We went to see a show last night at a a local venue, and I had several moments of gratefulness for ChiRunning and ChiWalking and what they have taught me about learning to listen to my body:

1. The band last night consisted of a banjo player, a bassist, a guitarist, and a drummer. Once during each song, I would concentrate on trying to hear each instrument individually, singling it out from the other instruments playing at the same moment: for someone who has no musical talent, it’s a slightly difficult exercise.

   I realized as I was doing this exercise, that it’s very much like doing a Body Scan and listening to my body as I am walking or running: taking a moment to do a Scan, sense any tightness, recognizing it and letting it go.

   I am extraordinarily grateful for the knowledge of Body Scanning: every time something in my body needs attention when I am running or walking (or standing or sitting or washing dishes), I now have the skills to listen, to respond and to learn.

2. The venue where we saw music last night has very few seats. As a result, like most musical venues, we stood for the entire show, about 4 hours.

   Partway through the show, I realized that my back didn’t hurt at all, that my knees were soft, my core engaged and my feet felt perfectly normal. I can distinctly remember in years past, going to see shows, or walking through cities, or going to a museum and feeling absolutely wiped out after only a few hours.

   Thanks to ChiRunning and ChiWalking, I have learned to pay attention to my body all the time and am always prepared to listen and respond in order to keep my body happy, moving painlessly and without injury.

Over Thanksgiving, I have spent time on my feet in the kitchen, at parties, shopping, talking to friends. I have spend a lot of time walking as well, talking strolls with Oliver and Ivan. I can say that the entire holiday has been spent blissfully, listening to my body, learning what it needed, and responding with an appropriate Form Focus right in the moment.

What a gift! There are many of you who know what I am talking about. There are some of you who are learning… Just imagine how many people out there have yet to learn about the gift of pain-free movement!

In the past week, I’ve gone running three times. Lately, that’s a lot for me! I’ve been making the time to get outdoors and enjoy the crisp fall mornings.

Sunday I went running for 3.8 miles with the dog, surprising myself, and the dog as well. We had great weather that morning and going running sounded like just the perfect thing to do. I was focused only on not stepping past my hip and landing midfoot. I felt great the entire run, and couldn’t believe when I got home to map it that we’d run that far; I felt like I’d barely done anything!

Yesterday morning, I took Oliver the dog and went running at the park near my house, where we happened upon a Great Blue Heron standing in a puddle of water, the remains of three days of solid rain. Oliver stopped dead in his tracks and simply watched in awe, as did I. That was a nice way to start the morning.

Then, today, I went running with 5 other Certified Instructors; this weekend is an Instructors-only event here in Asheville, to work on our form, our teaching, and our business practices… I took them to one of my favorite little forest areas that Danny introduced me to. My focuses were landing midfoot, and on the trails, keeping my lower legs as limp as possible. I can distinctly remember, not too long ago, when the idea of trail running with other people would have been absolutely out of the question for me. What progress, thanks entirely to ChiRunning.

It was a glorious morning for ChiRunning, and when we finished, I felt so inspired and refreshed. I usually run solo, so running with others was very nice. I highly encourage any of you who usually run solo to try to find the right time and place and partner(s), and have a bit of a social time. It was so much fun to go running together, watching our forms, commenting, speeding up and slowing down, laughing and enjoying moving our bodies together, painlessly and joyfully.

Thanks everyone!

I wasn’t planning to go running today, but the weather was beckoning, and I found myself without anything pressing to do (!), so I headed out into the sunshine for a 25 minute jaunt ’round the neighborhood.

I got a new pair of 790s in the mail earlier this week, and took them out for their inaugural run. They’re pearly white, and upon my return, weren’t anymore (the rain and the dirt around here create some beautiful mud).

I started off very slowly, listening to my body and getting used to the sensation of movement. I focused on two things during this run:

• Keeping my hands even extensions of my arms. I have this strange habit of torquing my hands downward when I run, and so I want to work on that. It’s an easy “bad” habit to slip into.

I looked at my shadow (the sun!!) to see if my wrists were torqued, and tried to Body Sense what it’s like to really keep my wrists neutral. I really had to look down quite a bit to ensure that my wrists weren’t torquing down again as I was running. It’ll be a practice that I’ll be able to correct, but will take diligence.

• Landing mid-foot. With new shoes, I want to make the effort to really watch the wear on them, wear them only when running and see how the tread wears. (My other shoes are showing an embarrassing tendency to wear on the outer heel.)

I have long legs. That’s my excuse for the heel wear on my other shoes. I wish I believed it, but it’s not a good enough excuse. What I am going to experiment with as I run with the new shoes is to really think about getting my heels high, knees down. At the end of my stride, if my heels have come far enough up, and my legs are properly swinging to the rear, my foot should naturally strike in the fleshy middle part. I’ll keep you posted. Already, on this first run, the only place I see any wear is unfortunately at the same place on the shoe as my older pairs of running shoes show… Sigh.

Those were two strong enough and important enough focuses to keep me going today as I was running. There were lots of other people outdoors, and it’s always inspiring to see people out with the animals and kids when the weather is good.

Trust you all enjoyed a nice Sunday, wherever it was; in North Carolina in the sunny and dry day, or in Colorado, with 3 feet of snow and cold!

As you’ll see from the photo on the November newsletter, Asheville is ablaze with color. As the leaves fall to the ground, they bring the color to our feet… combine the leaves with rain, however, and you get a somewhat treacherous path.

We took Oliver for a hike yesterday in the drizzling rain. We went up the Blue Ridge Parkway to a nice area of the mountains. We encountered other dogs along the way, which is always fun to watch: they tear up and down the path, apparently oblivious to rocks, black mud, slippery leaves and steep drop offs. Ah, the joys of being on the trail!

I discovered something about shoes: I tend to wear the NB 790s all the time when I hike or run. Yesterday, because of the rain, I chose to wear a different pair, a cross between a hiking boot and a running shoe. They’re very comfortable, but have a much thicker bottom than the 790s. I found myself moving much more slowly than I normally do, somewhat terrified of falling down the slippery slopes. To counteract the “negative” effect my shoes were having on my mobility, I focused on a few simple things:

• Small steps, making sure to land on a solid piece of ground, with as much of my foot as possible.
• Keeping my core engaged. The more I kept my core engaged, the more I was able to maintain balance and center my hips over my feet, to prevent slipping.
• Kept my eyes alternately looking up and forward (Y’chi) and keeping my eyes on the ground, watching where my feet should go.
• Limp lower legs: it sounds difficult to do on a slippery surfaces, but the more I kept my core engaged, and trusted my balance and foot placement, the less I needed to effort with my legs. So especially when traveling uphills, I just tried to imagine that my leg muscles weren’t engaging. Like if I had a pair of magical muscle-watching goggles, I wouldn’t see any shift in effort in my leg muscles as we walked uphill along rocks and roots and leaves.

Of course, I also had to keep my knees a bit soft as Oliver loves to tear around the trail and I didn’t want to get clipped and end up on my rear-end… What fun to watch him! It’s so inspiring to see my dog run, as Danny has mentioned about running with Mei Ling. There is so much joy that comes from moving freely.

Go out there and move happily and freely. There are very few other feelings quite as liberating.

Oliver trodding happily on the leaf-covered ground.