One subculture down, several hundred to go

[robinbloke]

A pox on IE, take two of this...

Rowing and meditation
Well after much badgering from several colleagues at work I went rowing yesterday, if nothing else it gave me extra time away at lunch. Luckily it wasn't as cold as I'd expected it to be, the boat didn't sink and I didn't get wet.
But it was another sample trip into the strange world of another culture, phrases, acronyms, slang and suchlike; I always find that part almost as interesting as the field itself, all the little things that have developed in the clique that develops around the <whateverthehellitis> and rowing is full of them. Still the other good thing was that just for a moment I managed to disconnect my brain, sort of. Some may argue it's not connected in the first place mind you.
To explain, firstly when rowing you pull with one hand, twist with the other (to turn the paddle blade, or whatever technical term they use) my coordination isn't the best so I started by watching the paddle itself - which is strange enough - looking sideways outside of a small boat with no idea where you're going, trying to get the paddle moving correctly. Now, on the second go I'd figured that watching the paddle is essentially distracting and pointless, plus it shifts your body stance as well slightly. So focusing on what your hands are doing and timing your pulls is what’s important, at least so it seems anyway. So on the return to the boathouse I managed to disconnect at least part of reality for a good minute or so and focus only on what my hands were doing and the rowing all sort of slotted into place, it was quite bizarre, just concentrating on twist push twist pull twist push twist pull... or whatever the sequence was, alternating hand controls. The semi weird bit was that everything else vanished as I concentrated on this - which is sort of how I imagine meditation to be (never having meditated before) the removal of outside influences and distraction to the point of focusing on something, something physical in this case (usually it's breathing I'm led to believe). But anyway, it was a sampler at least.
I think I'll be going again.

Comments

[nannyo.livejournal.com]

I agree, meditation and excercise can be very similar. I think that's one of the reasons people feel loads better after doing excercise they have to blank their minds for. You just have to focus on the task in hand, let your body do its thing without stressing about it or over analysing, sort of like singing, or dancing, you just get on with it, and the overactive bits of your brain chill out. It's why I love love love the sword forms of tai chi (apart from the dancing about with a sabre stuff, which obviously is reason enough to like something).
N.