“Nobody likes to change. There will always be resistance to change, and there always will be change. And the quicker you get to that, the easier it is.” Nick Nolte
I have always been cursed with being single minded. This has some positives, but in retrospect, there are a ton of things that I struggle with on a daily basis as a direct result of my sheer bloody mindedness.
That’s not to say that I am unyielding. In fact, when presented with someone else’s unassailable stiff neck attitude to something they hold dear, I tend to fall back on the family motto of ‘Don’t give up, lose interest.’ I quickly ask myself whether this particular thing that we are in conflict over is a hill I want to die on, and if it isn’t, I concede and move on.
Is it a good life pattern? I don’t know, probably not. But what I do know is that it had ingrained in me a number of unquestionable beliefs that have deep roots in my past and now flower into the present.
You want examples? OK. Vegetarians are missing out on bacon butties, therefore, I am not going to be vegetarian. Yoga is stretching for bendy people who eat a lot of brown rice and I am hysterical after I have half a dozen drinks.
We are the product of everything that has happened to us to this point in our lives. Every experience, good and bad, every decision that we have or haven’t taken, every right turn that could equally have been straight on, every lie, half-truth and celebration has crafted us to be the person that we are right now. Intentionally or not. I have throughout my life made some brilliant choices, and some that are insanely stupid. But they have all led me to where I am today and for that I am grateful. I am surrounded by some brilliant people and I have the ability to continue to improve and grow, even as I sit here in my sixth decade on this rock.
The reason I am thinking about this now is because, roughly a third of my diet is now meat free, I have drastically reduced the amount of alcohol I drink and this morning I took a Yoga class. I am turning into everything that I used to mock in other people.
If you’ve read through any of the previous posts over the last few weeks, you’ll be sick of me writing about my knee. The simple fact however is that it has been playing on my mind pretty consistently since I first became aware of it. Two visits to the physio have assured me that there is nothing wrong with the joint itself, but rather my hips are too tight. I have stretches, but they are not easing the tightness around my knee in any meaningful way.
I asked for advice from a good friend of mine who is a sports therapist (Farnborough Sports Massage) and told him of my target and current blocker. His first reaction was to swear at me, exhaling violently through his nose at my ambition. (We hadn’t spent time together since a Christmas party in December of last year, so his mental image of me was a grossly overweight, slob with a penchant for beer and garbage food.) Then, once I had talked him through the last six months he suggested that I needed to concentrate on flexibility and conditioning.
“But I hate gyms.” I whined.
“Me to.” He replied, sagely. And then pointed me in the direction of a really good Yoga app that he uses.
So I bought a mat, got up earlier in the week and, because I have walked this path before, turned all of the dials to a short beginner session, with a focus on hip flexors and hit the start button.
Holy shit. I am not flexible. I have gained a small understanding of what experienced yoga people are capable of. (Whether they eat brown rice or not!) And it is phenomenal. I was sweating and shaking within a few minutes and completely incapable of holding about half of the poses. And this was a beginners class. Time to concede and move on? Absolutely not. The routine finished with 5 minutes of lying still on your back and concentrating on breathing. After this short, introductory session I stood up and the pain in my knee was drastically reduced.
Self-fulfilling prophecy? Placebo? Maybe, but I doubt it. I could feel my joints stretching out as the app walked me though several poses and then wound me down to a prone position.
The upshot of this is I am going to adapt my approach to the running program in the short term. I have paused it for a week so that I can repeat the class at least three more times over the next seven days and then start running again with a better chance of running pain free. And that has to be a good thing. The phrase ‘life is what happens whilst you’re making plans’ springs to mind, but I feel comfortable in this choice. It is being made for the right reasons.
“You didn’t come here to make the choice, you’ve already made it. You’re here to understand why you’ve made it. I thought you’d have figured that out by now.” The Oracle, The Matrix Reloaded.
