When it comes to personal development, there are four plates you have to keep spinning all the time: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Sometimes they are spinning slower, sometimes faster, but you have to keep them spinning.
Every day during my Morning Ritual, I try to work on every “plate”. I start with meditation, then a breathwork routine, and journaling. This mostly relates to my spiritual, emotional, and mental aspects of life. But then it’s time to get physical.
To activate my body now, I do the simplest bodywork routine for 10-15 minutes. It’s a mixture of calisthenics, yoga, and capoeira. Quick joint mobilization, squats, pushups, abs sit ups, a little bit of active stretching, and bridges. Each exercise no more than 10-20 reps, 10 secs or so if it’s static.
I used to have a 24kg kettlebell, which I would swing for 75-100 times or so, using Tim Ferris’ advice from his “The 4-Hour Body” book.
It could also be a 10-minute walk outside. All depending on how sore I am.
Sometimes I do “Knees Over Toes Guy Workout” (check this video summary on YouTube), which is great for the knees and also for the lower back.
Advice to my readers and students:
- Experiment – there is no right or wrong way of doing it; find your way.
- Enjoy – do it for fun
- Take it easy – nobody goes for 365 days a year perfect
- Catch a wave – when somebody says he went surfing, what he means is that probably he spent eight hours in the water, and caught 5-6 waves to ride for a few seconds. Most of the time you are carrying equipment, pedaling, crashing, but still we say “I went surfing”. Doing morning routine is like surfing, most of the time you’re pedaling, but once in a while you catch a wave. (Hat tip to Mestre Cueca for this analogy)