"The Gains of a Fitness Boot Camp"

As the sun sets in Uvira, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a group of colleagues are twisting and stretching in readiness for an hour of physical activity. There is usually between six to nine staff attending this evening exercise routine that happens three times a week. It may not seem like anything out of the ordinary to take time to exercise; but for the staff of this hardship site, taking a moment to release steam in what we termed as ‘the boot camp’ is helping them cope with working under difficult conditions.

Somatics

A week ago, I was at my god mother’s and she invited me to join her for a session in somatics, which I had never heard of.

When the instructor came in, I had no idea what to expect. She mentioned to me that it was a form of body movement that I might not have done before. She was partially right. 

She told me that we have the tendency to want to stretch when we feel tight in certain parts of our bodies, but this was more about feeling and acknowledging the tightness or whatever feeling there might be.

When we started, we were asked to shut our eyes then relax. All we needed to do was follow instructions. The instructors voice was soothing but firm. Three words I heard a lot were 'breathe', 'feel', 'relax'. It was all about slow controlled body movements. At some point, when we were asked to raise a leg, following her instructions, my leg started to feel heavy. At that point I found myself holding my breath but as she said relax and feel your breath, I did let go and it was easier.

If you are someone like me who exercises and is used to things being pretty upbeat, doing this might seem difficult at the beginning. I relaxed into it all and just followed. It takes some concentration, but don't get impatient, try it to the end and if you don't like it, that's fine. It felt to me like yoga in some way, like meditation and like gentle stretching. At the end, I was left feeling like I had a massage. I felt lighter.

This makes me realise how little care we tend to take of our bodies. Apart from all the brusque movements, my body could use this from time to time. We spend so much time working without realising that the body needs attention. We sit for long hours, down the line many people end up with back and waist issues. I am determined to find a way to balance things out and somatics sure comes in somewhere.

To see what it's like, there are many videos on youtube. It would be preferable to look at a few then see which works. Please give me feedback if you choose to try 😊

On the other hand, I started a challenge of doing 50 burpees a day for 30 days. 29 days to go...yikes!


Photo credit: Google images

DIETS

I am not the best person to diet. I probably like food way too much to cut any food group out of my diet, except it causes harm to me. I am an adventurous eater, and food, I will continue to try every time I can in different countries and places. People bond very easily over food and food says a lot about culture and about people. 

There seems to be a new trend of people cutting out things from their food for dieting purposes. Some are extreme, some might be for health reasons, but there are other purposes.