“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light”
Great lines from Dylan Thomas, with which I kind of agree and kind of don’t. I suspect that laughter is better than rage, but then again maybe they are not so different as responses go?
Hi! Folks,
Each time that I am racking my bike at the Lake Placid Ironman, I say to the old guys around me (our bikes are grouped together for some odd reason) “looks like we beat the toe tag again!” No one laughs, but me (so far!). I don’t want to be dead more than anyone else I know, but it seems to me that if we can laugh in the face of death maybe that would be a good thing. But can I do it? Don’t really know, but I hope I can. But what has this got to do with kinesthetic perception? Well! If Dylan’s poem is as much about life as death, then life is what we need to focus on. As we get old certain pieces of equipment start to run a little differently, and we start to see the writing on the wall - starts with bifocals in your early forties. However, we don’t have to just accept the inevitable, I don’t care what the age groups race times say. This leads me to a great book, ‘The Brain That Changes Itself,’ by Norman Doidge. The writing style is somewhat ‘anecdotal,’ but if you follow up on the research it seems to be pretty solid. Why should the brain be just as plastic as the rest of the body? It is too easy to set low limits for ourselves, both physically and mentally. Interestingly, whilst research some of the work in this book I came across an interesting Feldenkrais site. I’ve downloaded the material and I’ll write about it later, after I write about the book by on Masters Level Training by Peter Raeburn, once I finish reading it. Looks pretty good so far. Which brings me to kinesthetic perception.
During Feldenkrais sessions I spend quite a bit of time scanning my body to see where everything is and how it feels. I came to realize that my mental map of my body parts and where they are in relation to one another sometimes does not reflect where they actually are. For instance, I often feel that my right foot is outwardly rotated more than it actually is, which I think is linked to an issue in my right leg that is a consequence of (a) excessively tight medial calf muscles, (b) a tight hip rotator/extensor, (c) something else (still researching this). Whatever it is, I suspect that it is related to muscular guarding, or psychosomatic tension, that ankle which I broke on a motor bike fifty years ago. This issue, I suspect, is related to the pressure map of my feet that I talked about a while ago, which was kindly prepared by a very nice lady at Road Runner Sports in California using ‘Shoe Dog.’ See the figure below:
When I had this pressure map prepared at the foot store in CA (forget the name, but it is in on old blog somewhere!), I felt as though my feet were equally weighted, and the pressure under my feet was evenly distributed. WRONG! This is a clear disconnect between my internal or mental body map and my actual body state. These are the things that can ruin our athletics, lead to injuries, and which my weekly Feldenkrais sessions with Karen are designed to address. So! I focus on stuff like this, which distracts me from the inevitability of death, and provides great entertainment and satisfaction.
May get me to Kona too, AAA-stent or no AAA-stent!
So! Rage on, but don’t forget to laugh too!
-k @FitOldDog
Important Note: These posts do not provide medical advice. You should always consult your physician before undertaking or significantly modifying an exercise program.
Copyright © 2010 Kevin T. Morgan aka FitOldDog, Old Dogs in Training, LLC.
Post Footer automatically generated by wp-posturl plugin for wordpress.
