The Year is Complete!

Please feel free to look back through the 365 days of 2010 sunrises, but "a year of getting up to meet the day" is officially completed. There will be no more new posts.

PLEASE JOIN ME FOR MORE SUNRISE POSTS AT THE SUNRISE BLOGGER, WHERE YOU WILL FIND SUNRISE PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS FROM ME AND FROM CONTRIBUTORS AROUND THE GLOBE.


Thank you so much for visiting.
A one year blog project in which I share a process of transitions: emptying of the nest, reacquainting with my rusty intellect, plowing onward with my first full length book, entering the second half of my first century, and generally reflecting on life.

(see Dec. 29th, 2009 entry for further explanation)

Friday, June 18, 2010

core work

sunrise:  4:49

My exercise class finishes for the summer this week, and I approach the next three months with shaky confidence in my ability to maintain the strength of my core on my own.  The figurative meanings are not accidental here.


One of the primary catalyzing forces behind this year long blog project was the report last fall that I had an unstable core.  Yet another back injury had me off tennis for 9 weeks, and the physical therapist delivered the bad news about my core.  It felt like an ominous diagnosis at the time, and I wondered about the core of my inner self in a broader sense.  I needed more stability in the core of my being as well.

That's when a friend said to me, "Have I got the class for you!"  Six months of Mary's class have transformed my physical strength and stability.  It is all about the core, the trunk, the torso, the "powerhouse."  I was utterly humbled to discover how much weakness there was in the most important part of me. 

There was an article in the June 8th Bangor Daily News about back surgeries.  They are on the rise in number and happening sooner than they used to.  People want a quick fix and surgeons are obliging.  What they didn't stress enough was that so many back problems would be solved by regular exercise.  Bad backs are a symptom of an unstable core. 


So much of our society seems to be plagued by core instability, and one has to assume that our sedentary nature is the culprit.  Our abdominal and back muscles don't work enough, don't move enough, don't stretch and bend and strengthen enough while we're sitting at desks, in the car, on the sofa, in front of TV's and computers.


We don't need surgery, we just need exercise.


Beyond the physical benefits of Mary's class, it created a routine of exercise for me - with a bunch of other women who became familiar faces, who expected to see me there.  They helped to strengthen my motivational core as well.  Now I'll have to fly solo until after Labor Day.  I doubt I'll be able to maintain the same rigor without that structure, but I hope I can find the drive to keep from slipping back into vulnerable instability.


The news article made it clear that I am not alone in my physical instability, and I suspect that a more profound instability may be plaguing our entire society.  Core muscles, core strength, core principles, core values - too many people are trying to find easy shortcuts to all of them.  But there's nothing easy about any of it.  Without a lot of hard work, we'll all end up flat on our backs.

3 comments:

  1. I like the philosophic analogies to the "core" of everything. And though I agree with your assessment, I don't particularly like the sense that our "cores" are indeed slipping or that we live in a society that craves the quick fix.

    Is there an exercise class that can fix that too?

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  2. That is: fix the urge for a quick fix...

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  3. Uh oh. It is 2200 on 19 June and there is no posting from this morning. A little bit of misplaced parental angst is trying to surface here. What is going on?

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