Some health and fitness goals, format stolen from jalilifer

[firefly124]

jalilifer gave me a great idea for how to track some of the long-term and interim health and fitness goals I want to accomplish. Particularly, there are several I want to accomplish in order to be able to do certain things in bellydance. I like the format she used for her goal-planning, and think I will implement it in my practice journal and yoga journal

Comments

[larksdream]

Ooo, can I ask for advice too? I'm pretty badly out of shape but would love to learn to bellydance. I'm afraid that if I start out with a class, even though it would obviously be a basic one, I'm going to struggle through the first ten minutes and then lie curled up on the floor in pain for the rest of the class. :P Is there maybe a very basic DVD out that would give me a few moves and let me build up my stamina a bit at home? I don't know anything about styles, I just think it all looks pretty. (I'm sorry, I hope that doesn't make you cringe. *G*)

[firefly124]

No, doesn't make me cringe at all, no worries. I'm not the "ethnic police" of bellydance -- and oh, they do exist -- I'm just endlessly and insanely curious and have an excessive fondness for categorizing things in my own head, I think

[larksdream]

That's awesome, thanks! Getting back in shape is one of my goals for this year (me and everybody else, I know!), but I can't even do most of what I've dubbed the "Painates" DVD yet. :P

[firefly124]

You're welcome. Pilates is hard to learn from a DVD, I think. If it's something you want to work with, I'd recommend picking up the book "The Pilates Body" by Brooke Siler. She does an excellent job of explaining how you start as a rank beginner and work up. Even on a beginner DVD, the flow is usually kind of advanced-beginner, compared with her 7-move basic. In-person instruction is ideal, of course, but then you've usually got multiple levels in one class, and it can be very discouraging when you're just starting.

As far as it being "Painates," the one other thing I'll toss out there is that if you're feeling pain in your lower back while doing any of the exercises, stop. Your abs have quit and/or you're not in the right posture for them to do their job, your hip flexors and low back have kicked in and are doing the work instead, and you could really hurt yourself. If it's just the abs aching like hell because of how you've worked them, never mind. :-)

[larksdream]

It's just the pain of ab muscles going, "You want me to do WHAT???" I have lower back pain sometimes (my mom does too), so I'm very careful about protecting it. I actually learned a lot about that when I was doing weights in grad school. (Back when the gym was *free*. We never know how good we have it until it's too late...)