M.J. Quiocho
Member
Aloha & HowZit World Fitness Gang!!!
Wanted to share with all of you and get feedback from the email I recieved in regards to serveral questions and comments on "the-health-in-exercise."
The response is from a longtime friend and individual I worked with for several years.
"Gary" is a doctor of chiropratic-medicine. We worked in Rehab facility with M.Ds, Physical Therapist, Naturopathics, Massage Therapist, Accupuncturist.
My job was teaching progressive exercises to their patients/clients.
Oh, this artice if I can call it that, might take you 10-15 minutes to read through.
I do welcome all comments, criticizms, opinions, questions and whatever else one wishes to add.
Much Mahalo's (Thanks)!
mikey
EMAIL from Gary:
Hey Mike:
Sorry, it took me so long to give you feed back as per your email about the article you are writing (Exercise Technique: Understanding Health In Action-Observation of The Exerciser). It sounds like a good one. What follows is my two cents.
I hope this what you wanted. Let me know if this is helpful.
Gary.
Question #1:
What factor (s) determine what gives a person the “nature” of understanding their health?
Pre-answer:
In order to answer this question we need to define nature and understanding.
Nature: Is the essential qualities or characteristics by which something is recognized.
Understanding:The mental processes of a person who understands.
Understand:To know and comprehend the nature or meaning of something.
Answer #1:
A person develops a nature of understanding of their health through education and experience.
Question #2
Is his or her health from intellectual-thinking or instinctual-sensation and is this carried into the present-moment of exercise?
I divided this question into two questions:
Question #2 part 1:
Is his or her health from intellectual thinking or instinctual-sensation?
Pre-answer:
In order to answer this question we need to define health.
Health is elusive to define and ways of thinking about it have evolved over the years.
Three leading approaches include:
Medical model: Health is the absence of disease or infirmity (physical).
Holistic model: Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Wellness model: Health is the extent to which an individual or group is able to realize aspirations and satisfy needs, and to change or cope with
the environment.
We need to define instinctual and sensation:
Instinctual:Of, relating to, or derived from instinct.
Instinct: Inherited action patterns of responses or reactions to certain kinds of stimuli. Examples of instinctual action patterns can be observed in the behavior of animals, which perform various activities (sometimes complex) that are not based upon prior experience and do not depend on emotion or learning, such as reproduction, and feeding among insects. Sea turtles, hatched on a beach, automatically move toward the ocean, and honeybees communicate by dance the direction of a food source, all without formal instruction. Other examples include animal fighting, animal courtship behavior, internal escape functions, and building of nests.
Sensation:An unelaborated elementary awareness of stimulation. The five basic senses are seeing, hear, taste, touch (tactile), and smell.
Answer #2 part 1: If we use the medical model of health then health does not come from intellectual thinking or instinctual-sensation. Health is the sum total of all the involuntary life
sustaining processes inherent to the individual.
We do not use our intellectual thinking to keep the cardiovascular, digestive,
endocrine, excretory, immune, integumentary, muscular, nervous, reproductive, respiratory, and skeletal systems functioning properly. It is all automatic and self regulating (under the control of internal processes).
We do not use our instinctual-sensation to keep the body systems functioning properly. This is because man (humans) does not possess instincts. I know some would disagree with this statement and they usually refer to the human infant as having instincts.
For example: “Let us take first the case of the infant's sucking. It is sometimes absurdly stated that the newborn infant "seeks the breast," and this is held to be a wonderful proof of instinct. No doubt it would be if true, but unfortunately for the theory it is totally false, as every nurse and medical man can testify. Still, the child undoubtedly sucks without teaching, but this is one of those simple acts dependent upon organization, which cannot properly be termed instinct, any more than breathing or muscular motion. Any object of suitable size in the mouth of an infant excites the nerves and muscles so as to produce the act of suction, and when at a little later period, the will comes into play, the pleasurable sensations consequent on the act lead to its continuance.”
From: Contributions to the theory of natural selection. By Alfred Russel Wallace 1823-1913, New York: Macmillian and Co., 1871
Question #2 part 2:
If a person’s health did come from their intellectual thinking or instinctual-sensation, can this be carried into the present-moment of exercise?
Answer #2 part 2:
The answer is no because Health is the sum total of all the involuntary life sustaining processes inherent to the individual.
Important note: If we use the Holistic model of health then health would come from intellectual thinking. This is because happy thoughts (for example) make you happy (and therefore would make you more healthy according to the definition).
Question #3:
When we talk about health and exercise, can we fully recognize and truly appreciate our health?
Pre-answer:
In order to answer this question we need to define recognize and appreciate:
Recognize:To be aware of the significance of something.
Appreciate:a. To recognize and be grateful for; be thankful for.
b. To be fully or sensitively aware of; notice with discrimination responding or feeling readily and acutely; very keenly susceptible to stimuli.
Answer #3:
If we are using definition a. for appreciate and the definition for recognize, yes it is possible to recognize and appreciate our health. On a fully and truly scale it would depend on how you rate fully and truly.
I think this is more a question of being grateful for one’s health and life. Knowing that it is because of their health they are able to experience life and to realize their aspirations and satisfy their needs (which in our society is most likely wants). Notice some of this came from the definition of the Wellness model of health.
Question #4:
We may talk or read about human-health but can we fully experience
health?
Pre-answer:
In order to answer this question we need to define experience:
Experience:a. Is the act of living through an event or events.
b. Personal involvement in or observation of events as they occur.
c. All that has happened in one's life to date.
Answer #4:
If we use definition a. for experience, the answer is yes we can fully experience health.
If the question is changed to can we fully feel health.
The answer depends on what definition of health we are talking about (Medical, Holistic, or
Wellness). If we are referring to the medical model, the answer is no because how do you feel nothing (lack of disease or infirmity).
If we are referring to the Holistic or Wellness definitions, yes I think we can, because part of the
definitions refer to thinking and feeling. For example: “mental and social well-being” and
“able to realize aspirations” these require an individual’s thinking and values system to evaluate.
Comment #1:
Many people who exercise, no matter what kind operate on half of their innate
senses.
Pre-reply:
Just for our information the definition of innate is:
Something not established by conditioning or learning that is essential to the nature, character, or constitution of the person.
Reply:
Considering that the innate senses are seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling (tactile touch), and smelling,
I think most people will utilize feeling (feeling the resistance of the weight) and seeing (looking at
their reflection in the mirror) during exercise.
Hearing is utilized if the exerciser is listening to instructions or listening to music to pump them
selves up to get through the exercise.
Remembering how badly a few of the people at the gym smelled, the exerciser could be utilizing the
sense of smell.
Comment #2:
The human senses often used are sight and sound.
Reply:
For reply see reply to comment #1.
Comment #3:
To be "humanly-healthy" is to be aware and physically sensitive to its reality and total being during exercise and after.
Reply:
That is a good connotative definition.
Comment #4:
All exercise methods to be actually healthy involves innate/inborn physical
capacity and understanding capabilties that, which makes "well-trained
techiques/performance."
Reply:
I agree.
Some thoughts of my own:
Mind-body Exercise:
If I understand you correctly (from our conversations about exercising for health) I think exercising for health could be referred to as Mind-body exercise and would require at lease seven principles.
Mind-body exercise is a physical exercise that is performed with a mental focus that utilizes seven principles.
The principles are: concentration, control, center, breath, fluidity, precision, and isolation. Definitions of the seven principles are:
Concentration:The mind must be alert and control every movement. Concentration connects the mind with the body. The person focuses on the muscles performing the movement and the muscles facilitating the movement by stabilizing the body parts required to remain immobile.
Control: Performing relevant muscular contractions and relaxations achieving a smooth and relaxed set of movements.
Center: The center is the area of the body where the movement begins (similar to the center or core in yoga, tai chi, pilates, martial arts, etc.).
Breath: Coordinate the breath with the exercise to establish rhythm and energy flow.
Fluidity: Creating movements that flow easily.
Precision: Controlling muscle contractions to create precise movements.
Isolation: Movement consist of isolated muscles or muscle groups working together in precise and controlled ways to produce the whole.
Exercise, which does not involve the mind, is wasted (excluding rehabilitation type exercises). The emphasis of mind-body exercise is on the development of a mind and body that are healthy because they work together, and through this working together the objective is achieving a healthier life.
Some Related Stuff:
Instinct or programmed patterns in exercise:
As stated above under question #2, I think instinct in man is non-existent. However, I do think an exercise can be programmed into a person’s nervous system to where the exercise feels natural. The more senses involved can help anchor the exercise into the nervous system creating a in the zone experience when performing the exercise. This programming would require education from someone who can teach it, a student who is teachable, Desire on part of the student to learn and repetition.
Understanding:
Every kind of understanding involves knowledge. Understanding may be regarded as a form of knowledge, but it's much more than just simple knowledge. For instance, someone may know what all the parts of a computer are, monitor, hard drive, motherboard, chips, resistors, etc, but this doesn't mean he understands how the parts work. In terms of information theory, knowledge may be regarded as a sequence of bits of information, whereas understanding requires these bits to be structured in a useful way.
Knowledge is easier to apply once it is understood. For instance, we may know all about a historic period such as the French Revolution in terms of the dates and locations of important events. But until we understand the reasons for these events, we cannot apply this knowledge toward the betterment of our society.
How to change behavior:
By changing the meaning we give something, we immediately change our emotions about it.
The best way to change the meaning we give something is to change our mental focus. Mental focus is controlled by the questions we ask ourselves. By changing the quality of the questions we ask yourselves we will change our mental focus and therefore, change our behavior.
Ask a different question, and we change our mental focus. For instance, instead of asking “why can't I lose weight?” which will only produce a lousy answer and a depressing mental state, I might ask: “how can I appreciate even more my great health and how can I serve my body, vitality and energy in this moment?”
This question will lead to a better answer and an empowering mental state.
Mikey, I'm glad to see that you are coming out of your "cave" (retirement) and bringing back to the community your teachings, writings and Aloha to those who genuinely need the help with their present health and understanding in recognizing as you state: "their health in exercise rather than exercising for good health...Why wait for it!"
Let me know if you need any assitance with your article(s).
Thank you for sharing this and talk story soon!
Gary
Wanted to share with all of you and get feedback from the email I recieved in regards to serveral questions and comments on "the-health-in-exercise."
The response is from a longtime friend and individual I worked with for several years.
"Gary" is a doctor of chiropratic-medicine. We worked in Rehab facility with M.Ds, Physical Therapist, Naturopathics, Massage Therapist, Accupuncturist.
My job was teaching progressive exercises to their patients/clients.
Oh, this artice if I can call it that, might take you 10-15 minutes to read through.
I do welcome all comments, criticizms, opinions, questions and whatever else one wishes to add.
Much Mahalo's (Thanks)!
mikey
EMAIL from Gary:
Hey Mike:
Sorry, it took me so long to give you feed back as per your email about the article you are writing (Exercise Technique: Understanding Health In Action-Observation of The Exerciser). It sounds like a good one. What follows is my two cents.
I hope this what you wanted. Let me know if this is helpful.
Gary.
Question #1:
What factor (s) determine what gives a person the “nature” of understanding their health?
Pre-answer:
In order to answer this question we need to define nature and understanding.
Nature: Is the essential qualities or characteristics by which something is recognized.
Understanding:The mental processes of a person who understands.
Understand:To know and comprehend the nature or meaning of something.
Answer #1:
A person develops a nature of understanding of their health through education and experience.
Question #2
Is his or her health from intellectual-thinking or instinctual-sensation and is this carried into the present-moment of exercise?
I divided this question into two questions:
Question #2 part 1:
Is his or her health from intellectual thinking or instinctual-sensation?
Pre-answer:
In order to answer this question we need to define health.
Health is elusive to define and ways of thinking about it have evolved over the years.
Three leading approaches include:
Medical model: Health is the absence of disease or infirmity (physical).
Holistic model: Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Wellness model: Health is the extent to which an individual or group is able to realize aspirations and satisfy needs, and to change or cope with
the environment.
We need to define instinctual and sensation:
Instinctual:Of, relating to, or derived from instinct.
Instinct: Inherited action patterns of responses or reactions to certain kinds of stimuli. Examples of instinctual action patterns can be observed in the behavior of animals, which perform various activities (sometimes complex) that are not based upon prior experience and do not depend on emotion or learning, such as reproduction, and feeding among insects. Sea turtles, hatched on a beach, automatically move toward the ocean, and honeybees communicate by dance the direction of a food source, all without formal instruction. Other examples include animal fighting, animal courtship behavior, internal escape functions, and building of nests.
Sensation:An unelaborated elementary awareness of stimulation. The five basic senses are seeing, hear, taste, touch (tactile), and smell.
Answer #2 part 1: If we use the medical model of health then health does not come from intellectual thinking or instinctual-sensation. Health is the sum total of all the involuntary life
sustaining processes inherent to the individual.
We do not use our intellectual thinking to keep the cardiovascular, digestive,
endocrine, excretory, immune, integumentary, muscular, nervous, reproductive, respiratory, and skeletal systems functioning properly. It is all automatic and self regulating (under the control of internal processes).
We do not use our instinctual-sensation to keep the body systems functioning properly. This is because man (humans) does not possess instincts. I know some would disagree with this statement and they usually refer to the human infant as having instincts.
For example: “Let us take first the case of the infant's sucking. It is sometimes absurdly stated that the newborn infant "seeks the breast," and this is held to be a wonderful proof of instinct. No doubt it would be if true, but unfortunately for the theory it is totally false, as every nurse and medical man can testify. Still, the child undoubtedly sucks without teaching, but this is one of those simple acts dependent upon organization, which cannot properly be termed instinct, any more than breathing or muscular motion. Any object of suitable size in the mouth of an infant excites the nerves and muscles so as to produce the act of suction, and when at a little later period, the will comes into play, the pleasurable sensations consequent on the act lead to its continuance.”
From: Contributions to the theory of natural selection. By Alfred Russel Wallace 1823-1913, New York: Macmillian and Co., 1871
Question #2 part 2:
If a person’s health did come from their intellectual thinking or instinctual-sensation, can this be carried into the present-moment of exercise?
Answer #2 part 2:
The answer is no because Health is the sum total of all the involuntary life sustaining processes inherent to the individual.
Important note: If we use the Holistic model of health then health would come from intellectual thinking. This is because happy thoughts (for example) make you happy (and therefore would make you more healthy according to the definition).
Question #3:
When we talk about health and exercise, can we fully recognize and truly appreciate our health?
Pre-answer:
In order to answer this question we need to define recognize and appreciate:
Recognize:To be aware of the significance of something.
Appreciate:a. To recognize and be grateful for; be thankful for.
b. To be fully or sensitively aware of; notice with discrimination responding or feeling readily and acutely; very keenly susceptible to stimuli.
Answer #3:
If we are using definition a. for appreciate and the definition for recognize, yes it is possible to recognize and appreciate our health. On a fully and truly scale it would depend on how you rate fully and truly.
I think this is more a question of being grateful for one’s health and life. Knowing that it is because of their health they are able to experience life and to realize their aspirations and satisfy their needs (which in our society is most likely wants). Notice some of this came from the definition of the Wellness model of health.
Question #4:
We may talk or read about human-health but can we fully experience
health?
Pre-answer:
In order to answer this question we need to define experience:
Experience:a. Is the act of living through an event or events.
b. Personal involvement in or observation of events as they occur.
c. All that has happened in one's life to date.
Answer #4:
If we use definition a. for experience, the answer is yes we can fully experience health.
If the question is changed to can we fully feel health.
The answer depends on what definition of health we are talking about (Medical, Holistic, or
Wellness). If we are referring to the medical model, the answer is no because how do you feel nothing (lack of disease or infirmity).
If we are referring to the Holistic or Wellness definitions, yes I think we can, because part of the
definitions refer to thinking and feeling. For example: “mental and social well-being” and
“able to realize aspirations” these require an individual’s thinking and values system to evaluate.
Comment #1:
Many people who exercise, no matter what kind operate on half of their innate
senses.
Pre-reply:
Just for our information the definition of innate is:
Something not established by conditioning or learning that is essential to the nature, character, or constitution of the person.
Reply:
Considering that the innate senses are seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling (tactile touch), and smelling,
I think most people will utilize feeling (feeling the resistance of the weight) and seeing (looking at
their reflection in the mirror) during exercise.
Hearing is utilized if the exerciser is listening to instructions or listening to music to pump them
selves up to get through the exercise.
Remembering how badly a few of the people at the gym smelled, the exerciser could be utilizing the
sense of smell.
Comment #2:
The human senses often used are sight and sound.
Reply:
For reply see reply to comment #1.
Comment #3:
To be "humanly-healthy" is to be aware and physically sensitive to its reality and total being during exercise and after.
Reply:
That is a good connotative definition.
Comment #4:
All exercise methods to be actually healthy involves innate/inborn physical
capacity and understanding capabilties that, which makes "well-trained
techiques/performance."
Reply:
I agree.
Some thoughts of my own:
Mind-body Exercise:
If I understand you correctly (from our conversations about exercising for health) I think exercising for health could be referred to as Mind-body exercise and would require at lease seven principles.
Mind-body exercise is a physical exercise that is performed with a mental focus that utilizes seven principles.
The principles are: concentration, control, center, breath, fluidity, precision, and isolation. Definitions of the seven principles are:
Concentration:The mind must be alert and control every movement. Concentration connects the mind with the body. The person focuses on the muscles performing the movement and the muscles facilitating the movement by stabilizing the body parts required to remain immobile.
Control: Performing relevant muscular contractions and relaxations achieving a smooth and relaxed set of movements.
Center: The center is the area of the body where the movement begins (similar to the center or core in yoga, tai chi, pilates, martial arts, etc.).
Breath: Coordinate the breath with the exercise to establish rhythm and energy flow.
Fluidity: Creating movements that flow easily.
Precision: Controlling muscle contractions to create precise movements.
Isolation: Movement consist of isolated muscles or muscle groups working together in precise and controlled ways to produce the whole.
Exercise, which does not involve the mind, is wasted (excluding rehabilitation type exercises). The emphasis of mind-body exercise is on the development of a mind and body that are healthy because they work together, and through this working together the objective is achieving a healthier life.
Some Related Stuff:
Instinct or programmed patterns in exercise:
As stated above under question #2, I think instinct in man is non-existent. However, I do think an exercise can be programmed into a person’s nervous system to where the exercise feels natural. The more senses involved can help anchor the exercise into the nervous system creating a in the zone experience when performing the exercise. This programming would require education from someone who can teach it, a student who is teachable, Desire on part of the student to learn and repetition.
Understanding:
Every kind of understanding involves knowledge. Understanding may be regarded as a form of knowledge, but it's much more than just simple knowledge. For instance, someone may know what all the parts of a computer are, monitor, hard drive, motherboard, chips, resistors, etc, but this doesn't mean he understands how the parts work. In terms of information theory, knowledge may be regarded as a sequence of bits of information, whereas understanding requires these bits to be structured in a useful way.
Knowledge is easier to apply once it is understood. For instance, we may know all about a historic period such as the French Revolution in terms of the dates and locations of important events. But until we understand the reasons for these events, we cannot apply this knowledge toward the betterment of our society.
How to change behavior:
By changing the meaning we give something, we immediately change our emotions about it.
The best way to change the meaning we give something is to change our mental focus. Mental focus is controlled by the questions we ask ourselves. By changing the quality of the questions we ask yourselves we will change our mental focus and therefore, change our behavior.
Ask a different question, and we change our mental focus. For instance, instead of asking “why can't I lose weight?” which will only produce a lousy answer and a depressing mental state, I might ask: “how can I appreciate even more my great health and how can I serve my body, vitality and energy in this moment?”
This question will lead to a better answer and an empowering mental state.
Mikey, I'm glad to see that you are coming out of your "cave" (retirement) and bringing back to the community your teachings, writings and Aloha to those who genuinely need the help with their present health and understanding in recognizing as you state: "their health in exercise rather than exercising for good health...Why wait for it!"
Let me know if you need any assitance with your article(s).
Thank you for sharing this and talk story soon!
Gary