What is your daily routine and/or how do you practice self care?
For me the routine is just trying to do what I want to do as much as possible.
If I’m feeling keen to train then I train, if it’s work then I work. The biggest things I try to prioritize are the mornings douse, getting enough sleep,food and moving a bit each day. It’s a simple one but the only difficulty comes when I am maybe forcing myself to work too much or not being cognizant enough of my food or water intake as well as the quality of the food insomuch as it settles well with my body. I think for me it’s simply a “everything in moderation, even moderation” approach. — Jereme Sanders
Daily practice is the core of my tradition. I have a lot of things I need to attend to, so this will be more like a snapshot as I often rotate old/familiar exercises out so I can attend to newer practices or things that need more work. I typically work with 3 big formal practices per day, something for the mind, something for the breath/energy, and something for the breathing.
Practices for my mind at the moment involve between 45 and 90 minutes on meditation, the majority of this time will be on either a practice we call “Sit and Forget” (kind of like zen), or contemplation on seals from my tradition. Depending on the day, I will occasionally spend some of this time drilling certain minor practices that help to build certain qualities needed for the previously mentioned meditations.
For the breathing/energy practice I am following a precise practice of qi gong from my school, which I will do for 30 minutes per day, as well as 10 minutes or so per day of a practice called Xin Yi Dao Yin Fa, which regulates emotions and helps to gain subtle awareness of the major organs (heart, lungs, stomach/spleen, liver, kidneys).
My physical practice is most varied – at the moment I have been on a project to do 30 minutes of static postures every day for a year (finishes in April, so I’m almost there!) as my primary practice, to route out some of the more difficult to work with weak points of my structure and improve my grounding. On top of this, I give some sporadic time to practice of my Tai Chi form, Bagua circle walking, Ziranman drills, partner work in the classes I teach, some strength work with a log, and Dao Yin practices. Once I’m done with the static postures, I am going go to put a lot more focus on dynamic aspects of my practice to balance the year of being quite static, which I’m looking forward to.
Aside from these major practices, I also have daily connection and gratitude rituals that I attend to regularly, and other studies of various aspects of my tradition (chinese medicine, bazi, human map, five elements, yin/yang theory, feng shui and on the list goes). I give a lot of time to informal experimentation and play, seeing how I can integrate certain aspects of practice into my life such as listening & awareness drills as I’m out and about or socializing, or grounding, breathing and alignment as I walk to the shops, internal alchemy while I have to wait for things, playing around with circulation and projection outside of my formal practice and other things like this. It keeps my days very full, even when I don’t have so much on in the way of obvious work to do. — Craig Mallett
I love mornings. They are my most productive time of day; as a result, I embrace them, getting up between 4-5AM (yes, even on the weekends). I tend to the dogs, brush my teeth, and head out the door to run, bike, hike, or walk, depending on which day of the week it is. It’s my time to reflect, write articles in my head, and figure out where I want to focus my attention.
If it’s a run day, I stop at the park on the way home and practice some basic Parkour moves: rail balancing, wall runs, tree climbing, cat balancing… Once I’m finished, I head inside.
On the weekends, I do mobility work and ground work. On the weekdays, I shower, eat a bowl of oatmeal, and head to work for my movement practice. I spend about an hour being in my body, doing basic strength drills (on Tuesdays and Thursdays), or bodyweight movement. Sometimes it’s explorative, sometimes it’s more focused. I end with a few minutes of supine breathing, feeling my breath and my body against the floor. I find it easier to help other people be in their bodies if I have been in mine.
After movement practice, it’s time to write (or proof read and edit, depending on where I am in the writing process). I spend the next forty minutes to an hour working on writing projects until it’s time to prep for clients and begin working with actual people.
— Jenn Pilotti
Self care? Hahaha one must care about themselves in order to perform self care. I don’t really do anything that makes me better physically except jiu jitsu and it’s half getting better and half getting hurt. The only things I do for self improvement is read a lot more, and listen to audio books. I am on a different path now, I want to be healthy mentally, spiritually, and balanced within, rather than physically strong and fast. I will probably try to develop some kind of routine now though. It seems like something I should probably get on.
I don’t have a daily routine right now. I have really been enjoying life without it. After 12 years of ” ANY ONE ANY WHERE ANY TIME” I am happy to be no one, no where, with lots of time. I will fall back in line one day when it’s needed, but today, I fly by the seat of my pants, throw caution to the wind, and drive it like I stole it. I love my place on Earth, I love the people I spend my time with, and I appreciate the people who spend their time on me. Those are my daily practices, gratefulness, appreciation, and a sense of awe. Awe moments are pretty regular for me as they create something in me that I can not create myself. I can’t awe myself but other things can. Whether good or bad, feeling awe is good for me, and I like it. It’s also important to me that I spend time in nature, and spend time outside of my comfort zone. Other than that its work, and jiu jitsu. Both of which I love. Probably not the kind of thing you want to share with the group but it’s true. — Mike DuBois
I simply try to get in tune with my body. I check for trouble spots and try to understand them. This can last 10 min or 40min. If everything feels good, I try to push the system forward (develop deeper qualities of the system such as strength, speed or dig into skill work). I cycle maintenance and growth, as assessed by feeling. — Chris Ruffolo
