Cat Crawl and Push-up Postition Foot Figure 8's

HERE's TWO joint mobility and foot/ankle awareness exercises that get into the posterior compartment and deep posterior compartment of the lower leg nicely.  One is from a cat crawl beginning position, the other from the top position of a push-up. 

You can get some novel contractions of the calf muscles if you focus on the sensory awareness of the muscles (as well as the spatial awareness required for doing the figure 8's). 

Try to keep you've got good spinal alignment during them for bonus points. 

Enjoy! And may the Calf-growing Force be with you! 

Forest running

I did something way out of character yesterday - I went for a run. I have done this about 3 times in the last decade. 

I chose to do this, not for the usual reasons (cardiovascular fitness; etc.,), but so I could get deeper into the forest near my house, quicker; to practice some Natural surroundings Parkour-style agility running down and up rocky paths, and to do some sprinting along the narrow winding trails (sprinting with jumping and lateral movement). Running on the rocky paths is good ankle proprioception work, btw! The Tiger shoes held up great.    

A bonus ribcage workout from the heavy breathing (and practicing getting my breathing rate back to normal as quickly as I could), too.  Basically, on the way out to where I wanted to go, I would alternate between sprinting for about 15 - 25 seconds then walk for about 100 paces (or until my breathing returned to normal).  The game went: If there were rocks, trees or an embankment on the path, you had to try to bound across them in the coolest way possibly, whilst trying to maintain speed.

Next time I do this (on an 'light' day), I think I'mma going to try to find a tree branch to do some volume work for pull-ups on; some lizard walking and maybe carrying a big rock around.   There's something totally cool about sprinting down a trail; having trees, shrubs and other greenery rush passed - and breathing in the fresh air.. Lucky am I, to live 10 minutes from Lane Cove National Park!


 

Tiger Style

Tigers, or other big, jungle cats, are often used to describe the physical attributes one seeks to get from physical cultivation and training - and it's easy to see why!  The power; the speed and agility; the relaxed awareness (and the ability to go from a deep relaxation to extreme speed and power very quickly, than is exhibited by most members of the feline family).

Physical cultivation for elastic recoil (fascial fitness); Natural movement; relaxed body-mindfulness and power endurance are all the things I am looking very much forward to working on in the coming months, and years.  All bodymind training methods that lead to cat-like movement and sensory awareness are to be explored. 

Tiger Body Workout, as a name, is already taken (by Robert Schleip and his partner Divo - who do great work); but still, I feel like the attributes mentioned in the paragraph above are going to be a large part of where I take my own training and what I teach, in the future..

On a side note, I saw recently that the numbers of actual tigers left in the wild is really low (~2500).  This made me sad; that such a grand creature is, very much, in danger of becoming extinct.  I hope they find a way to increase the numbers..maybe they could release them into outback Australia; to feast upon feral goats and camels; kangaroos and the odd German backpacker who has ignored the warning signs?

ARCtraining - Cultivation of Self

Check out Craig's latest post on PHYSICAL CULTIVATION (and cultivation in more widely) - great post!

Prototype '5 necks' workout

I previously mentioned  a comment that Kit had once made about the '3 necks' of Chinese Medicine (neck; wrist and ankle). After discussing with Simon, we figured that '5 necks' (neck; wrist x 2 and ankle x 2) sounded way cooler.

Last night I played around with a new type of workout (a strength-control and Natural Movement emphasis one), that I am going to add into my current program.  Basically I will do different types of crawls (lizard; cat; bear; etc); handstands and agility drills, mixed in with specific mobility and weighted mobility drills for neck, forearm/wrist/hand and lower leg/ankle/foot.  Lots of spirals and figure 8 patterns. 

I think it should fit in well with my current strength circuit workout.  Should be fun getting back into some basic gymnastics holds, too. 

Downsizing

Here's a nice little ARTICLE about de-cluttering your life of excess materiel objects and possessions. I did a nice cull of books and other things today.. more to come.  The figures in the article for self-storage ($22 Billion!!) are mind-boggling.

Having been visiting some of the local public libraries in around my area of Sydney (they are awesome!), I have decided to get rid of books I can easily borrow; keeping the more rare and obscure books in my library. 

Sitting down on my living room floor to write this, the house feels much more tranquil with less stuff everywhere.  Simplification and downsizing are both useful strategies (in this era of more/progress/possess); on a number of levels. For me personally, both are of constant use!

Screw 'Spring' cleaning - clean out and re-evaluate often. Use the questions 'Is this necessary?' 'When was the last time I used/wore this? 'Am I attached to this item?'  For me this has been very useful, and things I initially was resistant to give away, now, I haven't missed or thought of them at all.

For me, stockpiling of stuff when younger always had a vague survivalist undertone to it, but thinking about it now, it is possibly more useful to have less stuff; be more mobile and be able to improvise well.  It's also about having quality (not necessarily dollar-value, but usefulness quanta) items, for the things you do have.

“You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.” 

Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk (bolding added by me)

Book Review: Coming to Our Senses

I purchased Coming to Our Sense by Morris Berman, on a whim, a few years back; after seeing it referenced in something Tom Myers had written, and liking the front cover art on Amazon.  I got more than I had bargained for(!) - and the book is now in my 'top 10' for sure.

The basic theme, of which I subscribe, is that humankind as a whole, and Western nations in particular, have lost much of the sensous, somatic dimension of our lives and, very importantly, of our history, too.

But, there is much, much more to the book than this.  The first chapter alone blends the history of the mirror with 'The Basic Fault; Self/Other concepts; a fascinating discussion on Transitional Objects (with many implications for giving children toys) - later on to the somatic and visceral aspects hidden from our view of history; pets; the creation of romantic love and its co-option by the Church and secualr culture; heresy and orthodoxy cycles throughout history (and, yes, repeating today) and the bodily basis for creativity (among many, many other things! Seriously; this book taught me more useful knowledge than high school and university combined).

Actually, on that..

"In now becomes clear why I was bored in high school - and why you were probably were as well (at least in class). Historical "objectivity" is not merely boring; it is also, quite simply, wrong, and on some level the body knows this. This is why we found it difficult even to sit still in school. That restlessness is the body's way of flashing us an essential message: "This is bullshit," the body is saying: "don't listen to this." p117, Coming to Our Senses, Morris Berman.  

Flicking back over his book now, I want to read it again! I do not think I can do justice to it by just mentioning the extremely broad range of topics it weaves skillfully together.  Do yourself a favor and go and buy a copy (or 3 and give two to friends!) and read it Now! Take a day off work if you have to. If I am being really ruthless with the books I have read and whether they have truly changed my worldview (not just provide fascinating facts and trivia), there would be only a few - and this is one of them. The book provides a large number of the deep reasons I do the work that I do - and feel so passionately about it's importance in this culture; in this epoch. 

There are so many quotes I could end with from this book (there are pencil marks everywhere from my noting), but I think I'll re-use one I put in a previous blog post - just because it is so good:

"We have inherited a civilization in which the things that really matter in human life exist at the margin of our culture. What matters? How birthing takes place matters; how infants are raised matters; having a rich and active dream life matters. Animals matter, and so does ontological security and the magic of personal interaction and healthy and passionate sexual expression.  Career and prestige and putting a good face on it and the newest fashion in art or science do not matter. Coming to our senses means sorting this out once and for all. It also means becoming embodied. And the two ultimately amount to the same thing" Coming to Our Senses,  p342, Morris Berman.