Exercise, pleasure, and metaphor

[resonant]

One of the things I love about my new yoga instructor is that she uses a lot of the language of physical pleasure in her practices. That's actually pretty common in yoga, but she seems extra-focused on it, meaning we get a lot of "rotate your knee outward until you find the sweet spot" and "float your arms comfortably over your head" and "that should be a sweet sensation; back off if it isn't."

I know a lot of people are energized by exercise that uses the language of competition, but it does nothing for me. And I actively dislike exercise carried out with the metaphor of redemptive suffering, where the more you sweat or pant or hurt, the more you can be sure you're doing a good thing.

And the thing is, I do find yoga physically pleasurable -- the exertion and the stretch and the rest are all, for the most part, very physically pleasurable.

When I started doing yoga two years ago, this aspect came as a tremendous shock.

In mid-grade school, I remember reading in one of the Narnia books something along the lines of: if a person could run and run and never tire, then no one would ever want to do anything else. I remember very vividly reading that line, and I also remember that, however old I was, I already self-identified as a fat, lazy kid who hated to exercise, and the line struck me with a pang of longing to be like these other people, who could run and enjoy it.

But I come from a sedentary family, and of course gym class (at best) is predicated on finding those who already know how to be active and letting them do it, while those who don't know how look out for themselves as best they can. There was no one to tell me, "Your muscles are weak, and if you'll push them just the tiniest bit, over and over, they'll get stronger."

In her older years, my mother has discovered water aerobics, and she's passionately devoted to it. When she had her hip replaced, the worst part was how long it kept her out of the water. So only now has she learned this thing that she was unable to teach me: it's not just because it's good for you (or because it will make you thinner).

Using strong muscles feels good.

Comments

[summerstorm]

I really feel and relate to this post. I was always the kid who hated gym class and avoided exercise whenever she could. Three years ago I started doing yoga and it was an amazing discovery. A year ago I got into watching gymnastics and decided to start conditioning - stretching and sit-ups and leaps, at first - and step by step I was able to do more, and that progress was wonderful because no one was pushing me to levels I was not ready for. (My father did a fair bit of telling me what I was doing was useless, but that's - well. I try to ignore him when I can. He does the same with my guitar playing. I'll get far, far away as soon as I can.) Plus, I felt BETTER. I had more energy, I was more relaxed.

Exercise! It's great! But not the way gym teachers approach it. >:|

[resonant]

I still have fond feelings for the one gym teacher who actually worked with us on basic skills. (Picture us all lined up with basketballs, throwing chest passes at squares painted on the wall, over and over.) I mean, it was boring, but it actually accepted that not everyone in the class already knew how to do this stuff, and that playing games is more fun if you're not totally incompetent at them!

[mergatrude]

Yoga is excellent on so many levels. And every time I go back to classes after a break I can feel my body reveling in the stretches.

I got them to hire a yoga teacher for the preschoolers at my childcare centre when their previous "gym" program ended, and I am constantly delighted by Danno randomly doing poses. I'm about to embark on a campaign to get it included in the primary school sports program, to counteract the zumba classes my kids hate (too loud!).

[resonant]

The kidlet's Montessori school had a class called "Movement," and when the kidlet came to yoga with me, she said, "Oh, we learned all this stuff in Movement."

Some kids probably love zumba. It would be great to have a choice.

[mergatrude]

Choice is awesome, yes. I'm glad my kids got to experience zumba, even though it's not for them.

[fox]

I've got away from yoga in the past few months and should maybe look into getting back. (I had one instructor who said things like "This will probably not feel awesome at first, but if it keeps on not feeling awesome for more than a few seconds, go ahead and back out of it and try something else." I specifically remember her saying that about lying on your back with a block under your shoulder blades, which I love but apparently that makes me unusual.)

[resonant]

I don't think I've ever tried that. My new perfect English yoga instructor is big on getting you into a tiny near-shoulder stand with the block under the small of your back, which is a lot more comfortable than it sounds.

[toft]

Ohh, I LOVE that.

[out_there]

In mid-grade school, I remember reading in one of the Narnia books something along the lines of: if a person could run and run and never tire, then no one would ever want to do anything else. I remember very vividly reading that line, and I also remember that, however old I was, I already self-identified as a fat, lazy kid who hated to exercise, and the line struck me with a pang of longing to be like these other people, who could run and enjoy it.

As a kid, I remember having dreams of running -- usually escaping, but never with a sense of danger, always a sense of freedom of running without tiring -- and being fat and asthmatic, it was so completely removed from what I "knew" of exercise.

I'm still not someone who really enjoys exercise. I can do Boot Camp if I sign up with workmates (i.e. someone to call me out if I try to ditch it), and yoga and pilates aren't too bad once I start, but it's really something that I do because I know I should rather than actively wanting to do for its own sake.

Mind you, I have reached that point with food. I've been eating healthier for about nine months now, and while it started with a weight loss focus and a "because it's good for you", it's actually easy to prepare and tasty, and it's something where I enjoy the different snacks and flavours. I don't stick to it religiously, but when I eat something less healthy like takeout or binge on chocolate, I miss the flavours and textures of eating better. I've grown to enjoy eating better, so maybe I'll eventually grow to enjoy exercise too.

[indywind]

It is possible! that's how it worked for me, a period of "I can tolerate this OK I guess and it feels sort of useful? growthful? something?" that gradually and nonlinerly faded into "this feels actually good, kind of alive and real" that I still don't lean toward equally at all times --sometimes I still slip into feeling less-than-present, or so ugh uncomfortable that I wish I could be less present..

But I know the other feeling is also possible, now, that it can arise in places I'd never used to expect. And I know how to cultivate it.

[out_there]

That's actually really good to hear. I mean, when people talk about missing exercise and enjoying it, I usually look at them and judge on fit-appearances (in that they look like the kind of kids that loved gym class). It's nice to be reassured that the enjoyment can be cultivated.

[indywind]

It might also help you to know, then, that I never was someone who loved gym class, and I still don't look like one, perhaps even when I am in the middle of enjoying some physical activity.
I look like a pudgy, clumsy intellectual, and I am... I'm just also one who runs, bikes, practices (and teaches) yoga, occasionally swims, dances, rides horses, hikes, and moves heavy things around without waiting for someone who looks more appropriate to do it.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people judge on appearances, and come to the conclusion that they're not already good at and enjoying a physical activity because People Like Them Just Don't Do Things Like that, and then give up before they find the sweet spot.

[resonant]

Sometimes I feel like one of the things I'm doing in yoga classes is being there so that people who stick their heads in the door will see a fat person in the yoga class and go, "Oh, OK, then I can be here, too."

[indywind]

Yeah! ::offers high-5::

[resonant]

I think "because I'll feel better afterwards" is a perfectly sound reason to skip fried chicken or go take a run or whatever, but "because it's pleasurable in the moment" is much more motivating. I used to do just fine walking on the elliptical machine on the "because I'll feel better afterwards" model, but yoga is the first thing I've ever done, exercise-wise, where I've randomly sat up during the day and thought, "I wish I were doing yoga instead of doing what I'm doing."

[muccamukk]

Never went to school, so no gym class. I jogged when I was in university, but kept getting injured and it seemed like a lot of work for no notable benefit, but I've got to say I really enjoyed all the physio I did for my shoulder.

The tangible feeling of getting stronger every day and being about to do more and more things that I wanted to do was amazing. As you say, using strong muscles feels good.

[resonant]

I wanted that out of physical therapy (shoulder as well!) but never really got it -- the exercises I got, looking back, weren't really challenging enough.

[krait]

I spent my entire adult life, till last year, being pretty sure that there was no exercise I enjoyed except horseback riding (too expensive and hard to access) and bicycling (only casually/easily, outdoors).

Then I took up fencing. I still have a hard time making myself go, because apparently inertia is the strongest force in my existence, but it is pretty awesome overall - maybe because, as with riding (you're going somewhere), it has a "purpose"?

Or maybe I just like stabbing people. :D

I think I pushed too hard last week, though, because my knee(s) really are not happy with me lately. Meh.

[resonant]

Ooh, fencing sounds cool. When I imagine doing it, though, I can see both my knees and my one strange hip really protesting.

[monanotlisa]

Using strong muscles feels good.

It really does! Just back from the pool, an hour of lap-swimming.

Your account of gym class made me realize once more that gym class indeed only works well for some kids -- it's not just size, or conditions like asthma, but also the rigid choices of particular sports your school board chooses.

I was an athletic child and teen in the sense that I was always fit, healthy, and active, but I still hated gym class with a great passion and had terrible grades. Dodgeball made me fearful and angry at the same time; gymnastics on the ground particular made me want to run away to Alaska because one time I rolled my upper spine was struck hard, and I could not breathe for a minute or two; that trauma lasts until today.

All the sports I was interested in (and good at, natch) were sports not practiced in my school in Germany: tennis, cycling, rollerblading; skiing and winter sports in general -- when I went to Austria, my sports grades went up like whoa, thanks to the winter sport element.

If schools allowed the individual student more choice and had more resources to spend on physical education, I bet gym would not be such a loathsome experience, and kids would be both happier and healthier.

[resonant]

Yes, choice would be wonderful!

Last year the kidlet's gym class had a rollerblading unit -- we had to pay extra for it, but I thought it was a great ide.

The one time my school offered a choice, it was a very gendered choice -- half the class was doing gymnastics and the other half was doing weightlifting, and instead of just saying, "Girls here, boys there," they let us choose. I wanted to do weightlifting but had it in my head that I'd get a lot of static from the teacher, so I didn't. (We did have one boy in our gymnastics unit. He was strong and graceful and actually much better at gymnastics than I was.)

[kindkit]

Oh, the horrors of gym class.

Thinking back on it, I wasn't an inactive child. I loved to ride my bicycle, swim (I grew up in the country so we had lakes, not nasty chlorinated pools, and there was a lot of floating and playing around rather than concertedly swimming laps, but even so), and play softball with the family or run around playing war games, etc. But the competitiveness of gym class and the public humiliation aspect of it (I was a fat kid and other kids made fun of me, plus starting in middle school we had to wear hideous gym uniforms) made it an ordeal. And the gym teachers all seemed to be ex-high school jocks with short tempers and no skill at teaching. *sigh*

Do you have recommendations for good yoga DVDs (I can't afford classes) that are about flexibility, strength etc. rather than weight loss, and that also aren't full of, er, spirituality?

[blushingflower]

Yoga Download has a bunch of free video and audio classes that are 20 minutes long. There are a bunch of different teachers, and since they're free, if you decided that you hate the instructor, you're not out anything but the time. Some of them are a little "woo", but not all of the ones I've listened to.

[resonant]

I haven't really found any DVDs that I'd recommend. My teacher really liked Seane Corn, but my wrists aren't strong enough to handle that many minutes of uninterrupted sun salutations (inhale! downward dog! exhale! plank! inhale! sphinx! exhale! plank!) and there's also a pretty heavy spiritual element.

My teacher recommended the classes on the Yoga Journal website; you might try that.

I don't think you need to worry too much about a weight loss focus in yoga classes, because that's not typically part of the language.

[toft]

I also have been surprised by how much I love yoga, and how much I will voluntarily do it when I would never do another kind of exercise. It's generally made me more in touch with my body, and what feels good and what doesn't. I love it. So glad you love it too!