The Zen of Sports

from December 9, 2012
 
I had a bit of a wake-up call yesterday. 
I needed something new. Something different. Something small to shake up the routine.

I put on my running shoes & headed out into a very chilly morning. After about the three-minute sprint it took for me to get out of the familiarity of my neighborhood, I was compelled to slow down and start walking. Taking the MUNI is a great way to see more of the city, but I realized today how much I have been missing.

My earbud headphones crapped out on me a month ago, and there's no use in trying to keep my big, clunky headphones on while I run. The concept of jogging without music is new to me. I never understood how people got through treadmill sessions without music to make it less awful. 

But the thing is, to me, treadmills are awful. Tracks are awful. They're awfully boring. Even walking the same beautiful, tree-lined trails with the dog every day got to be boring.

Jogging/walking for the sake of exploring was what turned my little 20-minute plan into an hour-long adventure.

Being alone with myself was exactly what I needed. I love music, and I try to listen to as much of it as I possibly can on any given day. Nevertheless, sometimes I need to not have other peoples' great poetry in my head. Especially when I'm ugly and sweaty and people in cars are gawking.

On foot, I didn't actually end up very far from home. But it was the best thing I could have done for myself. 

Julia Cameron talks some in The Artist's Way about the zen of sports. She says, "The goal is to connect to a world outside of us, to lose the obsessive self-focus of self-exploration and, simply, explore... Exercise teaches the rewards of process. It teaches the sense of satisfaction over small tasks well done."

A lot of this is taught through yoga as well - The idea that moving through yoga poses teaches a person how to endure uncomfortable or difficult situations in life off the mat. 

More from Julia: "We learn by going where we have to go. Exercise is often the going that moves us from stagnation to inspiration, from problem to solution, from self-pity to self-respect. We do learn by going. We learn we are stronger than we thought. We learn to look at things with new perspective. We learn to solve our problems by tapping our own inner resources and listening for inspiration, not only from others but from ourselves. Seemingly without effort, our answers come while we swim or stride or ride or run."

xoxo - Amanda Rachel
December 9, 2012