felt awkward and tight and wrong. And it sucked. At the end, that fun shavasna part, aka laying still at the end, my new teacher said, "Say something nice to your body." Helpful.

So now I am back to the feeling I had on the treadmill, running one minute walking for one minute, wanting "to be a runner". I didn't know how long it would take but the goal was specific.

Now my goal is to be a happy yogini with more ohmmming than #!*^#, more flow than not. I like my goals to be clear, this one isn't. All I know is that I will be on my mat three times a week.