The Forest for the Trees

 

I've been craving the forest lately. A strange sort of craving, actually: almost drug-like in its promise to deliver me from my worries and gloom, to transport me to a place that feels a bit like a dream. It's like I need my fix. I feel a bit restless until I can get out there again.

We're lucky to live near a trail, and right now the glorious autumn weather makes the walk idyllic. In summer, it's full of fierce mosquitos, and a bizarrely persistent sort of fly.  We call them our "personal" flies because they will circle our heads for miles, laughing as we swat at them, helpless to dislodge them. So summers, we walk in town.

And in a few weeks, we'll be in Valencia, Spain for half a year. It's a beautiful city with immersive destinations of its own! But they tend to be cultivated, not wild, and crowded full of other people. I know other people exist, and have every right to enjoy the outdoors with me. But, and I don't mean this in a bad way: Fuck off, other people! You can come back later when I'm not in the mood for a solitary stroll.

All that's to say: these woods walks are precious, and I'm trying to enjoy the hell out of them these next few weeks. And as it happens, there's a bit of a trick to it.

Forest Bathing and Awkward Anniversarys

photo: pixabay

By Crabby McSlacker

Yep, Today Cranky Fitness is 10 years old.

Holy crap, right? It's hard to believe. How could such a half-assed enterprise have endured an entire decade?

The quick answer is of course: it hasn't. Not really. That's why it's an awkward anniversary. I've taken huge breaks, wandered away, reappeared, disappeared again, and generally gotten shockingly irresponsible about  blogging

But hey... somehow the blog is still here!

So you may have questions: what does the blog anniversary have to do with Forest Bathing? What the hell is forest bathing? And will this post contain any gratuitous nudity?

Mindfulness, Exercise, and Grousing

By Crabby McSlacker

So a New York Times article just highlighted a study suggesting that "mindfulness can jumpstart exercise routines."

As it happens, I believe that both increased mindfulness and consistent exercise are really good for you! And yet both are much easier in theory and in perky magazine articles. In real life, they can be a royal pain in the ass to try to practice on a consistent basis over the long haul.

So, is combining the two a good idea?  And if you do decide to try it, what are some ideas for optimizing your experience?

Walking Meditation Tips--For People Who Suck at Meditation

Walking meditation is a wonderful way to combine both mental and physical exercise, allowing you to kill two birds with one stone.  (Let's just leave aside the question of why you want two dead birds in the first place).

Walking is also an especially accessible route to meditation for people like me, those folks with neurotic overactive thinky brains who struggle with more traditional forms. It's a great alternative method for achieving a lovely trancey surreal experience, and hell, if it doesn't work, at least you've gotten some exercise. 

But if you've looked into it, traditional instructions for walking meditation seem to be aimed at people who already like to meditate. For me, they manage to take a means of exercise that isn't too odious in itself, and turn it into tedious effortful drudgery. 

However, by wandering around totally ignoring traditional methods and just making shit up, I've stumbled on much more entertaining ways to do walking meditations. Which, once I got past the first page or so of google searches, I discovered I didn't actually invent, but whatever.

Yet I'm so not an expert at this stuff, who am I to be giving advice?  You should probably ignore it. Plus,  as you might imagine, some of my variations are quite a bit weirder than what you'll find elsewhere.