Exercise Evolution
Exercise
Evolution
“…it is sown
a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is
a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” 1 Corinthians 15:44
When
I was a child I played as a child, climbing, jumping, sliding, biking, playing
ball, swinging never giving any thought to the use of my body in space for any
reason except to have great fun either by myself or with friends. Easy.
Children know the best and easiest of spiritual exercise - play. I wish I had
the natural inclination to play like that again. Not so, alas, not so. Middle
school and junior high years my movements slowed to walking with friends and standing
around in huddles of giggles. Sacred
life at that time was much the same - not serious.
In
high school, friends encouraged me into my first “serious sport.” So, for a
couple of years I loved exercise through rowing. I woke early for the sake of
the teammate-friend who drove me to practice, and I relished the bragging
rights of waking at 4:15am to meet at the docks at 5am for an early morning
grasp at the handle of my port-side, bow oar. I, and my boat’s young women were
high achieving, tough, crazy, strong, independent, lightweights. Other hallowed
activities at the time were also largely service-oriented, performance-based, big
youth group activities, or out-of-state work teams. Natural body engaged in
high-pride, high-impact, team-oriented, one-sided, strength-focused training. Spirit
body followed suit.
I
attempted rowing in college too, but found the team schedule, combined college
classes, impossible to keep. So, I
turned (for a very short time) to Judo with an interest in self-defense, and a college
course on Relaxation - how to intentionally breathe to create calm. What I
remember of my short stint in Judo mostly covers the first lessons: learning
how to fall safely. This was a big deal. In Judo, I was either throwing or
being thrown. So knowing how to land without injury was critical. Parallel the
spiritual body. Young to mid-adult life has been a constant offering of God’s
holy “PE extension courses for the life-long learning of humility and breathing
calm” – divine practices of being thrown and learning how to fall, constant
reminders to kneel for better leverage, and regular challenges for breathing
calmly – holy-defense practice.
These
last couple of years, I’ve started running and practicing yin (cooling) yoga. My
practice habits have been more solo than my earlier-age sports. Though, while friends
and free t-shirts on race days (cute outfits, no sit ups required – not far
from my child self!) still drive some motivation for running, nuances that sink
in now from practice times really draw me back to both. Running has become a simple
meditation, a way of remembering to put one foot in front of the other, to go
at my own pace, on my own path, and to keep running uphill in life and on my
run - because it is the only way I can get home and because it gets easier with repetition.
Yin
yoga has become a connecting, active window on the panorama of
natural-spiritual body observations. For me, a great reinforcement to “Catholic
Calisthenics.” Balance in many a pose requires the use of both my strong side
and my weak side evenly or in counterbalance, somehow moves me bodily into a
spirit of remembering to “cast your net on the right side” (Jn 21:6). Prayer life
and yoga both benefit from sitting with gentle stretching and soft relaxing
into a tense muscle or joint.
Strength and flexibility gained gently, persistently, and slowly, makes
a once impossible pose, possible. Curled in a relaxed “child pose” a few times
per hour of class, helps me to relax into growing awareness that I am always merely
a little child of God. Laying with a blanket roll under my shoulder-blades,
arms and legs outstretched on the floor in savasana, looking for all the world
like a person on a cross, reminds my natural body how low to keep going in
surrender to The Divine for peace. Amen. Namaste.
