It's strange - I always considered those yoga ditzes to be ridiculous (you know, those girls who walk around with a yoga bag hanging on their shoulder at like 2 pm on a workday, drinking a massively yuppie-style coffee drink)...
And now, I've found that, thanks to a dear friend and coworker, I've pretty much become one of them.
The meditative aspect of yoga has always interested me - but at the same time I found the idea of yoga as a workout method to be pretty high on the silly scale.
I think I still find it to be silly, but I also find that it's fun, so I guess that works. I've mainly focused on two forms - Bikram and Restorative.
Restorative is more along the lines of how I'd thought yoga should be - it's meditative, involved with holding poses for ten minutes or more, and really focused on the proper and deep flow of breath.
Bikram was the one that was a huge surprise (to do, and to find out that I enjoy!). Bikram is done in a heated room (on the order of 115 degrees) and you flow through a sequence of 26 postures (half standing, half seated) and do sets of each. It's very similar to the circuits the boys did in rowing - but with a slight twist to them. And I unfortunately mean that literally.
There are certain things in yoga which I'm really glad I can't do - some things require a certain elasticity in the tendons which... well, if I have a loose ACL, it's sure not going to be able to withstand any of the Gs it needs to bear in a GS turn.
Which brings me to something else I've learned. After a bikram session (other than just being so sweaty that I pretty much have to peel my kit off) I feel very similar to after a few good runs down a hill. In both cases, I'm taking my body and pushing it as much as I can - and in both cases, when I get it right, it just becomes... I want to say effortless, but it's not even that. When everything just clicks, and you're in the zone, it's still hard, and you can still feel your muscles aching, but it's also like suddenly it's natural.
And it's good that I can get a similar (lesser but similar :)) feeling at a studio about fifteen minutes from my house, instead of a 4hrs away.
So, I have come to accept it - I am a yoga ditz. And I'm okay with that.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Books I Enjoyed in Elementary School
I was randomly looking though amazon books, and re-discovered an author that had been my favorite when I was in elementary school. He wrote mystery, horror, and sci-fi, and his books often combined both.
Christopher Pike - I am still not positive, but I always assumed he chose his pen name for that Captain that Kirk replaced in Star Trek, but I honestly never cared enough to check!
But just seeing a few of his books (unfortunately not in kindle format, I would have to get the physical copies!) reminded me of hunting through my tiny local library (which has since been turned into a Middle School! Which means there's an elementary school, middle school, and high school all within a block of each other) and hunting for something in fiction that looked interesting and that I hadn't read yet.
The first of the Pike books I read was... The Last Vampire series. I honestly don't remember much (stupid physical books! there's actual TIME spent waiting for a physical copy), but I remember the story sucked me in. One after the other, I read all the Pike books there - surprisingly many considering the size of the young adult fiction section.
Now, I was at the same time reading other books aimed at young adults (John Carter of Mars, Tarzan, The Prince) and I have since re-read those, and enjoyed them terribly! So, I assumed it would be the same with the Pike novels - especially as there was one (The Starlight Crystal) which I still had and would often reread when I had some time to kill but not enough to get seriously into a book, and I still enjoyed.
It was a massive let down to discover that while yes, they were still quick easy reads... I could just see all the plot holes, and the characters were fairly... flat. Or, even worse, inconsistent! There was one in particular (The Grave) which was super rushed and left me wishing he had actually written longer books (the tiny 208 pages was not sufficient in the slightest!)...
And it got me to thinking - why was it that I enjoyed A Princess of Mars (and if I'm being honest, I also enjoyed The Stranger by Camus, though I'm sure I didn't understand it fully by any means) but that these books, on re-reads, just didn't hold up?
Which is kind of sad, if you think about it - is it that when you're younger you're more willing to accept things... almost on 'faith'? Inconsistencies don't ruin your enjoyment of something, you're willing to take the pieces that you enjoy and forget the rest.
That being said, I know I still enjoy reading novels that I don't think of as particularly well written - one of my most favourite books to re-read is Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith, and while I absolutely adore that book - er, two books, I suppose, if I'm being accurate - I can't say it's good. The story and the world, however, just somehow suck me in. And there are a few things which are a bit... undefined, but there aren't any inconsistencies that drive me away. It's the book I read when I'm bored, or when I'm feeling down, or when I need to get my brain to stop being hyper active.
So maybe it's not just that you're willing to accept more things when you're younger, just that you're willing to accept different things. Sirens of Titan urked me just as much when I first read it (though I keep re-reading it, thinking it must just be me) as when I re-read it a few months ago. So I haven't changed enough to accept that. I have changed enough that some of Pike's novels are cringe-worthy to read (though I'm still hopefully and eagerly waiting for The Immortal to come in, which I saw as a great romance, and a mix between Greek Mythology, which I still love, and horror, which I can't get enough of).
Christopher Pike - I am still not positive, but I always assumed he chose his pen name for that Captain that Kirk replaced in Star Trek, but I honestly never cared enough to check!
But just seeing a few of his books (unfortunately not in kindle format, I would have to get the physical copies!) reminded me of hunting through my tiny local library (which has since been turned into a Middle School! Which means there's an elementary school, middle school, and high school all within a block of each other) and hunting for something in fiction that looked interesting and that I hadn't read yet.
The first of the Pike books I read was... The Last Vampire series. I honestly don't remember much (stupid physical books! there's actual TIME spent waiting for a physical copy), but I remember the story sucked me in. One after the other, I read all the Pike books there - surprisingly many considering the size of the young adult fiction section.
Now, I was at the same time reading other books aimed at young adults (John Carter of Mars, Tarzan, The Prince) and I have since re-read those, and enjoyed them terribly! So, I assumed it would be the same with the Pike novels - especially as there was one (The Starlight Crystal) which I still had and would often reread when I had some time to kill but not enough to get seriously into a book, and I still enjoyed.
It was a massive let down to discover that while yes, they were still quick easy reads... I could just see all the plot holes, and the characters were fairly... flat. Or, even worse, inconsistent! There was one in particular (The Grave) which was super rushed and left me wishing he had actually written longer books (the tiny 208 pages was not sufficient in the slightest!)...
And it got me to thinking - why was it that I enjoyed A Princess of Mars (and if I'm being honest, I also enjoyed The Stranger by Camus, though I'm sure I didn't understand it fully by any means) but that these books, on re-reads, just didn't hold up?
Which is kind of sad, if you think about it - is it that when you're younger you're more willing to accept things... almost on 'faith'? Inconsistencies don't ruin your enjoyment of something, you're willing to take the pieces that you enjoy and forget the rest.
That being said, I know I still enjoy reading novels that I don't think of as particularly well written - one of my most favourite books to re-read is Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith, and while I absolutely adore that book - er, two books, I suppose, if I'm being accurate - I can't say it's good. The story and the world, however, just somehow suck me in. And there are a few things which are a bit... undefined, but there aren't any inconsistencies that drive me away. It's the book I read when I'm bored, or when I'm feeling down, or when I need to get my brain to stop being hyper active.
So maybe it's not just that you're willing to accept more things when you're younger, just that you're willing to accept different things. Sirens of Titan urked me just as much when I first read it (though I keep re-reading it, thinking it must just be me) as when I re-read it a few months ago. So I haven't changed enough to accept that. I have changed enough that some of Pike's novels are cringe-worthy to read (though I'm still hopefully and eagerly waiting for The Immortal to come in, which I saw as a great romance, and a mix between Greek Mythology, which I still love, and horror, which I can't get enough of).
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