Introductions

[rydra_wong]

Because I thought it might be interesting to see where everyone's coming from ...

Here's a thread to say hi, and say a bit about your interest in movement/embodiment/whatchamacallit.

What movement things do you do -- or not do? Or: what did you do in the past? Or: what might you be interested in learning more about, but haven't tried yet? Or: what do you love reading about even though you'd never want to do it personally?

I suggest that people feel free to jump all over each other and ask questions if you're curious about something someone else mentions (if you'd rather not answer questions, please just say so), or want to say "me too" or compare notes.

Comments

[rmc28]

Hi! I'm Rachel, and I'm currently nearly a year out of five months intensive chemotherapy for leukaemia. I spent most of that five months in bed most of each day, with consequent loss of cardiovascular fitness and muscle mass. So since the start of this year I've been working on recovery.

The first thing was getting fit enough to get to work, which I restarted in mid-February. I live and work in Cambridge, UK and my primary transport in normal life is walking and cycling. Until mid-September my normal commute was a 5-6km bike ride in the morning and an approx 2km walk in the evening (with my spouse doing the inverse - we work in the same building so swapped the bike over). As of mid-September, both children are in the same place during the day and spouse and I are generally walking both ways to work, but not usually together.

As of about June I've been consciously using my fitbit watch to monitor and push my daily step and activity count up sustainably, and am tantalisingly close to my arbitrary prerequisites for restarting running. I am trying very hard not to look too far ahead, but other things I would like eventually to be doing as well are: swimming, rock-climbing (ideally with older child), dancing (probably adult ballet and tap classes at the dance school that younger child attends).


As a child and teen I did: swimming, gymnastics, ballet, tap, judo, taekwondo, netball, hockey, tennis & rugby. Not all at once, and not at any higher level than playing for my school or college. I became a regular gym user in college, and a few years afterward discovered rock climbing, which I did enthusiastically and not especially skillfully for several years until I got pregnant with older child. I haven't climbed since, but miss it greatly. I think I was in my mid-twenties before I stopped thinking of myself as "academic/not sporty" and realised that I was fundamentally happier if I did some form of exercise regularly, preferably out of doors. And also that I didn't have to be "good" at it to enjoy it.

I did power-walking for a couple of years before getting pregnant with my second child, including doing the London Moonwalk (a power-walked marathon), which was my private marker for "you are now fit enough to face being pregnant again". I took up running after my younger child was born, using Couch-to-5k (and setting up c25k for mutual support with other beginners), mostly because it seemed to offer a better effort/time ratio than power walking, and had the delighted surprise of coming to love running a lot. I will probably never be a fast runner but I love it anyway.

I have been living with RSI in my hands and wrists since about 2001 - which was helped greatly by doing rock climbing - and migraine since about 2004. The cancer + chemo has left me easily fatigued. I am constantly aware that I have a single limited pool of energy supplying my ability to work, study, exercise & socialise, and the penalty for overdrawing is exhaustion, susceptibility to colds, and migraines. Increasing that pool of energy by steadily and sustainably increasing my physical stamina and fitness is my fundamental goal.

Most recently, in the last couple of months, I have started consciously using the fitbit to target getting enough sleep. Averaging 8-9 hours a night gives me noticeably more energy than averaging 6-7 hours, and it seems that over a week I actually get more done when I hit that 8+ hours, even if I feel like I am forever going to bed early with things left undone.