Some lists take 45 years generate, ask questions, seek don't follow.

Asking questions and continual searching seems to be a life trait from aged 4 onwards . This particular  observation begins with a conversation from about 25 years ago. I was sitting with a group of students who were studying with the Open University's Master's programme in Mathematics and Maths Ed. I was next to an older gentleman and was happily chatting away(I always do yack on) sharing my observations when he started to speak. His voice had such a strong resonance 'I know that voice' I said to myself, 'where in my life did that voice come from'. It was as if the voice itself was placing me in another body it was that strong a sense and pull to a different time.

 I stared at the man for some time and I just couldn't place it. We left with no resolution.

The next session he came up to me and said 'I thought I knew that name, I looked back at my old school records and I was your primary school teacher in Y4, (which is 9 years old)' He smiled and then said 'You haven't changed, you've asked questions then and you have kept asking questions now'. It still makes me smile, asking questions, searching, never content, the Self-searching for the knowledge above and beyond books. Hence the list below(amplified in 2024) is not about some random list put together for FB. It has been on my mind for 45 years. Enjoy :)

 Ok folks that time of year when I review and tweak my 'life hacks' there are one or two additions and some changes, can you spot them? Can you add some of your life hacks at the bottom. 

•   The blend of a cardiovascular exercise with yoga/movement/other modalities is more than the sum of their parts. Do both if you can. If you can't run ,walk a lot. I was delighted to read about how in the book 'exercised' by Daniel Lieberman(2021), the Tarahumara Indians did NOT exercise for their amazing running feats but walked everyday, around 10-13 miles tending their farm. We are walking endurance machines, number 1. 
• squat, either supported via heel support or against a wall.   Tribes squat a lot (Hadza tribe for one), they do not want to use up their energy, it is their movement away from sitting that is the key. Squatting is the sitting, there are lots of good physiological responses that are activated through this motion. One of which is squeezing lymph glands, and activating some other body processes. I am convinced anyway:)  
• Eat more vegetables a LOT more, and no, there is no such thing as animal protein, it is protein. 
• I am a fan of time restricted eating, in other words I practice my final meal (food intake) around 6pm, the next meal might not be until 8.30 am if not later. We are not wired to eat all night and graze all day. A noticeable outcome were my energy levels ramping up, not down worth the share. 
• Read, find a  balance between fiction and non fiction. I spent too long reading non fiction, it simply did not stop. What was I looking for!  A good check for non-fiction are the dull thud of references either at the end of each chapter and/or at the end of the section. 
• Spend time outside, in different conditions, rain, wind, snow etc. Activate your senses, we evolved as part of this planet, not away from it. We are connected at a very subtle level to the shift in seasons and weather. Bath in nature on a regular basis. 
• Spend time with people who smile when you enter the room :) 
• Go to bed 10 minutes earlier, sit on the bed and focus on your breath then go to sleep. Here you can make friends with your breath, your first breath was an exhale your last will be exhaled, bring attention to your breath and meditate. Nothing flashy, sitting in a comfortable place and being attentive to your breath is the beginning of transformation. Erich Schiffman calls it 'Bed Med'. 
• Don't count the miles, just move, I reckon you could move more if you stopped counting. I once took a runner out for a session, I told her not to look at her watch, the session finished and we had ran about 8 miles, initially she was really angry, 'too far'. 'how do you feel' I asked, 'I feel Ok, actually'. We set limits on ourselves, way too easily. I do like data and feedback but consider 'time on feet' and make it quality time on feet as well. 
• Shoe matter but not as much as you, moving well and moving in balance, as a child first learning to walk and run. We develop this 'feeling touch' with our feet. Find a grassy area, beach, anywhere 'dog poo' and sharps safe. take your shoes off and be a child again, learning to run in 'beginners mind'.  Develop and focus on 'good feeling with the ground' 
• Follow your breath when running, find the rhythm with the breath, you might need to walk/run a lot to find the sweet spot but it works. Breath, rhythm and relaxation, the body loves it. Breathing is tricky, I think there is a strong emotional connection here that needs breaking with good training. The Oxygen advantage (Patrick McKeown) bypasses Yoga and Ayurvedic holistic approaches and gives a great programme to help develop your breathing. Breath by James Nestor is a great overview on all things breathing. Finding that breath, following that breath, gives you the tuning mechanism for good health and improved cardio vascular fitness. 
• Single leg balances are important. Practice balancing.  There is a rocky section on my local beach  I watch folk struggle as they lose balance, most of these folks are 40 plus, keeping our balance is an important point. As we get older and I mean much older we don't want to lose our balance and fall. 
• You don't need to do marathons or need the next challenge if these make you feel good....great; personally, I am a Mary Oliver fan, I've been tested thankyou and I know what it feels like so I go for the following 'you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles repenting, you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves'. During my Yoga training and studies, there is the term Shanti, 'peace' a sense of peace and stillness should be an aim of our existence. Not everything has to be 'on', and 'full gas'. The best athletes are focused, still and at peace with themselves in that moment. Practice finding peace. 
• We all move differently, If I look back at the 2TB of the video there is NOT one runner who matches another. Amazing!
• I don't do dogma, I don't do tribes, I prefer being a searcher. You are the experiment, listen to yourself. 
• Create good habits when you are well, a yoga practice, a running practice means that  when you are injured or life hits you hard you have built resilience and mental strength and sense of who you are. I think we tend to wait until all the red lights are fully on before we do something. I did. Eluid Kipchoge has a great quote 'only the disciplined can be free'. In summary it is about lifestyle. 
  
• Change a word can change perception, try  changing  pleasure to fulfillment. It is a subtle change but makes a huge difference. Fulfilling means just that, filled up and complete, pleasure is a one hit sensory overload  we become addicted to and attached.
• Slow down in life. Busy for being busy sake is a habit of this society. Enjoy the time in the here and now. watch your mind tracking across the day before you have even woken up. Hence meditation in the morning sets up the tone of the day. Still the mind, move the body. Erich Schiffman stresses 'put a comma in your commentary so you are not energising your habitual response', relax and silent mind it. 
• Be kind to yourself. We do beat ourselves up. Positive affirmations are a good thing to state on a regular basis. 

To live mechanically or to live consiously. Tuning your body requires you to listen

I used to play a lot of music. For some very strange reason, I decided I  wanted to play acoustic jazz guitar. I had this vision of my fingers whizzing up and down the fretboard. Joe Pass et al:) (who!?)  I can remember finding my guitar teacher, a chap called Jimi Savage (yep that was his name, and yes he did play in the Ozzy Osbourne band or something, and yes, he was really good, so first find a good teacher:) ). He used to say things like 'I can't do this very well, then immediately demonstrate an amazing tapping and sweep picking arpeggio (think Joe Satriani (who! :) ) you can do better though Nick. Great teachers encourage, challenge and empathise. 

He would look at me and would always stress ' you have actually picked the most difficult form of guitar playing just so you know'. Fast forward 10 years, by then the apprentice(me) had moved to some sort of crafts person but no near any sense of mastery of the instrument. My fingers could at least find chords and  I suppose I could accompany a singer(she kept changing the key, that was a real pig:) ) and piano player. In fact, the piano player was blind so any of you reading this and musical would appreciate that our discussions were sound-based and not really 'chit chat' music.

Learning to play music has so many parallels in what I do. I use the context when discussing mathematics with my University students, I use it in my Yoga practise and teaching and also in running as well.

The bottom line is to become a musician you need to LISTEN. When you first begin to learn anything, you do need to learn the scales, the procedures, the naming of parts as it were. The place the fingers to the notes, the sound follows. There is a sense of externalising learning. This is quite normal, and we have to go through it. A good teacher though (and Jimi was)  also allowed me to do some gentle improvisation, even with a few scales at my parrot learnt disposal. In other words, the mechanistic approach of scales is replaced by a more conscious awareness of sound that goes under the scales. The mind-body connection is clear.

Over time the subtle transition from finger to note to note then to finger became apparent. The humming of the song came first, the fingers second. The vocabulary of learning had changed. Developing a listening ear and also tuning ourselves into the sounds of our own body has strong parallels to a yoga practice. At first, we learn 'moves' or feel compelled to learn shapes, the externalisation is the body, but as we begin to develop a sense of the body and breath connection we begin to develop to listen to the small sensations. In a class being led by a good teacher, there is space for this, but the best practice is the 'music playing' practice at home. Here the refinement of tone and breath is found.

Tuning your body and breath is like playing a musical instrument. For runners, I meet there are those that externalise their practice, the Garmin, the feedback, the Strava, the training routine. We do need some structure and feedback but consider and reflect on the idea that learning to play your instrument takes time, it takes skill and to develop this inner LISTENING needs space not clutter. A mechanistic approach to your running needs to grow into more conscious awareness of your movement.

A running practice combined with a yoga practice is a great blend. Be a musician :)
Nick 

The Kosas-The sheaths of Being

One of the fundamental points about Yoga, in fact, THE point is that the practice of Yoga is about transformation. By accessing and bringing attention and awareness (how you can transform if you do not what you are transforming!) to our innermost Being (Iyengar 2005), we see the world for what it is and not what we think or perceive it is. Yoga then describes this a little further by introducing the idea of the Kosa's.  This inner you are surrounded by these sheaths of existence (Iyengar 2005)

 In Sanskrit, these are:-

Anatomical body, Annamaya Kosas,
The energetic body, Pranamaya Kosa
Mental body Manomaya Kosa
intellectual body Vijnanamaya Kosa
Blissful or soul Anandamaya Kosa

You can imagine these as Russian dolls, nesting together. In my mind, I describe them as:-

The body of you, the energy and breath of you, the mind of you, the intellect(the reasoning) of you, the consciousness of you (the universal timeless you).

To be fully in tune with ourselves then these sheaths are seamless, without obstruction. Our bodies connect to our breath and energy, which feeds into our mind and then our intellect (the reasoning mind), we then have clear and transparent access to the inner still lake of 'cosmic consciousness' the universal you. I LOVE this description and most people I speak to do as well.

Nick after being 'IN his Running' with some bling:)

When I teach Yoga I never say we are 'doing Yoga' I stress we are IN Yoga, the yoga state of mind, which reflects a balance of body, breath and mind. Carry this state of mind with you away from the class.

As runners do we know what running well is? We can have moments when we are 'IN our running', have we touched upon these sheaths of existence?

What qualities do we assign to running well? How about the following.

You may be feeling well, the body has been trained to accept the load (the physical you) you have a sense of good energy, a sense of positivity and lightness to our stride and bodies. Breathing does not feel tense or hard(the breath of you). Those gut bombs have disappeared, hydration has been managed well and fuel preparation all seems good. The discipline of practice paid off(the mind of you).  You ran well. The intellect of preparation, the focus becomes aligned. Suddenly you are 'IN your running' completely present, senses have been withdrawn, you are just there(the universal you)!

You see these very eastern descriptions do make sense, for me anyway....... have a think on....

see you on the mat
Nick