Exercise, hated word!

In the winter weather, especially right now, with ice everywhere and unlikely to thaw, my favorite walking has to be put on hold.  This is too bad, since it's a great lift of the spirits. I like moving out of doors, and it's really tough to stay cheerful when I can't. 

So I do other stuff. 

I have my lovely Rodney Yee a.m. dvd, which is about fifteen minutes of yoga, which my cats like very much, climbing all over me, and looking up into my face when I do downward facing dog, perhaps they're looking for the dog.


Then there's weight training, which I do anyway, whether or not I can walk out of doors.  On my 60th birthday, I gave myself a big present: the Strong Women Stay Young book, and a complete set of free weights.   I think the fifteen years of faithful training I've done, with few weeks when I didn't do at least one session, has paid off amazingly.  Even after this miserable virus which hung on and on, I was able to get back into strength training, no problem.  My muscles had stayed pretty good.

Originally I did it because I was doing collaborative art with Stefi M. and I noticed, when we worked on a big piece, how much longer her arms held up than mine.  Well, I am a few years older than she, but even so, I really needed to get some upper body strength.

And then, pawing this week through my old tapes, which I play on an ancient tv/vcr, in search of variety in indoor exercise, I found my Eight Pieces of Silk qi gong tape, and I've started up with that again.  It's a  series of standing movements, very cheering and good stretching and breathing. 

It's intended for health purposes, rather than the religious version of qi gong, and it's about my speed.  I notice, speaking of strength and stamina, that I'm able to get through the entire tape, about 30 minutes continued movement,  without any stress.  

When I was first given this tape, many years ago, by a friend heavily into this sort of healing practice, training as a practitioner in fact, I could barely manage half of it.  So I guess this is good, too.  Particularly since just a few weeks ago, I was having trouble just walking the block.

And there's always Sit and be Fit, which I have on dvd, dear old Mary Ann Wilson (amazing number of people in my life with that name, all of them good) which includes a free weight session a bit different from my usual routine, so that's nice. And a lot of chair exercises for days when you just can't make it to your feet. 

In my fifties, when I decided that I wasn't very fit, and I hated exercise in groups, unhappy experience with Tai Chi, only moderately good experience with group yoga, I took a look at SABF and really liked her attitude. No spandex, no bullying, just pleasant and very well researched exercises led and demonstrated by the creator, who's also an RN as well as a geriatric exercise specialist, and wears slouchy socks and shorts and tshirts, not a Fitness Costume. 

So there you have it -- Boud's Gym!