MENS SANA...

... in corpore sano.  I'm back in the gym.  Or rather, I've signed up in a new one, just five minutes from home, across the Los Angeles River in Atwater.

I have been getting lazy about my daily exercise, these past few months.  I'm still a member of our local gym down in Laguna Beach, but I have been going less frequently.  And when I do go, my routine has become something of a rote: a half hour on the elliptical walker, another half hour with a rather skimpy round of weights.  I have been skimping, too, on my alternate daily walks.  And then there was a two-month period, in October-November, when I was first traveling, in Europe--lots of walking there!--and then, back home, struggling with health problems for a full month.  By which time it was Halloween, Thanksgiving, family birthdays, Jesus's birthday, New Year's, Ellie's birthday--an endless round of celebrations with much rich food and drink...

So my poor old body had begun to sag a bit, with extra weight and a lack of exercise to prop it up with the needed strength.  Then I spotted--well, Ellie spotted--this new gym in Atwater and a few days later I stopped by and signed up for gym membership.  I also sprung for five sessions with a trainer, David, to help get me off my old bad habits and into new ones.  Having now completed four sessions with him, the body already feels much better.  There's a kind of glow and tingle in the muscles.  They feel a little tighter, more in control.  And the whole apparatus feels a tad less flabby than before.

David, a former hockey player, former model who appeared in magazine and television ads, tells me that he now works in the medical profession as a surgical assistant.  He clearly knows a lot about the anatomy of the human body: respecting my limitations as well as my potentials, he gives me a slow, thoughtful, full body workout in the hour I spend with him, and I leave in a not unpleasant state of physical exhaustion.  Naturally, having done so little strength work in recent months, I have been worried about over-doing things and doing myself harm, but so far all is well.  More than well.  I'm feeling fitter and more energetic than I have in a long time; and I'm actually looking forward to still better results in time.

The old Latin adage (see title, above) has it right.  The mind is healthy in a healthy body.  The balance, it seems to me, is good Buddhist practice too.  I notice that my attention sharpens and the cobwebs clear more easily.  That vague, persistent depression in response to the normal vicissitudes of life tends to dissipate before it has the chance to settle in, and I attach less readily to it.  Now, if I can get rid of some the extra weight I have been carrying around...