Bleachers. Stairs. Hmmmmm … what could we possibly do here?
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Fix your posture old school
WWII Workout Week concludes with some exercises you can do to improve your posture. While posture is an oft neglected part of physical training programs, it provides a myriad of benefits and can boost both your physiological functions and your confidence.
~ Brett McKay from, WWII Workout Week: Posture Training
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Circa 1946, from the Army field manual FM 21-20. ‘ten-HUT!
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Ba-bye Brooklyn
Hello again NYC. Glorious weather over here!
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Breakfast
Food first, then off to East River Park.
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Bananagrams
Post-training cafe play at Manny’s in Brooklyn. The Lancaster Parkour post-training chocolate milk tradition continues!
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Doughnut?!
Creme Brulee doughnut… waaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. yummy.
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Day One
In the bag. What an awesome group of people. Spirit all around…. what heart!!
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The folly of the unwise
When I left, the search for my replacement took a long time. Much longer than I’d have preferred, and to an eventually unsatisfactory conclusion for everyone involved, I believe. I contented myself with the knowledge that my skill set was sufficiently wide in breadth and complex in nature that I was hard to replace. I used this to buoy my ego. ALthough I had sympathy for the people I was leaving, and the one I left in my stead, it felt good to be needed and wanted, and I was proud that I could fill that role like no one else we’d found.
Such is the folly of the unwise, I’m afraid.
~ Matt Simmons from, «http://www.standalone-sysadmin.com/blog/2013/02/and-when-you-gaze-long-into-an-infrastructure-the-infrastructure-will-gaze-back-into-you/»
Note to self: Hang out with Matt more and listen to what he has to say.
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Brooklyn
NO. SLEEP. ‘TIL BROOKLYN!!!!!!!
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Growing old
Growing old sucks.
~ unknown
But it is much better than the alternative.
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Quiet
http://www.quietrev.com/manifesto/
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The Quiet Revolution: Have you ever read the book Quiet by Susan Cain? Here’s . . . well, her next project? a companion project? you decide.
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Don’t get stuck where the Sorting Hat put you
In each of the situations above, I had sorted myself into a category, or felt like I had been sorted…and then panicked when I didn’t fit or wanted to get out. It turns out, I was the one doing the sorting, not my family or friends. It was pressure I had been putting on myself: I struggled with losing my identity that I THOUGHT I needed to have, that I thought others had of me.
~ Steve Kamb from, Ditch The Sorting Hat. Choose Your Own Adventure!
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A student of Art du Déplacement
Art du Déplacement, (a French phrase meaning ‘art of movement’,) is a method of improving oneself through challenge. The founders say that to practice the art means to work toward: Being mentally and physically strong; being useful; being a positive contribution to your community; being better than you were yesterday.
But what about competition, flips, stunts, jumping roof gaps and gymnastics tumbling? …are those things part of it? Certainly, some people do those things as part of their practice. Competition can make you physically stronger. Jumping roof gaps can make you mentally tougher. So these things can be part of your practice, but your practice does not have to be these things.
For me, swallowing my pride and starting over in physical fitness with a group of people about half my age… That was a challenge. For me, pull-ups are a challenge. But that’s the whole point. It’s is about me improving me, and you improving you.
But I didn’t know that when I first tried Parkour, (before I understood the Art du Déplacement roots of what I was learning,) in the spring of 2012. I had met Adam McClellan during a martial arts demonstration and he talked me into coming out to play with the growing Lehigh Valley Parkour community. I am continuously delighted to be the big, old, slow, lumbering gorilla in a community of enthusiastic, supportive and happy people. After two years of serious training, at the age of 42, I passed the ADAPT Level 1 certification through Parkour Generations. Art du Déplacement, Parkour, and this unique community, have changed my life.
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A student of Aikido
In college, I briefly practiced Taekwondo, and I spent 5 years practicing, and informally teaching, modern fencing. (Epée!) But I didn’t begin martial arts training in earnest until 1998, at age 26, when I began practicing Aikido under the direction of Sensei Michael Wirth. I practiced non-stop, reaching shodan (1st-degree black belt) in 2003 and godan (5th-degree) in 2013.
Sensei Wirth’s Aikido is an unaffiliated, no-nonsense, art; It is built on the bedrock principles of a soft and flowing Aikido, while honestly seeking to be physically functional and practical. On the mat, his Aikido is soft and flowing; It can vary very quickly from a light touch to vigorous atemi. In more recent years, I’ve repeated catch-phrases such as “No this. No that. No delay.” and “Relax beyond any indication of every injury you’ve ever received.” to convey the idea that you can be your most powerful only when you relax and eliminate all the unnecessary thinking and movements.
In the beginning, I had no clue how unique the Aikido group was that I’d stumbled into. It wasn’t until ten years or so into my journey that I realized the incredible luck of my timing: I started training just young enough to survive the tail-end of what I call Sensei Wirth’s “Does this work?” epoch, and was just old enough to thoroughly appreciate the subsequent, “Yes, it works. What can we do with it?” epoch. Those who experienced the former epoch nod knowingly with a serious expression. Those who experience the later epoch have the luxury of following the now more direct path that Sensei Wirth has arrived upon. The later epoch is certainly better, but the few of us who experienced both are indeed, very lucky.
Along the way, as I’ve wandered (physically and mentally), I’ve taken the opportunities to experience a wide range of Aikido styles, groups and teachers. I’ve gone to fundamentally different Aikido groups’ seminars just to honestly try the “when in Rome…” thing. I also made an honest effort of a couple years in Tai Chi. I expanded my practice by reading from a wide range of topics directly, and indirectly, related to Aikido including philosophy, physiology and spirituality. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I did my best to deconstruct and reassemble everything I’ve learned.
On the other hand, I make no claim to the quality of my reassembled puzzle since some pieces are missing, several are chewed on, and many which don’t fit remain to the side. All things considered? I’m delighted to still feel I am a beginner.
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Hyperinsulinemia (too much insulin)
Then I asked myself the big question: If I have too much insulin (and I was guessing I did – it wasn’t something you measured in those days unless you were in a scientific lab), how do I get it down? There were only two conclusions. Don’t eat. Or don’t eat carbohydrates. The latter seemed to make a lot more sense over the long run.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/cardiovascular-disease/four-patients-who-changed-my-life/»
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Start saying ‘No’
To this student, and to everyone else who feels this way, I’d say this: your plate is too full. You have too much going on.
The only answer, unless you want your health to decline (and that’s not good for anyone), is to start saying No.
~ Leo Babuta from, When Your Plate is Too Full
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I really hope everyone else finds this totally obvious.
…because I didn’t, and I wasted a lot of my life “should’ing” on myself. I should do this. I should do that. I should be working. I should take time off. blah blah blah. I started saying “No” to little things first… really silly dumb stuff that I did all the time. Like check my email FIRST thing after opening my eyes. Saved myself, maybe, 5 seconds every day right there. Maybe instead now I glance out the window first. Then I moved on to bigger and bigger things; Do I really want to try to start this professional meetup group? Do I really want to continue studying tai chi? Do I want to keep writing in my journal? (Yes, but I can change my expectations for what gets into the journal from, “a good long journal entry for each day,” to “just write a couple of thoughts — literally, two. If more flows, great.”
I’m not trying to soap-box preach, I’m trying to say: Hear! Hear! Go read what Leo has to say.
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YES!
This arrived at my office while I was away… awesome work Julie! Thank you so much for all the effort that went into this book.
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Venice
Make it meaningful
Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days.
~ Dalai Lama
An old day passes, a new day arrives.
The important thing is to make it meaningful:
A meaningful friend — or a meaningful day.
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Eating meat made us human
Meat eating made us human. The anthropological evidence strongly supports the idea that the addition of increasingly larger amounts of meat in the diet of our predecessors was essential in the evolution of the large human brain. Our large brains came at the metabolic expense of our guts, which shrank as our brains grew.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-library/are-we-meat-eaters-or-vegetarians-part-ii/»
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