Testing, Testing, One, Two, Knee

Last month I decided to embark on a little experiment. I set myself a 30 Day Connection Challenge - a series of daily tasks that involved different parts of the body. It was completely made up by me, with no scientific merit whatsoever, as an attempt to reacquaint myself with a body that I have disconnected with for a long time. Here’s how it went.

The challenge was divided into weeks with every five days being equal to one week. Weeks one and two went very well. I did each task every day and felt like I was rediscovering myself. It helped that I had deliberately made the tasks relatively quick to do so that I couldn’t blame “not having enough time” as a reason for not doing them. The only snag was stretch day.

I made the third day of each week a “stretch” day as I have been told many times, by many people, that I need to stretch more but, upon reflection, it was too general an instruction. As someone with no stretch routine or real knowledge of how to stretch properly, I vaguely did some moves that I remembered from the various workout videos I have done over the years. Why didn’t you just google a stretch routine Amy? Great question. No idea. Probably because that makes sense and I am, famously, an idiot. No, I’m not sure, maybe because I wanted it to be a challenge full of quick tasks that you could just pop into your day and not have to google how to do them, thus taking up more time?

Anyway, as the challenge progressed, I realised that it was something I had made up myself and stretching could be whatever I wanted it to be. It didn’t have to be a medically approved routine that I would have to show people so they could replicate it and so, I calmed down a bit. The stretch task became me getting out of bed or up off the couch and stretching my arms and back and noting what it felt like. Much more doable.

Initially, I got so excited about some of the challenges that I would ask my partner to do them so I could see if they were fun for other people! I did the ‘hug yourself for three minutes’ task and he said “That looked so nice” and so I forced him to do it. I’m not sure if he enjoyed the tasks or not but he didn’t laugh at them or think they were silly which meant a lot. Plus, we made a game out of slapping our bellies and guessing the song and it was the best game ever! Highly recommend all couples/friends/family play this game.

Weeks 3, 4 and 5 were a bit wobbly as I forgot to do the tasks so had to do two in a day sometimes but got back on track for the final week.

I think they tasks I enjoyed and got the most from were the doing tasks, e.g. writing a list of all the things you did with your hands that day or draw something using a body part etc., because it forced me to pay attention to that body part in a different way; to really see what it was capable of and how it moved. Whereas the more passive tasks, such as the holding body parts for three minutes, though they felt lovely, didn’t really raise my awareness of that body part.

The whole challenge has left me with a sense of amazement of what my body can do. I have spent a long time beating myself up for what my body can’t do and though I may not ever be able to do cool circus tricks or be an Olympic athlete, the things that my body can do have the ability to evoke a sense of wonder, awe and pride and I think that’s a pretty special thing to discover.

And so, dear readers, the conclusion of my experiment - the challenge was worth it and my body is a wonderfully weird specimen.

If you took part in the challenge, even maybe just one or two of the tasks, I would love to hear about it -what you liked/didn't like, what tasks might be helpful in the future etc. Please just use the contact form at the bottom of the homepage or if you know me (As most of you do! Let’s not lie to ourselves.) just message me.