When you're feeling low, or feeling old, or thinking it's just too late to start moving or exercising, you need to have weight-lifting duo John and Johnnie in mind.

The brothers-in-law were winners in their respective age brackets at the 2019 Pan-American Masters weight-lifting Championship held earlier in the summer in Orlando, Florida. Both are over the age of 60, with John aged 72 and a medical history that includes open-heart quadruple-bypass surgery, hernia repair and a knee replacement.

They were recent front-page feature items in a local weekly Michiana newspaper, "The Beacher" and in another coincidence, echoed what I had been thinking about for weeks, if not months: that you're never too old to move, the importance in having a fitness buddy and the importance in continuing some form of movement as you age, because if you have a hard time walking ten miles at 50, you'll have a tougher time aged 70. If you have a hard time finding a half an hour in an average day to move at age 40, how will you even be able when you're older?

"At our age, you really do have workouts that are just not good, but you need those, too, to sustain your strength," Johnnie said. "At our age, if we skip two weeks, it would really set you back."

“You’ve got to be willing to work out on the bad nights. At our age, there are bad nights, but you do the best you can so you sustain what you built up. Some-times, we push each other through a bad workout to keep things going," he said. "There are nights, you go down there and you say, ‘Oh, I feel terrible,’ and you do an OK workout.

"And even though we know we will be able to lift less next year, we train like we’re going to lift more.”

The full story of duo Johnnie Hudson and John Seppyes (by Andrew Tallackson in The Beacher):
http://www.thebeacher.com/pdf/2019/BeacherJul25.pdf

As a kid, I loved "Ripley's Believe It or Not" and was fascinated by the Guinness Book of World Records,  but never thought I'd participate in any of these contests and challenges. It was never an aspiration. I've never even played on a sports team, ever. I've never even participated in the most basic of competitions and contests: those "challenges" on social media. The idea of starting a seven-day challenge on say doing the Scorpion might sound cool on the first day but by the third it's likely I've lost all motivation with Life tugging my attention onto other poses, interests and quite honestly demands. Life dangles its carrots or sticks, and gets in the way of the best-laid plans of this particular mouse.

But here I was on an early Saturday morning heading into NYC to participate in the Guinness Book of World Records official attempt at the "Most People Doing a Handstand". Life held out this big, fat, juicy colorful carrot and off I was to Foley Square, and the experience was positively positive, hilarious and I couldn't stop smiling and laughing. The contrast of the physical, cardiovascular and muscular demands - extremely high - with the stunt-like, attention-grabbing nature of butts in the air along Lafayette Street struck me funny and made me happy.

The questions during the event by my follow participants and that followed were interesting. How many people are here? Will we get the much-coveted 400 people to beat the old record? How many were there? Did we succeed? Did you succeed? How long did I personally stand on my hands? How long did everyone else stand on their hands? Did we all need to hold the handstand at the exact same time? When will we find out?

It's so interesting to observe the human mind at work, constantly measuring and weighing, looking for the weak link or chink. And of course that's exactly what the Guinness Book of Records people will be doing when they replay the video of the several hundred of us out there, jumping up to catch a pocket of air, and even fewer of us being able to hold that advanced pose.

But whether we succeeded seems beside the point. People who couldn't stand on their hands were there, people of all ages and abilities turned out, people were willing to take a chance, try and participate in this group endeavor. I was next to a woman who could barely get a leg up and I almost fell on top of her during one attempt of mine, legs akimbo and giggling through promises not to hurt her. In return I asked if she needed a "leg up" so to speak and held her legs while she experienced being upside down for a few seconds. As she tumbled out of it, she had the biggest smile on her face. 

I have a hunch we didn't succeed in our quest, but I learned something about this pose: you cannot help but be happy getting on those hands. The best experiences don't often match our Earthly gauges of success.

Our society is in the habit of all-or-nothing. We "binge-watch", devouring season after season of episodes of our favorite show. We're either on "intermittent fasts" or feasting. We're workaholics during the week, sitting for hours on end and then recover - by sitting even more! Or some turn into weekend warriors, running for miles on end after biking in their favorite charity race and training for their summer hike up Kilimanjaro. But our all-or-nothing habits are not helping us at all when it comes to fitness and health. In our '20s, with youth on our side and few life demands, daily workouts of sweat and ache were the "all" that has been followed by the "nothing" of middle-latter years when for many there is no time, or "energy", for trips to gyms, let alone the motivation to do much once there. 

All-or-nothing is the binary of our Fitness Industrial Complex, or the FIC; the duality for the muscle-heads running these corporate cost-centers. This isn't the first time I've written about the FIC, but now I see signs its all-or-nothing approach is infecting the well-being and mindfulness movement. The rules grow daily in the hot-house of social media, a never-ending litany of rituals that block the very thing it's meant to cultivate: awareness, calmness, flow. Do we drink our celery juice before or after meditating? As one former colleague said: "By the time I've practiced my mindfulness-on-tape, exercised, done a few yoga stretches, showered, shaved, dressed and had my coffee, it's nearly 10 in the morning - and that's a morning after the luck of having a good night's sleep." The quest for balance can become an obsession and compulsion, leading to imbalance. You can't task your way to inner peace, or health.

Is there a place and space for those maturing adults who want to stay active, but who don't have "success" or "recognition" - what I call the "applause factor" - as their motives? There's nothing wrong with success or looking good, but both motives merely feed the all-or-nothing approach of training for that triathlon, working on that six-pack or getting ready for bikini season. Instead, I meet many who are so sincere about losing weight, recovering from illness, injury or surgery, or who desire to simply feel better in their bodies. They really don't care if they can stand on their heads, bench 500 lbs or walk the length of the Appalachian Trail. There's nothing wrong with these goals, but I'm trying to stress that the majority of folk out there have much more modest aims and needs than the FIC wants to cater to. These are people who just want their health back. They want to have fun with the activities they love. They want to have fun with the people they love. They want the grace and mobility of their younger years. They want to push a trolley of groceries around without lower back pain. It's so heart-breaking that they then do nothing because they can't commit to what they've been conditioned to believe by the FIC: that massive amounts of time, money and sweat are requirements for health and happiness.

I don't agree. Movement is a luxury that has no time or place. Movement is freedom. You can move any time of the day or night. You can do isometrics and breathing exercises in economy seats. You can do resistance stretching on planes, trains or automobiles. You can turn up the music in your house and dance like it's nobody's business - and it's not. You can decide to stretch your arms up and down just because you feel like it. I'm a believer, practitioner and advocate of small incremental movement woven through the day, everyday, in any damn place you feel like. Ten minutes here, five minutes there, another ten minutes in the garden by the hydrangeas and by the end of the day, you've exercised a half an hour.

Do what you love and what's fun for YOU. Do what makes you feel better after you've done it. If you're feeling rusty and haven't moved much, than the best thing you can do is begin with a few minutes anyway and gradually increase your time. Throw out any rules you're harboring on what you need to do first or what you need to wear or eat before you can do an activity. You can't believe the rules I hear before people come to my class: I want to lose a few pounds first, my feet are so ugly and I need a pedicure, I want to fast first, I want to wait until the next blue moon and when Mercury isn't in retrograde. I used to think these were lame excuses until I saw my own made-up rules for engaging in the most ordinary of activities. Put down the rules and just move. You'll make your own fitness path by walking it.

"It is not the body that should dominate, not the energy of the body that should be the measure of success, but rather it is individuals who should also give meaning to an exercise through the agile activity of their thoughts, perceptions and consciousness." - Heinz Grill.

It's not just the vital, unconscious forces of the body that gets the body to move. In Move Within Yoga, we experience other forces and tap into the energy body (not purely the physical body) to move and lengthen into poses, and into life itself. It's not something our logical brains can understand or will understand no matter how much you study; you have to go into the poses or the experience for yourself.

I appreciate learning about the body, and it's inspiring to hear about discoveries and developments in physical health that have evolved the study beyond 1950s' anatomical books and diagrams.

However, even with the latest upgrades into body awareness, we're still very much bound - at least in the industrial West - to a materialistic view and relationship with the body. Yes, it's working with matter, but as long as we're breathing, spirit infuses this matter in mysterious ways.

Flowers are a great inspiration. They are an integral part of our natural world and have the vital power and energy to form themselves in unity, harmony, strength, dynamism and coordination. Some flowers have more of these qualities than others. Part of my yoga studies was observing these very qualities in different plants and plant life.

The peony is the crown prince of flowers for harmony, strength and coordination. They are outrageous in their beauty, which they fully and joyfully give in an extremely short bloom season. Flowers have no regard for time or for gain. Peonies give and give, with those blossoming heads that smell fragrant and look luscious whether in buds or with petals wide open. They hold nothing back in their blooming cycle. Peak bloom happens in the northern hemisphere between late May and the first week of June - they were the flower of choice back in 1868 when the first US Memorial Day holiday was honored on May 30th. Sometimes a heavy rain is enough to trim peak bloom season to just a few days. They not only symbolize how fleeting and short our lives are, but how temporal the sweet spots are in those lives.

I had the privilege and luck of catching acres and acres of peonies in peak bloom at the display gardens of Peony's Envy in Bernardsville, NJ. There are 700 varieties and cultivars here. It's a mecca for peony lovers. You've never seen pastel colors look so dramatic and glorious than in rows and rows, bunches and clusters of peonies in borders, beds, under woodland, or tumbled together in a bouquet. Cut peonies are the bouquet-equivalent of jumping out of bed and looking stylish and put together without effort.

This year's peak bloom has now passed. It's over for another year. Many bloomingheads are now brown and shriveled. While there are a few cultivars blooming, Peony's Envy makes clear that the party is over; there's not much left to clip in its cutting fields. It's so contrary to any other business or organization in its brutality, but so typical of the peony and nature. Once it's over, it's over. No clinging, no attachment, no pretending, no denial, no striving or pushing the truth. no fake flowers here. But while the flowers are now gone, their bushy green foliage will remain all summer and then there's autumn - the best time to plant them, according to "The Old Farmer's Almanac."

The bow releases the arrow; the bow pose releases emotions and strengthens the nerves. This is a pose for dealing with reality, and getting over the fantasy. This is the moment of capturing dreams, attaining the goal and shooting your mark. The archer is the symbol for Sagittarius (I'm familiar given I'm a first week born December person) and when someone born under this Sun sign does focus, they are a force of nature. Ironically, they tend not to focus, becoming scattered, with frayed nerves, exhaustion and comic touches as they twirl through life, missing the mark. The archer is the opposite of this though - it is serious like Xena. The archer has epitomized the intensity of concentration through the ages in many cultures in many mediums, not just the zodiac: the laser-focus of the hunter, the power that comes from concentrating on just one object, place or activity.

Concentration is required on this path of yoga, for all poses, but the degree of concentration both physically and mentally needed for the bow is most high. The emotional release following this can be intense and I highly recommend this on melancholic days if emotions start to jam. To concentrate means to put all of one's attention and effort on that one thing. The definition for "concentrate" as a noun also beautifully applies: to reduce, to extract diluting agents; to become smaller so only the essence is left.

Power concentrates and narrows down to its raw essence, it doesn't blow itself up, strut around and puff about.

The physical concentration takes place in the solar plexus or manipura chakra located in the lumbar region in the spine where the kidneys are in the back and around the belly button in the front. To keep the power concentrated, rather than passive or scattered, focus on the solar plexus region in the front and corresponding part in the back. It's from this region that the legs sprout up. My arms are there to guide, not to pull and yank my feet. The power radiates from the middle outward, not from hands, arms or shoulders towards the spine. The feet and legs should be higher than the head, and there should be the sense that the hips are higher than the head. The forehead should only cautiously rise up once the power out of the solar plexus area has stabilized.

To prepare, lie flat on your tummy with one arm in front, the other back along the thigh. Stretch the front arm forwards on the ground and lift it up, while also lifting the opposite leg and back arm on the left. Hold the lift and gather focus on the solar plex at which point the spine will rise. The spine will lift not just up, but also outwards. The spine lengthens out towards your head and front arm, and also lengthens in the back toward the back leg and arm. After a few breaths, lower the spine and forehead to the ground, and change your arms. Repeat on the other side, and continue to alternate the arms at least two more times before bending your knees and grabbing the outside of your feet to prepare for the bow.

I've heard some fitness gurus liken sitting to the new smoking. This may be going a bit too far. But there is no doubt there is an epidemic of sitting, and sitting in such a frozen state for such long periods that it makes the worries about carpal tunnel in the '90s almost quaint. There is such a super-focused gaze now, directed only short distances onto little screens, that freezes the whole body in a perpetual state of flight-or-fright whether working or playing. Elbows locked, limbs locked, the body locked in awkward positions and the eyes narrowed into a tunnel vision - not across plains and through forests - but on a tiny rectangle.

I can't imagine this is healthy for eyeballs, particularly little kid eyes, but I deal almost daily with the physical fallout from adults mired in the "Sitting State". So many times they complain of arm or shoulder pain, when it's a cramp, lack of mobility, and tightness in the upper chest and thoracic spine that is the cause of the pain and problems elsewhere.

You can do these arm movements daily on the ground or while standing or while using a therapeutic ball. These balls are fantastic alternatives to chairs when you really must sit. They are fun to sit on even when you don't have to sit! They relieve the entire spine, and the buoyancy you feel as you gently bounce on them is the buoyancy experienced on your body inside. But of course, you can use them as physical aids and one way is to aid in the opening of the chest with these slow and gentle arm rotations. The rotation can be small at first -- they needn't be as wide as demonstrated below. A limited rotation has to be expected if you've developed certain hunched habits in the Sitting States. In time and with practice, the rotation will widen out and will become smoother.

Squat in front of the ball and lean your upper body back; let your neck and back of the head round back to meet the arc of the ball. Keep the knees bent and engage with the arms at the side of your body. Start to make the connection between the arms and the heart center: Feel the arms growing out of the upper chest or the heart center and start to move the arms side into a "T" position. Move slowly so you can build on the picture of the arms lengthening out of the heart center, which corresponds to the thoracic spine in the back.

One of the pleasures of living in New Jersey is the welter of farms - family-owned, centuries-old, organic - that produce all-natural, organic foods that don't break the bank. My latest discovery is Apple Butter, which has no butter or diary. As it says on the tin: "Nothing But Fruit".

Still, I was dubious as it looked too creamy, the consistency so rich. But nothing but apples and cider it is, and so dense and packed with nutrients that it makes smoothies look positively watered down. It's perfect for vegetarians and vegans any time, any where, and what a great alternative to nut-butters or spreads on mornings when the sweet-tooth is in over-drive.

Despite no pectins, additives or preservatives have been added, you don't need to refrigerator it either - a mystery the Bauman Family has cultivated since 1892. The Bauman Family says it doesn't even need a lid and could last for years. I'm not sure mine will last too long as it's just too delicious and one of my favorite food finds.

The little dude below is my dad. I saw this photo of him for the first time days after he died, ten years ago on the 11th March 2019. I was immediately struck by how my older son, who was roughly the same age as my dad in that photo, resembled him. Other resemblances continue to reveal themselves, without trying, in surprising ways a decade on.

March 11th, or 3-11. My said-son's birthday is two days later. In the hallway in the ICU steps from where my dad lay dying, I was booking my son's fifth birthday party. Amid the monitor beeps, I pre-ordered food at McDonalds' Playground. Death and food, death and celebration were intertwined like some modern fertility-death-rebirth rite. Life Goes On. And on. The Circle of Life isn't static like a piece of stone. It's ever-present and active, constant in its churning, circling and spiraling. The joy and relief I felt five years prior with the birth of my son was now loop de-looping with grief and sorrow, intensity on the other spectrum of experiences and emotions. This bundle of conflicting emotions marks the season for me. The human part of me, the part that wants easy, instant gratification and pleasure is almost annoyed by the emotional memories. Can't I just buy a birthday cake without subtle, uncomfortable feelings emerging? It's inescapable though - all subsequent March 11ths and the days around them have been shaped and colored by the memory and the experience.

In the days immediately after his passing I saw all his childhood and young adult photos for the first time; I didn't even know this treasure trove of artifacts existed. The only memories he shared were verbal and those were the mostly happy ones. But in some photos I could see the sadness in the eyes, his exhaustion, his disappointment. The challenges he spoke about in passing over the years were now vivid to me. Something happened: I saw him almost for the first time, the 5-D man: his thoughts and his feelings, and how they shaped the parent he would later become.

Only recently another dimension emerged in the Spiral of Life: I could I see how my yoga practice and work had been influenced by him. On the surface, he was an unlikely role model in this regard: a man of the mind, of the intellect, a lawyer and a judge. He wanted to be a role model to me in these attributes and made no secret of that. But his worldly roles, his career, and his identity obscured a deep love and respect for the human body that came through in weight-lifting and body-building. For the first time, I could see how we each had very "mental" careers while fulfilling our "physical" vocations, or working with the body as tool for meditation and transformation.