Sunday, September 29, 2013

Going with the flow

One of the things that separates wellness from fitness is the goal. Wellness, generally, has a goal of working with the individual to find what their optimal state of health is and finding the practices that will support that. Fitness, on the other hand, tends to have pre-set goals based on an athletic ideal, and the individual pursues practices towards those goals.

The two are not mutually exclusive. A person can utilize the tools of fitness (gym machines and workout regimens) to work towards wellness (goals based on their own current and optimal health states). While the fitness industry has gotten better about it, though, there does remain an echo of the "no pain, no gain" mentality. Certainly some of the newer extreme workouts appear to embrace that philosophy. A wellness approach, however, encourages listening to the body's messages, including if not especially pain.

I've learned, over the years, to distinguish between various forms of pain. Is this pain from ongoing inflammatory issues, pain from pushing my muscles to their limits, or pain that likely means an injury? I can usually tell. Sharp, shooting pain is a pretty clear stop sign, or should be. Any nurse would surely tell their patients as much, but how good are we at listening ourselves?

I can only answer for myself, and that answer is "not very." I injured my Achilles tendon over a month ago, but since the initial sharp pain backed off relatively quickly, I didn't treat it very aggressively. I'd baby it if it "acted up," but otherwise, I just kept on with everything I had been doing. I wasn't rolling on the floor screaming, so I couldn't have torn it, right?

Wrong.

Seeing athletes suffer a complete or near-complete tear of the Achilles conditions us as viewers, even viewers who should know better, to think of it as an all-or-nothing injury. It's possible, though, to tear this very wide tendon just a bit. Apparently this is what I did, and tomorrow I'll finally get firm diagnostic info on the extent of the damage.

As of my last entry, I was all excited about working with the Kuan Yin Standing Qigong practice and trying to keep yoga as part of my regular practice as well. The wake-up call that I had actually torn my Achilles tendon made me have to sit back and re-assess my practice. Nothing I was doing caused it to hurt, but then, it didn't hurt at all first thing in the morning. By the end of the day, though, it was getting either fatigued or inflamed or (most likely) both, so perhaps I wasn't dong it any favors by starting my day this way.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've shifted to working with Seated Qigong practices instead. Until I learn exactly what is contraindicated, I'm not attempting any cross-legged variations, but these flows work when seated with feet resting on the floor as well. Part of me remains frustrated at not being able to continue with the practice I had been developing, but "going with the flow" is part of Qigong, and listening to the body's needs and adapting accordingly is part of a wellness approach.

As far as yoga, it has plenty of seated and supine or prone asanas to choose from, and so I've found myself working more with those as well. Again, listening to what the body actually needs as opposed to what some ideal in my head suggests I "should" be doing.

That, apparently, is the lesson I need to be working on at the moment. How about you? Have you experienced changes in your body that have required re-thinking your wellness practices? I'd be interested to hear others' experiences.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Qigong

Qigong is a type of energetic meditation-in-motion that I had learned a bit about years ago but hadn't practiced in quite some time. I've been working with it recently, though, and I'm finding it very helpful in setting the tone for the day.

It helps that I stumbled across a couple of YouTube videos that demonstrate a very gentle flow that takes less than 20 minutes.

Kuan Yin Standing Qigong Part 1

Kuan Yin Standing Qigong Part 2

This flow is part of a type of Qigong called Sheng Zhen, or Unconditional Love. There are also flows named after other religious figures, such as Jesus and Mohammed, as I discovered when I got hold of the book about this type of Qigong. I like this idea very much, as it shows an honoring of the beauty to be found in various paths.

One thing that is not shown in the above two vids is the zhongtian movement that is meant to start and end each flow, and this is the thing I find particularly useful for coming back to a grounded calmness in the midst of a busy day. It takes less than a minute to use this movement (though if at work, it might be best to duck into an area with some privacy), and once you are used to doing the movement at the start and end of a flow, then using the movement by itself helps to recall that sense of peace and equanimity.

If you click on the link to the vid where Master Li describes the movement, he goes into several layers of meaning to the movement, and whether you think of the surface meaning of cleaning mind, body, and soul or the deeper meaning of connecting heaven, earth and self, again, it's a fairly simple way to reconnect.

Having rediscovered how much I enjoy Qigong and having newly discovered this form, I find I am practicing it nearly daily. At the same time, I find I miss working with Yoga on a regular basis. Finding the balance between the two is going to be the challenge. Perhaps one when I get up and the other before bed? We shall see.