So today is our last day of our Plank A Day For A Month Challenge. What do you say? Are you ready for more?
Archive for March, 2013
Last Day Of Thirty-One Days Of Planking
Posted by terrepruitt on March 31, 2013
Posted in Planking | Tagged: Plank A Day For A Month, Plank A Day For A Month Challenge, plank challenge, planking | 3 Comments »
Multiple Planks In One Day For Thirty Days
Posted by terrepruitt on March 30, 2013
So, what do you think? Do you want to do a Multiple Planks In One Day For Thirty Days Challenge? Oh, c’mon. You do. You saw how just doing one a day helped you feel good so why not do more than one a day? The challenge will be for three a day for thirty days, for the entire month of April. The idea is to take your last duration time and just do it three times a day. Or you can just let the stopwatch run, three times a day. If you want you can do it all at once or throughout the day. The ideal is THREE PLANKS A DAY. But two is better than one, and one is better than none. So even if you don’t get in all three it is still good. But aim for the three.
I will tell you (again, I think I’ve already mentioned it) posting on a blog EVERY SINGLE DAY is not easy. Even if it is just a few sentences. As you probably have experienced when checking-in with the challenges. Plus I know I have some lovely readers who have subscribed (THANK YOU!) and they get a notification when I post. Even if it is not an e-mail everyday it might start clogging up the in-box. So . . . . as you can see on the calendar in this post I have designated a check in day! I have made the check in day on Sunday. With a Sunday check in we can report on the previous week and get psyched up for the week to come! That will also spread out my check ins and posts a little. I have a Friday Goodie Jar check in and I post on Saturdays, so I thought Sunday would be good.
Also with a once a week check-in that will free up time to do the planks! Yay!
The forearm planks are what we are talking about. The ones where you are on your elbows and forearms, not the straight armed ones. No matter if you plank for a set time or just let the clock run be sure to keep the bones in alignment. Arms bones straight down from shoulders, head aligned with hips, straight spine, no peaks or valleys, straight legs, and feet hip joint width apart.
Remember the challenges we do are just to set a goal and get it done. But the way you do the challenge exactly is up to you. Our guidelines are: 1) Plank every day three planks a day 2) Document the number of times/planks you do a day 3) Post on Sunday how many times you planked the past week.
Your three planks could be the longest duration to short or the other way around. Or all three the same duration. There are a lot of ways you can do that portion, just do it three times a day/three planks a day, yes? Yes. However you are going to do it decide before you start so you have a your own guidelines to stick too. When you have a plan it makes it easier to get it done.
I will have to get at least one in before Nia everyday!
Well, you in? C’mon . . . . . .
Posted in Planking | Tagged: multiple planks in a day, Nia, planking challenge, planks, thirty day challenge, three planks a day | 2 Comments »
Walk The Plank
Posted by terrepruitt on March 30, 2013
Ha, ha, ha. Ok, not really, but reaching for titles here. We are not walking our plank. We are just staying in one. So this is our second to last day in the Plank A Day For A Month Challenge. I really think it would be cool to continue. And as I mentioned in a previous post I have an idea . . . . . . . .
Have you increased your duration?
Posted in Planking | Tagged: Plank A Day For A Month, Plank A Day For A Month Challenge, plank challenge, planking | Leave a Comment »
Goodie Jar – Check In #9
Posted by terrepruitt on March 29, 2013
Last Friday of March and our ninth Goodie Jar Check in. It is all about Good Things, My Friends. Focusing on the good because that is keeping the positive energy flowing. I hope that you have had many good things happen this past week and your jar is getting full.
Keep up the practice. I know at the end of the year when you read all these good things you are going to be so happy you kept is up. You are going to be reminded of all the good things and feel so warm and fuzzy!
How is your jar looking?
Posted in Good Things in the Goodie Jar | Tagged: good things jar, Goodie Jar, March 2013, positive energy, positive practice | 2 Comments »
Gangnam Style Plank
Posted by terrepruitt on March 29, 2013
You want to know something? I have not seen anything Gangnam Style except what Saturday Night Live did. They did a skit based on it almost the second it happened and the guy that started the whole thing was on it. Ok, and I did watch a few seconds of a Gangnam Style wedding video, but I was not entertained enough to continue.
According to Wiki: “On December 21, 2012, “Gangnam Style” became the first YouTube video to reach a billion views.” Wow! I can say, I am not one of those billion views. But I do believe I have heard of “Gangnam Style” – just about everything so why not planking. Ha, ok, not really. Again . . . just really trying to eek out a couple more titles to these daily posts. It is not easy! As I am sure you can tell from the titles themselves!
With only a few days left of our Plank A Day For A Month Challenge. It is kinda shocking to realize that we have almost gone an entire month. Wow.
How are you doing?
Posted in Planking | Tagged: Gangnam Style, Gangnam Style wedding video, Plank A Day For A Month, Plank A Day For A Month Challenge, plank challenge, planking, Saturday Night Live, SNL skit, Wiki, Youtube video | 1 Comment »
Slow Down, Catch Some Chickens
Posted by terrepruitt on March 28, 2013
Nia is a great dance exercise. Go to a Nia Class and get a great workout. It is also a practice. As with any practice there are workshops. In one particular workshop produced by Danielle Woermann and led by Helen Terry we were reminded to go slow. Helen was here teaching us her adaptation of a Nia Routine to a specific album. Helen is hilarious. She is down to earth, professional, wonderful to listen to (she has an English accent), and currently living in Texas. The “currently living in” needs to be mentioned because of one of the stories she shared with us . . . but before I get to that let me tell you something she reminded us of. She reminded us to go slow. I know often times I want to rush moves . . . that could mean doing it faster than it needs to be done or not “staying through my enoughs”. But either way the idea is to slow down. When I slow down I can be aware of more. I can pay more attention to a move or even to my class. There seems to a tendency to rush, could be our lifestyles and/or society, whatever, so the lesson was to slow down and the result could be catching a chicken.
There is one song in particular in her adapted routine that I am severely challenged in slowing down. It just seems so incredible slow. I have not yet been able to FEEL/SENSE the music and I have been doing the routine for a month. Which, with the current way I am structuring my San Jose Nia classes, equates to eleven times, thus far. I have done it correctly, but only when I am COUNTING. Yes, I am having to COUNT in order to get it. For this song I really have to learn to listen, sense, feel, taste, hear, smell, become the music in order to slow down. I have even announced to the class so I have a better chance of doing it, “We have to go really incredibly slow here.” Sometimes I have to close my eyes so I don’t see them rushing through and join them. S L O W. (Where’s that chicken?)
Slow down. Work the muscles. Enjoy the song. Enjoy the movement. EnJOY. SLOW. Geez . . . it seems so difficult to slow down sometimes. Sigh. But really often times slowing down in combination with “staying with the enoughs” (as I already mentioned) helps in catching those chickens! Ah-ha, here we are . . . . at the chicken story . . . (remember this is coming from a person who is currently living in Texas!).
I might not have the details exactly right, but you will get the point. Helen said that one day her husband and her neighbor were going to work on building a table. The neighbor says, “Let’s go catch some chickens.” This sounded very odd to Helen because they were building a table not catching chickens. So she asked her neighbor what he meant. He said that when he was young his mother used to send him out to get dinner. He said that he would go outside to do the task, sometimes he would end up with a handful of feathers and sometimes he would end up with a chicken. A handful of feathers means not quite getting it. So catching the chicken is when task is accomplished! Makes sense!
In dancing this routine all month, I have enough feathers to fill a king sized down comforter! So . . . see there? Feathers really aren’t all THAT bad. Feathers can be useful. Feathers can be fun. A handful of feathers does not ruin a Nia class or even the moment, but it is NOT a chicken. When you hit the mark, the music, the cue just right that is catching a chicken.
Whatever it is, whether it is slowing down or staying with the enoughs, or learning the music really well, it is a great feeling to catch that chicken. When you attend one of my Nia classes you might hear me sputter and/or you might hear me “bacbac”. When you do, you will know either I grabbed a handful of feathers and the escaped ones are floating at me causing me to sputter or I caught that chicken!
You know what we’re talking about when we say, “Catch a Chicken”, right? Isn’t that a great feeling? Do you ever feel the need to slow down?
Posted in Nia | Tagged: catch some chickens, dance exercise, Dannielle Woermann, handful of feathers, Helen Terry, Nia, Nia chickens, Nia class, Nia Practice, Nia routine, Nia trainer, Nia workout, Nia workshop, staying through your enoughs, Texas Nia teacher | 8 Comments »
Four More Days Of Plankin’
Posted by terrepruitt on March 28, 2013
Here we are with four more days left of our Plank A Day For A Month Challenge.
I’ve decided I like doing my plank on Thursdays before my evening Nia class, otherwise I tend to almost forget!
Are you going to make it the last four days?
Posted in Planking | Tagged: Nia, Nia class, Nia in the evening, plank, Plank A Day For A Month Challenge, planking, planking challenge | 7 Comments »
Plank Here! Gotcha Yer Plank Here
Posted by terrepruitt on March 27, 2013
WOW! Day twenty-seven of our Plank A Day For A Month! Kinda can’t believe it is almost over. I just had an idea about a plank challenge for next month . . . . . ha! I guess we should finish this one first, huh?
Posted in Planking | Tagged: Plank A Day For A Month, Plank A Day For A Month Challenge, plank challenge, planking | 2 Comments »
Stay With Your Enoughs
Posted by terrepruitt on March 26, 2013
One of the things I learned in a Nia workshop at the end of February, 2013 was the phrase “stay with your enoughs”. Trainer Helen Terry, currently located in Texas, was here in the San Francisco Bay Area to teach us how to dance a Nia Routine that she adapted to an entire album of different music. When Helen said that, I laughed. Because there has been so many times when I thought, “this is enough of that move, it MUST be time to move on” and I wasn’t REALLY clued into the music and I went onto the next move and sure “enough” I hadn’t stayed long “enough”. It was really funny at the time that I took the training because I was doing a Nia routine in which I almost always moved on before I should in accordance with the choreography. Shortly before the workshop I had just started telling myself (and listening to myself—what a novel idea!) that when I THOUGHT we were done is not when we should be if I were going to match the original choreography. There was at least one more bar to go through. And so when teaching that routine, my mind would say, “This is it. This is enough.” And my body would say, “Terre, we’ve been through this before. If you THINK this is it, then you KNOW it is not. Stay.” So Helen’s words “Stay with your enoughs” are perfect.
Nia is so lovely that pretty much most of the time if I lead us into the next sequences of moves before we are actually supposed to go or if we stay longer than the original choreography intended it doesn’t really matter. We might miss that wonderful “perfect match up” to the music, but it never really feels badly off. The choreography flows very well with the music so most of the time it doesn’t feel WRONG. We have the flexibility to stay and go as we please, but when coached to “stay with the enoughs” sometimes it is the perfect idea to help with those troubled spots.
In the workshop that Helen was leading since she was teaching us how to dance a specific Nia Routine to a specific album, there were specific songs and specific examples of where she thought it might feel like as if it is enough. The idea is to keep the faith and “stay with your enoughs”. Just stay past the point you think you should be done with that move. She said one track in particular would “give you a lot of ‘enoughs'”. Which for me that is not the “enough” song, but that is ok. She reminded me of the tool so I can apply it to any and all songs where I have enoughs. I get to relax and stay with them!
There were so many wonderful things presented in the workshop I could probably do a month’s worth of posts. But for now I’ll say “enough” . . . . until my next post . . . .
Do you stay with your enoughs?
Posted in Nia | Tagged: Helen Terry, Nia, Nia choreography, Nia routine, Nia trainer, Nia training, Nia workshop, San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area Nia, stay with your enoughs, Texas Nia, Texas Nia Trainer | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, Day Twenty-Six Of Planking Every Day For A Month Challenge
Posted by terrepruitt on March 26, 2013
Tuesday. How is your planking going?
Maybe you’ll come back to see what I have done to the Chai Tea Latte recipe?
Posted in Planking | Tagged: Chai Tea Latte, Chai Tea Latte recipe, chai tea recipe, planking, planking challenge, Planking Every Day For A Month Challenge | 4 Comments »
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