A few months into my journey of adding yoga to my overall fitness/training regimen, I find myself coming up with a lot of ponderings that occur during yoga class itself (or often shortly thereafter). Whether it’s somehow brought upon by improved bloodflow from class or just the fact that I find myself feeling very clear-headed when I’m done, I can’t say. It’s just continuously interesting to me that yoga is far more than a physical challenge for me – it’s really something that flies in the face of how most of my training is structured.
It requires release and a flowing kind of giving-in to the moment whereas when I lift, it’s like a fight and a grind and a sweaty battle to force myself into being better/faster/stronger.
But what caught my attention most and was the impetus for this blog post was the realization that yoga seemed to fly in the face of this site’s very motto of “Relentlessly push yourself forward”.
Or did it?
Hence a little vlog for your consideration. Hope you enjoy:
My last post, as well as the Hartford Courant’s Websters awards for best blogs, got me thinking a little bit about restating what is really the purpose and goal behind this blog. And why not do that with a totally snappy video from first thing this AM? Then, all of you incredibly lucky folks would get the chance to partake of my magical language skills in full color and gander at my chiseled, handsome self while doing so. That’s not even a win-win. That’s like a win-win-win-win-win. It’s so powerful that People who haven’t even seen the video will be moved by it.
So sit back, take a sip on your latte/tea/bourbon/goat’s milk and enjoy the show… unless your drink is actually a mixture of latte, tea, bourbon and goat’s milk. If that’s the case… warm up the car for a trip to the hospital because your night can’t possibly end well with a concoction like that.
A few weeks back I was pondering what would be needed to get this humble blog of mine in front of a few more eyeballs. As someone who checks the data on his blog fairly regularly, I can get a decent sense as to whether folks (like you, good reader) are roaming over to my cozy section of the Internet to feast their eyes on my written offerings. I get some spikes here and there, but not the consistent increase over time I am really hoping for… at least not yet.
As I pondered what I needed to do differently and feeling just the slightest bit sorry for myself (cut me some slack… it happens), an e-mail rolled in that clearly changed around my day. The e-mail was from a woman in New Zealand who happened to find my blog while Googling “acerbus et ingens”. And get this… she likes the blog. No… seriously, she does. I am 99% sure she wasn’t just screwing with me. The Kiwis are a fabulous people, so I think this is straight-up legit.
New Zealand… as shown on my snazzy floaty globe. Well, sorta shown. Right there beneath “OCEANIA”.
Her e-mail was pretty incredible in terms of the chaos in her own life and that of her neighbors over the span of the last year with the earthquakes in New Zealand. If anything can put life into quick, sharp perspective, it’s massive natural events that are beyond human control. It’s hard to feel all-powerful when Nature decides to get rambunctious, to say the least.
But two things jumped out at me most about her e-mail that I knew I would need to share:
1) That everyone can connect with others in the world… and sometimes at great distances. I don’t mean this as some kind of pat-on-the-back statement at all – my new Kiwi friend found my blog enjoyable and rather amusing, so I am not saying that she found each carefully crafted sentence of my blog to be a life-affirming event for her… umm, but if she wants to write me another e-mail to that effect, I really wouldn’t mind all that much. But somehow, some way, I wrote something that at least connected with a person I’ve never met in a country I’ve never been to. Think about the impact you can make even more easily with the people you come in contact with every day.
2) Kia kaha! Umm… come again, Kuzia? Kia what-a? The close out to her e-mail to me was “Kia kaha!” which she explained is Maori for “stay strong”. Now, besides the fact that it is a double-K phrase (which matches beautifully with having a double-K name, hence my fandom is fully established), it’s also such a short, punchy and beautiful way to say something so incredible powerful. Stay strong. A bit amazing to get a message from a complete stranger with a message in Maori to stay strong, no? Especially during a moment of sneaking self-doubt?
And speaking of strength and Maori culture… this is still the coolest thing any sports team can do pre-game. The Ray Lewis pre-game chant has utterly zero on this badassery:
Boom. Get some.
So to my friend down in New Zealand… you probably never realized how well-timed your note was, but for that note, I thank you for getting me turned around in the proper direction on a day when I felt the sticky resistance of frustration snagging at my feet and preventing forward momentum. Truly and deeply appreciate it.
And to everyone else? Connection… something we all need in our lives as the inherently social creatures we are… is sometimes just an extra bit of effort away. Make the effort and reap the rewards,
At the risk of diluting what I am trying to keep going (get going?) with this blog, I decided to get a little sumpin’ sumpin’ set up over at Posterous with a Fierce and Mighty flavor. Posterous is a ridiculously easy way to do a blog or just share photos, videos, random updates or whatever else on-line and you can do it just by sending along an e-mail. It’s incredibly slick – if you send along an attached photo, it neatly pops it up with your post. If you send multiple photos? POW! A snazzy little gallery is created. Send a YouTube link? Boom goes the dynamite – you get the video embedded on the page.
So in the interest of having a place to fire up a whole lot of randomness that does not fit into longer posts (which is what Fierce and Mighty is dedicated to), I present to you:
I’ve written a few times about my commute into work, whether from the standpoint of just sometimes enjoying the quiet of the drive or on how some people merge like borderline mental patients. It’s always a grab bag of adventures during the 20 to 45 minutes I spend in the car heading to or home from the office. I know I am not alone in this feeling.
This morning I decided to try something a little different and do an audio blog and load it up to the site today. What prompted the blog (content-wise as opposed to doing it in an audio format) was an e-mail exchange I recently had with someone about my blog. They remarked that they were surprised at the amount of intensity I am able to have on a daily basis. That made me chuckle a bit since I have oh-so-many days where my intensity feels like a deflated balloon of pain and nothingness and ennui… umm… OK, maybe not that bad, but I do have days where I am not quite as spunky or crisp as I would prefer to be. It’s human nature. So I figured I would dictate a post into Evernote and put the audio file up for your listening enjoyment of my golden voice as it soothes you into a serene pool of happiness, enlightenment and a transcendent state of being. Lucky you.
A few months into my journey of adding yoga to my overall fitness/training regimen, I find myself coming up with a lot of ponderings that occur during yoga class itself (or often shortly thereafter). Whether it’s somehow brought upon by improved bloodflow from class or just the fact that I find myself feeling very clear-headed when I’m done, I can’t say. It’s just continuously interesting to me that yoga is far more than a physical challenge for me – it’s really something that flies in the face of how most of my training is structured.
