Back,the,Body,bicycle,circa,19 DIY Back in the Body

When starting a new work at home business it is very easy to become consumed by it. We spend so much time trying to get the business up and running that we may end up becoming burned out and lose our motivation. There is so much to learn and Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in

My bicycle - a circa 1984Serotta Nova - is back on the road after a 12-year hiatus. I suppose that means thatI'm back on the road, too...New wheels and tires were agift from Cai and Danielle for Father's Day. I picked up clip-less pedals andshoes during our recent vacation at the Jersey Shore - with a happy nod to thevery cool family discount my sister in-law, Janine, receives through hershop... While some may think thatall this bicycle stuff isn't particularly worth getting excited about, I've gotto let you know that the day after putting on the wheels, I found myself soexcited about getting on the road again that I was, quite literally, shaking.I felt like I was returningto a strange, yet intimately familiar land...Would it be the same as Iremembered? Could I still spin the pedals like I did a dozen years ago? Would Ibe freaked and squirrelly having cars buzz by on country roads? Would Idiscover that I was the one guy in the world for whom riding a bike wouldn't be"just like riding a bike..?"After fumbling around withthe new pedal system, slipping my cleats on and off my pedals several times andwobbling at low speeds while getting used to clicking in and bailing out, I wasoff and rolling...Somehow my body rememberedeverything it needed to know about balance and movement on a bicycle. All I hadto think about was where I wanted to go. I was amazed at how easy it was! I pulled into my drivewayalmost an hour after taking off, dripping with sweat and wearing a toothy grinon my face. Sure, I'd be saddle-sore next morning. I'd probably walk a littlefunny for the next couple of hours - as the blood in my legs figured out whereit needed to go next. I didn't really care.I was feeling good!I'd just experiencedsensations I hadn't felt in over a decade. Even though I'd been on a few rideswith Janine and my brother in-law, Marc, when we were still living in New Jersey, something was different. I can'tplace it exactly, and my sense is that it had to do with a combination ofsolitude, location, the smell of the air, and the fact that I'm a few yearsolder.Truth be told, I felt likea little kid... Part of the thrill was therediscovery of the joy of zipping over the ground at high-speed - a feelingthat I have in abundance during the ski season - not so when there isn't snowon the ground...What really came home forme was the sense of being completely alive "in my body." I'm not onehundred percent sure, but my intuition tells me that that feeling - when everypart of me is feeling intensely alive - that's the little kid connection.Paradoxically, I think there's also something remarkably grown-up about thatembodied sense. While I found it by going outside and playing, the sensationbrought me to a place that is thrilling and remarkably centered at the sametime... It seems strange to knowthat, having forgotten for a while, the possibility remains that I could forgetabout what being in my body feels like. For instance, when I've been traveling,it's not unusual for me to take a couple of days to feel as if I'm truly backhome again. My mind knows that I'm back, but my body isn't quite sure what'shappened. (or maybe it's the other way around!) I'm beginning to understandwhat teachers of Yoga and martial arts really mean when they speak of"practice." Richard Strozzi Heckler, ateacher of aikido, bodywork and somatic coaching, writes in Holding theCenter: "When I refer to the body I am referring to the shape of ourexperience." he goes on to say, "Feeling the life in our body as itappears in sensation is the beginning of embodiment. When we do this we areattending to life in a fundamental way. It's an extraordinarily simple and yetexceedingly rich experience..."You'd think that"being in the body" is just as natural as breathing. To some extent,I it is - but only as much as... say, going to bed when you're tired, eatingwhen you're hungry or drinking when you're thirsty. ...Without firstrationalizing the laundry list of all the things that, in that moment, are moreimportant than caring for one's self.I've watched my son runaround at high-speed when he's tired. I've seen him do anything but eat whenhe's hungry. Every parent I know has had the experience of dealing with anoverly tired child who, instead of settling down and sleeping, goes into a sortof a crazed hyper-warp drive.What is it with us humanbeings? At what stage do we take it upon ourselves to over-ride our ownbuilt-in systems? When does the to-do list begin to trump the I-am list? What'sthe long term cost of operating on a tank that's been pegged at "E"for hours - or days? When do we begin to believethat forcing our bodies to sit quietly when they are screaming "moveme" is sound, sustainable policy?Oy!I don't have the answers,but I do have those new wheels and some spiffy new silver cycling shoes...It feels important, at thistender age, to develop a bit of awareness around how I go about caring formyself. I want to be around to watch Cai grow. I want to know that, by the timehe's old enough to truly realize how little I know, we'll be able to laughabout it (loudly) Man to Man.The road is waiting. Igotta go...