November 1, 2018: Taking Care of Ourselves

Sometimes at the end of the day, I feel tired and creaky and my lower back is sore. This is after doing horsey home schooling and watering, and doing manure pick up. Sometimes it’s before doing horsey home schooling and watering and manure pick up. Yes, the work can be strenuous.

It’s really easy, when I have the above to do, to forgo taking care of myself. I figure that a good night’s sleep will take care of my physical whoas, and this usually does. But I know that unless I act now, that I am going to start waking up sore. Who wants this?

So, I have been working with the horses on owning their own movements. This is a functional movement system term that means to do the move freely, of your own volition, which helps to create new neural pathways, and the end result is more neural intelligence. But I have been neglectful about working on owning my own movements.

Today I did a little better on this front. First, I went to tai chi, which was being offered for free at the college. The class was taught by Jay and Jen Bartholomew who I used to take classes with. They have a studio over on Soapstone Road. It was an excellent class – the moves were incremental, and in this way built upon one another. They were also very functional. This differed from traditional tai chi in that they did not have everyone do a set tai chi patterns.

I was, as I worked out, struck by two things. The first was Jay’s (he led the class) use of motor imagery. As I now know, there are two types of imagery, visual and motor. The former is a single image. The latter is a move you can visualize. One he used was “think of puppet strings on your wrists.” So later, when I was riding, I brought this image back to mind. The second was the focus on awareness. This is a commonality that yoga, tai chi, Alexander, and Feldenkrais work all seem to share. It is just too bad that the practitioners in the various disciplines don’t acknowledge that there are commonalities.

I next went across town and did strength training with my personal fitness trainer. I had (at least limitedly) owned my own movements in tai chi, so I was feeling pretty limber by the time class started. I was easily able to do all the exercises, and I think that Ben was impressed. My actual takeaway from this was that I should do warm up exercises before heading on over to the gym.

The only down side of doing the self-work is that I have less time for horsey home schooling. I did do body work and agility on Hrimfara, and then I took her for a ride. She was most definitely more supple than previously, as was Tinni. I first did body work on him and then took him for a walk.

I am tired, and yes, my lower back is a bit sore tonight. But for sure, I’ll wake up feeling just fine.

Next: 306. 10/2/18: Problem Solving 101