Yoga Tension Mounts; Book Oddities Released
Rather than the usual stretching after my long run Sunday, I incorporated some of the yoga poses learned the prior week and then woke Monday morning muscle-pain free. That’s impressive, given I’d tacked on an extra 20 minutes and should have felt some soreness from lactic acid buildup over 16 hilly miles. That had me jazzed for Monday night’s Yoga for Runners session. The instructor again kept the room music-free but had the fans going full blast as she guided us through a heavenly hour of hip stretches. That I had so much trouble demonstrating flexibility confirmed why I’ve had so many aches in that area lately. Time to loosen up a little.
The yoga instructor, Susan, was interested in hearing how last Wednesday’s power yoga went and we reported it was intense. I sensed there must be some tension between the instructors, who follow completely different styles of yoga. But Susan, whom I’m starting to like a lot, stressed to me in particular that yoga isn’t a competition and not to push my body too hard or you end up injured. So, I’m going back next week to sweat and push and then watch all the more flexible folks twist and turn without me.
Read On
Meantime, I’ve had to buy a lot of books lately. All for Elise’s liberal studies class. She needs 30 titles total, but I don’t mind because I’ll gladly read the half I haven't personally consumed when she comes home in December. Lots of great non-fiction that explores the human enigma -- the title of this semester’s cluster of classes. I had to get some of her books from Amazon and discovered a feature that has me scratching my head. Scrolling down you can learn all the proper nouns and what Amazon calls SIPs (Statistically Improbable Phrases) within, for instance, Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities. You could also read a bulk of the book if you carefully manipulated the page previews, but let’s not go there. What really got my attention was the online bookstore’s readability scales in the Text Stats that show this particular text, which I loved when I first read it many, many years ago, is an easy read. How do you know? Apparently judgment now is weighed by how many words (by complexity, number of syllables and sheer volume) are included in a work of literature. Guess this is how the 'Net generation now judges a book, besides its cover?
The yoga instructor, Susan, was interested in hearing how last Wednesday’s power yoga went and we reported it was intense. I sensed there must be some tension between the instructors, who follow completely different styles of yoga. But Susan, whom I’m starting to like a lot, stressed to me in particular that yoga isn’t a competition and not to push my body too hard or you end up injured. So, I’m going back next week to sweat and push and then watch all the more flexible folks twist and turn without me.
Read On
Meantime, I’ve had to buy a lot of books lately. All for Elise’s liberal studies class. She needs 30 titles total, but I don’t mind because I’ll gladly read the half I haven't personally consumed when she comes home in December. Lots of great non-fiction that explores the human enigma -- the title of this semester’s cluster of classes. I had to get some of her books from Amazon and discovered a feature that has me scratching my head. Scrolling down you can learn all the proper nouns and what Amazon calls SIPs (Statistically Improbable Phrases) within, for instance, Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities. You could also read a bulk of the book if you carefully manipulated the page previews, but let’s not go there. What really got my attention was the online bookstore’s readability scales in the Text Stats that show this particular text, which I loved when I first read it many, many years ago, is an easy read. How do you know? Apparently judgment now is weighed by how many words (by complexity, number of syllables and sheer volume) are included in a work of literature. Guess this is how the 'Net generation now judges a book, besides its cover?
