Tag Archives: gym

A Little More Slowness

Posted by on January 25, 2012 1 comment

I’ve revisited the idea of slowness recently and touched again on Wu-Wei when I thought about accepting our limitations. I saw this article in the New York Times a week or two ago and remembered it as tying in with the things I was talking about quite nicely. The article makes the case very well that Yoga is not as safe as we’d all like to believe. My opinion is that this is true of anything; which is why, in my SitQuietly instructions, I give a warning to consult your medical practitioner before taking up a meditation practise. But this article makes specific mention of people who seem to be treating Yoga as if it were a performance sport, specifically one man who threw himself into a spine twist and had three ribs give way.

The article says a lot of things that ring true for me, that echo my own gym and Tai Chi experiences. I realised a long time ago that it was up to me to make things easy on myself, that I had to do this by realising and respecting my limits. Apply Wu-Wei, don’t do things at an inappropriate speed, don’t force yourself into exercises that are inappropriate for your body type or mental state. When growth in our abilities occurs it should be unforced and as a result of the “70 percent rule”, which I’ve talked about before. This says that you work to 70 percent of your potential, with the other 30 percent held back for growth and improvement. Eventually, your 70 percent is equal to what used to be your 100 percent, and you’re still only giving 70 percent!

My other observation is that practises like Yoga, meditation and Tai Chi are not performance sports. The wisdom of Wu-Wei and the Slow Movement comes back again to the fore, these things are healing arts without a doubt; but only when used appropriately and at the right pace! They can heal your body and mind, but will do so in their own time, to try to hurry things seems to me to be a mistake. One that can only end badly as well. We in the West seem to be bringing our own neurotic hurried flavour to these things, but in doing so I worry that we lose a lot of their essence and bring ourselves further pain.

Accepting Our Limitations

Posted by on January 22, 2012 No comments

In a few posts recently, I’ve mentioned our limitations. It’s a theme that has reoccurred through my writing and something that I think is worth exploring a little more.

I’ve found throughout my career, both in the gym and in the workplace that some people seem to have a disdain for the idea of limitations. This doesn’t just apply to themselves, but to the tools and technology around them. I remember after a server problem at a previous employer, the Managing Director asked the Head of IT how long the server would take to get back into service. As the database needed to be verified, the answer was “about 45 minutes”; to which the MD replied “make it 10 minutes”. This wasn’t possible, of course, things had to be given time to run their course; the job had to be done properly.

I have seen this in the gym before, I’ve done it myself. Do extra classes, push that bit too hard, then things start aching and hurting. Oops. Eventually, I discovered Tai Chi and Taoism and learned from these things and some very wise people that it was OK not to keep pushing the limits. There is more dignity to be found in accepting the limitations of our bodies, mind and technologies with simple realism, than in striving to do the impossible and cursing when meeting with failure. I also learned that you need to pay attention to your body and mind, that the warning signs of approaching limits are there.

When we fall into this trap, we all pay a physical and mental price for it. Stress and burnout are very real in our minds, they take an awful toll on our health and our bodies. We sustain numerous injuries, both minor and major, from refusing to accept that it’s time to stop exercising. But it is, through the practise of mindfulness and humility, possible to stop this.

I think that these are things that need more emphasis, as in this case they work hand in hand. Mindfulness helps us with our work or exercise and also lets us spot the warning signs; humility helps us put our egos aside and walk away unharmed.

The prime of your life?

Posted by on February 8, 2009 No comments

A couple of people I know were talking the other day, one of them has just turned 24 and felt he was “getting old”. They were then saying that from mid-20′s to mid-30′s were the “best years, the prime, of your life”.

I’m thinking about blind acceptance of “common wisdom”, even when a little reflection will show it for the sham that it is. Surely, being in “your prime” is entirely attitude, there’s so much more to it than simple physical condition or age. In any event, our technology and extending lifespans are rewriting the rules as we go.

But even purely in physical condition terms, I’ve seen people at least 10 years older than me walk into the gym and match the younger gym rats in terms of performance.

Perhaps the notion of “prime of life” is inaccurate? I think it’s not the possession of a physical or mental condition, but its expression. It’s not what you’ve got but how you use it?

Thoughts on Karma – it’s secular.

Posted by on December 10, 2008 3 comments

I was mulling Karma the other day after a number of events I’ve had happen.  I thought to myself “Rich, why don’t you put your thoughts into text and see how things go?”  So I plan to and hope to make 2 (or maybe even 3) posts.

So, I now need to explain what in the world I mean by that post heading.  Here goes.

I’ve seen the definite meme that Karma is some sort of divine judgment force, that there’s some kind of mystical account being kept for us.  I think that’s an unlikely state of affairs.

I tend to apply Occams Razor which means I usually go for the simplest explanation, thus I consider Karma to be a simple matter of cause and effect.  The reason it looks mystical is, in my view, down to the simple fact that we do not (and cannot possibly) possess (or keep track of) all the information in any given situation.  There are just too many variables, many of which are hidden.

For example, a person may well injure themselves in the gym, but again no mystical judgement force is involved.  Unheeded bad habits, poor exercise form over a number of years, simple carelessness, maybe even an undetected medical condition all can be factors.

So let’s build from the gym example, I gave examples of bad secular karma above.  But are there examples of good?  Of course there are, because there are things that can be doen to combat the above, even before they happen.

This is where I invoke parts of the Eightfold path. Right Mindfulness, awareness of your habits while using machines and performing exercises.  Mindfulness of the fact you may have a condition and taking that into account.  Right Action ties in by actually getting you to the doctors to get that condition checked, or seeing a Personal Trainer to get your poor form corrected.

Buddhist readers can no doubt take my example and tie the other elements of the path into it, so as is my habit, I’m going to leave the question open as a thought exercise for the reader.

Striving, grasping, harder, faster.

Posted by on November 21, 2007 1 comment

I wrote some time ago about my views of striving and grasping for things.

Those views were helped along by a few things, I’d been encouraged to push harder in the gym only to be met with pain and injury. I’d witnessed workplace politics handled in a way I completely disagreed with, this has happened more than once across a number of companies. I also found myself questioning with our national work ethic, is this the right way?

I asked myself a question, “Am I mad, or is there a better way?” In the gym I reminded myself of the 70% rule of moderation. It’s a great little rule I learned from Tai Chi, you only work at 70% of your max; energy and attention are kept back for working on a gradual improvement in your performance, also to make sure you don’t burn out on the way, it’s a long term game plan, but it offers greater potential than flogging yourself to death. I’m working at less than my max now, focusing on technique, I don’t doubt I’ll get back to the weights and performance I had, but when I do it’ll be with much better technique, I’ll be able to handle it much better than I did.

As far as the whole work thing goes, I find myself with less invested in the long hours culture we have here in the UK, as a result I don’t do overtime anymore unless it’s an emergency. Again, this comes back to moderation; whatever some might like to think, we don’t live to work.

I’ve seen the results of office politics and crackdowns on more than once occasion and in more than one company, striving for more results, more controls, a greater bottom line. I’ve seen it reach a point that employee goodwill was lost, people refused to work overtime, wouldn’t go out of their way for their employer; the workplace spirit was lost.

This is a way echoes comments in my previous post, crackdowns and tightening up have their place, but if you take it too far it hurts far more than it helps, you can wind up flogging the horse to death if you’re not careful.

This comes back to moderation, the middle way. Yes, you can keep driving people harder towards business goals, “Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes”, but in the end the human cost will be huge.  We already see this, lots of stress and work-life imbalances and not just in the UK, sooner or later we must settle into a steady state, not the greed driven relentless drive for better growth; for the sake of our own collective health and sanity.

I think that this excerpt from chapter 23 of the Tao Te Ching sums up my thoughts on this:

Sparse speech is natural
Thus strong wind does not last all morning
Sudden rain does not last all day
What makes this so? Heaven and Earth
Even Heaven and Earth cannot make it last
How can humans?

Quote from Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, By Derek Lin.  Published by SkyLight Paths in 2006.
Courtesy of www.taoism.net.