Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Bamboo is not what you think it is

It all started with a simple affirmation I have had for several years: Today is the new me. Take a moment if you like to think about all the different ways that could affect your life but recentl contemplation of one predictable subject took me in a highly unusual and challenging direction.

I have spent a lot of time considering, meditating, on how to make a fundamental change in my physique. The change will certainly be a physical one and perhaps, and I believe this to be true, a emotional and intellectual one as well. You see, for a long time I have believed that a person can not change. There are just certain innate genetic or embedded processes that a person has for their entire life. The changes we make in life are habits to counter or coddle these permanent parts of our make up. I do believe that a person can become a different person, act differently, make different choices, look and feel the opposite of what they normally are. But it is a constant process of affirmation and effort to maintain this new point of view. Is it a perfect theory? No. But its my thoughts on it.

Now this is where it gets weird. I am half-Hawaiian and though my outward appearance is very much Caucasian I have the muscular legs, wide hips and broad shoulders of an Islander. Having this genetic make up and incorporating the way I have aided and abused my body over the years I have what I would consider a fairly rigid physique. Not rigid in the muscular sense, but in the way my body absorbs impact whether this be from a fall, a jump, how my body reacts to the bouncing of running; how my body flows in water as I swim. Yes exactly, how my body flows and flexes in any activity that I do.

I began with the end in mind, I want a body that not only absorbs shock and energy I want my body to be able to move with it, process it in a way that is fluid. What does this look like, I wondered. It could look like anyone regardless of height, weight, sex. I have seen very obese people move with a grace that is wonderful to behold and perfect athletes who are stiff as boards.

As I often do, I look to nature and considered bamboo. I think society considers Bamboo a wood that has a certain amount of flexibility regardless if it is thin or thick. Whereas I consider myself more of a 2x4 or even a wood plank, I wondered what it would take to become like bamboo. You might expect that it is as easy as say taking a yoga class or stretching more, as the saying might go, Just limber up. But here is the hard part and where the true metamorphosis begins. Bamboo is not a wood. Bamboo is a grass. True. So how do I go from being a block of wood into a piece of grass, albeit the biggest, thickest, strongest piece of grass on the planet. But grass absorbs, its flexes, it moves like a ripple against the wind. I as I have stated I do not. I am the proverbial wood plank.

I have spent tens of hours reviewing video and photographs of my movement, which thankfully I have the resources to do. Plus I have long studied how my body moves in order to master certain skills so I have my own case history on the subject, as it were.

I have spoken with yogi's, martial arts experts, performance experts, people skilled in physical deviations and will continue to do so. I am getting their input on how to change the essence of a body so unlike just a habit, it is something that is learned and then never corrected again, like breathing, like a new genetic code. This is not about techinque though I am sure there will be challenges and breakthroughs there. I am not even close to the end in this, perhaps not even to the beginning so as I learn, I will tell.

Why do I want to do this? Simple. I WILL compete again in endurance sports. The limitations are already set, no more Ironmans. I will start with the smallest and move slowly through the distances till I reach the point of too much. While even entering a race is still several months away, I must reinvent myself to prevent the results of the past, go in a new direction. I have new goals, new distances, new challenges, some of these on the same old local courses.

Now that the primer is set, the rest is academic and application.