Movement For Seniors
The subject of movement for seniors popped up on my thread. Whether "mere" health or the desire to learn a physical skill (say, martial arts) is a serious concern, as easing back into aliveness can be a challenge. Here are some rules.
Health before fitness. FITNESS is what people think they want. But fitness is "how high, how far, how fast, how heavy" and so on. PERFORMANCE. But while this is fine, what is more important is HEALTH, which is basically the core functioning of the organism. We can measure this in things like quality of sleep, how you feel when you wake up in the morning, general energy, pain-free joints, vibrant sex drive, and so on. The healthy human animal. While sports, martial arts and so forth can certainly have aspects that deal with this, THAT IS NOT THEIR INTENT. The general intent of sports and martial arts are the refinement of hunting and fighting skills. Survival. Health is secondary to slaying that bear, or fighting off those bandits. Here are some health-first activities. Pick one and master it.
Yoga. My top choice. Hatha and pranayama yoga are the highest, more refined health disciplines available to the general public. If you follow a few rules, and treat it as a SCIENCE to research and deepen, you will be colossally rewarded. The biggest problem with yoga is that you often don't feel the effects until you stop doing it for a while and then come back to it: then, to your horror, you might realize that qualities you'd taken for granted were very special indeed. Want to start martial arts training? Start with yoga. Running? Yoga. Weights or kettlebells? Yoga. I can't be more emphatic about this. Strength, flexibility, balance, awareness, endurance…the total package.
The Five Tibetans. A super simplified yoga routine. Takes only 3-20 minutes to perform, averaging about 12 minutes for the full 21 repetitions. You can find them easily, and free, on Youtube. By far, the biggest mistake people make is treating it like "exercise." No. Start with 3-5 reps of each per day, and add no more than 1-2 per week until you get to 21. Weak links in your skeletalmuscular system will be revealed. Do NOT progress faster than this. Good, solid stuff with millions of practitioners worldwide. Very tested and safe if done with awareness.
Tai Chi. Excellent, but the average quality of teacher is less efficient/effective than Yoga. But the good ones? Wow. www.firedancetaichi.com is one portal to learning this art. Mobility, endurance, awareness, stress relief…wonderful stuff.
Chi Gung. These exercises, like "Chi Ball" and "Tai Chi Ruler" are the energy system inside Tai Chi. You are learning to relax in a very specific way that enhances many aspects of life.
Joint Mobility drills. Scott Sonnon brought these back from the Soviet Union, and they are, minute for minute, possibly the most important movement you can incorporate into a daily routine. Three minutes of it, first thing in the morning (maybe to some sexy music!) will warm up every joint, muscle, tendon and ligament in your entire body. AMAZING. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=joint+mobility+sonnon
The "Five Minute Miracle" concept removes all the logical arguments, exposing the real reason most people don't exercise: emotional crap. Tangled beliefs and values. But once you learn to breathe properly (Sonnon's "Be Breathed" course is superb), you just do it, or another similar pattern, for sixty seconds, once every three hours (or more often). Most exercises that don't depend upon "second wind" for their effect, or don't require extensive warm-up, can be done this way. The beautiful thing is that it eliminates excuses. You don't need a lot of time, equipment, social change, spousal approval, or anything else. If you had the time to read this, you had MORE than enough time to integrate five minutes of movement a day. Say…one Tibetan exercise per session. That works VERY well. The point is to remove all logical objections so that you have nothing but your self-image, emotional aversion patterns and fear of aging to stop you. Yes, fear of aging. As long as you don't exercise, you can hallucinate that you are any level of fitness you want to imagine. But doing it? Bwah hah hah! Reality has a surprise for you. It takes COURAGE to face your meat suit every day. But if you don't…you'll fall apart. And then lie to yourself that it was inevitable to feel the way you do. And gather a tribe of people who reinforce that lie.
The problem is that lies can't be confined to just one arena of your life. Once you lie about your body, over which you have the MOST control, how easy is it to lie about your relationships--which can require only ONE person's cooperation. Or your finances, which requires orchestrating an entire network of partners, customers, employees, and so on?
I submit that the habit of lying in ANY area leaks into EVERY area. So if you are my student, and you ask for help about an emotional or financial issue, my first question is going to be: what is your physical program? I want to see if you have clarity, can keep your word to yourself, can speak an uncomfortable truth. The Tibetans are great because a simple question: "how many are you doing?" reveals a huge amount about your clarity, commitment, wisdom, creativity, focus, and tolerance for boredom. Do we or do we not ask our children to do boring things for future benefit? Indeed we do. Chop Wood, Carry Water. The same is true for adults. MORE true. Mastery is the result of modeling a proper path, and committing to it over time. Do it, and do it, and wake up tomorrow and do it again.
And the people who partied while you pondered will say you were "talented" and "lucky" and had "privilege." Well…IF AND ONLY IF you are doing the things that ANYONE can do, can you convince me that social bullshit (and there is a lot of it) is what stops you.
The Huna concept of "the body as a black bag, where we store our unprocessed emotions" is a DEEP notion. Show me your body, emotions and mind are in alignment. If they are not, then your family or social situation probably damaged them. Start there--there are infinite modalities of healing. Find three and go deep, until you CAN do 21 reps.
Then we can begin. The work is right there: awaken the body, open the heart, expand and sharpen the mind. IN THAT ORDER. If you absolutely MUST, then open the heart then awaken the body, THEN expand and sharpen the mind.
But never, ever, open the heart and mind with the body "closed." That is a path to disaster, to a cornucopia of emotional and psychological traps, fear masquerading as perception.
Yes, there are bastards and predators and oppressors in the world. And they thrive on you believing you are helpless. You are NOT, and if you feel you are, spend at least 30 minutes every day listening to some positive thoughts from happy, successful people who created much from little. And move your body.
Namaste
Steve
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