A Tale of Two Brians (Actually, a Brian and a Bryan)

I recently read a piece in a book by one of my favorite spiritual writers, Brian Doyle, God-rest-his-soul. The piece is called “Prayer in Celebration of  Brief Things, For Example, Church Services.” As Doyle moves through the prayer and mentions things such as mayflies, apologies, small cups of strong coffee, and emails, I thought of . . . moving!

Coming upon Doyle’s piece reinforced other reflections I’ve had recently about brevity or, more so, enough: viewing what I have, and what I am, as enough; desiring no more than enough; being grateful for what is enough. I was primed for a realization about one of my favorite things!

Acting Like an Adolescent

I was at a church event a couple of months ago. It was a social and activity event for youth in the process of preparing for, or considering, confirmation. One of the activities for the youth was to blow up a balloon and see who could get it the biggest in a certain amount of time.  Beyond the 13-year-old boys-with-13-year-old girls dynamic, it was interesting to watch each of their approaches to the balloon challenge.

Some kids blew up their balloon sort of big but didn’t want to pop it so they stopped early; they didn’t at all approach pushing the capacity of the balloon or using the time they had to work with; they blew air into it, tied it off, and then spent the rest of the time in awkward posturing the way 13-year-olds might do when in the presence of some of the opposite sex.

A couple of other kids went too far and too fast in blowing up their balloons; their balloons popped. And then there was The One Girl.

Rebalancing the Portfolio

Last post I talked about the different components of fitness that I integrate into my weekly movement account. Driven by the accountability of writing this blog, I know I have been pushing things a little bit hard; so this past week, I began to rebalance my portfolio of movement investments.

I previously explained that walking my dog twice a day (with some enhancements, such as running, skipping, or rock hopping) is my daily foundation; it’s going to happen and I give it significant time. Along with that is yoga, although yoga has not been daily this past while. That is because I’ve been doing two days a week of more traditional bodyweight strength training, and THAT has further resulted in needing some walk-only-days to recover. So, my week was looking like this:

For the love of a dog

See the stream?
It’s flowing and fresh.
If you drink the water,
it’s the best!
See the puddle?
It sits there still.
That stale water
will make you ill.

I learned a fighting principle from my Taekwondo Korean great-grand-master a decade and a half ago, which he expressed in this adage: “Flowing water is alive; it never gets rotten or dies.” Short explanation: keep moving, don’t just stand, or lay, there.

As I aged I began to apply that adage to fitness and life activity. Keep moving! Stop moving and I will get rotten or die. So how do I keep moving? As it happens, a lot of my moving is walking. I walk a lot in the scheme of things. Which keeps me moving and also gets in the way of moving in other ways.