In this training I pick up aspects of the second and the third one. It is a little bit more “classical workout” than the second one. More strenuous, lets us test if we manage to get into the “second wind”, but also playful.
Warmup
- Turn wrists, turn elbows, turn shoulders, use full range of motion
- Go on all fours, put little weight on the hands, push body up with the wrists. Stretch lower arms in several directions. Carefully feel into your wrists, what feels good and what not.
- Swing whole body, feel the blood pouring into your fingertips.
- Swing even more until knees touch the ground.
- Make circles with knees (around hips).
- Make circles with feet (around knees).
- Turn your ankles.
Exercises
- Animal walk mixed with rolls, every time it gets strenuous, forward and backward. Feel dizziness, hear your heart beat!
- Monkey walk mixed with 360° jumps.
- Do a few pushups, immediately start sprinting. First 20m are flat, then the hill starts. Sprint as long as you can keep the technique.
- Walk up the hill on all fours. This is hard! Again a long monotonous workload. Keep attention to your body, keep couriosity, find a rhythm that keeps you going. Don’t forget you are your friend, so stay friendly to yourself ;).
- Rope traversing. There is a rope hanging between two trees. Move along it in different ways.
- Follow me run. I run a lane through the forest and over fallen trees and benches, jump over rocks. You follow me, in your own technique.
- Tree-loving. Climb every tree in an alley. If one is too easy, try different ways get up the tree.
Tools used
It was a quite simple training we did yesterday. But we already used many tools to enjoy training:
- “As long as you can keep the technique”. This is important. The goal is not to go until you die or can’t stand the pain anymore, but to go until you can’ hold the technique anymore. If done right, you focus completely on the technique, bringing you into observing your body more than the question how far it still is. You go as long as you can go high quality.
The important part here is that you build a habit of high quality movement. No way to “just do what you have to do”. It forces a level of commitment, and this actually makes things more joyful. - “Brain dump”: write everything you ponder about or any unfinished trains of thoughts on a piece of paper. Put it in your pocket. You can continue after training (if its still important then)
- Continuous attention. While doing the “intuitive run” we have to observe the environment at any moment, reacting quickly to obstacles. This keeps us in the right mode.
- Keep mindfulness: This is a hard one! When you are forced to do something where you can’t stop or do breaks. Your only chance here is to stay in the mode of mindfulness as good as possible. You may have noticed that while it gets difficult quickly, there comes a “second breath” after a while. When you can reach a “stable state” at a higher level of effort. And use your hard breath or the alternation of contraction and relaxation as anchor. Don’t be disappointed if it didn’t work yesterday, it requires practice and depends on daily condition. It is really important here (and an important habit to build) to stay your friend. Meaning use all your conscious attention to care for you, to encourage you, to support you. Sounds weird?
- “Observation break”: Stop doing what you do, check your physical and mental status.
- “Paradox break”: Break up monotony in an exercise by doing something which makes you loose control or orientation a bit. For example do a somersault while crawling on the floor. Enjoy the dizzyness or use the moment of disorientation for an observation break.
- Quick change: From the push ups to the sprints there is no break. You are well into sprinting before realizing what happens ;).
- Use short relaxation as reward. After the hill runs, we stood or sat for a few moments. Hear the heart beat, hear the sound of breath. Enjoy coming back into the comfort zone. Don’t skip this! We are in training and not on the run!
- Ever changing demand, no time nor need to ponder. In the “tree loving” session, there are easy and difficult trees. If one just does not let you climb it, you go to the next, try new ways. Later you come back and maybe the first tree works now. No thinking, just doing. Trust that your body will pick up the hints and both strength and coordination will improve. All you have to do is “don’t stop playing”!
Train Joy 