As not every household, probably not every rectory, has in its library a copy of Ignatius of Loyola's little classic, the Spiritual Exercises, I will render his note 2 in it fullness.
"The one who explains to another the method and order of meditating or contemplating should narrate accurately the facts of the contemplation or meditation. Let him adhere to the points, and add only a short or summary explanation. The reason for this is that when one in meditating takes the solid foundation of facts, and goes over it and reflects on it for himself, he may find something that makes them a little clearer or better understood. This may arise either from his own reasoning, or from the grace of God enlightening his mind. Now this produces greater spiritual relish and fruit than if one in giving the Exercises had explained and developed the meaning at great length. For it is not much knowledge that fills and satisfies the soul, but the intimate understanding and relish of the truth."
All good teachers know from experience - first acquired in their own learning processes - that this is the only way a student can acquire a genuine, realistic, knowledge of any subject. The same goes for athletic coaches, or personal fitness trainers, even if they are not theologians, although sound theology as an infallible way of improving the climate of the teaching, coaching, or training situation. He or she who has learned to listen to God in the learning process, intellectual, imaginative, or physiological, is much better able to listen to a student, a patient, a client. Once a learner has gone through all the essential steps, one at a time, and over and over again in a pleased and contented frame of mind, he can put an amazing amount of stuff together - Beethoven with a sonata, Tom Brady reading the dispositions of the twenty-one other football players on the field with him as he starts calling his signals. But it doesn't begin that way, and it's the genius of the real teacher or coach who knows how to break the problems down into individual steps before it's the genius of the performer.
And the truly happy and efficient performer is the soul that has been taught or learned to relish all those little individual steps. Beethoven and all possible thirds, major and minor; Tom Brady learning to throw consistently accurate short passes before he studied the long bomb. And what is even more necessary, the pleasure and confidence-building experience of ruminating accurately over each and every move away from the game, the keyboard, in the middle of the night, out on a walk, or, like Tim McDaniel, up amongst the trees on the Whitewater ski hill. I asked him recently if he reflected on his interval studies, and he said yes, when he was ski-ing.
So now I'm doing my calf stretches properly, after all these inefficient years, loving every second of the sensation the right stretch gives, and rethinking all my recent fears that my thoughts of running might be no longer valid.
And I also wonder if it's time to take the press to the cleaners. This puts a lot of zip into the time with the erg, but also reduces the time I can spend with it. I've dropped to 200 calories per day, to concentrate on the stretches, give more time to a little over head barbell work, and think about the paparazzi. You have to be really, really, stupid to attack this Pope, and it's time the long, long, history or the media mediocrity on the question of sex abuse by clergy is exposed. Beat the rush, guys. Get your sorry asses into the confessional before the crowd swells. Only three more coughing-up days before Lent is over.
The line-up should be led, of course, by a certain ex-media baron. Oh, my, what a story Citizen Con could have got to cover if he'd only answered a certain letter.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Mucho Culpa
A very dear friend has just written to announce her return from a Mexican holiday, so my title is somewhat inspired by some of the very little Spanish that I know.
It is a long established human custom to complain to God, the universe, one's friends and family, when we finally realize that in some department or another crucial to our getting through our regular activities in due order we have been making a serious mistake. How in heaven's name could I be so thick? Why didn't somebody tell me?
Why have I spent so long doing something the wrong bloody way?
I speak of the calf stretch. Today's lesson is about fitness. Primarily the fitness of my feet, but also, I suspect, because of the holistic relation of one part of the musculo-skeletal system to another, my upper legs and possibly the lower back as well. Maybe the whole back.
Now I did read the stretching bibles, initially that little gem put out by Anderson's, Bob on text, Jean on anatomical sketches. Great book. Do what they say, and you should never have an injury, as well as the mental satisfaction of knowing you're looking after your body. I appreciated their wisdom very much, and thought I was following along well enough to be able to attribute any muscle problems to old injuries, too much too soon, cold weather and of course the mystic's peculiar contract with a God who admires athletes, even old ones, but can never see any way they are as necessary as contemplatives, who by definition must spend a lot of their time being very, very, immobile in their bodies, in order to give their souls freedom to roam the heavens at will. Scratching an itch is in, another dozen miles is not.
And wouldn't you know it, the calf stretch is their first example. Beautifully explained, too. Very clearly, the knee closest to the wall bends to pretty much of a right angle, so the forward shin is vertical, while the back leg, which owns the calf to be stretched, goes straight back, so the body forms a perfect line from head to the rear foot.
True, there is a another diagram later on showing the back leg as bent somewhat, but that is to stretch the Achilles and the LOWER calf muscle, not the BELLY, where all the real trouble can collect like garbage in the bottom of a pit.
Somehow, I fixed on the second diagram. For years, and years, and years. Oh my, what a red face. What a lesson not only about reading the directions, as in that Old American Proverb, but about reading them in the right order.
What brought this to my attention, finally, was the rowing machine. Our lovely Concept 2, which for the last three weeks of Lent is getting a lot more attention. Except for the occasional day off, I'm operating on a 500 calorie per day schedule, 300 in the morning, 200 in the late afternoon, day after day, and loving it. In order to maintain this schedule, there cannot be much going for broke, maybe a couple of bursts and no more, but it has been enough of an increase to give me a sore inside right heel. There was some other stuff too, closer to the toes, but it never struck me this could have anything to do with tight calf muscles. But the heel, bless it, was a dead give away. It was new, and I had not been running on it. I finally put my mind to reasoning outside the box as I had learned to think of it, erroneously of course, and put the physics of physiology to work.
The first thing you notice is how it simply feels like a nice stretch. Big and totally comfortable. The whole body involved, as I think I prefer putting my arms straight out, not bending them so I can rest my head on my hands. The whole body sensation I have missed from Day One in that area, although I had known similar sensations in the other stretches.
That was then. This is today, as I ponder that I might have been kept stupid about the real calf stretch because my guardian angel didn't want me to get too good at running before I discovered the merits of the erg, which is of course a much more balanced workout. I can hardly wait to see what happens when I return to the road and the track, but all that relies on the spark that gives permission and inspiration.
Meanwhile, I've been able to adapt the relearned calf stretch, with the extended arms, to include not only adjustable pressure on the muscle, but also a bit of a work-out to provide the necessary triceps antidote to the rower's constant pulling. Straight arms provide a nice push stress, and if you bend your arms gradually to diminish the angle of the back shin to the floor, you can sense with immense precision just how much pressure to apply, or not apply, to the muscle. This delights someone with my analytical mind especially, as become terrifically bored as soon as I suspect my body suspects I'm interfering with the natural cohesion of body, mind, and spirit.
It is a long established human custom to complain to God, the universe, one's friends and family, when we finally realize that in some department or another crucial to our getting through our regular activities in due order we have been making a serious mistake. How in heaven's name could I be so thick? Why didn't somebody tell me?
Why have I spent so long doing something the wrong bloody way?
I speak of the calf stretch. Today's lesson is about fitness. Primarily the fitness of my feet, but also, I suspect, because of the holistic relation of one part of the musculo-skeletal system to another, my upper legs and possibly the lower back as well. Maybe the whole back.
Now I did read the stretching bibles, initially that little gem put out by Anderson's, Bob on text, Jean on anatomical sketches. Great book. Do what they say, and you should never have an injury, as well as the mental satisfaction of knowing you're looking after your body. I appreciated their wisdom very much, and thought I was following along well enough to be able to attribute any muscle problems to old injuries, too much too soon, cold weather and of course the mystic's peculiar contract with a God who admires athletes, even old ones, but can never see any way they are as necessary as contemplatives, who by definition must spend a lot of their time being very, very, immobile in their bodies, in order to give their souls freedom to roam the heavens at will. Scratching an itch is in, another dozen miles is not.
And wouldn't you know it, the calf stretch is their first example. Beautifully explained, too. Very clearly, the knee closest to the wall bends to pretty much of a right angle, so the forward shin is vertical, while the back leg, which owns the calf to be stretched, goes straight back, so the body forms a perfect line from head to the rear foot.
True, there is a another diagram later on showing the back leg as bent somewhat, but that is to stretch the Achilles and the LOWER calf muscle, not the BELLY, where all the real trouble can collect like garbage in the bottom of a pit.
Somehow, I fixed on the second diagram. For years, and years, and years. Oh my, what a red face. What a lesson not only about reading the directions, as in that Old American Proverb, but about reading them in the right order.
What brought this to my attention, finally, was the rowing machine. Our lovely Concept 2, which for the last three weeks of Lent is getting a lot more attention. Except for the occasional day off, I'm operating on a 500 calorie per day schedule, 300 in the morning, 200 in the late afternoon, day after day, and loving it. In order to maintain this schedule, there cannot be much going for broke, maybe a couple of bursts and no more, but it has been enough of an increase to give me a sore inside right heel. There was some other stuff too, closer to the toes, but it never struck me this could have anything to do with tight calf muscles. But the heel, bless it, was a dead give away. It was new, and I had not been running on it. I finally put my mind to reasoning outside the box as I had learned to think of it, erroneously of course, and put the physics of physiology to work.
The first thing you notice is how it simply feels like a nice stretch. Big and totally comfortable. The whole body involved, as I think I prefer putting my arms straight out, not bending them so I can rest my head on my hands. The whole body sensation I have missed from Day One in that area, although I had known similar sensations in the other stretches.
That was then. This is today, as I ponder that I might have been kept stupid about the real calf stretch because my guardian angel didn't want me to get too good at running before I discovered the merits of the erg, which is of course a much more balanced workout. I can hardly wait to see what happens when I return to the road and the track, but all that relies on the spark that gives permission and inspiration.
Meanwhile, I've been able to adapt the relearned calf stretch, with the extended arms, to include not only adjustable pressure on the muscle, but also a bit of a work-out to provide the necessary triceps antidote to the rower's constant pulling. Straight arms provide a nice push stress, and if you bend your arms gradually to diminish the angle of the back shin to the floor, you can sense with immense precision just how much pressure to apply, or not apply, to the muscle. This delights someone with my analytical mind especially, as become terrifically bored as soon as I suspect my body suspects I'm interfering with the natural cohesion of body, mind, and spirit.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Incredible Retirement Four
It was at least ten years ago, I think, that I asked Marianne if she thought she might be able to get back to her old habit of writing poetry if I took over some of the cooking. This was probably not too long before I actually did succeed to the bread making and then started up again as a brew master, this time with the skills to make beer from real malted barley grains, not the tin stuff of my youth. (Also with considerably additional equipment, which is the most essential element of the skills.) MT had put out quite a nice little volume of lyrics before Shawn went to the museum and left her with the household stuff. A few poems had even gone to Rome, once I took over my responsibilities with the central intellects of the Eternal City.
She paused in motion, possibly with a French knife in her hand, from chopping broccoli, and said, "I don't like anyone else mucking about in my kitchen."
I took that as a no, and found my conscience eased. I had every freedom myself from domestic or any other pressures that could prevent me from writing all I wanted to - the mystic's Muse permitting of course, after the necessary concentration on the prayer life - and I had to wonder from time to time if she felt hard done by. She was, it must be said, regularly at work at her journal. But still, prose is not poetry, any more than one very valuable, even essential, friend is not another.
But with the other female contemplative suddenly eased off her public duties to local history and the arts, available for kitchen detail and garden support, MT's poetry stock has risen as sharply as that of any oil mega giant which has discovered how to make gasoline out of offshore breezes. Seven excellent lyrics in seven days, over an admirably broad range, from the meaning of violets to a child, to the odiferous signs of a late bishop in hell.
For the moment, there may be difficulties in finding these illuminative gems. She tells me that her blog title, "From George", does not quite spark up the swift response readers get from the Ranger, and thus she has to issue information about links to the inside circle. But that will change. Mankind is always in need of clarification, one of the specialties of the real poet, and she certainly clarifies. I know from experience.
As Padre Pio said, and I somewhat expand upon, no man really grows up, not even a priest, until he becomes a spiritual director.
As I understood from the very first sight of her poetry, MT is a primitive, perhaps directly descended from those early painters who drew bulls on the walls of the caves of Lascaux. She deals in images. Sharp, clear, colourful. Like the point of an effing spear going through your gut. To hell with ordinary metre and rhyme. Especially rhyme. It would be interesting to watch her rewrite the Iliad, for example, or perhaps Genesis. No drawing room stuff this, and T.S. Eliot would understand bang on. If she keeps going as she's begun, the entire Church Militant, if it's lucky, will have its very sorry butt, post Vatican Two, in the confessional long before next Easter. That is, if it reads. At the moment, I have trouble believing that the Church Militant is actually literate.
Never, never, never, underestimate the power of a woman. Especially when she's a close personal friend of the Virgin Mary.
She paused in motion, possibly with a French knife in her hand, from chopping broccoli, and said, "I don't like anyone else mucking about in my kitchen."
I took that as a no, and found my conscience eased. I had every freedom myself from domestic or any other pressures that could prevent me from writing all I wanted to - the mystic's Muse permitting of course, after the necessary concentration on the prayer life - and I had to wonder from time to time if she felt hard done by. She was, it must be said, regularly at work at her journal. But still, prose is not poetry, any more than one very valuable, even essential, friend is not another.
But with the other female contemplative suddenly eased off her public duties to local history and the arts, available for kitchen detail and garden support, MT's poetry stock has risen as sharply as that of any oil mega giant which has discovered how to make gasoline out of offshore breezes. Seven excellent lyrics in seven days, over an admirably broad range, from the meaning of violets to a child, to the odiferous signs of a late bishop in hell.
For the moment, there may be difficulties in finding these illuminative gems. She tells me that her blog title, "From George", does not quite spark up the swift response readers get from the Ranger, and thus she has to issue information about links to the inside circle. But that will change. Mankind is always in need of clarification, one of the specialties of the real poet, and she certainly clarifies. I know from experience.
As Padre Pio said, and I somewhat expand upon, no man really grows up, not even a priest, until he becomes a spiritual director.
As I understood from the very first sight of her poetry, MT is a primitive, perhaps directly descended from those early painters who drew bulls on the walls of the caves of Lascaux. She deals in images. Sharp, clear, colourful. Like the point of an effing spear going through your gut. To hell with ordinary metre and rhyme. Especially rhyme. It would be interesting to watch her rewrite the Iliad, for example, or perhaps Genesis. No drawing room stuff this, and T.S. Eliot would understand bang on. If she keeps going as she's begun, the entire Church Militant, if it's lucky, will have its very sorry butt, post Vatican Two, in the confessional long before next Easter. That is, if it reads. At the moment, I have trouble believing that the Church Militant is actually literate.
Never, never, never, underestimate the power of a woman. Especially when she's a close personal friend of the Virgin Mary.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Incredible Retirement Three
Finally, the little jobs that hung over from the "official" last day at work are all done, and except for volunteering on Thursdays, Shawn is no longer to be found at the museum. Her successor has been discovered and hired, appears well qualified and confident, and the life of the world goes on, while the life of what started as a fully contemplative community, almost forty years ago, and operated as such for a decade before it was interrupted, returns to normal. For both economic and social reasons that interruption would seem to have been necessary, and we're all enormously proud of what my wife accomplished, but nothing equals the contemplative life, especially when the crew is up to full strength, and with the world insisting on becoming a more and more dangerous place to live in, it needs all the full time prayer persons it can get. It is not simply a coincidence that I found in my morning perusal of my journals for these dates of the month a note from John Paul's trip to India in the 80's. The Pope said "The world needs men of prayer more than it needs men of work."
* * *
And going by God's recent behaviour in my head, this must be so.
As I've said before, I ordinarily cycle the upper three of John of the Cross' four major texts, with occasional side trips to the Ascent, or other contemplative writers. (A nice little week, recently, with Teresa's Mansions.) But for the past three or four weeks, the concentration has had to be on certain parts of the Dark Night, with especially one paragraph in Book One, and two chapters in Book Two.
The purpose, it seems, is to acquire a full command of the language that deals with the fundamental and irreconcilable differences between meditation and contemplation, not only in general, but as they have occurred in my own life. As our fundamental personal nature never changes, and as mine is that of the quintessential rugby player habitually getting the wind up over the next game, I sniff the wind about what this might mean, suspecting that God is up to something a little different. Not completely different, but a little different. Part of me would like to put a complete end to outside activity, part of me has begun to wonder if there is not a possibility of returning to a bit of the good old days, when Nelson was in the first stages of building its reputation as an usually cultural minor metropolis.
I use the plural of "stages" advisedly. There was the nine years before the seventh mansion took over, and then there were nine years afterward. And then there were the almost thirty years of relating exclusively to the Vatican.
* * *
On Friday I had a long chat with a sound engineer, visiting with a relative. We talked technology, and the satisfaction of the teamwork involved in making good records, and then we drifted into the spiritual life, with the Almighty deciding to make the discussion more than academic. From how this lad brought back the memories of the Mrs Buckley's Tea Chest days, I wondered to what degree he might be a sign of the new times. But there is, of course, the parable of the sower, and there is also the image of Abram, very much alive in one of this morning's readings, and how he never saw the nation God promised him. But this morning after mass I ran into another veteran of the media, older, and with one hell of a track record. If a third turns up, the musical Olympics might come sooner than I expected. All that gold could be just a sign of even bigger Canadian successes. I am honour bound to remember that so often in the past a very nice period of contemplative solitude was followed by an outburst of profoundly useful art of one kind or another.
Meanwhile, a third of us leaves for Calgary tonight, to be with a girlhood friend dying of cancer. Providence is always interesting. Shawn is finished work just in time. It is the story of our lives, the story of those who get out of bed in order to live God's will one day at a time.
* * *
And going by God's recent behaviour in my head, this must be so.
As I've said before, I ordinarily cycle the upper three of John of the Cross' four major texts, with occasional side trips to the Ascent, or other contemplative writers. (A nice little week, recently, with Teresa's Mansions.) But for the past three or four weeks, the concentration has had to be on certain parts of the Dark Night, with especially one paragraph in Book One, and two chapters in Book Two.
The purpose, it seems, is to acquire a full command of the language that deals with the fundamental and irreconcilable differences between meditation and contemplation, not only in general, but as they have occurred in my own life. As our fundamental personal nature never changes, and as mine is that of the quintessential rugby player habitually getting the wind up over the next game, I sniff the wind about what this might mean, suspecting that God is up to something a little different. Not completely different, but a little different. Part of me would like to put a complete end to outside activity, part of me has begun to wonder if there is not a possibility of returning to a bit of the good old days, when Nelson was in the first stages of building its reputation as an usually cultural minor metropolis.
I use the plural of "stages" advisedly. There was the nine years before the seventh mansion took over, and then there were nine years afterward. And then there were the almost thirty years of relating exclusively to the Vatican.
* * *
On Friday I had a long chat with a sound engineer, visiting with a relative. We talked technology, and the satisfaction of the teamwork involved in making good records, and then we drifted into the spiritual life, with the Almighty deciding to make the discussion more than academic. From how this lad brought back the memories of the Mrs Buckley's Tea Chest days, I wondered to what degree he might be a sign of the new times. But there is, of course, the parable of the sower, and there is also the image of Abram, very much alive in one of this morning's readings, and how he never saw the nation God promised him. But this morning after mass I ran into another veteran of the media, older, and with one hell of a track record. If a third turns up, the musical Olympics might come sooner than I expected. All that gold could be just a sign of even bigger Canadian successes. I am honour bound to remember that so often in the past a very nice period of contemplative solitude was followed by an outburst of profoundly useful art of one kind or another.
Meanwhile, a third of us leaves for Calgary tonight, to be with a girlhood friend dying of cancer. Providence is always interesting. Shawn is finished work just in time. It is the story of our lives, the story of those who get out of bed in order to live God's will one day at a time.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Art of Breathing
I'm just home from booting it up the Silica Street hill, two-and-half blocks of an incline that challenges any kind of biker and also serves as the lung efficiency test for the household, especially when it's done with a backpack full of groceries. It was back in the spring of 2000 that this slope began to make me wonder if my wind was falling off, which set me up beautifully to give Dr. John Douillard's ayurvedic researches a very attentive and grateful ear. (I must be writing for Americans. They're always more impressed by that Dr. thing. Or perhaps it's just that I really do want people to listen up. We owe it to the health system.)
Anyway, by the time I'm into the last block I notice that my breathing is very easy, and it's not because I'm dawdling. In fact, having begun the day with a very leisurely 300 cals on the Concept 2000, and just finished a three mile walk with my not-quite actually retired yet other half, split by a coffee on Baker Street before she headed for the museum, I've definitely got that "I'm in the ZONE" mood that JD has studied so thoroughly, and I feel as if I could go on for hours. I'm increasingly confident that I finally have the handle on my own personal best fitness methodology, thanks to the Seahorse - mind and body and spirit have finally become a true trinity, seamlessly harmonious - and now the fat will really take a hike.
And then I notice that my lips are sealed. Not even a hint of having to open them now and again to catch up on the air. Three steps in, three steps out. Then I try two steps in and three out, and that too is comfortable for most of the last part of the block. I've written earlier, months ago, about how I finally realized that by insisting on sticking rigidly to the shut mouth I was creating tension problems in my chest, so I've changed my routine, focusing on making sure I exhale for the full count. The real priority is not actually nose or mouth. The real priority is time for the oxygen to be fully processed in the alveoli at the bottom of the lungs. But the more the nose is involved, the more accurate the read on what the system is really doing, with a lot less chance for being fooled by temporary euphoria or the often false information we get from being fairly well warmed up.
The nose pings when the oxygen supply is actually inadequate - or at least mine does, basically the right nostril - and this simple little indicator warns us not to go too fast too soon. This always means at least ten minutes of relaxed and easy warm up, something we should have learned by watching all those professional baseball players out of the field before the game, except that I don't have much confidence that they were taught anything about the rights and wrongs of breathing.
Part of today's breathing discovery might have had something to do with the fact that because this morning's was my fifth straight rowing session - with an extra 200 c's thrown in yesterday afternoon - I was for once in the perfect mood for taking my first 100 at a 450 cals per hour pace, a rate I stopped thinking about after the first couple of weeks on the erg, and I never really got up to 550 until the third century. And then only because I was crowding MT's slot, and thus, oh gaffe of gaffes, delaying breakfast.
But even at 450, I tell myself, I'm melting more lard than I would get from the same amount of time walking, by up to 50 percent. I can walk at four-and-half miles per hour, but not nearly as easily as I can row for the same result on the scales.
But I was going to speak about the best rhythm for breathing. I've never actually studied the manufacturer's advice, but MT told me they recommend exhaling on the pull, inhaling on the release. Thus out, in, out,in, etc.
This may be necessary at the end of a race, perhaps. But it is not sound advice for genuine conditioning, according to Ayurveda, Dr. Douillard and my own experience. Getting the lungs to work comfortably and honestly at full potential has to be a priority of any fitness process. I like to inhale on the pull, because the chest is naturally open, exhale on the release, then virtually rest from deliberate breathing on the second set of pull and release. This makes for a four-stroke engine as it were, with only one stroke committed to taking in oxygen.
This is probably easier to say than do at the beginning, but I'm convinced it's pretty much the way the biology works the best.
Anyway, by the time I'm into the last block I notice that my breathing is very easy, and it's not because I'm dawdling. In fact, having begun the day with a very leisurely 300 cals on the Concept 2000, and just finished a three mile walk with my not-quite actually retired yet other half, split by a coffee on Baker Street before she headed for the museum, I've definitely got that "I'm in the ZONE" mood that JD has studied so thoroughly, and I feel as if I could go on for hours. I'm increasingly confident that I finally have the handle on my own personal best fitness methodology, thanks to the Seahorse - mind and body and spirit have finally become a true trinity, seamlessly harmonious - and now the fat will really take a hike.
And then I notice that my lips are sealed. Not even a hint of having to open them now and again to catch up on the air. Three steps in, three steps out. Then I try two steps in and three out, and that too is comfortable for most of the last part of the block. I've written earlier, months ago, about how I finally realized that by insisting on sticking rigidly to the shut mouth I was creating tension problems in my chest, so I've changed my routine, focusing on making sure I exhale for the full count. The real priority is not actually nose or mouth. The real priority is time for the oxygen to be fully processed in the alveoli at the bottom of the lungs. But the more the nose is involved, the more accurate the read on what the system is really doing, with a lot less chance for being fooled by temporary euphoria or the often false information we get from being fairly well warmed up.
The nose pings when the oxygen supply is actually inadequate - or at least mine does, basically the right nostril - and this simple little indicator warns us not to go too fast too soon. This always means at least ten minutes of relaxed and easy warm up, something we should have learned by watching all those professional baseball players out of the field before the game, except that I don't have much confidence that they were taught anything about the rights and wrongs of breathing.
Part of today's breathing discovery might have had something to do with the fact that because this morning's was my fifth straight rowing session - with an extra 200 c's thrown in yesterday afternoon - I was for once in the perfect mood for taking my first 100 at a 450 cals per hour pace, a rate I stopped thinking about after the first couple of weeks on the erg, and I never really got up to 550 until the third century. And then only because I was crowding MT's slot, and thus, oh gaffe of gaffes, delaying breakfast.
But even at 450, I tell myself, I'm melting more lard than I would get from the same amount of time walking, by up to 50 percent. I can walk at four-and-half miles per hour, but not nearly as easily as I can row for the same result on the scales.
But I was going to speak about the best rhythm for breathing. I've never actually studied the manufacturer's advice, but MT told me they recommend exhaling on the pull, inhaling on the release. Thus out, in, out,in, etc.
This may be necessary at the end of a race, perhaps. But it is not sound advice for genuine conditioning, according to Ayurveda, Dr. Douillard and my own experience. Getting the lungs to work comfortably and honestly at full potential has to be a priority of any fitness process. I like to inhale on the pull, because the chest is naturally open, exhale on the release, then virtually rest from deliberate breathing on the second set of pull and release. This makes for a four-stroke engine as it were, with only one stroke committed to taking in oxygen.
This is probably easier to say than do at the beginning, but I'm convinced it's pretty much the way the biology works the best.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Athlete in Lent
Whew!
For a few days there, I had to wonder if the recent ability to be more constant with the fiction had put paid to the Ranger. The fiction goes pretty steadily, for a contemplative - on Saturday I came with nice fat installments for both streams - and I must say that I've never found the process easier. Famous last words, of course, but there are also a number of reasons for thinking that the writing room is in the best order it's ever been. After all, "Contemplatives" has already been written once, so the immense pressure of raw invention in a completely new genre is over; and, a further contentment for my easily scrupulous soul, I have realized that the difference between a redaction and a rewrite means that I can cheerfully ignore the chapter sequences whenever this is appropriate. And NWTA will possibly set a record as the novel that required the least invention whatsoever.
But now back to the gym.
When I first began to run, inspired so profoundly by the film "Chariots of Fire", back in 1982, my motivation were disgust for my own sloth after watching David Puttnam's actors pounding along that English beach, and sensing that I needed to build up my own body's strength, after popping a hernia carrying a cast iron heater down three flights of stairs. The heater was part of the set furniture for my last play, Agatha Christie's "Mousetrap". There was no question whatever of exercise for the purpose of weight control. In fact I was underweight, as the hospital scales so cruelly showed. Who could be overweight, having walked an average of fifty miles a week for a decade?
But the domestic schedule began to change, through a variety of causes that much diminished the opportunity for keeping my shoe repairman in business, and the middle-aged spread began to creep into view. That which I assumed would never happen to me, did, and I began to learn how much easier it was to put weight on than to take it off, once all that walking was no longer reasonably available.
On the other hand, I've never been obsessed with the idea staying slim. I don't have any professional obligations that require this, like an actress who plays romantic leads, or a male model, and I'm sensitive to health theories that suggest, or even insist, that a little too much fat is healthier than too little. Nor do I object to those with ampler figures. There is a kind of beauty in the variety of shapes, as Nature obviously teaches, and then there is the science of the doshas, as taught by Ayurveda, that details mental and emotional qualities that intertwine irremovably with the original created design of a particular body shape. Thus the debate over what is ideal, or even normal, in the area of body weight, is not a simple one.
So my attitude toward my own extra lard - and there are debates about how much of that is actually disproportionate - is as much a matter of philosophical, scientific, interest as it is personal and subjective. As a writer, what am I supposed to think about it? What am I supposed to do about it?
These questions emerged in my professional considerations once the running began, and continued, with greater or lesser efficiency, through a lot of experimentation and study, but never with any complete answers, until I seriously launched into the rowing programme. I got a very good list of answers, some of these permanent solvers of certain physical problems, but never a definitive solution to the weight problem.
For me, a definitive solution meant a method that made the exercise virtually something I barely had to think about, something that did not, could not, interfere with my preferential option for mental activity, believing as I do that the body was made to serve the soul and not the other way around.
"All physical movement passes through the heart."
Because in my first years as a Catholic I read Thomas as constantly and naturally as children - at least of my generation - read the funny papers, I read these words of his and took them for granted, so obvious that only the stupidest of human beings would contradict them. After all, the heart's physiological job is to pump blood throughout the body, it is the body that moves, so the heart knows about the movement. But I don't know if I would have understood them as applying to the question of exercise until I had gone through all the research I commenced upon when I took up running, to any degree at all, and especially not at any thoroughly comprehensive level until my starting up a gym schedule and then immediately lucking into John Douillard's "Body, Mind, and Sport".
As it's been John of the Cross that has been my daily bread for decades now, I don't roar through Thomas as I used to, and I don't know how it was that I was inspired to pick him up and find that passage about the heart. Was it two years ago? Three? Certainly before I took up rowing regularly, but after I'd learned how ayurvedic breathing and other wise old Indian doctrines on the para-sympathetic nervous system could make wise men out of air-headed jocks.
John of the Cross, for all that his first book implies the exercise known to alpinists, in its title, says nothing directly to athletes of any description, except the immensely pertinent advice to those under the mystical influence that if God is not pleased with your team attitude He'll find ways to bench you so abruptly, and forcibly, as to make Vince Lombardi look and sound like a palliative care giver.
According to the ayurvedic logic of the doshas, I happen to have a lot of pitta in me, so I have the attitude problems of the ambitious. I don't automatically think in terms of less is more, and once I'm warmed up I automatically think of getting as much out of the moment as I can.
Thus, with the rower, as I grew stronger week after week, always with that Boston row-off record in mind, I naturally racked off the fast intervals as quickly as I felt the inspiration. Up to the point, this was excellent, and totally natural. We have the right to be as strong as we naturally can be. But what is to be understood as natural? And is the old "mind over matter", or "no gain without pain" an element of natural thinking, or madness?
I certainly was having a good time, and with lots of excellent reading, between all those lovely intervals. But I also had to admit that I sometimes made myself too tired to write or study the keyboard for some time afterward, and I wasn't getting the spiritual feel for the longer rowing sessions necessary for real progress with the midriff. The blast-offs were giving me, on average 200 calorie days, and at the best, only four days a week. Not much pudge put down since Xmas. Some, but not what I'd expected.
And then came the thoughts of Lent that show up at this time of the liturgical year.
I mean, what the hell, Lento means "slow" anyway, so plainly it makes good spiritual sense to drop back to maximum comfort and the extra room for sober thought. The brain is connected to the heart as well as the body is, so let's see what happens.
Honestly, I must admit to being surprised. All those intervals, as much as I enjoyed them, were actually interfering with the real wisdom of the process, and I seem to be learning something about the positive psychological effects of concentrating on endurance. If the body/mind combo knows it can't quit for half-an-hour, it will find ways to make that stretch pleasurable, therefore endurable.
So, four straight days now of 300's, and I can't even think of needing a day off.
At this rate, I'll not only be down some real ounces by Easter, I'll perhaps be light enough by the Ascension to perform in an aeronautic fashion myself.
And stay tuned, because if you think this is an anti-Western sermon, wait until next time when we address the issue of breathing properly while riding an erg. It's not what the maker's literature tells you.
For a few days there, I had to wonder if the recent ability to be more constant with the fiction had put paid to the Ranger. The fiction goes pretty steadily, for a contemplative - on Saturday I came with nice fat installments for both streams - and I must say that I've never found the process easier. Famous last words, of course, but there are also a number of reasons for thinking that the writing room is in the best order it's ever been. After all, "Contemplatives" has already been written once, so the immense pressure of raw invention in a completely new genre is over; and, a further contentment for my easily scrupulous soul, I have realized that the difference between a redaction and a rewrite means that I can cheerfully ignore the chapter sequences whenever this is appropriate. And NWTA will possibly set a record as the novel that required the least invention whatsoever.
But now back to the gym.
When I first began to run, inspired so profoundly by the film "Chariots of Fire", back in 1982, my motivation were disgust for my own sloth after watching David Puttnam's actors pounding along that English beach, and sensing that I needed to build up my own body's strength, after popping a hernia carrying a cast iron heater down three flights of stairs. The heater was part of the set furniture for my last play, Agatha Christie's "Mousetrap". There was no question whatever of exercise for the purpose of weight control. In fact I was underweight, as the hospital scales so cruelly showed. Who could be overweight, having walked an average of fifty miles a week for a decade?
But the domestic schedule began to change, through a variety of causes that much diminished the opportunity for keeping my shoe repairman in business, and the middle-aged spread began to creep into view. That which I assumed would never happen to me, did, and I began to learn how much easier it was to put weight on than to take it off, once all that walking was no longer reasonably available.
On the other hand, I've never been obsessed with the idea staying slim. I don't have any professional obligations that require this, like an actress who plays romantic leads, or a male model, and I'm sensitive to health theories that suggest, or even insist, that a little too much fat is healthier than too little. Nor do I object to those with ampler figures. There is a kind of beauty in the variety of shapes, as Nature obviously teaches, and then there is the science of the doshas, as taught by Ayurveda, that details mental and emotional qualities that intertwine irremovably with the original created design of a particular body shape. Thus the debate over what is ideal, or even normal, in the area of body weight, is not a simple one.
So my attitude toward my own extra lard - and there are debates about how much of that is actually disproportionate - is as much a matter of philosophical, scientific, interest as it is personal and subjective. As a writer, what am I supposed to think about it? What am I supposed to do about it?
These questions emerged in my professional considerations once the running began, and continued, with greater or lesser efficiency, through a lot of experimentation and study, but never with any complete answers, until I seriously launched into the rowing programme. I got a very good list of answers, some of these permanent solvers of certain physical problems, but never a definitive solution to the weight problem.
For me, a definitive solution meant a method that made the exercise virtually something I barely had to think about, something that did not, could not, interfere with my preferential option for mental activity, believing as I do that the body was made to serve the soul and not the other way around.
"All physical movement passes through the heart."
Because in my first years as a Catholic I read Thomas as constantly and naturally as children - at least of my generation - read the funny papers, I read these words of his and took them for granted, so obvious that only the stupidest of human beings would contradict them. After all, the heart's physiological job is to pump blood throughout the body, it is the body that moves, so the heart knows about the movement. But I don't know if I would have understood them as applying to the question of exercise until I had gone through all the research I commenced upon when I took up running, to any degree at all, and especially not at any thoroughly comprehensive level until my starting up a gym schedule and then immediately lucking into John Douillard's "Body, Mind, and Sport".
As it's been John of the Cross that has been my daily bread for decades now, I don't roar through Thomas as I used to, and I don't know how it was that I was inspired to pick him up and find that passage about the heart. Was it two years ago? Three? Certainly before I took up rowing regularly, but after I'd learned how ayurvedic breathing and other wise old Indian doctrines on the para-sympathetic nervous system could make wise men out of air-headed jocks.
John of the Cross, for all that his first book implies the exercise known to alpinists, in its title, says nothing directly to athletes of any description, except the immensely pertinent advice to those under the mystical influence that if God is not pleased with your team attitude He'll find ways to bench you so abruptly, and forcibly, as to make Vince Lombardi look and sound like a palliative care giver.
According to the ayurvedic logic of the doshas, I happen to have a lot of pitta in me, so I have the attitude problems of the ambitious. I don't automatically think in terms of less is more, and once I'm warmed up I automatically think of getting as much out of the moment as I can.
Thus, with the rower, as I grew stronger week after week, always with that Boston row-off record in mind, I naturally racked off the fast intervals as quickly as I felt the inspiration. Up to the point, this was excellent, and totally natural. We have the right to be as strong as we naturally can be. But what is to be understood as natural? And is the old "mind over matter", or "no gain without pain" an element of natural thinking, or madness?
I certainly was having a good time, and with lots of excellent reading, between all those lovely intervals. But I also had to admit that I sometimes made myself too tired to write or study the keyboard for some time afterward, and I wasn't getting the spiritual feel for the longer rowing sessions necessary for real progress with the midriff. The blast-offs were giving me, on average 200 calorie days, and at the best, only four days a week. Not much pudge put down since Xmas. Some, but not what I'd expected.
And then came the thoughts of Lent that show up at this time of the liturgical year.
I mean, what the hell, Lento means "slow" anyway, so plainly it makes good spiritual sense to drop back to maximum comfort and the extra room for sober thought. The brain is connected to the heart as well as the body is, so let's see what happens.
Honestly, I must admit to being surprised. All those intervals, as much as I enjoyed them, were actually interfering with the real wisdom of the process, and I seem to be learning something about the positive psychological effects of concentrating on endurance. If the body/mind combo knows it can't quit for half-an-hour, it will find ways to make that stretch pleasurable, therefore endurable.
So, four straight days now of 300's, and I can't even think of needing a day off.
At this rate, I'll not only be down some real ounces by Easter, I'll perhaps be light enough by the Ascension to perform in an aeronautic fashion myself.
And stay tuned, because if you think this is an anti-Western sermon, wait until next time when we address the issue of breathing properly while riding an erg. It's not what the maker's literature tells you.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Birth of a Salesman
While I'm not yet a threat in the under-75 class in the Boston row-offs, I have made a big jump - actually drop - in my own best time for the 100 calorie dash. That's five calories short of the total that by my calculations is how much bread and cheese you burn off while scooting the Olympic distance of 2000 metres, but it's a nice round number for my calculations and close enough for folk music. My old record was 8 minutes and 47 seconds, the new one is 8:33. The Boston clock for the 105 cals is around a flat 8.
I know, I know. In order to be the perfect flag-waving Canadian at this time in our history I should be doing something on ice, or out in the snow, not spinning a fly wheel in our attic. But the erg upstairs is the most efficient indoor fat removal device I know, and besides, when I get bored with things simply physical, as novelists and philosophers must do, I can pick up a book from the coffee table especially lofted into the top floor to be my reading desk. Or these days, interesting for utterly tragic reasons, I can look at the little image of Our Lady of Guadeloupe occupying the north-east corner of the table and ask her to help all those poor Haitians. And, anyway, I've already done my bit for the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics. Back in the clutch days, when the dignitaries were voting, the Almighty made it pretty plain that I'd better put my prayers into the balance if I thought Canada should get the Games rather than Austria or Korea.
Yep, the rowing machine is my baby, my sport of sports, my answer to every question I've ever had about a reliable fitness and weight-control programme, although it must be said, and must be said again, that I'm very grateful for all the general physiological instruction I've picked up via the recent years in the gym, Chi Gong class, some familiarity with yoga and dance, and a modest fortune willingly spent on books about it all. I don't think I'd want to row as much as I do without a good appetite for cross-training and intelligent stretching. As with every particular sport or working man's muscle use, rowing an erg is muscle, tendon, ligament, nervous system and organ specific, which means a good chance of disturbing the body's natural need for, and sense of, balance. Too much of these muscles, etc., not enough of that. Look like Popeye in one part of your anatomy, and a victim of rickets in another.
And because the rowing is obviously full of rhythm and motion, the opposite manouvres naturally conform themselves to the stillness of yoga. After all, you should be tired of movement after anything up to and past ten minutes of playing galley slave, so astute stretching simply feels good as well as saves your muscles from lumping like dried clay. My first move after I descend the ladder to and from the attic is to flop on the bed and fold up each leg in turn for the split leg child's pose, as I call it, but which is also known to more proficient yogis as the Pigeon. It's also a very comfortable way to say part of a rosary.
Which brings me to the main target of this sales pitch: clergy and religious with weight problems. The erg is the most perfect answer I can think of. The phone need never be out of reach, and the divine office and spiritual reading splice beautifully into a schedule of 10 to 25 calorie intervals. You speed up or slow down as instinct dictates, and the electronic chart tells you exactly how much lard you're burning, and all the time, if you've taken on a little reading on these question, you know that an erg is at least 50% more efficient, in terms of time over calories, than walking or jogging, without any threat to ankle and knee joints.
Take it from me: the good people at Concept 2 are not really people. They're angels, sent from Heaven to cure the West's love/hate relationship with fat and lethargy.
When I was a teenager, trying to figure out what I would be when I grew up, the one job I didn't want and wasn't going to have was that of a salesman. But I kid you not, I now could cheerfully drum from door to door with a handful of glossy Odes to an Erg in my eager hand. And so I do, through the kind offices of the good people at Blogger.com.
And by this time next year, I will be 75, and in an easier time category for the Boston row-offs. Bless me, Father, for a I have a most sinfully ambitious eye on the record, if only to prove the genius of Ayurveda and Dr. John Douillard on the subject of nasal breathing. On that score, Concept 2 is better at building than understanding.
I know, I know. In order to be the perfect flag-waving Canadian at this time in our history I should be doing something on ice, or out in the snow, not spinning a fly wheel in our attic. But the erg upstairs is the most efficient indoor fat removal device I know, and besides, when I get bored with things simply physical, as novelists and philosophers must do, I can pick up a book from the coffee table especially lofted into the top floor to be my reading desk. Or these days, interesting for utterly tragic reasons, I can look at the little image of Our Lady of Guadeloupe occupying the north-east corner of the table and ask her to help all those poor Haitians. And, anyway, I've already done my bit for the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics. Back in the clutch days, when the dignitaries were voting, the Almighty made it pretty plain that I'd better put my prayers into the balance if I thought Canada should get the Games rather than Austria or Korea.
Yep, the rowing machine is my baby, my sport of sports, my answer to every question I've ever had about a reliable fitness and weight-control programme, although it must be said, and must be said again, that I'm very grateful for all the general physiological instruction I've picked up via the recent years in the gym, Chi Gong class, some familiarity with yoga and dance, and a modest fortune willingly spent on books about it all. I don't think I'd want to row as much as I do without a good appetite for cross-training and intelligent stretching. As with every particular sport or working man's muscle use, rowing an erg is muscle, tendon, ligament, nervous system and organ specific, which means a good chance of disturbing the body's natural need for, and sense of, balance. Too much of these muscles, etc., not enough of that. Look like Popeye in one part of your anatomy, and a victim of rickets in another.
And because the rowing is obviously full of rhythm and motion, the opposite manouvres naturally conform themselves to the stillness of yoga. After all, you should be tired of movement after anything up to and past ten minutes of playing galley slave, so astute stretching simply feels good as well as saves your muscles from lumping like dried clay. My first move after I descend the ladder to and from the attic is to flop on the bed and fold up each leg in turn for the split leg child's pose, as I call it, but which is also known to more proficient yogis as the Pigeon. It's also a very comfortable way to say part of a rosary.
Which brings me to the main target of this sales pitch: clergy and religious with weight problems. The erg is the most perfect answer I can think of. The phone need never be out of reach, and the divine office and spiritual reading splice beautifully into a schedule of 10 to 25 calorie intervals. You speed up or slow down as instinct dictates, and the electronic chart tells you exactly how much lard you're burning, and all the time, if you've taken on a little reading on these question, you know that an erg is at least 50% more efficient, in terms of time over calories, than walking or jogging, without any threat to ankle and knee joints.
Take it from me: the good people at Concept 2 are not really people. They're angels, sent from Heaven to cure the West's love/hate relationship with fat and lethargy.
When I was a teenager, trying to figure out what I would be when I grew up, the one job I didn't want and wasn't going to have was that of a salesman. But I kid you not, I now could cheerfully drum from door to door with a handful of glossy Odes to an Erg in my eager hand. And so I do, through the kind offices of the good people at Blogger.com.
And by this time next year, I will be 75, and in an easier time category for the Boston row-offs. Bless me, Father, for a I have a most sinfully ambitious eye on the record, if only to prove the genius of Ayurveda and Dr. John Douillard on the subject of nasal breathing. On that score, Concept 2 is better at building than understanding.
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