On cross-training

Addendum to MacKenzie's Laws:

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of playing some rugged street basketball with a dangerous bunch of characters who sometimes hang out at the Hoff Road Park courts, and I had a GREAT time, the endorphin buzz lasted about a week, and I even managed to escape with all my limbs intact, more than I can say for another member of the group who had a run-in with Stan "Hatchet-Man" Sobiech. While my mind and heart are soaring in the aftermath of an hour of roundball, my knees and shoulders were just sore. Clearly, you need to do this more than once or twice a year to come out pain-free.

So I'm having a normal conversation with my daughter, Helga Golly (I think she looks like Andrew Wyeth's friend and model, the lovely Nordic Helga, but I'm biased), which seems to be happening more and more these days, now that she's home from college for the summer for the first time, since the last two years she was up at Camp Ho Mita Kota counseling all the young diabetic kids in the arts of archery, testing blood sugar, and avoiding poison ivy, and Helga is reacting to her workout with Judd, the personal trainer at the Yoga Factory over on East Broadway in beautiful Olde Methodistville. Sore muscles - it's what you get after a good workout.

So I went into my spiel about another moderate workout being the best recovery from your previous workout, something like: If my legs are tight from running, I do yoga to recover; if my lower back is tight from yoga, I do qigong; if my shoulders are tight from qigong, I do taiji; if my knees are tight from taiji, I ride my bike; if my neck is tight from biking, I hang upside down; if my arms are tight from hanging, I run. That about covers it. Then if I'm exhausted from whatever I've done today, I...

And Helga says, "Sleep." Which is true. I went to a kick-butt Vinyasa Yoga class last night that wrung me out and hung me out to dry. I tried to keep up with the 40-something teacher and the 30-something students, all women, but at one point I started to lose it and had to fold myself up in child's pose (don't know the Sanskrit name) breathe deeply and rest before continuing. To my great relief, one of the other people in the class also did a child's pose or two when she had reached her limit, so I wasn't the only one out of my league in Vinyasa-land.

By the end of the 90 minutes, I'm drenched, relaxed, and satisfied, with just enough energy to ride my bike the half-mile home and sit out the rest of the evening on the patio, enjoying the cool breeze before falling asleep two hours before my accustomed bedtime. For once, no need or desire to cross-train. Just the need to practice more Vinyasa to be able to do Vinyasa. Like basketball or anything else, once in a while won't cut it.