(This is the second part of a post that went up this morning: part 1).

I wrote this morning about four tendencies I observed in people’s relationship to movement during the pandemic: Adapting (mirroring typical routines and maybe even finding new joys); Redefining (focusing on movement as part of mental health and emotional equilibrium); Surviving (doing both adapting and redefining but finding it hard); and Discovering (finding new mindfulness in a new slowness). Someone I quoted commented that they had found it hard to see their comments categorized as “Surviving” — because it made them recognize how hard they were finding it.

The thing is — it IS hard. And if you’re finding it hard, that doesn’t make you weak, that makes you part of our highly fragile, vulnerable ecosystem.

I fussed about what to call these tendencies. They are not “types” and I would hesitate to label someone “an adapter.” This is one zone — movement — in an extraordinary time. I don’t think there’s much connection between this once-in-a-century experience and more typical times, and I don’t want to imply they’re any kind of essential trait. You might find it possible to adapt your physical movement pretty readily during lockdown, but it might be the only consistent thing in your life right now. You might be struggling more with just finding a baseline of movement, when in the Before Times you were full of energy and motivation. Or, like a few of the people in my life, you might be just “surviving” in the movement zone but rocking it at work, as a parent, in doing errands for people who need help.

How we respond right now is highly connected to things that are unique to this moment — like whether we’re parenting, how much outdoor space we safely have access to, our income, how many people are in our spaces, what old fears and traumas are being reinvigorated.

We’re all navigating an impossible array of unprecedented stresses, anxieties and new expectations. Some of us have work that translates easily to home, some of us are stretched beyond our limits in our work, and some of us have experienced our work — and incomes — completely disappearing. Parents are responsible for their children’s every minute in ways they haven’t since infancy. Those of us who usually weave an array of health supporters into our lives — chiro, osteo, massage, physio, accupuncture — are suddenly on our own, and our bodies are feeling it. No one is having the same experience — and this is happening when our usual ways of making meaning and finding comfort are upside down. Our “normal resilience” doesn’t apply here — most of us don’t have the things we rely on to support that resilience. (Like, say, HUGS).

It’s not part of being human to experience the outside world as inherently dangerous, to have to weigh whether going for a run is an irresponsible thing to do. It’s not normal to be deprived of human touch and contact, and to mediate everything through screens and a sense of fear. It’s a mistake to assume that our ordinary resilience and strength can be easily flexed right now in this extraordinary times. It’s like saying “I can easily run 5 k — how come I’m finding it hard to do that in bare feet over broken glass?”

Because of this, I’ve had a serious eyebrow raised at suggestions that this is a time for “rediscovering simple pleasures” or learning new things or taking on new projects. I’m not baking bread because I’ve found a new goal as an artisanal baker, I’m baking bread because kneading the dough feels good when I’m deprived of human touch, and because it feels like something simple I can accomplish when everything else feels hard.

At the same time — at the same time! — I am a life/leadership coach, and I have found that my clients who are able to stay in touch with a greater purpose right now are thriving. And others are finding the slower pace and emptier space are creating invitations to reflect on what really matters to them, to face long-held fears, to name what’s most important. Intentionally or not, they are Discovering during this time. (Look at those clients teaching me things, again!)

That example of my clients evokes the same impulse to add a little bit more curiosity to my space right now. Not to pressure myself to Flourish, but to be a bit more present to what I’m experiencing. The people who are in Discovery space in my workout community also gave me some real insight. One friend laid it out beautifully:

If my body were my spouse/partner/GF/BF, here is what they have been trying to tell me for a long time that I might only be hearing now during the quietness of the COVID pause:

– “You basically ignore everything I say”
– “I cook every night and you never offer to clean”
– “We don’t spend quality time together”

She translates those voices as:

– I need to slow down for more than 10 seconds at a time (outside of sleep) to listen to my body and let it recover
– I need to respect the act of stretching and self-care and not just as a ‘nice to do’, ‘if there is time’, or ‘if I feel like it’ – but treat it as equally important as the fun stuff
– I need to dedicate quality time for myself everyday. (I may need to dance hammer out what “quality” means but I think it’s along the lines of spending time away from people

For me, I know I am doing something right when I have energy in body and no gremlins in my head. That keeps me motivated enough to get up in the morning, pull the shorts on, roll the mat out and listen to some Deepak.

How has what matters shifted for me? OMG – this one. I think that I started to fall in love with the shape (the muscles) that I noticed developing and the strength I’ve began to notice in my body and mind. Now, I am starting to see the importance of allowing space and time for improving flexibility (of body and mind (stretching), recovery..the shift is going from a bit more surface level strong to deep deep flexibility

At first, I read this and was so glad for my friend, but it felt very far away from my experience. Then I thought about the solo long walks I’ve done, where I pause to look at the buds on the trees, at the heart shaped lights and encouraging signs my neighbours have put into the world. When I breathe deeply, I find presence in my body. And I’m going to try to channel just a little more of that.

***

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede, who, like Georgia, is tempted to hide under the blankets in Toronto.

“We’re all indoor cats now,” said one of my favourite podcasters last week. I had been thinking the same thing. I watch my cats pad around, sleeping everywhere in little balls, sprawling on the yoga mat, occasionally leaping into action for about a minute and then losing interest, getting overly excited about food — and yep, I’m one of them now.

I’m a different person in my body than I was before the lockdown. I have a new circadian rhythm — I start the day off relatively chipper, working out most mornings with my amazing trainer Alex and her “virtual superhero” zoom . I make coffee. I eat muffins. Sometimes I bake bread. I sit at my desk and poke at the thin stream of work. I try to catch up on things like bookkeeping, fruitlessly. I have the attention span of a fruitfly. I feel like I’m trying to blink myself awake, even at the best of times. And then in the afternoon, I’m bleary with fatigue, and in the early evening, I have my Daily Rage, as I look at death tolls and listen to the political bullshit south of the border. Then I stay up too late, sleep fitfully, and wake up, unrefreshed but reasonably happy, and through the day, grind myself down like a too-short pencil.

Being an indoor cat doesn’t suit me, but going outside is such a contested thing — how did the earth tip so it’s morally questionable to go for a run or a walk with a friend? — that I have started to avoid going outside. Even when I know it will make me feel better, and even when I know I can be distanced and responsible and safe, I’ve started avoiding it. Which is… not sustainable.

I wondered if my experience was common, so I turned — as I often have — to my different workout communities to ask how their relationship with their bodies and movement had changed during this time. The responses were rapid, generous, and very moving. I noticed four tendencies, that as a social scientist, I might label as Adapting, Redefining, Surviving and Discovering.

The people with an Adapting tendency talk largely about how they’ve adapted their workouts to the new circumstances, finding a way to more or less follow a similar pattern to their usual lives. They’ve had to adjust to constrained space, time and stress, but are able to parallel their usual practice, and focus similar metrics that we might use any time — strength, consistency, intensity, effect on sleep. They miss their usual communities and activities, but are trying to mirror their usual lives, with somewhat adjusted goals. A typical comment in this vein was this one:

I am sleeping longer which is good. So I feel better as I’m not sacrificing sleep for exercise. But I’m finding motivation is up and down depending. Consistency is key so I stay focused on my goal of hitting 4 bouts of exercise a week. I’m also comfortable with just doing it even if I’m not pushing it – just doing it means more than constantly striving for gains. This whole thing has been a bit draining as my work has picked way up and I’m dealing with difficult issues and providing guidance/opinions/producing at a higher than usual rate. So that makes it hard to be motivated sometimes, but also makes it essential that I exercise because I always feel better having done it.

Adapting tendencies have also led people to new joys — Sam has written a few times about how she’s joined a team and “rediscovered racing” through virtual cycling with Zwift, and another person in my community has experimented with new forms of dance and movement, commenting “this is all stuff I’ve known I should be doing for ages!”

People who tend toward Adapting largely talk about their movement in physical — though usually holistic — terms. In contrast, people with a tendency to Redefine have largely shifted their focus to mental health. Over and over, they talk about how the most important reason for working out right now is to manage stress and anxiety, to support sleep, and to keep themselves in some kind of emotional equilibrium. This comment was poignant – and typical:

This week more work anxiety — and big emotions as I try to homeschool my kids — brought me less movement, not more. Time to set aside time and space for my yoga. It’s tricky when I’m waking up later and the household is also waking – and I do want to have a slow morning/connection time with my kids. I tried one day to do it while the youngest climbed all over me, like she did when she was a toddler – so much of this quarantine time reminds me of my post-partum days – but I am so tender emotionally some days, trying to hold it together and feeling really overwhelmed, so I feel I just have to roll with it and try again later. I really miss my runs for this release.

The third tendency — Survival — is kind of a blend of the first two, but with more struggle. Comments in this category also talk about motivation, goals and mental health, but with an overlay of how hard they are finding it to achieve those things. Sometimes this is about time, space and stress — “I have a 4×6 foot space to work out in. It’s been a nightmare” — and sometimes it’s a deep yearning for the normal:

My favourite forms of movement (CrossFit and Hot Yoga) have not translated well for me at home. I think I really miss the separation of those spaces and all the sensory parts of moving in those spaces. I miss the heat from the yoga room on my skin, the sounds of a yoga class breathing in unison, the body-tinging feeling of complete relaxation at the end of a long, hot flow class. I miss the loud music at the CrossFit Box, the crash of weights, the sound of harsh breathing, being able to shout out, “MOTHERFUCKER” at the hard parts of a WOD, the sweaty slap of a high five. at home there is dog hair on my yoga mat, and there is not hot room and my class is cut short when the wifi slow and my children need a snack. CrossFit WODS at home with no one to coach me, cheer for me or high five me – honestly what’s the point? So while we are in lockdown I am doing a little bit of yoga and a little bit of CrossFit but it all feels rather lacking in comparison to the real thing.

Another person said “I joined a 5 day a week workout group in the first week of quarantine and credit it with being the best thing I’m doing for my mental health right now. It’s giving me connection with a group of strong women and getting me to push harder in workouts than I ever would on my own. I’m struggling with getting outside. I know I should because it always makes me feel better, but walking the dogs or even going to the backyard can often feel just so HARD.“

Many of the people having a Survivor-flavoured experience are having this overlay of Everything Being So Hard — they are going through the motions, as well as they can, but it’s a struggle to do it, and the rewards are baseline — I’m still functioning! — not invigorating. And for others, movement is just something they can’t get to — partly because most of their usual movement is incidental and spontaneous, and that just doesn’t exist right now

I have no motivation. I’m generally not an organized exercise kind of person, I’m just generally very busy and always moving. When I get antsy, I move. Being in my apartment, I really haven’t been moving much at all, if this is going to go on long term I need to figure something out.

That person went on to add something almost identical to my observation about myself: I live with a cat and our lifestyles are remarkably similar right now.

Clearly, I’m not the only one whose entire relationship with my body has changed during this time — I vacillate between Redefiner and Survivor tendencies. But I was surprised by the number of people who talked about Discovery tendencies. For these folks, slowing down has enabled more mindfulness, new strength, more attentiveness. They have experienced this time as a “pause,” not a “lockdown.” They have a lot to say, which I’ll capture in Part 2 of this post, coming this afternoon.

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede, who is trying to make herself go outside in Toronto.

The world is currently small but mighty.

The 900 square foot stacked townhouse that I share with Gavin and our two dogs, Miggy (Miigwetch) and Barley, is small but mighty.

The kitchen, that provides me with focus, joy, an abundance of senses, is small but mighty. My senses are engaged each time the egg whites peak and glisten in the mixing bowl, or the onions and garlic sizzle in a pan, or the bread dough rises in its bowl, and further in the oven, or the parmesan cheese scatters across the pasta just so.

My lens to the outside world, via the camera on my computer, or an app on my phone, to my friends, colleagues, virtual workout mates, immediate and extended family, is small but mighty. Each imperfect angle, disheveled hairdo, laugh, nod of recognition, ebb and flow of conversation, sharing of information or exercise.

My movements are small but mighty. Each journey from room to room, or arms raised overhead under a stream of hot water hitting my face, in the shower, or sun salutation stretching my hamstrings, or push up testing my back and arms, or air squat saying hello to my glutes, or socially-distanced walk or jog expanding my soul, each of these movements are small but mighty.

My heart is small but mighty. The capacity for it to love is great, love my husband, family and friends, the safety of my environment, my socially distanced community, the front line workers and scientists working to make things better, the signs of spring in the air, and so many more things.

The world is vast and interconnected. So interconnected that a virus starting in one place, has stretched its tentacles throughout the world. Joining us in an unfamiliar, scary, but now common, experience. But even with this inter-connectedness, each of our households has become small but mighty. We have been implored to look at the small things that are left, and savour and magnify those things.

I am honouring the small but mighty. What do you honour that is small but mighty?

Confession: although I present as a super-social extrovert (#greatactor), I actually function as quite a homebody. If given the opportunity to stay home a lot more, I’m in heaven. So having to do a whole lot of working out from inside the house is not a terrible hardship for me. (Nor is it problematized by children or others for whom I am a carer, and I recognize this makes me unusual and lucky.)

Still, this is a unique and weird situation, and more than once I’ve had to convince myself that it is actually ok to stay home and work out rather than head out into the gorgeousness. Sometimes I don’t want to go out! And sometimes I really don’t want to stay home.*

So over the last three weeks I have Zoom-yoga’ed, Zoom-trained, Zoom-tabata’ed, ridden my bicycle trainer even when I might have gone outside for a ride, and decided to count cleaning up the garden as a workout (it seriously killed my shoulders so, like, duh).

Here are five unexpected things I’ve learned.

1. If you did not love the class IRL, you probs won’t love the class over Zoom. This relates to a yoga class I did two weeks ago via my super-local studio, just down the block. They offered an unlimited Zoom class 7-day pass for $45 and pledged every penny to the teachers, who were obviously totally out of work. Right now I’m lucky to have full-time work from home as a salaried professor, so I’m trying to spend my money supporting local workers in need as much as I can. At this particular lunchtime, though, I signed up inadvertently for a class that I’ve taken before IRL, and have struggled through: the teacher, who is warm and skilled and very strong, is just WAY TOO DARN QUICK with the instructions, and the whole thing moves a lot faster than, IMO, yoga ever should. For me, yoga is about flexibility and core strength, and my usual practice is Iyengar-based. So maybe it’s not a shock that I don’t love a flow-style class that works on fast forward, where every vinyasa is over before I’ve adjusted the screen. Over Zoom, I swear the teacher was even faster than normal! I hated it, but forced myself to complete it, though I think I regretted that choice later. I mean, I’d bought an unlimited pass for Pete’s sake!
2. My dog is an epic coach. Emma the Dog is her own personality; when she gives me the side-eye, I know I’m in trouble. What I never expected, though, was that she had my back, coach-wise. As soon as I’m in my padded shorts, she’s all over me with the woofing and whining. HURRY UP AND SET THE DAMN BIKE ON ITS STAND!!! she’s saying; she knows I’m about to start a trainer sesh and she is VERY keen to begin the herding process. Now, I’m aware that she is some kind of shepherd-smoosh (she’s a rescue among rescues, that one), so the idea of me “moving” but “not moving” for 90 minutes is, like, the dream come true. Still, I imagine that, deep down, she knows I’m behind on my training plan and she’s just doing her part to help me achieve my goals.
3. My kitchen floor: not as clean as I’d like to think. The problem with doing All The Things at home – and by All The Things I mean here yoga and training over Zoom – is that you’ll spend some time looking at your floor, and then up at your ceiling, and you’ll go, “hang on. I totally cleaned the floor two weeks ago. WTF?” Also, I was shocked that skylights get dusty! And then this morning, after 60 minutes with Cate’s AWESOME trainer Alex, I went, “hey; when was the last time I dusted that ceiling fan?” Two hours later I could definitively say that during a pandemic you can spend two hours standing on a ladder on your dining room table with three wet cloths and a screwdriver and IT IS CONSIDERED TOTALLY NORMAL.
4. You don’t need lots of stuff. I’d been missing weight training, so I emailed my trainer, Paul, and asked for a workout I could do at home. He asked if I had weights; I cavalierly said I could get some. (The Canadian Tire website suggested I could, for curb-side pickup, but neglected to mention off the bat that none of my local stores had any stock.) Anyway, he sent me a good short workout, but I needed 12lb, 20lb, and 35lb weights to make it go; no dice. Then Cate reminded me her AWESOME trainer Alex was hosting sessions on Zoom with NO special gear required; better yet, she had a freebie coming up. I jumped on the stream and had an epic, invigorating 60 minutes of pikes and lunges and star jumps, oh my. Aside from peeing myself during the stars (Cate assures me this is normal and I need to do kegels), it was delicious. More Alex is def in my future.
5. You also don’t need to be local. So back to the future: I am thrilled I could support my local yoga instructors with that $45 week-long pass, but the truth is I don’t really go to that studio all that often (#seeabove). Rather, I heart my people at a distance, and this time of everybody doing things in house/online is making distance a lot more relative. Friday mornings I do Zoom Iyengar with my usual people from the outstanding Yoga Centre London, with our teachers instructing the pose and then watching each of us (there are only 10-12 per call) carefully to check alignment. Working out with Alex, who teaches at a gym 60km from my house, is a similar pleasure, and one I’d never have encountered except for this moment of total social weirdness. These are wins! Like I’ve been saying to anyone who will listen, it’s not Social Distancing; it’s Physical Distancing, plus a whole lot of learning about how to be more social.

Emma the dog, experiencing indoor cycling, cross training and yoga, respectively. 

How about you, friends? Any weird and wonderful discoveries while working out inside? Let us know!

Stay strong,

Kim

*OK, so not “all” the workouts. I’m still riding my bike outside, roughly twice a week. I’ll continue this – mindfully, and packing all the stuff I need to repair minor mechanical problems on my own – unless my local and regional authorities deem it unsafe. Whether or not to ride outside during the pandemic has become a somewhat controversial issue in the last couple of weeks; I’ll blog about it next month, by which time I expect the landscape will have shifted again. Look out for that one the first week in May.