30 Years of Practice
I began a daily practice of deep breathing about 30 years ago. Around the same time I started meditating every day. Both became an integral part of my daily routine. Most days that routine included a lot of physical activity: Aikido, Tai Chi Ch'uan or Karate. In addition, my professional life often required long hours at work. The occasional all-nighter at the office to meet a deadline was a part of the job.
When I wasn't in a dojo or a Tai Chi class, I would often be in a gym lifting weights or running laps. Weekends, and maybe one or two nights during the week, was for dating. Dinner and a movie, of course - sometimes clubbing - but more often than not, if the weather was good, we would go camping, hiking, or biking; or maybe join friends tossing a Frisbee or playing touch-football in a park; or play volley-ball (gals vs. guys) in some one's backyard. Back in the day, I danced a lot, did a lot of running around, jumping up and down, falling on the ground - so I would get lots of scrapes and bruises. But I never got sick. I mean it; no illnesses. Not so much as a cold for years. My daily routine, with deep breathing as its foundation, had a lot to do with that.
I guess my diet had a lot to do with it too. It was partly a legacy of my upbringing - we always got plenty of fruits and vegetables to eat when I was a kid. When I grew up, the healthy aspects of my eating habits were reinforced and influenced by the women in my life. I ate what they ate: streamed brown rice, whole grains, and fresh fruit and veggies. The unhealthy aspects were discouraged: basically eat nothing white: No white bread, white flour, sugar or milk. Some of them did try converting me to vegetarianism, but I drew the line at giving up meat. But I learned to limit my meat eating to lean cuts: grilled or baked. I was doing the "South Beach Diet" long before there was one.
Then I moved to another part of the country, changed jobs and was forced to make drastic lifestyle changes. It became difficult to continue my daily routine. Gradually, probably over a year or more, I stopped altogether: first deep breathing practice and then meditation. The workouts and martial arts practice became sporadic, finally petering out altogether. A few years later, perpetually tired, flabby, and generally miserable, I gradually developed another daily routine, consisting of deep breathing, meditation, and a set of conditioning exercises that I could readily fit into my circumstances.
There would be other times, over the years, when I would stop practicing and working out for long periods. Usually it was when a series of life-altering events would throw me for a loop and knock me off track. Separations, births, deaths are inevitable; live long and hard enough and they happen. Thinking back, it is not surprising that the birth or death of a child would make it difficult - no, impossible - to carry on for a while. What is significant is that the the daily practices that I started more than 30 years ago: deep breathing, meditation, and some form of physical conditioning (currently it's yoga); have continued to be so beneficial - so conducive to good health and well being - that I have felt compelled to return to them time after time.
Peace, LR
When I wasn't in a dojo or a Tai Chi class, I would often be in a gym lifting weights or running laps. Weekends, and maybe one or two nights during the week, was for dating. Dinner and a movie, of course - sometimes clubbing - but more often than not, if the weather was good, we would go camping, hiking, or biking; or maybe join friends tossing a Frisbee or playing touch-football in a park; or play volley-ball (gals vs. guys) in some one's backyard. Back in the day, I danced a lot, did a lot of running around, jumping up and down, falling on the ground - so I would get lots of scrapes and bruises. But I never got sick. I mean it; no illnesses. Not so much as a cold for years. My daily routine, with deep breathing as its foundation, had a lot to do with that.
I guess my diet had a lot to do with it too. It was partly a legacy of my upbringing - we always got plenty of fruits and vegetables to eat when I was a kid. When I grew up, the healthy aspects of my eating habits were reinforced and influenced by the women in my life. I ate what they ate: streamed brown rice, whole grains, and fresh fruit and veggies. The unhealthy aspects were discouraged: basically eat nothing white: No white bread, white flour, sugar or milk. Some of them did try converting me to vegetarianism, but I drew the line at giving up meat. But I learned to limit my meat eating to lean cuts: grilled or baked. I was doing the "South Beach Diet" long before there was one.
Then I moved to another part of the country, changed jobs and was forced to make drastic lifestyle changes. It became difficult to continue my daily routine. Gradually, probably over a year or more, I stopped altogether: first deep breathing practice and then meditation. The workouts and martial arts practice became sporadic, finally petering out altogether. A few years later, perpetually tired, flabby, and generally miserable, I gradually developed another daily routine, consisting of deep breathing, meditation, and a set of conditioning exercises that I could readily fit into my circumstances.
There would be other times, over the years, when I would stop practicing and working out for long periods. Usually it was when a series of life-altering events would throw me for a loop and knock me off track. Separations, births, deaths are inevitable; live long and hard enough and they happen. Thinking back, it is not surprising that the birth or death of a child would make it difficult - no, impossible - to carry on for a while. What is significant is that the the daily practices that I started more than 30 years ago: deep breathing, meditation, and some form of physical conditioning (currently it's yoga); have continued to be so beneficial - so conducive to good health and well being - that I have felt compelled to return to them time after time.
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