Getting back in the swing!

Getting back in the swing!

Whether it’s perfecting your left hook or flexing your mind (as in keeping a “daily” blog) – getting back to a regular regimen is tough going when you’ve been away from it for a while!

Having stepped into the gym on Saturday for the first time in three weeks was a case in point.  I’m nursing sore abs, a creaky shoulder and a mindset that is less focused on perfecting the minute shifts of tuned-up training, than just getting to the gym at all.

So my job is to push my momentum, meaning, getting myself back on a weekly gym schedule that *builds* rather than maintains!  I’m also trying to talk myself out of the neat excuses for not going such as, “I’ll be out of town on Saturday” or “I’m tired” or “it’s raining out” … you know the drill!

I can say the same for writing!  When I don’t write every day I get out of the habit — so, starting today, I am bound and determined to get back on the writing stick!  And yes, I’ll even give myself some slack for having finished up my degree, et alia, but a daily blog is just that, a daily blog.  That means putting fingers to the keyboard with a mindset that can get past the range of reasons *not* to do something.

Meanwhile, it’s 2012 and I’m already over three weeks behind in getting my resolutions in order for the year!  So here goes!

1.  Write a daily entry for Girlboxing!

2.  Gain more strength, endurance and flexibility. Being in my late 50s means I need resistance training and a lot of it to keep my bones strong.  I also need to do more aerobic training, and yoga.  That means getting back to a training schedule that has me doing at least one thing a day and on some days all three!

3.  Eating better!  Yikes.  This one is tough.  Having been diagnosed with LPR (Laryngeal Pharyngeal Reflux) and GERD (Gastric Esophageal Reflux Disease) PLUS having Barrett’s Esophagus (the cells in the esophagus near the gastric junction actually CHANGE due to acid erosion), I’ve been living a low-acid/low-fat life!  What I have to get to, however, is better balance in selecting meals and foods and how they are combined.  This one is a tough to sort out – and I’ll actually do a column on it sometime soon, suffice to say that I’m getting there.  I’ve lost nearly 25 pounds since the change in my eating regimen in July 2011, now the trick is to go the rest of the way (another 10 pounds), while continuing to build muscle (which has suffered as late) so that when I eventually meet my goal, I’ll be a healthy and toned – rather than depleted and weak.

4.  The next project:  now this is the tough one!  I’m thinking book and just have to move into the space by DOING rather than angsting about it.  And therein lies the sticky problem: getting to the DOING part.  Again, it’s a matter of starting and once in the habit continuing the process until it is concluded.  Easier said than done?  No, probably not ‘cause we all have goals that we set and follow.  It’s that pesky issue of getting started!

What it all comes down to for the year:  Doing!

So, day one in my reforecast New Year means putting the fingers to the keyboard to say thanks so much to my Girlboxing friends for listening and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

And how nice that it happens to coincide with the Chinese celebration of the Year of the Dragon!

GONG XI FA CAI

Riding out the storm … things to do in a Hurricane!

Riding out the storm … things to do in a Hurricane!

If you’re at all like me, your life is somewhat circumscribed into bits of this and bytes of that on a fairly routine schedule.  So what to do when there’s a hurricane on the way, especially when you live in NYC and there’s an unprecedented evacuation of the “A” zones (low-lying areas like lower Manhattan, Red Hook, Coney Island and the Rockaways — not to mention a lot of the coastal parts of Staten Island), subway and bus services running on their last  hours and no Starbucks!  OMG, as my young one likes to say!

Luckily, the stalwart of all stalwarts, Gleason’s Gym is open this morning, so I shall be able to get in my Saturday morning boxing fix … but, but. but … what then if one is stuck in the house for two days or worse yet, in a shelter or on a friend’s living room floor!

Well first off, charge up *all* of your electronics and I mean all ’cause even NYC might lose power for a while (especially if you are living in an A zone and decide to tempt fate when it comes to massive flooding).

There are also a boxing apps to download on your mobile device that’ll allow you to idle the time away.

1.  For the couch potatoes in the bunch (and if you have an account) — get Netflix and have a boxing movie film festival!  Titles available include:

"The Fighter"

- The Fighter, the fantastic Micky Ward biopic

- Homeboy, a 1998 boxing genre film starring Mickey Rourke & Christopher Walken

- Punch, in the tradition of Girlfight, a female boxer finds redemption in the ring.

Oh, and if you’re feeling like maybe you need to move around between features, here are a few workout suggestions!

- 10 Minute Solution Kickboxing (in case you always wanted to try!)

- Crunch Cardio Salsa (yep, time to get the hips moving)

- Crunch Candlelight Yoga (my favorite)

2. Workout Apps!

- MyBoxing, this is a great app with how to videos, workout plans, and a fabulous timer!

- FitnessClass, on demand fitness video workouts

- Yoga, this app has terrific animated classes, two variations of the Sun Salutations, plus a library of poses.  You can self time for 30, 45 or 60 minute workouts.

3. News Junkies!

1. CNN, a no-brainer!

2. Hurricane Watch HD (for true junkies!)

3. Watch ESPN, gives you access to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3 and ESPNU

Otherwise, stay safe and dry!

Lovely morning.

Lovely morning.

Daughter awake. Yoga routine finished. Kitty fed. Husband comfortably abed. Light full on in the sky. Warmish breeze at the window. In other words a lovely morning.

My work day is huge, to be followed by 12 lovely rounds of pounding on heavy bags, double-ended bags and the speed bag.

All is right with the world.

As for inspiration …

Lucia Rijker on the Speedbag!

Heavy bag – women’s training

Something about the end of the world …

Something about the end of the world …

The media, social media included has been all “atwitter,” if you will about Harold Camping’s prognostication that the world will end today at 6:00 PM.

I suppose what fascinates me is the seeming groundswell of fascination with the idea of it.  Does it tweak some secret fear? Remind of us of the many problems we face that might bring about a rapture? Chart our path for how to right our many wrongs?

Meanwhile, we continue to go about our lives.  Some of us happy and content, others in despair.  Not that I actually want to have an end of the world pity party here, but from where I sit, we are always, ultimately at that edge.

Life for all of its incredible force ends all the time.  Some ends are well attended by loved ones others regretful and awful and some even violent and pointless.  And some of those deaths do indeed “end” the world — the world of a family, a village, a nation, until it is reborn into some new configuration.  Not exactly rapture, but change nonetheless.

Is our fascination with the end of the world  really just the fear of a sudden e-n-d — and if so, shouldn’t we be doing something about that?

No, we can’t make it go away, but we can live our lives with a little more intention.  A little more thought to the idea that this really could be a last day and with that in mind, ask the questions about how satisfied we really are with what we’ve designed for ourselves. Are we kind enough? Focused enough? Do we share our largess? Help others overcome pain? And importantly, are we kind enough to ourselves?

Today, I’ll write, do some yoga, box with Len Blackmore, see a friend for lunch, hang with my family, work on a grad school paper and watch the Pascal v. Hopkins fight.  All and all a pretty good last day … and if I’m blessed enough to wake up tomorrow, that last day will have similar features.  A day I can feel good about having pushed for myself and others.  That’s really all we can do until …

Ides of May!

Ides of May!

Bluebell Wood, Brooklyn Botanic Garden

I don’t know about all of you, but this year is going F-A-S-T.  Not that I exactly want to call a halt, but maybe a touch of the pause button to assess where things are and where they’re going!

Meaning, am I on track for where I wanted to be?  Are there things I haven’t gotten to yet that really *are* a priority??  Have I been wasting my time on something to avoid the things I need to be doing???

It figures that I’d hit upon this as the rain is starting to come down in Brooklyn, not exacting “raining on my parade,” but giving me a moment to wonder if I need to reprioritize a little with the snippets of time I do have outside of working and family and all of the rest, to make sure body and soul will get through the year without too much of a sweat.

Things I’ve discovered?  

1. Yoga at 5:00 in the morning is hard to sustain to the point where I’ve been doing it in fits and starts since the end of April. So beginning Monday, I’m cutting it back to three days at week at 5:30 AM for 20-30 minutes at a time to see how that goes.

2. Boxing once a week is a TREASURE, but as my friend YBS Talking notes, Saturday-only boxing means that I’m only treading water physically. Solution?? Pick-up one after-work session during the week. Given time constraints I can build it around three sets of 4-rounds each of activity and do light roadwork (slow jog or fast walk) to aid the cardio.  It’ll mean I have to work on things on my own, but with stamina as the goal, that should be all right.

3. The Daily Something.  I’ve really been trying on that one viewing writing this blog as a sort of sacrosanct bit of my own that I can work on.  I’m also okay with having missed an occasional day — kind of like “gone fishing” moments,  but otherwise still love putting a piece out into the ether on a daily basis. What I’m striving for now is to work through a short list of ideas for more extended pieces which I’ll start to put out over the next several weeks.  Other than that, not only is Girlboxing my daily something, but also a “sure thing” when it comes to the joy department!  So thanks to everyone out there for listening!

4. Balancing out all the rest!  This is the toughest one and I’m not so certain how successful I’ve been at this lately.  Suffice to say, my husband is the true champion for supporting me in all of this, and I mean all of it from me waking up before dawn on through writing papers for school from morning till night on weekends. And he supports me through all of it with a great big smile — even when he feels that I love my computer more than I love him!  My daughter has also been a great booster and I cannot say enough about how proud I am of her and of her accomplishments.

And so it goes … not exactly mid-way through the year, but close on as summer continues to beckon us all along (in the northern hemisphere that is!).

I can only hope that your year has gone as well!

If you have your health …

If you have your health …

I have close friends and family who are in varying states of getting their butts kicked by illness and the uncertainties that ill-health can bring.   Whether life-threatening as in some cases or debilitating to the point of being life-altering, the old adage that goes, “if you have your health you have everything,” rings truer than I can say.

Watching formally healthy and robust people impaired by illness — even for the shorter term is difficult to reconcile.  And yet those of my friends and family who find themselves at that place where the fight for a modicum of normalcy equates to a lot of wishful thinking puts me in mind to how grateful I am  to be able to choose or *not* choose to haul myself to the gym to work out, or to fight my way from dreamland on to the mat for morning Yoga.  Which of course reminds me of the fact that I’ve blown it off of late — and in working through how to get back into the habit of pre-dawn downward-facing-dog poses I am not only thinking of it as a matter of will power, but of something deeper:  taking responsibility for my health, frankly, while I still have it.

As every boxer knows, the dedication to workouts, healthy eating, making weight safely, and importantly, a training routine that works with one’s body not against it are what’s needed before ever stepping into the ring.  And why not with life too — and with the everyday fun of work and play with minds and bodies free of the stresses that too many late nights, fast-foods loaded with fats and sugars and not enough time spent attending to the prevention of illness can bring.

Goodness knows I am not one to talk having just eaten the delicious slice of Mother’s Day cake my daughter lovingly bought me, but … that’s not to say that one can’t have one’s cake and “eat it too.” One can put some thought into eating and living healthily with the occasional cake and ice cream carved in to it — and no, not a pint of chocolate chocolate chip at one sitting, but a hearty scoopful.

I guess the point is to mind what your mother always told you, stuff like, “a good breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” or “take your vitamins,” or “don’t watch too much TV, it’ll rot your brain.”

Well you get the drift.  Doing what you can to stay healthy really does count for something, so please, for your Mom, try to remember yours.

One breath at a time

One breath at a time.

If there is one thing I’ve been trying to gain out of a daily yoga practice aside from the physical benefits, it’s been the reminder to take things as they come.

With yoga, one performs poses to the rhythm of the breath (or at least tries) and in doing so can be “present,” with the experience.  Or put another way, the mind helps push the body to extend itself to its best place — and through regular practice the possibility of great flexibility and strength, not to mention a more focused mental attitude and the *chance* for some clear moments free of mind-movies!

The practice, however, doesn’t always guarantee the focus or the release of all that mental junk that clogs the thinking which can hamper one’s ability to perform at one’s best.  Focus being another whole facet of every discipline and whether it’s yoga or boxing it requires a lot of inner strength to maintain.

That’s where in my estimation the emphasis on the breath in yogic practice can help in priming the mind towards focus:  a great way of tricking your mind into paying attention.  Kind of like Lennox Blackmore’s pop to my head as he yell’s “wake-up, wake-up,” when I make a truly fundamental blunder during our workout. It’s also a reminder to slow down racing thoughts that are extraneous to the task at hand.

This morning was a case in point for me.  Doing yoga, my mind wandering, I lost an entire pose, meaning, I *did* the pose, but lost to a mind-movie I “woke-up” somewhere at the end of it, not really remembering how I got there and in a teeter-totter not to fall down.  So yes, I did yoga, but I really didn’t because I lost the stream of what I was doing and without that, can I truly say that I practiced?

Try that in boxing, and one ends up in a face-plant on the mat, and frankly in yoga too, because so many of the poses not only require balance, but mental “presence” to truly gain mastery of the practice.  And it is that presence, that “be here now” concept that see’s one through so much of the daily struggles of life.

So, full-circle to the breath … take a few moments out of your busy day and remember to breathe and in so doing, slow down enough to be where you are one step at a time.

My gym day

My gym day!

Saturday is my gym day.

I walk my daughter to her Aikido Dojo — where she usually does her three hours split between the open and advanced classes — and make my way over to Gleason’s Gym for my own sweet 16.

Today’s practice will entail a straight no-chaser kind of morning:  four rounds of shadow boxing, four rounds of pads, four rounds on the double-ended bag with four rounds on the speed bag to finish the circuit.  Then it’s off to two-rounds of easy crunches on the sit-up chair as I mentally drift into a nice tired feeling in between catching glimpses of folks sparring in one of the boxing rings.

It’s become a kind of bliss.  My shirt half-soaked with sweat.  My face flushed.  Perspiration matted in my hair. My legs a little shaky as I make my way into the locker room to change; today kind of special, because instead of three hours, my prodigal will be spending her day at a seminar so free until 5:00 PM, I can tarry at the gym before taking my time walking home.

Reflecting as I walk; I know I’ll feel like summer: slow, deliberate, easy.  My body supple and warmed and ready for anything on my lazy meander up the hill near Gleason’s; smiling at the tourists under the Brooklyn Bridge overpass and finally returning to my usual self somewhere near Cadman Plaza where the rush of people will start to catch me back into the flow of a busy Saturday.

 

 

 

Yoga mama shadow boxing around my living room

Yoga mama shadow boxing around my living room

Having fallen “off the wagon” so to speak, I’m on day two of my renewed daily yoga routine what with being a bit hit and miss over the last two weeks — with an every 3rd morning routine.

What can I say — my arms are straining from plank pose, my hamstrings from downward facing dog, and my whole body from the Warrior 1, 2 & 3 sequences, but hey, I’m sitting taller while breathing nice and deep and full.  Even the kitty is excited, finding in my unfurled yoga mat a fun toy she’d apparently, really missed.

Next up, three rounds of shadow boxing around the living room to James Brown’s “Funky Good Time” before prancing my way around the kitchen to make some breakfast for the family.

It’s good to be back.

 

 

 

Slipping and sliding

Slipping and sliding

My little black cloud has returned.  The one my mother used to say followed me everywhere as a constant reminder of all the doom and gloom in the world.  I felt it coming on as a bad fever dream over the past couple of weeks when I started eschewing morning yoga in favor of reading Google “Top News” headlines.  Next came my compulsive news-watching — and now I’m in full-blown “chicken-little” mode what with four disabled nuclear reactors in Japan spewing radiation and reactors five and six on the way.

I guess it was the earthquake-tsunami combo that really put me over the edge and saw me blow-off a perfectly good weekend of work in favor of the intricacies of nuclear power plants.  Did you know, for instance that after the diesel engines failed, the workers jerry-rigged fire hoses to pour water into the reactors?

Having been to Japan both as a traveler and for work, there has been an immediacy to the events that hit home — not to mention that I not only grew up in the era of “duck and cover,” but having had parents who were active in the Ban-the-Bomb pacifist movement of the late 50′s & 60′s knew rather more than I needed to know about nuclear bombs.

So meanwhile, I have work piling up for grad school, a body that is no longer a supple as a pretzel, and am struggling to find my way into the sunshine again when really — well, you get the point, I’m under my little black cloud!

Talk about a slip and slide.

Well, its time to take my own medicine and get out of my own way so to speak.

Yep.  It’s first-you-cry, wash-my-face time.   I could quote from Casablanca to myself … you know the one, “I’m not good at being noble, but it’s clear to me that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

And yeah, I’d be right.  Part of the all the stuff that happens in “this crazy world” is our own obligation to make it a better place.  So while I can’t do much to help in Japan other than sending on a few bucks, (nope, I didn’t major in nuclear engineering), what I can do is get out of my funk to live a better day and save the black cloud for where it belongs, in the sky to provide rain for all of those pretty May flowers.

So in the spirit of sunshine, born-again Pollyanna says, “have a great day!”

Tied up in knots…

Tied up in knots…

It’s one of those rainy days when the chores have felt as a never-ending stew of this and that — and every time I looked up for a bit of sunshine, the weather conspired with the list to keep me bound to it, no matter how miserable it felt.  Least ways, around here with laundry done, paper garbage bound and disposed of, second round of dish washing underway and most of the homework completed — the tasks still seem unrelenting.  There’s my daughter’s book report with a page to go — and hence her misery and for me, flash cards for her Social Studies test, the bathroom, third round on the kitchen and the reading I never got to.

Oh well.  In my estimation that means milk and cookies time — and the chance to break frame before returning to the “have-to-get-this-stuff-done” pile.  Oh … and the yoga I never got to this morning, but enough of the poor-me … suffice to say, if that kind of mood hits the only thing to do is to listen to a little Patsy Cline and succumb before washing my face and beginning again!

Boxing connections

Boxing connections

While focusing on my prana breathing this morning the Yogic term for unifying the body through the energy of the breath, I got to thinking about how boxing seems to energize people in the same way. And yes, I was off in a mind movie about boxing, but figure that the “connection” on “connections” was all within the spirit of the breath!

So what do I mean — mostly that the community is small and practitioners from living room shadow boxers on through elite athletes, share a love for the sport, a passion for the practice and derive inner satisfaction from all of the hard work.  Not to say that every boxer would articulate it that way, but the community, especially among women boxers from 8-80 seems to derive a lot of strength from knowing that there are other women out there boxing their hearts out.

Case in point:  I do not know Christy Martin at all, but reading last night that a rib injury in the gym might sideline her from her March 12th PPV fight on Showtime really bummed me out.  (See Boxing Scene.com story here.)  We’ll know more today, and yes it will be news, but my relationship to it feels personal.  As if a close friend is at risk for a huge disappointment.  And I’m not talking as a fan per se, but as person that understands what it takes to step out in the ring and thus I feel a connection to what she’s been trying to achieve.

This blog is teaching me as well.  It’s connecting me to folks I’ve never met or spoken to, and yet through language and an evolving understanding of shared experiences, I feel it’s made me some friends, and “virtual” or not, whether I ever meet them face-to-face or not, working hard in the gym has a language all its own that you can share across huge divides.  Now I’m not going to get all sappy here, but the point is, the work has a language all its own that only needs the step of the doing to be a part of.  And no, I cannot share what it feels like to have the jitters before a championship match, but I can relate it to the experience of sparring for the first time, or putting gloves on for the first time and realizing that the itch on my nose would go unscratched unless I asked for some help.

The key perhaps is just that.  Boxing is not a solo experience.  In the end the connections are essential. Without them there’s no tango, no intricate dance whether between two fighters in the ring, boxer and trainer, or friends goofing around in the locker room.  So even if you are shadow boxing alone in your room, you’re still dancing with your shadow and that counts for something too!

 

 

It’s raining dogs and cats

It’s raining dogs and cats

Sometimes when you are working really hard at something, say writing a conference paper, training for your next fight or hitting your 47th non-stop morning at twisting your body in a pose, the goal still seems a million miles away from getting you anywhere.  More to the point, and not exactly a marathoner’s wall, your world will feel upside down and a bit backwards, because no matter the effort that sense of achievement feels illusive.

I think of it having run into a friend at Gleason’s on Saturday who is in the midst of training for a fight.  She looked strong, fit, and truly ready — and yet she also had that look that said, “wow, this is hard.” And is if her verbal constructions had hit into reverse, her far away gaze revealed the doubts that all of us feel when we are on the cusp of something.  I’d have given her a hug if I could, but it wasn’t one of those moments. Rather what she needed was a pause to acknowledge her efforts and struggle; something akin to a moment of breath, where she could intake slowly allowing for the catch in the throat before forcing it all out to begin anew.

And that is how it is sometimes. We work with tremendous effort on our goals, but feel caught in a backwards swirl of mind movies that have us see our world upside down before we can shake the tree enough to right ourselves again.

Call it a raining dogs and cats moment and then move on — because when you are working that hard, you really, really know it, and should trust that you’re doing what you need to do to achieve your that goal.

Your moment, your time.

Your moment, your time.

This is as good an early morning as any to admit that getting up before dawn to breathe deeply as I contort myself into poses my body has no way of holding is just plain silly.  Okay, well maybe not silly, but given that my eyes are at half mast and I’m drifting as I write there is the question as to whether I am hitting diminishing returns here.  Yes, I got the junk out of my bones as I stretched and released — with the added benefit of giving the cat a place to scratch as I attempted the right hand on my outstretched left foot pose (that’s the donuty looking one — great on the tape, ridiculous on me!).

The gripes aside — it being Wednesday after all when these sorts of doubts hit my consciousness — I got to thinking that it is still my little bit of quiet including all this baby-bitching. Yep, let’s face it, sometimes we need some time to complain. We need that arrrghhh growl. That “damn-it nobody changed the toilet paper” grumble. Or my favorite, the loud as I can be empty out the kitchen sink plate slamming session where the object is to make as much noise as possible with nary a scratch to any of the pots, pans, dishes or cutlery. Where I draw the line is with the mucked up sponge which in my world just gets tossed out with a few under the breath curses to the moron who left it there to soak in the overnight potpourri of bacteria languishing in their special stew.

The point is the moments that are yours don’t always have to be pretty. Let’s face it, why else would you want to hit things?  Punching a heavy bag does have its attractions after all. As does beating down a huge mound of clay, digging in the dirt to plant bulbs or running till your heart feels as if it is going to burst. And that’s okay. Release is not always a slowly modulated intake and outtake of breath kind of thing. Sometimes its messy and full of rage, and sometimes its plain old complaint city when for the 116th time in a week you plead, cajole and beg one of your loved ones to pahleasssseee open the hamper lid before stacking their dirty laundry.

Sometimes you win …

Sometimes you win …

Brooklyn Bridge at Night, 1948 Gelatin Silver, by Andreas Feininger

 

 

I managed to crawl out of bed at my usual ridiculous weekday hour in the morning today.  My head is still spinning a bit from being tired and I’ve been fighting off waves of didn’t-get-enough-sleep headaches — not to complain, which I’m not, but to state that the inconveniences of those feelings are out-weighed by the suppleness my limbs feel after my third downward dog pose and all the other stretches these creaky bones held this morning.

While I may or may not get to four rounds of shadow boxing when I finish this piece, the hiss of the steam, wanderings of the kitty and the sounds of the house as it reverberates with the slow morning echoes from the street below gives me something else.  A kind of serenity as I greet the day before the stresses and hustle and bustle of all the have-to’s begin to settle on it.

When one has a busy life with a tons of constituent parts that demand time, attention and thought, it’s so very nice to have the gift of a few minutes that aren’t in competition.  Rather, they’re just for oneself.  A little piece of the world one can own — if not quite the room Virginia Wolfe envisioned where one could state, “I am,” this place has more to do with a gift of quiet.  And sure, predawn self-ministrations get “old” by Thursday morning when the accumulated hours of missed sleep are wearying, however, the idea of finding a part of the day for quiet doesn’t.  I’ve been keeping to this schedule for six weeks now and have to say that occasional grumpiness aside these moments of quiet have truly given me something I didn’t expect:  a place of peace that’s a little of my own.