Time To Drive

Don't worry, nervous friends. This post has nothing to do with me getting behind the wheel of a car and everything to do with driving. Where else does one drive that is not in a comfy leather pilot seat navigating 2 tons of steel and plastic? Why, on the range of course! Last night I had my first official non- lightsaber-related experience with a golf club at a far flung suburban driving range (the only one of its kind in Illinois, I hear).

Now, I want to start by taking back everything mean I’ve ever said about golf. OK, I’ve never said anything mean about golf, but I have flipped through TV stations on a weekend afternoon willing to watch reruns of the Andy Griffith Show before I'd watch even one hole of golf. And that’s pretty mean.

At the range you don't even have to master complexity of score keeping for 9 or 18 holes, or need the reasoning skills important in picking the right clubs. A rookie like me can just put down her beer, swagger on up to the little green patch of Astroturf, drop that little pocked ball onto its platform, and swing out into the abyss.

And miss.

Or almost kill the semi-pro donning official looking glove and Easter colored hat in the bay next to you.

Or let the velocity of the club take over, lose your balance, and almost fall into the safety net.

Or, if you are lucky, and you focus, maybe you hit it 50 yards. Or 80 yards. And you feel awesome. And then you see why people like golf. Because it’s hard. And it’s rewarding. That's a good combination in any activity (a combo of which I've only obtained part one in writing)

I’m not good at most sports. I have poor hand-eye coordination, I’m not fluid or smooth, and I have a short little span of attention. I usually give up after the 3rd frame in bowling (or 2nd gutter ball, which ever comes first) and plop my self down in the hard plastic seat encouraging anyone else to play my turns, but I liked the driving range enough to swing that club until my two buckets were empty.

To be clear, I made contact with the ball less often than the Loch Ness monster has skulked up on shore and auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent, but I had fun!

Yoga, Running and Gratitude

Like a desert wanderer, my vision was obscured by the blurry, hazy horizon of hopelessness, savage heat, and hunger. Seeking an end to my suffering that was more than a mirage, my legs shook as I pounded out each step. The sweat dripping from my brow stung my eyes and my aching lungs stressed against my ribcage ready to burst like the lungs of a deep sea diver.

I remember the pain like it was yesterday. Running the mile each spring in high school was torture.

How funny is it that ten years later I could run a mile in high heels after devouring a 72oz steak – if I had to.

I’m not the best runner. I’m not even a good runner – I’m not fast, I wimp out often and I rarely run more than 5 miles. Eliminating all that, though, I can run.

Any one can run.

Running is still hard for me. It is a challenge - but thats one of the reasons why I do it.

Only one in a million of us will become a Lukas Verzbicas, a runner from my hometown, coached by a family friend, who recently became the 5th American high school student in history to break the 4 minute mile with a time of 3:59.71 . A stat like that might actually put Lukas in a smaller group than 1 in a million.

His accomplishment is amazing, and a true testament to what the body can accomplish.

I’ve been running for about 5 years (a timeline assessed by the moment I moved exercise on the treadmill to outdoor running – and when I ran my first race.) I’ve been practicing yoga for about a year. The two activities come together harmoniously. One reason I first began yoga was to improve my running (and to protect myself from the flair up of a back injury) but it turns out the two activities have more of a symbiotic relationship.

Running lets me get outside, and lets me play with the push and pull of my physical ability. It allows my mind to traverse even more exotic routes than my sneakers. I think, I sweat and I observe and exist within my environment.

Yoga demands my concentration. It builds my skill, my patience, and requires that I keep my mind focused and present. Yoga makes me listen and follow rules.

My runner’s body feels leaner and stronger from the conditioning of near constant yoga, and I can withstand the 60 minutes of heat and demand on my muscles in a yoga class because I am a runner.

The most important thing that I have learned from my practice of yoga is gratitude.

There is something inherent in our bones, our blood, and our psyches that challenges our ability to feel good about our bodies. We stress about our weight, our shape, our ability. The colors of our eyes, hair and skin. The perfection of our smiles. We are always criticizing ourselves for not being perfect.

Yoga has given me an opportunity to be thankful for my body for enabling me to eat, to drink, to hug, to do downward dog – and to run. I am thankful that my body listens when I say “faster” or “one more mile.” I am thankful that my body will grow stronger and learn new things. I am grateful for yoga and how I’ve learned through my practice to be grateful for my body and all that it does for me.

Do you remember to be grateful for your body?

Think Yourself Thin (Or At Least Relaxed)

Some 15 years olds panic in the moments before the curtain rises.

Standing in the cafetoriums dark wings, some students quietly run their lines waiting for the one word or character decision that will ignite the 3 or 4 minutes of stage time for which they have been rehearsing for months.

Other 15 year olds stand in those same wings and recite the lyrics to The Beatles' Rocky Raccoon. As one of those Rocky loving teen actors, I have to admit that I don't know how RR became anxiety go-to. I just remember that the lyrics took enough of my focus that the nervous part of my chest started to relax AND that I could remember every word to the song. This dependence only grew in College, but also took on a different purpose.

My freshman year it was very popular to go to parties and dances 20 minutes or 30 minutes away at a rented banquet hall. The all-you-can-drink model was a large contributor to why we attended these banquet hall parties, but the bigest draw was really that you also got to drink on the bus on the way to the party- and everyone knows there's no fun like drinking-on-the-bus-fun.

The problem with this seemingly ideal set up, a problem that some how always slipped the minds of me and my 18 and 19 year old co-ed friends, was a simple equation.

Booze + booze + booze + bus = sick party animals.

The midnight ride back to campus, complete with rocking and rolling and pot holes, was often a very rough trip. When my best friend would inevitably start to feel sick, I'd press my head against the green plastic seatback next to her head, and softly slur Rocky Raccoon from beginning to end - distracting us both just enough from our nausea that we'd make it home without losing our (liquid) dinners on the well traveled floor of a yellow a school bus.

There's something about being able to distract yourself from anxiety and illness - feelings which seems unavoidable.

Why am I remembering the gifts that RR gave me in high school and college on this day? Because I spent my lunch hour almost completely horizontal with my dentist's responsible hands and buzzing tools all up in my grill. It's scary to be so vulnerable, and scary to not know if physical pain might win the battle of the Novacain. It's scary to think about your teeth falling out or how much it costs to put them back in. The dentist is scary no matter how nice or easy it is. Luckily I'm pretty good at calming myself down.

This time it wasn't Rocky who slowed my heart rate and lowered my blood pressure - it was Vinyasa. Closing my eyes and running a simple sequence of yoga poses, remembering the often well rehearsed lines that accompany each pose, imagining those poses perfect on my body in a way that I can't actually wear them yet. I can get a lost in my imaginary practice even with the tugging and the taste of blood in the back of my throat. It's cool to be able to separate your mind from your body, to distract yourself from what you are feeling.

What tricks help you manage your anxiety or control your fear? What else can you gain from having a mind over body connection?

PS: I originally blogged this post from my phone, and felt like there were too many errors to ignore, so this is a corrected version!