Transition times

It seems I’m having more fun digging up photos and editing than writing these days! Check out the photos page or the previous post if you haven’t. Something else that kept me away was going part time with my previously full-time job, so I was sorting out a few things (inner and outer) before moving into new projects/activities and juggle between different hats. I won’t go into details on that for now, but having variety in the type activities already makes me feel more dynamic and empowered to maximize my time and energy.

It was important to have some reflection time to really see the big picture and make choices consciously, something for which mentors are of precious help. Even in the desired change, letting go (while not completely) of the old and going into the new can be challenging for the mind. A healthy move becomes all about stepping back and giving attention to the emotions that arise: uncertainty, doubt, attachment and others. Looking to them as guides really helps inner growth. Ask “What is it I’m anxious about in this new situation? Why? Is there something in me I don’t trust? What does that tell me about my own self-improvement needs if I want to follow my dreams?” Of course a lot of that thinking already happens before you decide to make a significant change in your life, but it’s important to crystallize these insights as you step into the new: it brings confidence and focus on the inner and outer dimensions of what is ahead. 

That said you can also be faced with a myriad of practical implications when the move is made, that you didn’t anticipate, or just couldn’t imagine how it would feel. All these can become worrisome and seem like a lot to manage, and bring more doubt and uncertainty. If you’re doing the inner homework though, you can trust in the future and let the practical implications become just what they are: measures to be taken strategically. 

I leave it to you to project yourself in such a situation (one you’ve been desiring for a while, for example), and imagine that could be for you. Of course transitioning from a “traditional” full-time job to part-time, becoming a volunteer, a professional sportsperson or something else that is radically different has to be realistic, and if not right now, requires sound planning. Either way, take plenty of time out to think your way, but also feel your way, as a mentor would say. It helps a lot to spend time in nature too, where you are in the presence of everything that naturally works and flows into new states of being. I’m lucky and grateful to be able to regularly follow my intuitions, but so can anybody if you allow yourself to dream and not see your current situation and emotions as unmovable walls. If you have trouble with that (like I often do), find the people around you that can support you.

Here is a fitting quote from Howard Thurman to finish: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Revived Sensations

Hello all!

I just got around to creating a photos page and am psyched! It is actually on flickr and you can find the link on the top menu of the blog. The aim is to convey a variety of landscapes, textures, colors and sensations shot through travels overseas or right here in Mauritius.

Besides photos from abroad (Australia and others), looking further into our own Mauritian backyard allowed to find some amazing things. Biking around works magic, and by carrying a 5 megapixel phone-camera everywhere (you don't need much to get good results), it's hard not to stop and shoot the stunning beauties that present themselves... In fact, the old adage "the journey is more important than the destination" rings particularly true when you shoot while going somewhere: if you take your time, you may better appreciate what is on the way. That in itself opens many new exploration paths you haven't seen before, as you raced past them with your car. Be a tourist, go where you've never been! If you're into outdoor sports like running or cycling, don't take your camera along for your serious training sessions because it will surely disrupt your tempo. Merge your photo explorations with slower, longer bike rides or treks where unplanned breaks are welcome.

OK, some more details about the photos now! Professional photographers out there, any comment/advice is most welcome. None of these shots were made with a "professional" camera and I'm really happy with their quality. It can be frustrating to lack zooming power when you really want it, but it forces you to get creative with what you have.

I can't believe how much some of my pics have changed after a few tweaks... Take the one on the right for example. As the pro's will probably tell us, editing is a big part of making a good photo. There are many pics that I thought were really good when taking them; good light, perfect framing, interesting combination of elements in foreground, background, etc, but then when viewing the result on the computer I was left disappointed. It may be dull, not showing enough contrast, colors, or simply not convey the feeling you had. After all, photographs should make you feel something, plunge you back in the memory or take others there with you. Editing lets you play with parameters to "help" your picture re-create the sensation. Of course you can enhance/exaggerate the effect too, but that's up to you.

The beauty is that you don't even need expensive software to do that. For starters, go to www.befunky.com and have a play, it's free and you don't have to create an account. I recommend cropping (for better framing if needed), vibrance, Hdr, cross-process and b&w in the effects.

Finally if you're looking for some more inspiration, I recommend the work of these friends based in Mauritius: Cathy Dudzinski, Karl Ahnee and Gilliane Soupe.

Happy exploring, shooting and editing.

Xav

The Lifestyle Choice

I've been thinking how we often associate "lifestyle" to nutrition, sports, time management (work/life), and level of domestic comfort to name a few. I guess this is mostly an impression created through exposure to the commercial approach. We probably all adopt some commercial thinking unconsciously in our personal life: "oh I need to exercise", "I shouldn't eat such and such", "this new gadget will help me manage my time", etc, etc. It all seems a bit mechanical from that perspective, we want to "tune" the different aspects of our lives for better performance, which in turn makes us feel good and better able to carry on.

For this pattern to appear in the behavior of people, you would expect that they have at least reached the middle class: they have some disposable income and have time to think more about themselves. For a while now, people have also taken their careers as defining factors of their identities. It's almost as if there is spreading unspoken agreement that identity is based on performance, career and lifestyle (status and comfort, by extension). This is something we can observe fairly easily nowadays (I think) in many countries, as the middle class grows.

As a result, more basic activities become secondary concerns. We probably start using more energy, produce more waste, and because we are busier, we now "have to fit in" the traditional aspects of life like family and community. "It's OK, I can afford it and I'm on a mission" could be the our unconscious justification. Additionally, organizations, authorities or other systems have emerged which take some of that "burden" away. They are to figure how to "meet energy demand", take away our waste (and maybe make something useful of it), take care of poverty, youth and the elderly. Oh, and doing that with least cost on the voters/customers, and through financially profitable ways whenever possible.

Have we unconsciously, all together and over time, rejected responsibility over these vital components of our lives? If so, what consequences of that do you see around you? I invite you to ponder...

Rediscovering Training - Part 2

Goals: sometimes they present themselves to you as missions and you can’t help but accept them. The first one of the series this year was this one. 

Photo by Ben Moon, courtesy of Patagonia

Being able to do the human flag would not only be cool, but it would also mean awesome core strength to benefit rock-climbing, windsurfing, kayaking... and most sports where your whole body is needed really! Great ways to train for it are doing planks, head and hand stands, pushups and pull-ups. The problem is it’s difficult to use only the vision of this outcome as motivation… I’ll come back to that shortly. 

The next goal that came along was a trekking trip to the Indian Himalayas, and wow! I felt ready to say “yes, count me in” on the spot.

Through the early exchange of messages with the trip guide, he recommended load training to prepare for the trip – start doing some hill walks with 5kg on the back, slowly increasing towards about 15kg. Man I was excited at the idea of walking through those glorious landscapes, gazing at the white mountain tops and enjoying the peacefulness yet dynamic nature of the fauna, flora and land surrounding… This became a very good motivator and I went walking 3 to 4 km four times in the first week, in the early morning. I’m lucky to have a nice hill not far from my place, part of which is actually a great bush walk, with a beautiful view from the top. The walks also became a rendez-vous with the sunrise and the fresh morning air: a delightful way to start the day. 

Some of the view from Candos hill, just before sunrise

That week felt very good and I was already sensing increased strength in my legs. Based on that, I naively doubled the load on Monday of the next week. It was noticeably harder but I didn’t suffer from it during the walk, only a few hours after my right knee started to be sore. What an idiot I thought! Way too hungry for “performance”, pfffff!! So I didn’t do the walk for a few days, replacing it with upper body strength workouts. Meanwhile I was still deciding whether to go on the trip or not! The budget for it wasn’t that small, and the more she was thinking about it, the more Maja, my wife, became weary of dangers, health hazards, etc… 

In the same time period, the programme for the windsurf racing season came out and is full of exciting events. I had had a great session in the waves a few weeks back and the wind was looking good for the following Saturday (this is still week 2 of “trek training”). I ended up really bugging Maja with my indecisiveness, and eventually we came to the conclusion that we can always go to Reunion Island by boat for beautiful trekking, that the time (a better time) will come for the Himalayas. We also decided we could still spend a bit of money on things we needed here instead. Hiking shoes for us both, tent, that kind of stuff…

As you can see, the goal of tripping’ through the Indian mountains went out the window, but I’m still doing the load training, properly this time, for the joy of sunrise, views, fresh air and great wake-up call (here's a programme to get inspiration from). It will also help for those Mauritian outdoors explorations and other sports. New goals are now to do a few windsurf races and rock-climb as much as possible – a happy and motivating combination. In fact, almost just after deciding, I had another nice windsurf session in the waves and went rock-climbing at spot I didn’t know yet. Both were tasty soul-foods and left me invigorated. 

By now I have a healthy mix of goals: doing the human flag, doing well in windsurf races and climb harder routes, and ensuring a good mix of training types, good form, nutrition and sleep. Another interesting coincidence is that the book I’m currently reading, Strength to Awaken, recommends three types of goals: outcome, performance and process. I have thus matched the above goals to these. Knowing they are not the same type of goals and that each is needed is a good way to remember them all! By the way the book offers many more insights that you won’t learn in the mainstream fitness literature so I recommend you check it out. 

In the end, it's all about finding what you want. The natural step from there is to design a training regime that will help achieving these goals. It is coming together pretty nicely right now, still including a variety of activities ("variety is the spice of life"!) but I guess there will be a part 3 for that!

Rediscovering Training - Part 1

In the last months (year?) I've been discovering and trying a variety of physical training methods or programmes, to keep fit but also because I really enjoy learning about the science behind it all. I think I'm now at a point where I picked up enough tools and insights to be building a really nice training regime into my day-to-day.

I'd been a big adept of high-intensity strength training for a while before 2011, after which I focused on cycling for the big Sweden to Serbia ride, then it seemed like I couldn't go back to my usual training regime because of a more hectic lifestyle in Mauritius. I tried hitting the gym again, and even though it was close to my place and relatively cheap, it didn't do it for me.

In late October last year I decided to give a 3-month long programme a go: The Shape of Your Life from Outside magazine. What attracted me was that the first month was meant to build aerobic capacity, so more walking or running or swimming to begin with, interspersed with strength training. The first week was amazing, I did mostly swimming which felt really good in the turquoise lagoon of Pointe d'Esny, and by the end of the second week I was swimming 40minutes non-stop quite comfortably. Then life events happened which put me to rest for over a week, and after that, mental and emotional stress made it difficult to start again where I left off. And then of course the festive season arrived in full force with substantial supplies of food and beverages: training on hold! Haha!

Come on, got to help the country's tourism a bit, right?

Hold then became stop because the tempo of the training seemed too much for my schedule and often-changing weekly to daily plans. That said, I learned a lot just from these two weeks and from the readings. As an alternative for the new year, I told myself that I would make the most of the Mauritian outdoors, and that I'm doing OK with: mountain biking and climbing a mountain in January, another in February, kayak to coastal caves and to an outer islet with Patrick from Yemaya Adventures in January and March respectively, a few rock-climbing sessions with Xavier from The Rocker - Rock Climbing Mauritius, and some nice windsurf sessions in April. So far, these feel fantastic!

The catch is that I'm thirsty for performance, and being somewhat "dispersed" between activities made it not so great in either of them (the pleasure of doing them was there, don't get me wrong). Surely there was also a part of plain insufficient physical conditioning. So off I was again in a search of efficient training methods. I came across a really good article on balancing exercises. These train the two sides of your body independently, whereas unilateral exercises (when you do exercises with your two arms or two legs together) can actually reinforce the dominance of your stronger side if you are unbalanced. If you ask me, I'd say that these should come even before the cardio stuff in your training plans, also because I think it helps to get some muscle tone beforehand. I would have loved to share the article but I can't find it again! I was sure I had bookmarked it...

Anyway, from there an interesting coincidence appeared about balancing: two friends got into slack-lining which had just made its entrance in Mauritius. It's awesome to watch, and when you do it, it has an addictive trait to it because it makes you really want to go further on the line without falling! As you can see from the link, it has a list of performance benefits for other sports. I didn't get one (yet!?) but I made a "replacement" at home for this, just by placing a solid stick on a few supports and walking back and forth on it. Of course, it's not like a line that wobbles and wants to push you upwards, but good enough to start balancing on! Check out this video for a mind-blowing demonstration:

Moonwalk from Reel Water Productions on Vimeo.

So these "discoveries", coupled with the few outings in nature re-sparked a healthy flame towards getting fit, then another crucial element started to materialize: setting goals! I'll go into that and more in Part 2, where I will share more resources too.

Chao!

Kickoff

That's it!
I've been putting this off for long enough... Blogging was a great pleasure during my year spent in Sweden, now almost two years ago (snif...)! Take a look if you're interested, I was doing a MSc in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability there (sorry if many images have been disabled since).

I came back home to Mauritius Island in late august 2011 (after a cool bicycle trip from Sweden to Serbia that I'll never forget) and it sure has been a multifaceted experience. I'll post about various aspects I find interesting from time to time, but this blog is mostly a way of journaling for myself and share my experience with you friends, wherever you may be.

Just as a note, off the top of my head I recall journaling being praised throughout personal development and leadership literature as a way to step back and reflect, and if you actually observe your thoughts and feelings at the moment of writing (even as you write about feelings you had earlier in the day or whenever), you get pretty close to meditation which provides a host of mental, emotional and even physical benefits. Awesome. A personal observation is that writing structures my thoughts a lot, because sometimes I can write a whole page then I realize that heck!, this isn't really what I mean/ been feeling, etc., so I can stop, reflect and go deeper.

Ok, I won't start the blog with deep reflective posts and sensitive topics. I will mostly begin with "stocking" cool stuff I picked up on the net that's just sitting in my bookmarks (like sports videos etc.) and posting photos of recent excursions. This is also the reason for the name MU.Outside: life is so much better under the shade of a tree, on soft grass, clenched to a cliff or gliding down a wave face. This is fuel for the soul and I think being out in nature as much as possible helps us to be more free of all the constructs society imposes on us daily. The benefit is that when we "come back" to society, we can take that freedom with us and spread it.

Very stoked to be making a new track in the blogging world again, I hope you enjoy!