04 Jan Practice makes perfect!
I grew up in the theatre and the mantra practice makes perfect were words I truly believed. The reinforcement of this from all my teachers and later bosses had me grasp on tight to this philosophy. The practice part was easy to understand, but I never really connected with the perfect part. I never believed that perfection is achievable.
I spent December working on having a perfect month of movement. Closing all three rings on my Apple Watch each day. If you are unfamiliar basically each day you want to stand for one minute an hour out of 12 hours, exercise for at least 30 minutes and burn a set number of calories. I achieved my intended goal and I can first hand say it was not that hard. I realize I am a movement professional so to you this seems like a no brainer, something I would naturally be doing each day. Please note the pandemic, and teaching via zoom, made it real easy for me to sit and teach. Also many of you know that I had two herniated disks in 2020, so it is only recently that I am now back to full range of my spine! The Apple watch also wants you to succeed, telling you to stand up, or that "you can still do it", my first reaction was to get frustrated and give up. However I pushed through those feelings and on the other side found my house is cleaner (I took to washing dishes or cleaning surfaces to get my stand time in when lacking), I logged over 100 miles last month alone. I will say that even though closing all the rings looks like perfection, the constant practice of taking small breaks to stand up and allowing myself the me time to exercise even just by doing burpees and lunges on my vacation allows me to finally understand the mantra. Regardless of what the outcome, as it's unreasonable to think that I would be able to keep this up for a full year, without a sick day or a need for rest or what have you, the practice of defining one minute each hour to me is perfection!
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