So a couple of weeks ago I was in San Diego, at the intersection of Mission Boulevard (the main drag in Mission Beach) and Garnet. That’s always a busy corner, but this was Friday night around 6 pm; a lot of people were around. My son and I were walking to a favorite taco joint.
The light changed, I stepped off the curb to cross, took a couple of steps, and then I went Splat! Flat on my face.
I didn’t trip on the curb. There wasn’t any buckling or weirdness in the street that caused me to stumble. I don’t know why I fell. There was a moment before I went down when, for a split second, I thought I could right myself, but I couldn’t. I was arm in arm with my son, and I think maybe if we weren’t linked like that, I might have been able to regain my balance, but I’ll never know.
A lot of young people crossing the street at the same time came over and asked, “Are you okay?” I had skinned my right knee pretty bad, but boy, was my pride bruised. This was not a kind of attention that I wanted. I said, “I’m fine. Thank you for asking,” as I got up and started moving again, trying to put it all behind me as quickly as possible. A friend later said that we need to reinforce that kind of behavior, that willingness to help, that impulse to check in and not pretend that lady over there didn’t just faceplant on the asphalt. Because what if I did need help getting up? What if I needed an ambulance?
I’ve got my thinking cap on about how to respond if this happens again in a way that more thoroughly acknowledges the kindness of the person asking about my wellbeing, but that still allows me to dust myself off and be on my way. I haven’t come up with anything good yet, but I’d like to have something in mind because it’s difficult to come up with just the right thing to say when you’re splat in the middle of the road.
It was humbling and it got me thinking. About balance and strength, and how, if I don’t do anything to increase both, they will probably continue to deteriorate.
You may recall that I have linked the three projects of decluttering my house; getting myself into better physical shape; and improving the health of my finances. I’m proud of my progress with my finances. I’ve increased my savings rate and decreased my spending; I’m finally putting a little flesh on the bones of my skeletal retirement accounts. I’m learning more all the time. With decluttering, I’m making progress, but it’s more sporadic and less robust.
But on the physical fitness front, until very recently, I was nowhere. I thought about it a lot, and I talked about it a lot, and I wrote about it a little, but I didn’t really make any progress in this arena. I was still walking my dog for an hour every morning and doing two pushups a day; I had added nothing to my nutritious movement diet. My San Diego Street Splat was a wakeup call to start doing more. My promise to myself was to start doing something to get stronger.
My daughter was planning to do a 21-day YouTube Pilates Challenge, starting shortly after I got back from San Diego. I asked if I could join her, and now we’re just wrapping up the second week.
The young woman who leads the exercises in the YouTube video is superfit—strong and limber, ripped in a good way. The centerpiece of the Challenge is a full-body workout video that we do almost every day, with other videos added to target specific areas, such as arms, abs, or lower body. It’s all punctuated by occasional days of yoga to offer a break from the body weight exercises. It’s definitely kicking my butt, and after some days, I wake up sore, but not debilitated. I have to modify some of the exercises, and I don’t always do as many of whatever activity we’re supposed to be doing, but it still feels really good to move more.
Both my daughter and I feel like we’re sleeping better, and as tends to happen when you do one healthy thing, it’s inspiring other healthy things, like nudging us in the direction of making better food choices and drinking more water.
I needed this. I don’t know if it will improve my balance, or if it’s the best possible thing for me to be doing. But it’s something, a start, baby steps in the right direction.
Here’s a link to the Challenge we’ve been doing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt2FyFYRmes&t=8s
We wanted the full-body workout, but this instructor has lots of stand-alone exercise videos that target certain areas of the body—arms, waist, abs, etc.—and many others that focus on stretching tight spots, such as glutes, back, and neck and shoulders. All the ones I’ve done have been very good.