This morning I had some enlightenment around a nagging injury I’ve had. Someone asked me to move in a way that I was convinced I couldn’t. I tried it despite my fears and I freakin’ did it! Why didn’t I think I could do a bent knee Ju Jitsu roll on the floor? Well, since martial arts training is new to me, it had never occurred to me to do a rolling back kick to anyone’s face before. It just looked painful, wasn’t on the “my body can move in that way” list. When I actually did the roll, my fears were put to shame, my body didn’t even complain a little bit. A ray of light shone on my sweet, formerly bum knee and its limber future of possibilities ahead.
I once wrote a poem called “Oh, knee of misfortune”. Maybe I had let that story sink in a little too deep, for a little too long and it’s time to reinvent my perception of what I can do, how I can actually move now, in spite of my fears. That my body is actually asking for new information constantly.
“No matter how much I move myself around, my strongest tendency is to move in the same ways that I have always moved, guided by the same deeply seated postural habits, sensory cues, and mental images of my body; but if I can succeed in surrendering to the movements that another person imposes on my body, without my own system of cues and responses interfering, it is possible to treat my mind to a flood of sensations that … [can] indicate what things I have been doing that have produced my aches and pains at the same time as they have reinforced my normal sense of self.” –Deane Juhan in Job’s Body More about Yoga Teacher, Bette Calman, 83
Some ways to reconnect with your ever changing bod:
- Join a new class at the gym just to see what it’s about like some Latin-inspired Zumba or a free movement class.
- Every hour or so just shake your shoulders, your legs and your body. Shake it, shake it like you’re Jell-o.
- Check out Yoga, Qigong, or Tai Chi. Slower movements with breath to create greater awareness.
- Give yourself 5 minutes in the morning or evening to enjoy a good stretch. Watch a cat and learn.
- Sit on a bouncy ball at work instead of your chair. Try to be graceful.
- Get a personal trainer session at the gym to check your form with familiar activities or to mix up your workouts a bit. Sometimes these are free!
- Eat a meal, brush your teeth or do anything with your non-dominant hand/side.
- Float in water and be a fish for a while. Feel weightless.
- Lastly, play like a kid more! Do some silly animal walks with your child, get down on the floor with them and roll around. Dance like you’re new! Watch children romp around and let their wacky wildness inspire you to explore and redefine your experience of your own new and precious body.
Watch this video for some serious inspiration!
Shake it like a three-year-old!
