Friday, October 15, 2010

friday night at the gym

Managed to eat some food for dinner, and combined with pleny of liquids and some modern traditional herbal cold medicine, I went to the gym after work. Love it on Friday nights, actually: completely empty, except for the true-fans who would rather be in the gym working out on a Friday night than anywhere else.
Couple of dudes who seriously looked like they didn't spend much time anywhere BUT the gym. A couple of salarymen who looked like they were doing their penance before their planned Friday night debauchery.
And then me.
Did an easy 30 minutes on the treadmill, techno on the headphones, nice and slow 7.5 clicks pace, tv off, staring at myself in the window-turned mirror.
Knocked through the rest of the workout ok; didn't kill me, but also didn't score any massive lifetime achievements either. Aerobics studio was empty by the time I got to the kicks and punches, so I was pleasantly alone when I did my feeble-ass jumps kicks. Managed to cramp BOTH calves, first the right, then the left. Patrick once explained a cramp as muscle-brain confusion; wrong signals sent and interpreted, causing a muscle to tighten up right when it's not supposed to. Felt like a rock about the size of my fist shoved into an artery just below my calve. Was pleasantly surprised to see lots of nice sinewy definition on my calves and legs, though. That much muscle tension really brought out the definition. So that's a plus, I guess.
Worked out the cramp in my right leg, did my feeble set of jumps, then did exactly the same thing in my left leg: first jump, nice cramp, sit down, exhale deeply, slowly massage, unclench teeth...
Also did about 8 minutes of zazen sitting in the studio, facing the mirror. Never done zazen facing myself in the mirror; always just facing a wall. Interesting to watch myself breath, see my chest and stomach expand and contract, watch my shoulders lift and fall, and also watch myself slowly fall out of and regain balance over and over again. Usually to my right, because I sit full lotus with my right ankle crossed over my left, leaving my left knee more firmly on the ground than my right. Dunno but it's just easier to do full lotus this way than the other. But it also means my right knee is just a wee bit floaty, and therefore if I don't pay attention I tend to drift down to the right. Kinda neat to feel it and watch myself doing it at the same time. A new thing in zazen for me.
Throat still feels like ass, but slightly less so. Lotsa warm fluids all day helping immensely. Will get much sleep tonight and kick it tomorrow!

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