I can’t do yoga. It has little to do with my angry hamstrings and more with my failure to focus. While everyone else is concentrating on their breathing, I’m creating a grocery list in my head.
I was at a PR event the other night (for one piece pj’s with feet – I was in heaven). Part of the evening consisted of doing gentle yoga led by my friend Annabel. Afterwards Annabel came over to me laughing because as we were going through the breathing exercises, she saw me peeking around to see what everyone else was doing. While my body may be doing downward dog, my mind is all ‘get upward and moving, you have a million things to do‘.
That’s why I love speed skating — I have to focus. There’s no time to think of school projects and work deadlines or that I have to pick up milk and send in field trip permission slips. I need to concentrate on what I’m doing or fall. Simple.
For me, it’s a great stress reliever not just physically but mentally. It’s cleansing being able to not think for an hour. Only last night I wasn’t able to focus.
I can honestly say it was my worst class to date – I’m up to about 15 classes in total. It sucked even more than my very first class because at least then I had the excuse that I couldn’t skate. At all.
But now I can skate, sort of so last night kind of blew. It wasn’t about my physical capabilities or lack thereof, it was about my lack of focus.
I don’t know what was going on in my head but for the life of me I couldn’t concentrate and it showed. As much as I tried, my strides were crap, I was holding back on the crossovers and I just wasn’t getting into the flow of it.
I was pissed at myself because I only get a couple of hours a week where I can go on the ice and I felt I wasted this one.
The positive of last night’s class is it kicked me in the ass to work on not only the physical parts of skating but my concentration as well.
When you fall, you get back up. Simple.
Yes, there is a huge mental component to skating! And just like the body sometimes doesn’t show up, sometimes the brain doesn’t. Just one more fun thing to work on!
Yes, my body was saying why the fuck are you trying to make me balance on thin blades
Also? When you fall down and don’t feel like getting back up – you have your Spanx friends to help you back up.
Yes, spanx people are so important. They’re also the friends who will tell you to get the hell up when you’re laying there contemplating never to get back up again.
I used to get that experience (the not thinking) from soccer and boxing. Now I don’t do anything, and your speedskating posts keep making me think maybe it’s time I did something. Maybe I need a heavybag in the basement. My work schedule makes it hard to attend classes, but I could get back into boxing if I had to equipment at home.
Sorry, you had a bad night. We all have off days, I’m sure you will get back into it.
Maureen,
You have no idea how happy you would make me if you went out and got a heavybag and got back into boxing. In fact, I’d be so happy that I’d approach a boxing gym to see if the two of us could go and spar together one night.
One thing I’ve learned from yoga is that your body is different everyday. It was probably going through something last night. Also, sometimes when you’re on the cusp of getting better, you take a giant step back before you take an even bigger leap forward. Think of it that way!