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!

So Many Activities!

As I considered this blog entry I thought the word “activities” and my mind immediately went to this scene from the movie Step Brothers. Brennan, played by Will Ferrell, seems as if his brain is temporarily seized up at the thought of all the possible activities.

That’s what fitness for me can seem like, in regards to all of the components that I try to integrate into my weekly routine. I sometimes feel a bit lost in the possibilities, and I know that I might be missing the main tree because of the forest. That main tree is keeping, or even gaining, if possible, muscle. Muscle mass, and how often we train for it, are really important for older people . . . and so are many of the other possible activity components. *sigh*

As I approached sixty years old, I became concerned about muscle. In my mind I saw my aging body shedding muscle faster than a hair band drummer shedding his curly locks at Army boot camp. I began to follow a three-day-a week muscle building-focused routine, which was largely the main activity beyond my dog walking. I stepped back the yoga, which I had started to practice more regularly again. My strength training was nothing crazy, a fairly simple initially-bodyweight-oriented routine; the intent was to be challenging enough to ensure progressive overload so as to stimulate muscle growth. I was very sensible . . . until things went nicely for too long and the 42-year-old-me (or even 52-year-old-me) came out and I starting pushing things a bit more than the 60-year-old-actually-me should. Sacroiliac joint injury ( think). It still lingers, months later.

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.