Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
I have been doing yoga almost daily for the past two years along with year round cycling...I'm not into the meditative aspects, and usually listen to Talk Shows while doing the excercises. So I suppose I wouldn't fit well into a group class, and get to enjoy the younger ladies in spandex.
Originally Posted by
cyclezen
of course, everyone can and does approach things their own way. But yoga offers something few other activities seem to these days - time with yourself...Then there's the learning to control your mind. The mind is an un-quiet thing, always needing interaction/distraction. And not surprisingly, if denied something to munch on, the mind will create its own 'attention'; often to our detriment. Yoga offers the opportunity to start controlling that loose cannon, the mind (if you want to and prefer to control yourself, rather than let the mind run amuck as it usually does)...
Hi cyclezen,
Thanks for your comments, including approaching things your own way. I happen to be of the type who enjoys, and virtually needs external input, not as a distraction but as a way to focus: on my mentally intense job, while cycling, doing yoga, and various activities in between. In fact, I find the silence distracting, or “deafening” as I posted. My highest meditative state is to read the newspaper uninterrupted. This may seem pedestrian to many adherents, but I feel my inner life is very rich, and expanding in the ”right” direction.
Originally Posted by
cyclezen
...The 'meditative' side might just start with the experiencing of yourself as you go thru a 'practice'...
I find one of the intriguing aspets of yoga is to improve the postures, often by seemingly spontaneous flashes on a body part, e.g. a vertebra, that is affected by or allows for improvement. These insights are seemingly to me not hindered by external stimuli. This argument is so similar to the perennial BF threads about listening to a device vs. just hearing the sounds on the road. As a subscriber posted to such a thread: “...why don't people get it that the right music complements the ride and doesn't detract from it. Epic ride + epic tunes = good ride.”
Originally Posted by
cyclezen
...Then there's 'now'. Yoga certainly is one of few ways for us to be fully present, here, now, living the precise moment and place you are. Not distracted by where you might be 10 secs away or 10 days out, or 1 hour past. Now. It's actually a difficult place to be consistently until it becomes more commonplace as you work/practice to being there.
Cycling can, in its most immediate form, be a great way to be here, now....The days I am not 'strong' (determined) enough to have a Yoga practice, are poorer for not having it.[/
I am not as enamored of yoga as I am of cycling, but I do try to do yoga daily, if at least to be able to maintain my level. I once posted to a thread about cycling in the "zone":
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
...I think the time between such extraordinary, "peak experiences" is often a a long time. I think there are ways to introduce high points into the mundane day to day existence.
I have previously posted this anecdote: I once had a memorable lunch-time discussion with a surgeon and an internist that turned to the vicissitudes of life, e.g. sudden death, or trivial symptoms that are harbingers of a serious disease. The best conclusion we could come up with was the old chestnut to live each day to the fullest. As we were leaving, the surgeon, a Marathon runner, said, “Well any day that has a run in it is a good day for me.” That clicked for me that any day with a bike ride in it is a good day.
Maybe it’s just the endorphins talking, but to me a cycling lifestyle embraces a philosophy as well as a technology…
BTW FYA, as I was looking for the above post I came upon this thread, “How do you relax / meditate?”:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=542973
Take it with a grain of salt; it was in the Foo Forum.
Thanks for the opportunity to write.
Jim