Maintaining and Increasing One's Range of Motion

If one could constantly maintain and increase one's range of motion (movement), quite obviously, one would never feel that they are in a deteriorating condition -- but rather have tangible validation that one is indeed getting better in an obvious and self-evident way. And if one can achieve that progress all one's life, there is very little more one needs to do.

If one can maintain that clarity of simplicity and purpose, all those conditioning exercises, rituals and theories, become quite unnecessary -- and those objectives can be achieved every day, with no extraordinary thought and effort -- and is simply the realization, that that is ultimately what one hopes to achieve.

However, people have a way of making the simple and easy very difficult and arduous, as though that gives the simple, more value -- rather than producing the confusion in the world. So as one reads the many articles written on fitness, one is likely to get farther from their objective than closer.

It is like asking, "How does this computer work?", when one merely wants to know, which button will turn it on -- while the overeager instructor, will duly recommend a four year course in computer science and instructions on how to apply for admission and obtain financial aid for the entire four years.

Most discussions on fitness immediately launch onto these many points that are simply a distraction from this simplicity of obvious purpose. What is the proper measure of fitness -- except as range of motion -- and not how much more one can do in a very limited range. That's how we identify the gifted and proficient in any field -- their range beyond what everybody else can do, and not that everybody is doing the exact same thing, but some are working harder or doing more, or faster.

That is true for the singer, dancer, athlete, writer, thinker, entrepreneur and inventor. The inventive, do that with any problem they encounter -- expand their range so that as many times as they have done the same thing, they have done each of them differently, and so it is a fresh experience, and not just a repetition of the same thing done over and over in exactly the same pattern of habit.

Naturally, people gifted in movement, would find a treadmill quickly boring, and so rather than being an aid to improvement, would dull their skills, sensitivity, and ability for fine-tuning an adjustment, and they would simply not return but rightfully find something interesting and challenging to do, that they can continue to grow with in their involvement.

That is the kind of conditioning that keeps one challenged and growing throughout one's life -- rather than in the traditional pattern of deteriorating all one's life as soon as they are no longer considered to be youths with lives yet to improve. Unfortunately, most people are conditioned to think they require somebody else to push them to improve further -- with inducements, grades and other awards, or they will lose interest and wither away.

One can then be convinced he needs the services of others to motivate them -- and while it may seem to work for a while, eventually, one has to be one's own motivator, or one increasingly gives this power to others, which is also the greatest benefit one hopes to get in their conditioning exercises -- for increasing self-mastery and understanding. Otherwise, if one is dependent on another for that motivation, when that person goes away, one is lost, and increasingly at the mercy of all the forces outside of oneself.

And so what one is doing in their conditioning, is finding out one's own limits, and moving beyond that a little bit more -- as a simple daily exercise, that eventually makes great achievements possible. It begins with that simple understanding -- and movement.