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I'll try later to respond to each and every person since I'm the OP.
You really aren't required to respond individually to each post. Besides riding my bike, I am a bit of a pro cycling fan. [img:center] http://www.graymalkin.gs/jens[/img]
Last edited by malkin; 08/14/13 08:25 AM.
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I ride my tricycle (Catrike Expedition) or two wheel recumbent (Bacchetta Giro) to work everyday. I used to ride upright bicycles but they would put parts of me to sleep that I didn't want to be asleep. :-)
My commute is 10 miles round trip, rain, sleet, snow, or, like today, GORGEOUS. Church is 16 miles round trip, the grocery store (trailer for the trike) is 14 miles round trip. Plus the riding for fun gets me around 6000 miles/year.
I haven't owned a car since 2008, and I've found that money is 'thicker' than ever without insurance, parking, gas.
In my younger days I pursued martials arts, earning a black belt. These days I practice Yang Style Taiji (martial arts for old farts). An epiphany occurred when I was 42 and nursing cracked ribs and a badly bruised hand from sparring the previous night. I asked myself the question 'when I'm 70 do I want to be able to play Bach or do high kicks?'
so the focus changed to a gentle, yet still mentally difficult martial art. :-)
I have found the 30 minute commute each morning ideal for mental practice and organizing the day's work - it's the best part of my day, and the exercise is built in! I do not use earbuds, and my TV time is 30 minutes of the local news in the morning. computer time (shhhh, I'm at work!)....
I practice in 15/20 minute chunks, with 10 minutes of yoga (a gazillion 10 minute shoulder/back routines on youtube) or taiji as breaks. So exercise is built in to practice time as well. Plus an intense 30 minute weight routine - upper body - 3 times a week rounds out the exercise.
Forrest
Mompou, Cancion y Danza #6 some Chopin, some Bach (always), Debussy My beliefs are only that unless I can prove them.
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i used to lift when i was 19 till earlier just recently, im 24 now. I've switched from working out at the gym to playing tennis, so im a beginner piano player and a beginner tennis player
Last edited by Sweet06; 08/14/13 10:45 AM.
"Doesn't practicing on the piano suck?!?!" "The joy is in the practicing. It's like relationships. Yeah, orgasms are awesome, but you can't make love to someone who you have no relationship with!"
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" It is no wonder why people who don't exercise, don't feel like it." That happens when you get older. You really have to make a decision. To do or not to do. That is the question . . .and the excuses come thick and fast!
"I am not a man. I am a free number" " "
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Speaking of dance - that's part of what I do. I contra dance twice a month - it' not much, but it helps. I can tell you it really helps with piano! I have a pretty good sense of rhythm, and when I'm the one starting off a set from the band I dance in my head and (as we say of people who have gotten old enough that "smooth" is really important) in my shoes - which means the rhythm is in my whole body but you can't see me move Sometimes I get out front of the band, if the caller is still talking it through, and just walk/march around in time so they can see what the tempo is going to be. Dance FTW! I had been looking for range-of-motion exercises like my mother did with the Arthritis Foundation, since I know it's important to be able to do things like look over your shoulder for cars in your blind spot, and it's harder as you get older, when Ron first mentioned the mobility exercises. Perfect. I started in maybe Feb and still haven't added legs yet But I swear I'm taller now, and I do feel better. They're worth doing, for me. And I walk a lot. A couple of my clients are within walking distance, as is the library, the post office, a branch of my bank, and Trader Joe's. Walking distance, due to time, is about a mile and a half one way. I walk longer distances sometimes just for fun. I used to be quite active - ski racing, rock climbing, tennis - so I miss being in shape. But I know that nutrition and exercise are their own rewards, so I'm back to doing both. And just the habits of focusing during piano practicing, and exercising, and eating well, and, sigh, keeping the house dusted , are great for keeping the old body/mind connection in working order. Cathy
Cathy Perhaps "more music" is always the answer, no matter what the question might be! - Qwerty53
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double post - sigh
Last edited by jotur; 08/14/13 12:15 PM.
Cathy Perhaps "more music" is always the answer, no matter what the question might be! - Qwerty53
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Today practicing, I noticed that my hands felt some discomfort. At first I thought I was straining a little, but then I realized it could be because yesterday I was gripping the handlebars too tightly on a little bit too fast of a downhill and bouncing across a little rough road surface. The light at the bottom of the hill was green--I wanted to make it!
I used to be the biggest coward on 2 wheels; now sometimes I am surprisingly bold.
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woodog.... Gee those are nice bikes. One thing that has held me back in using my bike more is it getting stolen. You must have a good setup to make sure they don't get stolen when you get where you're going. Jotur....Gee Dance... That is one thing my mobility has led me to. Enjoying movement. I'll let you in on a little secret. Those break dancers? They get that from this mobility and range of motion training. The Cossacks were the original break dancers. Sweet06.... That is one thing I have always done in my life. Learning new things. Over and over. Always something new. It's a great way to live....learning. Malkin.... I realize I don't have to respond to all. I probably won't. I'll try now and then to be a good host. Good on bike riding. That's a good one. Oh Trapper... You forgot about the swimming in golf. It occurs about the time the guy remembers he put his keys and wallet in his bag. The bag and clubs he threw in the lake. SamS... That's great what you do. They say the legs are half of the heart. I learned there is something called: Speed Hiking. One guy who wanted to get good at it got into running ultra marathons. I understand he is really good. Orienteering sounds great. You ever read: A Walk Across America? Interesting book. He starts doing the Appalachian Trail. Cas....That's it. Just do it. That's what it's all about. Whatever and however. There was a Gym in Sioux Falls where the motto was: "No Excuses". The owner lived up to it. One of the few Gym's I could bring my clubbells into. My membership there was one of the few bright spots in that town. I remember being there early on Christmas morning. About 4am. A "Santa Clause" came in there to work off his drunk so his wife wouldn't remove body parts from him on Christmas. Now I got a good exercise room in my apartments. Also my own apartment serves most of my needs. SwissMs... Nice Picture. Would love to see Switzerland one day. Understand it's so beautiful. It gives motivation for hiking. Just getting out there. Sinophilia... Always interesting to hear what people do. Good to know you're doing. Have you considered running in Five Fingers? They are Italian. That's all I wear now. Run minimal. It's done me a bunch of good. Carlos... Tennis is great exercise. Good for ya! earlofmar... You know what I think of Ultra's. Back after I almost died. I ended up doing my baby Ultra 18 months later. Had done marathons. Anybody in the Medical Industry I mentioned that to said: "You sure chose the right sport!" You know the eating, drinking, and running all at the same time does a heck of a job of training the endocrine system. Good going with the bike now. Gotta do something. I have to admit. This thread is helping to motivate me. I confess that I've been leaning on exercise I've done in the past. It's effects have been so good, so deep, I've felt good. But Piano is motivating me to get serious again. My progress with my body to do what I want at the keyboard is just too slow. It's entirely physical. I know that. I gotta get those changes moving faster. I have the knowledge.
Ron Your brain is a sponge. Keep it wet. Mary Gae George The focus of your personal practice is discipline. Not numbers. Scott Sonnon
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Look at it this way - more exercise than a single! Ma great-grandpappy was a sodbuster in SD - lived into his 80's. My guess is he didn't play the piano though.
Laissez tomber les mains
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I was a pretty devoted runner in the late 80s and throughout the 90s. It was a way of blowing off the stress of graduate school and, later, the tenure track. I did mostly 5K and 10K races at that time, but I ran two marathons before my knees gave out, with a PB of 3:33:18. Then I got married and pregnant, had a miscarriage scare, and just like that became an ex-runner. With a family and work, I had no free time, let myself slide physically, gained 25 pounds. But not long ago, right about the time I decided to take early retirement, I realized that I don't have unlimited time on this planet, and I'd like the time I do have left to be as high quality as possible. So we joined the local YMCA, and I started going 4-5 times a week, working out an hour to an hour and a half each visit. Most of it is spent on the ellipticals, but I throw in a bit of weight training as well. I've lost most of the weight I had gained the past decade, and I am definitely feeling in better shape. And, I've become acquainted with popular culture through watching TV series on my Kindle Fire while I work out. I've worked my way through Grey's Anatomy, Parenthood, Justified, and I'm currently on season 3 of The Shield.
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You can accurately gauge the shape you are in by the amount of effort it takes to trim your left pinky toenail with your right hand.
Tip: Cut out the starches (noodles, potatoes, breads). Carbs are fine and healthy but no need to carb/starch load unless you are planning on burning it all completely up.
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rnaple, I have read your post, here:
Thought I'd start a thread on this. Seems we keep sticking in some kind of exercise in other threads. It surely helps us in our quest to play piano.
You can post anything you want related to exercise on this thread. Got a new bike, etc. Especially important is exercise that is focused on playing piano. Anything you think might help others.
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As a beginner - others should be guided by more advance players. I don't believe in exercises - for me - because when I play the piano, I read the notes and say the names of the notes as I play them slowly without mistakes else I play the notes even more slowly until I can play them without mistakes. Of course, I also count the values of the notes as I play the notes in the measures.
If I as going to do a scale, I would read the notes of the scale as it was written out on the staff and say the names of the notes as I played them up and down the scales as written on the staff. It would not be beneficial for me to do any scale or exercise without reading and saying the notes as I played and also count the values of the notes as I played them through the measures.
Last edited by Michael_99; 08/16/13 01:42 AM.
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I started exercising and jogging regularly about two years ago because I needed to lose some weight then. I bought a book on home exercise, a few basic exercise tools and I started eating less as well. When I got into the rhythm, it became easy to exercise 3 times a week, gradually adding more repetitions in each series of each exercise (sit-ups, push-ups and lots of other types) and also prolonging the jogging track length. In the end, I did about 5 series of 20 repetitions of each exercise and ran roughly 14 km 3 times a week. It was fun and I even looked forward to it at times. All in all, I was able to go from 86 kg to about 74 in approx. 9 months. At one point my weight was as low as 72 kg (I'm about 1.83m tall btw.). At that point, however, the time needed for the entire exercise block was over 4 hours (from the first warm-up to the last stretching exercise). Eventually, I had to split it and do the exercise one day and go jogging the next. Unfortunately, when I replaced home exercise with gym exercise with heavier weights and added beach volleyball into the mix, my right knee showed me it was not going to tolerate this stress anymore and I ended up with damaged cartilage. For 3 months, I was unable to even descend a flight of stairs without pain, much less do any sort of exercise. Thankfully, I did not start eating more so I only gained about 3 kg. After the three month recovery, I started exercising again and very slowly adding more repetitions and extending the running track again. Now I'm happy to say that my performance is pretty much the same it used to be when I was at my personal best but I'm still very careful about not overburdening my body. All of that was before I got my piano but I haven't stopped even now that I have it. I usually do a little playing (20-30 min) before the exercise to get some "brain exercise" first, then the physical exercise comes and after that, it's some more playing. I'm still at the very earliest phases of learning so I tend to take too big chunks but having read a bit about how the brain handles new information, I try to cut them into smaller pieces. The start is always the most difficult -- be it in physical exercise or piano playing.
Last edited by Clayman; 08/16/13 06:37 AM. Reason: A typo
-- Zbynek N.
Learning to play the piano since 06/2013 on a Kawai CA-95.
Music is what feelings sound like. ~ Author Unknown
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I started yoga. It makes me feel great for the whole week. My piano teacher started doing it too. It's a great exercise for pianists and people work with computers all the time.
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You can accurately gauge the shape you are in by the amount of effort it takes to trim your left pinky toenail with your right hand.
Tip: Cut out the starches (noodles, potatoes, breads). Carbs are fine and healthy but no need to carb/starch load unless you are planning on burning it all completely up.
What if you're left handed...? (ok, I know, I know) I've cut out those starchy carbs - oh...95%. Living it Italy the temptations for gorgeous breads and yummy pastas are everywhere, but in general I know have pasta once every two weeks, and bread very rarely. I don't remember the last time I had a potato... I think it was February. My original reasons for cutting these weren't precisely weight related....I found that after pasta I felt like going to sleep - and then I realized I also had trouble digesting breads and potatoes. I've also cut out most milk products - (fresh products seem to upset my system- cooked cheese, in small quantities, I can cope with). The list of foods that create some kind of disturbance seems to be growing. There are days I feel quite crabby about it, though I have to be honest and say that I do feel better. I just miss old favourites. I suppose there will come a day when I will no longer crave them. Yesterday: 2 shortish rides, about 10k.
18 ABF Recitals, Order of the Red Dot European Piano Parties - Brussels, Lisbon, Lucern, Milan, Malaga, St. Goar Themed recitals: Grieg and Great American Songbook
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I just got an advertisement from my Coach. A program he came up with for people who want to get into exercise. A basic program that teaches very common horse sense things people should know who want to exercise. I'm not posting this hoping for sales. He has gotten to be a better salesman. He is over and above most exercise teaching for common people. If you just read through his page on this. There are some good things you can learn. 5Classics Talking about common horse sense.... Clayman... That was a great post. Just doing things. Nothing fancy or sophisticated. Just getting out and doing it. Great job. OH Farmgirl.... Yoga is so good. You know that every single Olympic Athlete practices some form of yoga to some extent? It is part of a good general exercise training for anyone. You ever seen those girls usually at Casino's who hang from long "drapes" and move in a kind of dance with those drapes. That is a form of yoga. Got an interesting one for ya... prasara yoga. If there was only one thing I could do...it would be yoga. I got disgusted with my progress on piano on Sunday. Thing that stops me from doing those Hannon's in Alfred's is that my left forearm and hand would start getting tight. Haven't done as much of those exercises that I want to. Practice in general gets cut for the same reason. So I went out running Sunday...did some intervals. Got to my peak sprint. My left forearm started hurting from all the blood flow. I'm getting many changes physiologically in the sophistication of the movement of the fingers. I did another run last night. Keep doing my WW each day. Easing back into working out. Feeling good and leaning on past training just don't cut it anymore. Piano is demanding I get back into my exercise training.
Ron Your brain is a sponge. Keep it wet. Mary Gae George The focus of your personal practice is discipline. Not numbers. Scott Sonnon
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Mr Super-Hunky, I have read your post, here:
You can accurately gauge the shape you are in by the amount of effort it takes to trim your left pinky toenail with your right hand.
Tip: Cut out the starches (noodles, potatoes, breads). Carbs are fine and healthy but no need to carb/starch load unless you are planning on burning it all completely up.
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Mr Super-Hunky, you are so absolutely correct.
My diet is no sugar, no oil, no salt, no starch.
I eat simmered chicken breast, a salad of romaine and tomato, fresh apples, fresh oranges, now switching to advocado instead of cheese, and raisins. I think beef may not be safe to eat because of how beef is handled so I now only eat chicken which I think is less harmful. I do lots of walking. My weight is stable and I weigh the same as I was at 21 which is 165 as opposed to my weight with a normal diet at 240 pounds. My blood pressure used to be borderline but my blood pressure is now fine says the doctors.
If you rub vegetable oil between your fingers, you then can get an idea of what any oil does to your body pumping through your veins. It is amazing we don't die at the age of 25 year with the oil we take in. It is almost impossible - if not impossible to get an oil free meal at a restaurant. I grew up in restaurants because my mother didn't like to cook and I continued the tradition, but now the only way to eat an oil free diet is to avoid restaurants.
Last edited by Michael_99; 08/16/13 05:59 AM.
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@rnaple, thanks! I still do it because my (programmer) job requires me to sit for 8 hours straight and when I get home and continue sitting (at the piano or my desktop computer), my back starts to feel like it has a knife stabbed into it. So it's sort of a necessity but it does feel good as well. I get that warm and fuzzy feeling that I do something for myself and -- dare I say -- I managed to form my body a little, too. It's pretty demanding, especially when the body feels kind of weak, but it pays dividends.
-- Zbynek N.
Learning to play the piano since 06/2013 on a Kawai CA-95.
Music is what feelings sound like. ~ Author Unknown
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All things in moderation, including moderation.
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woodog.... Gee those are nice bikes. One thing that has held me back in using my bike more is it getting stolen. You must have a good setup to make sure they don't get stolen when you get where you're going.
Well, when you are not feeding car culture, nice bikes are cheap! The locks only keep honest people honest. At some point you have to trust that folks are honest - and most are - but still lock up the bike anyway. Forrest
Mompou, Cancion y Danza #6 some Chopin, some Bach (always), Debussy My beliefs are only that unless I can prove them.
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:34 PM
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Piano
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