Folding Myself Into a Paper Airplane – Take 18

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I feel pretty good right now. I just finished a session of folding myself into a paper airplane – otherwise known as “Yoga for Seniors” type moves. I’m not using the DVDs lately – just doing the moves that feel as if they’re what my poor, stiff body needs to fully stretch out and relax. I spend a bit more than half an hour, and then also do abdominal exercises.

The biggest problem I have is trying to relax at the beginning. I lie down on my back on my mat with my wedge pillow, arms and legs spread out and just try to relax and breathe. Typical of life around here, I had just started to relax a little bit and our lab puppy, Amber, lost her lunch right beside my left hand on the carpet. I yelled a bad word and leaped up as fast as I could, trying to get her outside. She tossed her cookies once more on the way out – this time on the tiles in the dining area. My husband helped me get things cleaned up. We don’t know what Amber found to eat outside, but apparently it didn’t agree with her. (She seems to be fine now, but we’re confining her to her bed in the utility room for awhile.)

I tried again, having to breathe through some pain on whatever muscles run across your back at the shoulder blade level. After a couple of minutes or so, I was more comfortable and then moved my arms up over my head. That showed another area of my back that was tight and sore, so I breathed into that. too. And so my yoga poses went.

Even my husband is remarking on my progress now. I’m able to touch my toes! It takes me a minute or two for my body to ‘give’ enough, but then I can do it! Since I started out with fingertips about a foot off the floor, I feel good about it. I’m also very close to being able to touch my forehead to my feet when I’m sitting with the bottoms of my feet touching each other. I’m making progress in loosening up this old body in several of the poses.

My husband is teed off that I’m able to do more sit-ups than he can. I’m up to 30 now, from none at the beginning. I’ve been trying to do this for about 6 months, I guess, so I’m glad I’m getting stronger. My husband has done it intermittently over the past two months, and has gone from none to 10. I’m pointing out that he’s made a lot of progress and that, if he keeps practicing, he’ll get stronger. I’m also doing leg lifts and whatever the exercise is where you do a sit up pointing your elbow to the opposite knee.  AND I don’t need a crane to get back up off the floor!

We aren’t really impressing anyone with what we can do, but – when we take the time to remember where we started – we pat ourselves on the head a bit and resolve to keep on keepin’ on. (I also put a gold star on my calendar.) :0)

Combine this with bowling tonight with friends, and a cleaning project today  – and we have a good amount of exercise for the day.