One of the practices that we do in our Taiji class is a moving qigong exercise with a Taiji stick where we bring one end of the stick toward us, press that end down and point it down toward a spot outside the foot on that side. We’d long done two versions of that exercise, [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Fitness category.
First run of the season
Milky Slough, originally uploaded by bradipo. I went out for my first run of the season today. I ran about 1.5 miles in 20:36. That’s not very far and it’s pretty slow, but it’s still a good sign, because I could run for over 20 minutes. I wasn’t at all sure I’d be able to, [...]
Seasons
One convenience of living in Central Illinois is that the astronomical seasons and the meteorological seasons line up pretty well—you can reasonably expect spring weather along about the third week of March. Just now, though, the equinox is still a full month off and the weather is wintery. It’s been weeks since we’ve seen the [...]
Perfecting Taiji forms
I studied Aikido briefly when I was living in Salt Lake City. My teacher was a gruff Asian man whose English was just adequate and whose teaching style was not unlike what you see in martial arts movies—he would mock or berate students who got things wrong. I don’t know if he thought that was [...]
Taiji and napping
Over 700 words yesterday, but only 400 today. My seven-day trailing average barely budged–it’s been between 655 and 688 all week. Productivity was lower today because Mondays we do Taiji and then have lunch out. All that, together with travel time, takes a couple hours out of the day–plus I usually end up wanting to [...]
Thursdays
I’ve been trying to get out for a walk each day, and trying to take a photograph on the walks. I want to do both of these things, and my theory is that these desires will be self-reinforcing: My desire to take a photo will get me out on my walk, and my desire to [...]
Getting outdoors
I do fine at getting outdoors enough in the summer. In the winter, though, I’m prone to spend far too much time indoors. There’s a sidewalk around the interior of our apartment complex that makes for a fine short walk. (It takes about seven minutes, so I think it’s probably close to a third of [...]
Bicycling route from Days Inn
Jackie and I scouted a possible bicycling route that Steven and Lucy could take from the Days Inn to our apartment.
