Mindful Exercise

There has been a LOT to process these days.  I'm two and a half weeks deep into my orientation onto the floor now.  Andy's got more than two months under his belt, now, at Rivian, and things are moving incredibly fast in that arena.  Our household is upended in a few ways with these changes, with patterns broken and the discomfort of attempting to reform new ones in the midst of all else, when energy is stretched in new directions and therefore missing in normal spaces.  How we reconnect as household members, how we manage household tasks, how we plan for external connections (spending time with friends and family), how we think about the future, everything has shifted.  

Also, Luna is heartily confused and acting either sullen or clingy as a result, depending on the day.  

At our respective jobs, Andy and I have agreed that we're feeling the weight of uncertainty, that it's difficult to gauge progress so new in these spaces, that there are mistakes and places where our process will be steadily honed, that we are trying to build relationships with team members, and everything hits a bit different as we work through those spaces.  

In preparation for some of these places, I started to design a workout schedule for myself again, specifically getting back into the pool.  I gave up my membership at L.A. Fitness when I started nursing school, figuring I could use the student facilities while I was there...and then there was that whole pandemic thing and I was quite busy in school anyway.  I stuck mostly to Zumba and Yoga from home, and Andy found a Bowflex for a great deal somewhere in the middle there.  But this wasn't a substitute for total immersion.  After I identified the need, I craved that space, teared up at the thought of taking a deep breath, sliding beneath the surface, and exhaling slowly, watching the bubbles rise around my face.  After finals were complete, I set about finding a new gym membership.  

Forever and a year ago, my family went to Four Seasons in town--this steadily became my top choice again, given that any other gym in town only has three lanes open for swimming IF it has a pool at all.  Four Seasons, on the other hand had 200% more, with a six lane pool dedicated to lap swimming alone.  Even at L.A. Fitness, thinking that I would have to depend on someone to understand lane-sharing etiquette was and having to interact with anyone at all when I wanted to simply be was a small but present deterrent.    

So anyway, about swimming.  The South Pool is weirdly nostalgic for me.  I was a part of a swim team there decades ago, I swam there while getting my teaching certificate, and it feels familiar and whole in interesting ways.

The space is designed with intentionality, a standard marking you'll see most anywhere.  The bottom of the pool has a stripe in each lane, so that when you have proper form you can align yourself accordingly, crossed with another black line at both ends to make an elongated capital "i."  The top of the "i" lets you know you've hit the end and the end wall of the pool will also be marked with a line or a plus sign, similarly to help you identify at a glance that you are indeed at the end of the lane.  Above this pool, there are little flags at either end--these are functional and not just for decoration.  The flags and the color of the lane markers change to a solid color at the same place so that someone swimming backstroke can count how many pulls until they reach the wall, to avoid injury or otherwise roll over for a flip-turn at the right moment.  Before a race at a new pool, there will be swimmers testing and recounting what their distance is at this particular pool for exactly this purpose.  I've yet to see a three lane pool bother with these flags, which is problematic because I quite like backstroke and prefer not to worry about smacking into the wall at speed because I misjudged what part of the ceiling was my pretend marker or lost speed too early because I was concerned it was coming up.  

I'm back in the pool now, and I feel a bit more whole for it.  I missed that part of me.  I missed that particular quiet.  To know that I had a space where the only thing I could do for that period of time was be in the water, to not have access to screens, to feel the wake of my own turn, even to shake water out of my ears when I was done.  It was good for my heart in more than one way to get back to lap swimming.

Once I am past the warm-up, I can usually let my mind wander a bit, aside from counting the lengths to ensure I hit my mile.  Recently, I was thinking about the breast stroke.  Breast stroke is an exercise in mindfulness.

Every stroke is made of a kick, a pull, and a glide.  The breast stroke (above) has a very pronounced glide stage.  The timing happens in such a way that the arms are streamlining the body in front, to get the full benefit of the kick, aiming for a balanced between getting the full benefit of the glide and interrupting it for the next pull and kick to go again.  The whole process, though, is initiated by a breath.  The breath is the action that starts the pull; the head is back in the water and realigning for the full force of the kick; the process starts again with the next breath.  Training your breathing is an important part of all swimming--prevents that whole drowning thing--but in the case of breast stroke, the stroke molds more to your breathing rather than the other way around.    

Again, breast stroke is an exercise in mindfulness as much as it is an exercise for the body.  A steady pattern of breathing.  A constant, required rest period in the glide.  General awareness in the alignment of your body for optimum gliding.  Going somewhere simply for the sake of moving and the benefit of one's heart.  It's about being present in the space, watching the bottom stripe of the pool progress forward in the glide stages, glancing up the for end stripe in the breath, and then back to the bottom black stripe, being only where you are if only for that moment.  

Perhaps that was what I needed more than anything, a way that I could only be present in the moment, forced to be free from any outside distractions and only able to quietly entertain my own thoughts for a while.  Silence, accompanied by the occasional song in my head or the sound of water rushing past my ears.  Only me.  Not me and a running YouTube video.  Just me and the water.  

My rotator cuffs are pretty tender and I'm sore in a couple of places today, but I desperately need these spaces of reconnection, which also happens to coincide with excellent cardio activity.  Definitely not back to my more "regular" mile times (when I was going three times a week), but my body is beginning to remember again, remember the space and the practice, embracing those spaces if only for fifty minutes at a time.  

It's a holy place.  It's a place where I do something purely for myself.  It's a place where I'm conditioned to listen to my body and be aware of how it moves in space.  It's exactly what I need these days.