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pictured, “101 Sports Poems”

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“a beginner’s view : the intent of this blog is to incrementally build a body of thought that works toward integrating various topics, yoga, fitness, and the arts – it’s a process…”

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Fitness ** Arts ** eBooks

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creative arts yoga & sports = sharing = teaching

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Article Outline

How the Notion For This Article Arose

• Questions
• Answers

Elaborations

• Realizations
• eBooks Are Leading My Way
• Teaching – Sharing – Creative
• Creative – Sharing – Teaching
• ThinkBodyElectric, Carol Horton

Excerpt from “Teachers Students & Education Specialists”

• From the Section “Final Word”

Final Thoughts

Other Yoga-Adan Links You Might Like

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How the Notion For This Article Arose

Questions

i gotta be honest, this photo of me by sheila, is a few years old, but i still have the t-shirt

but the questions that’ve led me to this week’s article, seem to have been around in my mind for a very long time

the main question that started this all for me, led to this site actually :

why and how is it i enjoy so many seemingly varied, and separate, things so much?

arts, and within the arts, painting, photography, and writing

and within writing, dialog, short stories, novels, and poetry

within painting: abstracts and representational impressionism

photography: composition and cropping and visual tweaking

movement, and within movement, dance, running, bicycling, baseball, and on and on

and this is the creative side -

i also enjoy just plain reading, viewing art, and watching movies, games, and theatre

liking all these things, is a good thing, no problem there

liking and doing or creatively doing them, is…

time and absorption into one or another of the arts or movements can create a separation of creativity from the others -

a question of balance -

one can’t do it all, so that’s natural too

but the question remains, why and how is it i enjoy so many seemingly varied yet separate things, so much?

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Answers

i became determined, through a sort of reawakening of being aware, when i re-introduced yoga more strongly, into my life -

awareness of how my breath affected my muscles and movement and attention, drew me into a greater awareness during my aerobic dance exercise classes, which i’d already been doing a decade

yoga itself, became more possible in my life, when my wife and i studied through AFAA to become group fitness instructors, and learned very basic things we couldn’t believe no one had ever explained to us -

i learned things that gave me the confidence not to have to rely on simply guru-thoughts about yoga – fitness theory and practice gave me a protective base

why it’s important to warm up, why a cooldown is necessary, that muscles relish and benefit being re-nourished the first 30 minutes after exercise, that ten minute increments of exercise are hugely beneficial even if not consecutive, how bone grows in the direction of our alignment as we move and hold -

those are just basic things! and there’s much more!

muscle memory, recovery, adaptation, interval training -

and meanwhile i was writing, i was painting, i was taking photos, i was dancing -

i was being creative…

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Elaborations

Realizations

i thought, when i was learning how important were the things sheila & i hadn’t known about fitness, that it would mean the arts would have to take a secondary seat

i was wrong

what we were learning, and what i became more and more aware of, because of yoga practice, is we were being creative!

just not consciously

so i began this web-blog “integrating” yoga fitness and the arts, sometimes emphasizing one over the other, but always circling around one to the other, finding the links

recently, as i returned to the arts more strongly, after a much-needed focus on fitness, i’ve been working my way, via poetry and photography, with some video and dance, into bringing these varied interests more into balance

balance, of course, is a relative word -

i’m almost surprised it’s not a four letter word

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eBooks Are Leading My Way

i especially began outputting over thirty years of creative works, mostly written at this point ( with a touch of images, and a review of senior related work ) into the new digital format, ebooks

within the process of creating commentary and context within the various ebooks, including now formulating creative poetry writing workbook projects within some of my ebooks (deluxe editions) –

i found myself writing, in the section final word of my ebook “teachers students & education specialists,” the excerpt below

essentially, in thinking about and writing about teaching, something very close to me, i saw that, in my case anyways, and i believe  in most people’s case, the act of being creative, and sharing it with others, whether just one friend, or a few family, or many others, is an act of teaching…

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Teaching – Sharing – Creative

we learn from each other all the time -

even from pets!

when someone leans over and shows us where we needed to enter something on a field on our screen, where a color could use a highlight, or when the car sounds “funny” -

we teach when we share with each other

we do so, even more so, when we’re being creative -

suggesting where a dash of this or that might enhance a dish, or a spot on a favored piece of clothing might be dabbed with the right strength of cleanser, or our alignment is not what we realize

and we fairly easily accept that when someone teaches us something, by sharing some useful or interesting piece of information that impresses itself upon us, that the process is creative in some respect -

wow! they really made me see that! – the way they said that inspires me! – i’ never thought of that before!

we love that i know i do

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Creative – Sharing – Teaching

what i’m suggesting is, simply being creative in our daily lives, and sharing it, in any small way, makes us teachers

the missing link, i think, has been we then also need to believe – as within the process from teaching to sharing to creative – that the transition must be of something that impresses us

that impresses upon us -

fair enough, as dr oz likes to say

i’m suggesting that, if you or a person being creative, is impressed by a thing-creative, whether anyone else receives or accepts it also, then you or that person has indeed “taught themselves”

physician heal thyself, is, i believe, another way of saying, you must teach yourself, i must teach myself, we must teach ourselves

and that if that creative something is shared, meaning successfully understood or received by any number of other people, even one, then the teaching and the sharing and the creativity, are all enhanced…

and it appears there is then a feedback loop, back to the creating source, which itself, will be new teaching shared, however small or varied, or however limited it may be

i can’t help feeling and seeing how even a pet could participate

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ThinkBodyElectric, Carol Horton

a nice example of what i’m thinking of, is carol horton’s recent article, “on light, photography, yoga and the body“

her thoughts, tying back to her previous article on the roles of women in current day yoga in western society, link from and to and within ideas on the impact of photography, the evolution of yoga, women and commercialization, and an immersion into darkness without electricity surprisingly altered by the presence of candles…

there’s a vastness of creative thought, and a meandering for truths, that carol shares with us, that feels freshly creative and new-found in its linkages

she may not think so, and i don’t really know, but i see her as teaching when she writes -

when carol shares her creative thoughts -

no different than any us can do…

yes, her impact, at least on me, and apparently many who read her, shows an “enhancement” of her teaching

but even if only her husband or friend, or pet, picked up on her intent, on the creative ideas she found, then she still would have, by my thought, have been teaching

and if carol had felt her creativity as having impulse and power to affect only herself, then, i say, she still would have been teaching

emily dickinson also comes to mind, of someone who’s creative work clearly affected, mostly, if not only, at least herself

so anyway with that, i give you, in my excerpt from my ebook, “teachers students & education specialists” my first inkling that this may be so

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Excerpt from “Teachers Students & Education Specialists”

From the Section “Final Word”

Because of teachers I’ve known, being a student, and now by being both, a teacher and a continuing student, the subjects in these poems have remained a close and enduring part of me.

Though my first ebooks have been focussed on my sports poetry; and my second full collection is nursing / medical in scope, the teaching-learning angle, if you will has been dominant.

Yes, I’ve enjoyed sports activities since a small child, and have continued so, even having remained small.

But I would not have been able to continue in my early 60s, as my wife Sheila and I have, with dance aerobics and teaching strength and aerobics and yoga to seniors, without the education we received from AFAA in fitness and wellness.

My philosophical commitment to my ideas would not have been as clear, without the training I’ve received from many sources.

As valuable as being the first in my family to finally go to college and graduate, was the immense value of my arts and humanities education at the University of Houston Clear Lake.

My closely protected upbringing in a conservative religious Hispanic family in Houston had grounded me in values I still cherish, but I had little exposure to things many people take for granted, the Golden Books, the history of ideas, English and French Literature, readers Theatre, philosophy (of a more formal nature), and any history of Art.

Yoga in the early 70s, with its authoritarian bent, didn’t appeal to me, though the practice did.  So recently, I was able to find and take instructor training from a man who, ironically, had started a studio in Houston in the 70s, Lex Gillan, who believes in the eclectic nature of yoga and people.

These invaluable experiences gave my naturally “teachy” nature, something my kids often alluded to source-knowledge to begin writing.

Writing, for me, involves more foundational grounding for expression, than painting has.

It should be clear to anyone who sees either of my work though, that I do veer off my own roads.  I follow rules of creativity only to a point, the point, I believe, where creativity is no longer creative unless one does take their own road.

Not necessarily outlandish, though it can be, but just more so idiosyncratic to the person.

With that in mind, I found an expression-niche that suited me in the early 90s, writing short one page “sayings.”  Meant for easy personalizing at mall and craft shows Sheila and I would attend.

I found myself responsive to people’s requests for variations or additions or versions of what I had begun on my own.

The result is a continuing body of over a thousand poems in categories from family to inspirational to occupational.

Sports poems were a natural expression for me, especially anything to do with baseball, running, and dance.  Nursing and medical poems appealed to me because of their helping and often educational nature, plus my exposure to people in the medical field in my first job out of college doing theatre (poetry and scripts) with adult patients in a hospital setting.

And teacher poems were my natural fit.

I’ve come to believe that my creative drive in painting, photography, poetry, theatre, and stories and novels, were only one part self expression towards uniqueness.

I’ve come to believe my equally dominant drive-component, has been to share what I’ve been learning as I learn, because I’ve felt it has helped me so much.

That may or may not be a form of teaching, depending on who is asked, but, for me, creative work is teaching.

It may only be to oneself, or it may be teaching others, and it probably involves both.

To the worlds and solar systems of universities, formal and informal, I thank you!

adan

december 03, 2011

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Final Thoughts

the feeling i most gained in the line of thought in this article, is, i really am, just beginning -

just a beginner

that’s ok, i’ve expressed that before

in, among several blog posts, “Teaching a Sequence of Yoga Classes as a Series, a beginner’s view” and “A Yoga Teacher – a beginner’s view” (poetry)“

and, in the front of my mission statement, “integrating yoga fitness and the arts” -

i now add – “a beginner’s view”

now that, feels right

namaste – con dios – god be with you

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Tags: Arts, Creativity, National Yoga Month, Sports, Yoga