Kickbike & Kettlebell

Dance Threshold : Where are those feet going?

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:54:33 PST

James Brown

My online catalogue of Urban Soul Line Dances numbers 83. That's the number of video posts I've collected of various preferred choreographies. It's my selection of dances I've really liked.

The best of the YouTube bunch.

At the moment I know and practice eight dances . So while that may suggest I have my work cut out, given that I've been doing this for such a short time -- only this year -- I am very pleased with my ability to nail the routines.

Some dances take longer than others to learn especially as I have to watch the video of each of them over and over again -- breaking down each move to see how it is done -- to decipher the steps.

Where are those feet going? I take notes. Pause the video. Replay in slow motion. Over and over again. Practice what I think I know and then review the video ... over and over again.

My problem is that every time I'm learning one dance there are many others I just haveta learn as well. In fact, there are maybe...um...83 of them. (And that's only today. Next week there'll be more!) I can't get enough of this stuff.

Here we have a man -- moi -- who has never ever danced before -- playing at being Fred Astaire via James Brown. And I'm doing it so late in my tippy toe life.

I owe this to Zydeco. That got my ass moving 'cause Zydeco is such a full on dance scene. And I would not have got into Zydeco without being drawn to Louisiana and New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (2005). Piqued, I got addicted to the community radio station WWOZ (online, in exile and drowned) which gave me a ready window into Louisiana musical culture. It resourced me.

From there I was drawn to Cajun music...before settling on Zydeco as my groove.

Now under the stimulus of Urban Soul Line Dancing I've replenished my passion for glorious Funk and Southern Soul. I'm now obsessed with the soul music scene to the north in cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore where so much great choreography is being generated.

...and I've learnt to respect Hip Hop...and dance it!

It's been a fantastic ride.

I reckon that en route I may have actually earnt myself some soul -- inasmuch as a white ass like mine can soul up.

Now when I look at country line dancers dancing or the aficionados of line dancing in Asia -- such as the boot scooters in Malaysia , Singapore and China -- I judge them harshly for dancing militarily: stiff and regimented as though each step is drill.

Wrong. After watching so many hours of Urban Soul line dance danced by many different Afro American groups I rule that it aint the move but the motion that matters. It's another culture altogether. It's not dancin' so much as groovin' -- going organic with the music. It's about being connected to the floor not firing feet at it like popcorn on a hotplate.

Since most line dancers are women, 'motion' in soul is ruled by the hips. Many choreographies explore the pelvis as a major means to enrich the routine. Like Polynesian and Belly dance the posterior is put out there as a primary language of the dance. It' sexy and sassy but it's still so very far removed from standard line dance routines.

Soul line dancing is a sort of matriarchal embrace that so often runs as counterpoint to the masculinity of the songs' lyrics. Dancing soul is an odd play out of gender. That's perhaps why so few dancers are male. It exposes you to a certain level of vulnerability on the dance floor if you want to dance it like it asks. There's no ruling over a partner -- you don't get to lead the female. It's democratic: all dancers are equal on the floor.

Ironically (but then maybe it's not so ironic) many soul line dancers are overweight. You get these big bodied people dancing -- but dancing superbly as they notch up the exercise. And they look great -- liquid motion.

After watching so many line dances on video I get enamoured with flesh moving. It's mesmerising:the way the feet move and then the human body follows in sync with wonderful music. Thats' the draw card -- the moving body. Feet and the steps that feet do are tools to that end.

And it's flesh in sync: many people dancing with one another, turning, sliding, shuffling and dipping together to the same beat.

Really I gotta say that 'ballroom dancing' in relation to human culture is a bit of a 20th century aberration as most of our existence has been governed by dancing in a line.

That all this is done in 4x4 time within the confines of a Rand B template using a range of moves to get you about standing upright without requiring you to leap up or meet the floor...It's another magical world altogether when you are stepping.

Body by Science: can mine measure up?

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:16:43 PST

It is ironic that given my age and condition -- over 60 and with a chronic illness -- my short sharp bursts of full on intense exercise exertion don't necessarily extend me as much as I'd hoped.

I'm too 'fit' for my own good perhaps?

...or I'm stifled by a limit to how far my musculature and breathing will serve me.

Yesterday, I had to get to round six among eight before I was beginning to gasp for reserves. What can I do to challenge myself more so that I am struggling earlier?

This was boxing so I have limited options I can use to up the intensity. I can only punch harder and faster.

The other thing is that I don't do the euphemistic 'warm-up' as I am active before hand and I don't want to detract from the session itself. I've wondered about this warm-up business. Its' not stretching as that is now considered passe.

It's muscular/skeletal saute-ing I guess. But to what effect? Injury prevention? Is that it? But I don 't suffer from injury. In Tabata and Interval Training you alternate intense stress with relaxation/inactivity.

So that the systems aren't over taxed? But that's the point isn't it: to engineer a sharp, quick rise in stress?

The problem is that with High Intensity Interval Training like this the research isn't quite consolidated. The parameters seem to me to be pot shots rather than absolute rulings. A researched option is the so called "Little" method.(This is aligned to the Body by Science perspective)

An alternative regimen based on a 2009 study^[4] uses 60 seconds of intense exercise (at 95% of VO₂max) followed by 75 seconds of rest, repeated for 8–12 cycles. Subjects using this method trained 3 times per week, and obtained gains similar to what would be expected from subjects who did steady state (50–70% VO₂max) training for five times per week. While still a demanding form of training, this exercise protocol could be used by the general public with nothing more than an average exercise bike.

My problem is that while I trained in Physiology in the 1980s, research is now so complex and cellular that I'm a bit befuddled by the terminology. However, Body by Science is a useful anchor in all this and I am keen to re-read this book and study it more carefully.

So me, I'm an experiment...

Doug McGuff, MD (co-author with John Little of the book Body By Science) speaks about failed fitness attempts and common thinking errors we all make in assessing authority in exercise.

Line dancin' deep hip hop...Dancin' Drake - The Motto

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:01:52 PST

Drake - The Motto ft. Lil Wayne is way too deep Hip Hop for me. But if you put aside all that rhyming and in-your-face stuff you get a unique musical experience. Delete the crudity of the lyrics (although I relate to the street cred POV as the lyrics are also very interesting and poetic despite the misogynistic theme) and settle for the instrumental version ...

Well, there's new possibilities....

REE-SYN-MI DANCERS do a totally awesome soul line dance choreography to this song -- steps that I am currently learning. That's the great joy of being Urban Soul Line Dance engaged -- there's this rich stream of creative choreography emanating from any number of Afro American community dance sessions.

You have to work a tad hard to dance these dances but this one is, for me, pure Zen.

Music and moves shift your into another groove.

It's not about watching. It's about doing, about dancing the dance.

This is also Hip Hop where you don't have to stand on your head to dance it.

[TIP:Turn your volume down as the audio sucks.]

Kickbike Tabata : visit Utopia

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:01:15 PST

Izumi Tabata

If you Google "Kickbike Tabata" you'll get this blog wall to wall. I guess I occupy a training niche.

Ironically I've never done Tabata style exertions on a kickbike and I was thinking that maybe my one option while on board would be to simply add a few interval sprints to my scoots. Say, 500 metres to one kilometre in length.

But my Tabata sweats on the kettlebells have caused my tummy navel based hernia to pop up and that presented a complication I hadn't planned on. It will pop back in soon enough but I don't want to give it a further shove.

So lifting is deferred for the time being as I searched for low-stress-on -the -abdomen work outs.

Thus: kickbiking tabata.

There are a few plusses with kickbike mounted Tabata.

The scoot out is a warm up. You can scoot for as long as you want to heat up the old bod until you get to a road you want to burn rubber on.
Select a road that's straight and low on or without traffic. No potholes but smooth asphalt. Lose concentration (and you will as your tire) and you could come a cropper at speed if other wild card factors are in the mix.
Plug the mp3 player into your ear and switch to your preferred Tabata music. Music is essential I reckon.It's the auto pilot coach in your head.
Obey the 20:10 seconds protocol (or newbie version of 10 or 15 : 20 or 15 --see below) for 8 interval sprints.
Die.
Scoot home.

You know you are doing right if you do die. That's the zone to aspire to: Purgatory. But you get to visit Physiological Utopia with the whole body. No system gets to slouch.

I wonder if I can integrate this Tabata into a longer scoot: whether that's worthwhile or ill advised? Cyclists interval train as a standard but the sprints are a much longer distance. In the gym, the exercise bike is used to the same ends.

Kickbiking you don't have a free hand to check your pulse. (Maybe a heart rate monitor is in order for moi to be on the safe side?)

But I do so much look forward to these sessions because I know they will be over and done with sooner rather than later. And like a fond memory they will live with me for 'acoupla days'. The anguish just before the first burst takes me back to them ole shine school days 'on the blocks' waiting for the starter's gun.

I used to run middle distance track. I wasn't much good but loved the business of training. I'd run for long distances along this coastline of Port Philip Bay and for titillation used the steep paths climbing from the beach to the ridge top as excuses to sprint -- you know, sort of vertically. I thought I was doing my own version of a Percy Cerutty sand hill climb. Ironically I later nursed the great proponent of Interval Training, Franz Stampfl after the accident that sentenced him to quadriplegia. Cerutty and Stampfl were great rivals. But I've never done much in way of Interval being hooked on LSD -- Long Slow Distance.

And when you die -- soon enough -- you know you're alive.

The Tabata Protocol
Experienced Exercisers
8 sets x 20 seconds work + 10 seconds rest
Beginners
8 sets x 10 seconds work + 20 seconds rest
Unfit Beginners
4 sets x 10 seconds work + 20 seconds rest
1 minute rest
4 sets x 10 seconds work + 20 seconds rest
Or
4 sets x 10 seconds work + 20 seconds rest

EastSide Strength Training:Tabata Coaching

Contrary to all expectations I did it: went the max to discover Dave's first Law of Motion.

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 05:16:22 PST

I thought that since I was so stiff and clumsy such that I could hardly make breakfast -- I spilt it all over the counter

...it ran down the side and pooled on the floor. A yogurt/blueberry larva (chilled) flow. [Imagine swearing].

-- that doing the VOMax thing a few hours after waking was not on at all.

I stood there waiting for the count down...and I was scared. What am I thinking of doing? Those few seconds seemed endless because you wonder, "what's gonna happen at one?"

Welcome to Tabata! 3...2...1...Go! [Imagine some rapping hip hop]

But with the music and the fact that it's all an explosion of effort and adrenalin I completed the 20_10_8! Amazing. One massive burst from hell inside me. Gasping for air.

Then I went back to bed...

But later, in the afternoon -- I was still stiff but because I had done the Tabata earlier (I was less stiff so ) I thought I'd do a Soul Line Dance session.

Despite that physical burden I found I could still do it and be more into the music rather than the mechanics. I grooved on like one very cool dude.

My head was Fibro fogged so no new steps a'learning was possible -- but I did realise that dancing outback under the veranda with the surround sound substance of an mp3 player connected to my ears I could move to another physiological space....and do much much more than I either expected or (given the stiffness and soreness) initially preferred.

Music therapy.

I'm on one helluva discovery here with the music/HIIT combo.

Forget Isaac Newton: this is Dave Riley's First Law of Motion.

Thinking aloud: my kickbiking options: more exercising and what? Less pleasure?

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 08:02:14 PST

Since I was reviewing my kickbiking options I too my quest to the Yahoo kickbiking egroup and mused publicly about my thoughts.

When I began scootering my primary interest was that here was a device that, despite my stiffness and pain, was a means to get about. Easy hop on: hop off. Walk along side if you are tuckered out.

Then I started logging the distances, using it as a primary means of transport and in effect anchoring a lot of my activity atop its running board.

It has been a great journey and en route I've exercised more and built up my physical confidence because of this two wheeled no chain no gears bike.

Chains, peddles and gears are for whimps! Right?

But since I now have a greater hold on what I want to do in way of 'exercise' I was wondering what folk here do to make the best physical use of their kickbikes?

Long Slow Distance anyone? Interval Training?

I doubt that you can get much of an interval burn from a kickbike as it takes so long to speed up and once there relative to your own strength and the conditions (weather, terrain,road surface, etc) it is hard to advance quickly up to another level...as you tend to coast.

I could be wrong but you may have to be an athlete to interval train on a kickbike -- like the Danes here.

But it seems to me that kickbiking lends itself to LONG SLOW DISTANCE with the advantages that the main drawback of LSD -- the pounding you put your limbs under -- is massively reduced.

If we look at some LSD protocols we are really talking within the easy access kickbike 'zone'. But I suspect there is probably an optimum distance from which you could garner the most efficient results from kickbiking. I'm sure the team trainers and competitors may know this. Sure you could go for broke and try to do more rather than less miles/kilometres each week but that may not necessarily improve your competition chances.

Peter Hummers wrote:

But now on the footbike I just do what I feel like each day (of course the idea of competition I left long ago) with the goal of feeling good and keeping my weight down.

Of course. That's my zone too. But it seems to me that to notch it up a tad requires a fair degree of athleticism given that the way you need to throw your body and extend it is very demanding.

With a bike it's a straightforward structural option -- you can sprint or peddle for ever. That's not so easy on a kickbike as forever will take so much longer and sprinting isn't so easy to turn on. I see the Danish team currently in training doing 250 metre sprints on the Velodrome.

As I point out here, I kickbike for pleasure and never seek pain but I wanted to demand a bit more of the old bod to lose some weight as I've reached a plateau -- although exercise is not a good way to lose weight.

Do I go farther or do I go faster, albeit in intervals? Fartleking perhaps.

I cut my teeth/split my blisters on seventies and eighties style jogging and didn't come to the scooter bizo with a extended cycling CV. So my head is in that jogging place: long and slow.

But while I could sprint it I find that it is so hard to generate momentum as my body -- my body, the one I've got/stuck with -- simply won't perform well enough to drive the scooter significantly faster. I do the stretch forward and the pull through with the scoot with the foot but I'm not really going to pass that threshold I aspire to. I do maybe 20-30-40 km a week.

So I suspect that where I'm failing to thrive is in the amount of effort I'm investing in the LSD relative to my pulse rate/cardio demand.

This brings me back to why I scoot because I did it not only for generic exercise and transport reasons, but also for the fact that scootering is this great movement -- Crouching Tiger -- it's a very Zen move.

Tai Chi on wheels.

But off the scooter I'm experimenting with Interval Training -- I also box and lift kettlebells (been doing that for years) -- and find it really , um, refreshing. Shorter more demanding sessions.

And, in a perverse way, I'm getting more pleasure out of that approach now than I did with the old routines I was trying to maintain. I now 'exercise' intensely every second day for a rather short period -- 4-5 minutes. It hurts. I'm gasping for air and life but hey I know it will end after each short interval.

So I got to thinking: maybe I can play with my kickbiking habits.

Ironically, here I am upping this other stuff but I'm doing it without much problem BECAUSE the base line core of my habit is rooted to the kickbike. It simmers away year in year out doing the internal good stuff.

Answering my own question:

Could you give us a training schedule?If you want to be a fast on the scooter you have to kick fast. It's so simple! Interval training is very good: 10 x 2 km at an average speed of 30 km/h with 2 minute rest is a typical session for a fit athlete. Long aerobic rides are very important, such as 40-70 km with an average speed of 20-25 km/h. Most people tolerate no more than two hard Kickbike workouts or races within one week. It is important to have recovery days in between and do some other sports like running or swimming, for instance. Of course you can do some easy kicking on your easy days, too.

Going the distance on a kickbike

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:35:09 PST

The longest route I do on the kickbike is just over 14 km. I call it Swan Lake because it traverses the edge of a lake that often has black swans on it.

I'm thinking that if I try to do this route twice per week -- I have other routes I take on my morning kick -- maybe I can up my exercise-ing of Long Slow Distance to partner my HIIT/Tabata experiments.

I don't usually demand anything much from my kickbiking except that I get out there early -- often at dawn -- and kick as far as I feel like going.

Fortunately -- or unfortunately -- but very pleasantly, at the far end of my Swan Lake kick, I usually walk the tidal flats and indulge in some communing with Nature. So I break my journey.

It's so beautiful I can't help myself.

You can also do interval training on a kickbike...but I suspect you need to be an athlete to do it. I'm not.

So maybe, methinks, I can bargain with my options and :

push hard out for the 7 km
do my commune and wade about in the shallows
hop back on the scooter and push hard back home for the last leg of 7 km.

and see what I may benefit.

Tabata Diary: Boxing (plus squats)

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:52:08 PST

Another day, another sweat.

Two days from my last Tabata indulgence -- that's "Tabata' not 'Chabata' (a delicious Italian bread made from Durum Wheat ) -- I leaped at the punching bag and pounded it for 6 sets then got bored in the next 10 seconds ... so I squatted up and down with vigor for the remaining two sets in the session.

I can feel my exertions in my shoulders now -- 8 hours later -- but at the time , aside from the urgent need for air and an enveloping muscle weakness, I was missing the feel of a darn good burn.

Can I go faster and harder or am I proscribed by age? Or am I: just a weakling?

The more I read the literature on the Tabata/HIIT stuff -- gilded by so much promise and fitness hype -- the more confused I am about its logic.

I mean does it/will it deliver as suggested...?

The associated problem is that doing it correctly isn't an easy call as the level of exertion may be beyond me. So while I'm doing HIIT -- in a fashion -- I'm not really doing powered on Tabata. Is that a problem methinks? My main interest is to just do it -- as best I can -- and see what gives. There may indeed be a threshold that is beyond my powers and aptitude. So long as I'm not gonna do myself damage I think I'll persist because the exercise raises more prospects for me in the light of such tomes as Body by Science -- which I've just read. I've also just read The Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution which I thought so hyped for just a one idea notion: slow. Maybe the science is all good. I'll see but enroute make my own adaptions.

For my body it's too early to pull up the stats...and make a ruling.

I nonetheless love this Tabata stuff.

Love it. Tabata and the focus offered by High Intensity Interval Training.

Going the full max plus is so invigorating. I feel so much more alive after each routine than I do beforehand. I'm in more pain but then, compared to my usual pain-ness, any change is a holiday. In that sense I'm experiencing a new level of body awareness, a greater organic thingness formatted by the fact that I have to go the limit...and ask mu muscles to accompany me.

That I can do this and know that it will only last for a few minutes -- in 20 second grabs -- breeds confidence.

I will not die. I can do it.

It's the controlled nature that I appreciate. I can be confident that the whole thing is a set routine that supposedly has results -- measurable results.

But if it doesn't and Tabata doesn't deliver on all of its promises -- my problem is that I may like it so much that I'll continue Tabata-ing regardless.

Salading it in Summer!

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:14:09 PST

Maybe the weather has been on my side (salad), but the main reason I built my over bearing shade-generating trellis seems to be fulfilled: it's late January and I'm harvesting salad greens!

The shade isn't enough as it is remarkable how much shade you need to 'protect' greens from burning or bolting. While I cannot insulate them from humidity -- underneath the structure, under the New Guinea Bean/Cucuzzi, Chokoes and sundry climbers aloft, I'm growing and harvesting chicory, matsuma and arugula (rocket).

Lunchtime -- my salad time -- is thrilling. Culinary chomping.

Growing salad vegetables -- green leafy things -- is the absolute main reason why you need to have a garden. Tragically, in the sub tropics just at the time of year when you want to munch more on foliage, your plants will usually fail to thrive or sabotage your culinary plans by seeding.

Working against that imposition of Mother Nature has been my quest. Promoting unnatural green habits has been my marker...

I'm also generating dandelions but they aren't shaded and pay the price. Their leaves burn when they aren't wilting in the Summer sun.

Pity as I do like a good dandelion leaf. My salading is a weedful mix and texture and taste are exotic. In comparison to my preferred greens your main stream cos lettuce is tasteless.

Elsewhere -- out there under the Summer sun -- I'm growing and harvesting capsicums to good effect. They are a bit dry as I have had a lot of trouble keeping water up to them and it has been dry.

The crows are sampling my tomatoes before I can get to them but my garden is egg plant self sufficient.

I haven't as yet needed to fall back on my reserve greens for salading: sweet potato or chocko leaves, Ceylon spinach (yuk!) and water spinach. They aren't my favorites. I don't hold to the adage that just because you can grow it you have to eat it.

Tabata Diary: Kettlebells

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:32:37 PST

...and I'm still shaking. given that I'm not very well today I thought I'd be challenged to complete the Tabata routine. But with my trusty hip hop Tabata music every thing was as it should be. I found myself yearning for an earlier and greater burn.

How sick is that?

I did 8 separate sets using different weights, lifts and swings with the Kettlebells. Maybe I need to stick to only the one thing/the one lift or swing.... A bit boring perhaps but I'd create 'more pain'...and tragically I feel that I'm not sore enough.

Not sore enough! Huh!

Although I'm invigorated -- I guess my problem is that in my perverse way I'm fitter than I should be.

Doing this -- lifting and swinging weights quickly and frequently -- can be dangerous so I'm swinging and lifting on the grass.

My logistical problem is where to wear my mp3 player as my exertions pull it hither and yon. You see I have it ear plugged for now and seemingly to look at me I'm quietly, albeit energetically, jerking up and down when in fact I have music and instructional count downs blaring into my ears.

But I gotta say I love this and have not suffered -- as yet/touch wood -- a heart attack. You are gasping for air by the fifth round despite the breaks but you know that it will all end in 'just' three more.

HIIT for weight loss and diabetes: less 5 and less 1.

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:47:56 PST

I'm doing the diary thing to monitor my current renovated exercise program based on HIIT using the Tabata method -- 20 seconds on (of intense exercise) / 10 seconds off / eight times over / every two days.

And it hurts.

In my mix of intentions -- see previous post : HIIT for Fibromyalgia where I consider a key prospect -- I want to set some clear aims to address my Diabetes II and my weight.

The two are linked by dint of pathology. Associated with these conditions are issues of elevated blood pressure and threatened kidney function.

Weight Loss: My weight loss plateaued months ago regardless seemingly of what I put in my mouth and how much exercise I did. I eat low carb and exercise ++ but while I was enjoying an average loss of 750 grams to one kilogram per month under this regime, it suddenly stopped registering on my physique. So now that I'm doing this HIIT thing I want to lose another 5 kgm and therein can die a happy man. That will take me to around 88-90 kgm. I very much doubt that I can do better or hope for more weight loss aside from a sentence to Changi or Buchenwald.
MMOL: This isn't a major issue because I control my diabetes rather well I think. But since the condition is so insidious and always life shortening -- who am I to say no to better health? With the HIIT there are two advantages that I seek to harvest. The first is the weight loss and the impact that will have on my blood sugars -- measured in mmol . The second advantage is that resistance training I use as part of my Tabata sessions should improve my insulin sensitivity and blood glucose control. Proven fact. So I'm hoping to shave off the best part of one mmol as a result. And one mmol given that I live between 5.4 and 6.8 on average (while on meds) would be fantastic.

So that's the game plan 5 plus 1 -- or rather less 5 and less 1.

HIIT for Fibromyalgia

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:59:01 PST

This is too early in the mix to make a ruling but the fact that I can do the 4.5 minutes of intense exertion and survive must mean something.

I'm sore and raw afterwards but that is to be expected. It's hard work when I'm working.
I suspect that I may sleep better for the full on nature of the physical demand.
I find that I look forward to and consciously plan for the next HIIT workout two days from the last. Easy scheduling, right? Two days off/5 minutes on. I even find that I tend to 'imagine' the workout because it is such a short window of activity. If HIIT is interval training then each separate workout is an interval of its own kind-- 36/48 hours apart. You need the spell. and you either look forward to the challenge or fear it.

The issue is going to pan out I'm sure, but will I get a better hold on my Fibromyalgia? I find long slow exercise may keep me within a 'fitness' zone but the pain quotient doesn't vary that much and I know from experience that to drive up my endorphins and sundry other biochemical preference I need exertion -- but at a level of inflammatory stress that won't tip me over into a major relapse.

So that's the tightrope I have to walk.

What I appreciate about HIIT in the form of Tabata is that the 20 seconds on/10 seconds off/eight times over/ every two days is a set rhythm with seemingly no surprises outside what your body is like that day. If you don't know what your body is like then, you are soon going to find out...very very quickly.

While the obvious physical challenge is there in big letters of PAIN! all you have to tell yourself is that like the dentist's drill it soon will be over. You are not asking yourself to give birth, right?

As I write this one hour after a session I can still feel the warmth surging through my body systems. My breathing knows it. My circulation. My musculature. My bones. They all know where they have recently been.

But they also know that I will not force them to go back there for another two days...

I'm just an old softie.

From woe to go via music

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:27:58 PST

Since I'm keen to monitor my Tabata experiences and their fallout I can say that yesterday's session doing 4.5 minutes of boxing the bag made me a tad sore despite the delight of the invigoration.

A slap in the face is similarly invigorating is it not?

An overnight weather change with rain enclosed my body further and I was extremely tired, stiff and sore this morning. I took analgesia, went back to bed to try and sleep it off.

Feeling merely a little bit better, I shuffled into the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea.

Thinking: there goes my day I'll be non compos menses hereon.

But lo! What light through yonder window breaks?

I decided to do some Soul Line Dancing

Why not? Give it a go I thought. It has worked before.

-- and for the next 50 minutes I danced my rocks off hitting the right beat more often than not as I went through my current repertoire.

'Tis amazing is it not? That I can go from woe to go if transported by music...and get up offa that thing and dance.

I stiffen up again. Hobble around. Lay down. Sleep perhaps. But that 'light through yonder window' broke over me.

In almost every society, music and movement have explicitly belonged together. Just as we can’t properly understand language if we ignore gesture, we can’t understand music without exploring its relationship to movement...Of course, movement and music can exist independently of each other. But there is a strong relationship between the auditory system and the motor system, producing the bodily movements that seem to be an instinctive part of our response to music and become part of how we make it. This relationship is expressed most comprehensively in dance, which takes an immense diversity of forms: tribal dances, ballet, the tango, figure-skating, breakdancing and many more. (The origins of music. part 4. Movement and dance)

The other delightful prospect which I just realized is on offer is that I am now using music for my Tabata/HIIT sessions. While Boxing or Kettlebell lifting isn't dancing there is rhythm at stake.

The point is that maybe music -- and the promise of moving in sync with it -- is available to me as a ready means to get over the physical hump of being too sore and stiff to 'exercise'. Hardly walk. Movement difficult. Pain all over. Stiff. ...but I can 'move to the beat' at the pace the beat asks.

I like this prospect a helluva lot...

Tabata Musicworks: stress and pain melody for 4.5 minutes.

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:38:01 PST

This I like, plugged into my ear while I lift or box: simple percussion. I tell you that you measure every beat waiting for the rhythm to change.

Today my neighbour's 6 yo kid hung over the fence mesmerised by my exertions under the verandah punching the bag. I had to ignore him, right? Other wise I would have missed my beat(ing).

Focus. Focus. Sweat.

Catch you later, kid...

BOXING: Moving right along, this time hitting the bag Tabata style

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:44:13 PST

Boxing the bag to a Tabata schedule won't improve your form and your arms may drop off...but you get to give your all, at least 170% of your VO2max.

Lucky you. Lucky me.

Since I want to alternate lifting Kettlebells with boxing I snaffed a few vids to keep me focused.

You can do it ...I'm sure (perhaps) I can. All I need do is keep it up for 4 minutes -- 160 seconds of the hard stuff. That's 8 multiplied by 20 seconds, right?

And then bath in the fact that for the next 36 hours I'm covered with physiological possibilities before I need to consider topping up in the way of pain and exertion.

Video: Tabata Kettlebell options. Go the max for 4 minutes. And if you survive you gain...

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:54:35 PST

I am only beginning to self consciously do the HIIT via a Tabata protocol. Today for instance I survived kettlebelling 20 seconds on and ten rest seconds off x 6.

Fortunately, you can work your way up to the full 20 seconds on/10 seconds off protocol by using different time variations.
10 seconds on, 20 seconds off x 8
15 seconds on, 15 seconds off x 8
20 seconds on, 10 seconds off x 8 (reference)

Whew! That's so I won't kill myself. And that's nice to know. The draw back is that the level of exertion required is high -- an intensity of 170% of VO2max. (The woman in the picture is 62 years old). But at most only 3 times per week for maybe 4-5 minutes each time.

VO2 max is the maximum capacity of an individual's body to transport and use oxygen during incremental exercise.

I can live -- in a fashion -- with that. The main game is to ensure the exercise is easy and not complex -- quickly completed without any complicated moves. It's a quick up/down thing rather than this as well as that. If all else doesn't suit, or you are without apparatus -- you simply do squats, or sprints, or something simple...

But for now I'm using Tabata music which gives you the intervals with a snappy beat of your choosing. Sweat music on my mp3 player.

The irony is this: would you pay $$$$ gym membership to go there for 4.5 minutes three days per week? Despite the fact that the science is supportive of just such a regime...

I don't think so. YOUR problem -- which is also my problem -- is keeping it up.

Putting a new movement routine together by adding HIIT. O joy!

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:32:34 PST

I'm not a Primal Type -- a lot of it is spin and very poor anthropology although I eat very low on the carbohydrate hierarchy because of diabetes -- but the new research studies on exercise are very interesting. Since I'm shifting my exercise focus at the moment -- and I do a lot of exercise so I get the measure of a range of regimes -- I'm putting a new movement routine together.

For instance:

In his excellent book on high-intensity strength training, Body By Science, Dr. Doug McGuff explains that high-intensity training is superior to chronic cardio because it produces a greater stimulus and thus more effectively empties the muscles and liver of glucose. This stimulus can last several days with HIIT, as opposed to just a few hours with low-intensity training...HIIT also activates hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL), which mobilizes fatty acids for energy use. This means that during HIIT, both glucose and fatty acids will be burned, leading to greater fat loss and restoration of insulin sensitivity. -- Chris Kesser

My physical success with the dance is a big part of why I'm reconsidering, but despite all the energy I expend doing this sweat stuff my weight loss has plateaued even though my diabetes and general health (aside from my ever resistant chronic illness that is!) are qualitatively much much better.

I function better a few kilograms lighter. I know -- I've visited -- but was driven back after I got one foot in the door.

I also know, because I am suffering from immune disordering plus plus, that exertion can be crippling because it can be too stressful (depending on the day).

So here's a theory -- the HIIT notion -- that preaches getting the physical best out of everyday activities. That I do do. I live my life through a physical hierarchy of challenges that I've integrated into the day to day.

But beyond that even now, my hypothetical plan was to manage one or two lift or punch workouts of less than 10 minutes each week.

But adding further intensity even for very short periods -- can I manage that? I'm thinking that what I need do is expend the effort developing a intense kettlebell or boxing session -- as short as my current ones but much more intense. Think Tabata...as I was thinking previously.

I'll do my homework -- research the topic -- and see what my options are.

I only hope I don't kill myself by being so savagely intense I blow my fuses.

But here's the drum:

The results have been incredible. My workout varies in length between 5 and 9 minutes a week. That’s right, I said minutes. With only a few exceptions, I’ve increased the amount of weight I can lift, the time I can lift it, or both, with each successive workout. My strength has increased and my physique is, if anything, better than it was when I was lifting 3x/week for much longer periods.( Kesser)

Trench Mulching Experiments

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 07:32:13 PST

You can never get enough of a good thing.

I may have blanketed my garden in mulch but there's never enough of the stuff. When last I addressed this mulch topic, I explained the method I was exploring (see drawing above). I've been stifled by the fact that because we haven't had much rain, the grass doesn't grow, the lawns aren't cut ...and I don't get many loads of grass clippings which I use for mulch.

But , touch wood, I'm reaching that blanketing threshold that encourages me to start experimenting. This week I've begun the process of watering only the pathways between the garden beds. These are sponge deep in newspaper and woody offcuts atop a sliver of something impermeable -- smothered in grass clippings.

I'd prefer that this sponge was thicker/deeper but I make do with what I've got. Everyday I check the garden beds for their moisture content and ask,

Does water move laterally from these wet, spongey paths/trenches to the vegetables a'growing in the garden beds?
Does the water saturating these sponge channels evaporate or seep into the sand so that it isn't on hand to irrigate my plants? In effect , does it go up and down rather than sideways?

I've been throwing everything I can get at these paths. My ingredients for the mulching recipe are eclectic:

stuff that will rot: twigs, banksia cobs, rags, newspapers, cartons, cardboard,branches...
stuff that won't rot: aluminium foil, plastic bags, wine cask bladders...which I use to lay down a narrow underlying gutter along the length of each path. These semi impermeable gutters supposedly prevent moisture from seeping quickly into the sand below.

I've already worked out that by hand watering the paths I can quickly 'top up' the moisture content without using much water to do so. I've also worked out that it is best to water late afternoon or at night so that there is much less evaporation while the water seeps in. On sand, trying to fill up these trench pathways as though they are damns is wasting water as the water will drain away as soon as it hits the sand underneath.

'Deep' watering is a fool's errand on sand.

I'm hoping to add a layer of woodchips to these paths -- if I can get a supply from the local council. I don't want too much of this stuff because I may be leaching Nitrogen from the beds. But like peanuts in a cookie, the woodchips will add 'texture' and bulk.

Underneath my trellis,where it is shady, the paths stay moister longer than in open country. Nonetheless, I am surprized how much dampness I can feel below the garden bed surface, even in full sun. I suspect that at this early stage the main game is to train the soil to readily share moisture through capillary action.

My set up is complicated by the fact that my original soil is sand and the larger particles in sand mean that their mechanical tension is less and the distance of potential water transit is shorter. Similarly, since I have covered my beds and pathways with a lot of mulch there may not be sufficient particle contact for water to travel laterally (see reference) which means the whole experiment will be a failure.

However I have been using a Leeaky Hose system to good effect along the centre of each garden bed and below the mulch layer . So here's hoping. I am in fact pursuing the same hydraulic principles.

Ultimately, what I'm doing is trench mulching and the irony is that the more I raise up the level of the pathways -- my trenches -- closer to the level of the garden beds, the more efficient I suspect the system will be.

So while I mulch the beds to suppress weeds, protect the soil from erosion, lessen evaporation, cool the earth, build biomass and encourage carbon break down to increase fertility, etc -- all the reasons one mulches -- I'm 'mulching' the pathways primarily to create water storage channels. The tragedy of heavy mulching -- this you learn as you go -- is that a thick layer of mulch atop a garden bed can prevent precipitation getting through to the soil and plant roots below. There are ways around it -- but it's like having a wet blanket on a dry bed.

The question that nags me is what element in the mix is supposedly going to be the most active in transporting water: the mulch layer or the sand or the transitional zone where mulch, manures and sand have fused already, creating a sandy loam. In my soil there is no clay.

I know I can store water but will it move? Will my water travel sideways...?

Wicking bed theory suggests it will.

Thie system I'm after is modeled on one advocated by Tiny Eglington. But since my garden is only 12 months old it will take time to mature it and culture the soil.

I'm thinking that if it works -- and I mean if it works well -- I can develop the principles involved by cross thatching the garden beds with cross channels of rolled up newspaper such that I divide the beds into smaller squares or rectangles so that groups of plants are moisture sourced on four sides. Burying rolled up newspaper -- either vertically or horizontally -- has proven a powerful -- and very efficient, water saving -- means to keep water up to my fruit treess, bananas and pawpaw.

In fact my garden has so much paper buried in it in it you could say it has been wallpapered or papier mache-ed!

Camera Shake.

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 07:09:01 PST

Since I had engineering problems with a long cord -- the length of me -- I created a short one and attached it to my belt.

..and pulled on it.

Voila! Much less camera shake.

Controlling your video viewing experience for optimum learning

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:14:13 PST

Since I study dance routines in order to learn them step by step and my main source of choreography is online videos especially from YouTube -- I was after some video watching features that enabled this. This is what I've come up with.

I use Chrome Web Browser and my operating system is Mac. Both Chrome and VLC are cross platform.

Auto Replay for YouTube (Chrome): Adds an auto replay checkbox in Youtube video page. You can also select a portion of the video to be auto replayed. Repeat dance step so you can learn them. Only works when watching video on YouTube.
Play Video in Slow Motion on YouTube: Play Video. Pause it just before you want to watch the video in slow motion then hold down the space bar on your computer keyboard.
YouTube Downloader (Chrome) Adds an easy to use download button with choice of file formats to download.

You can also play the video's url on the VLC Player and slow it down to suit your learning speed.Enter url in VLC's Advanced Open File / Network option, then select Playback / Slower. This option can be cumbersome and the vid may freeze often when playing online files.

To download the video using the VLC player. Copy and paste the video url into the VLC player -- Advanced Open File/Network -- and start playing the video. Then while the video is playing go to Window/Media Information -- and copy Location address at the bottom. Paste that url into your browser and start playing the video then Right Click and Save As... will save the video file to to your desktop. The video default saves as "videoplayback" so you need to rename the file.
Since I'm on Mac, I prefer to use Movist (out of Korea!) which has a superb range of control options that leave anything else behind.

Movist also offers customisable sub titling -- so long as you remember this work around.

Movist Controls

It's not that I make New Year resolutions...but gather ye rosebuds

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:53:01 PST

As my mum always says, "everyday is a blessing." Coming up to 88 next week -- and she also says it that way -- "coming up to" -- she should know.

If each day is a blessing, then so too is each year -- despite its 365 blessed or unblessed days.

They're unblessed, I guess, if you're dead.

I've just been through a couple of years somewhere in between. Not dead but anointed enough to function in a fashion as I dealt with a succession of challenging health issues.

I thought I was sentenced to a lifestyle formatted by deteriorating health -- plagued by a mixture of worsening illnesses.

But, I suspect I have graduated -- not with top marks, but with a pass certificate that says I have tamed the worst of it.

Whew. (Wipes forehead)

At the moment my body is adjusting as it goes about its business of convincing my mind that maybe I can afford a tad more self confidence every day that I am 'blessed' with.

The irony is that I do do so much but these activities are interspersed with me doing so little.

Such as today:I slept for most of it.

Despite that slumber handicap on this New Year's Day, 2012, I was walking the dogs at dawn along the shoreline, line danced for 40 minutes, read some James Lee Burke and cooked an evening meal for the significant other and I ( a rather delicious shepherds pie).

I have these skills you see that enable me to roll with the punches and make the most of each day's mobility quota. Despite the fact that after dawn and for most of today (but not all of it) I was hobble prone or prostrate and non compus mentis...

You see, I'm a physiological opportunist and one of the expectations I'm promoting this upcoming year is to write my own DIY manual: Fibromyalgia for Beginners .

Motto: do what you can when you can -- because Uncle Dave says so.

It's not so much cape diem but the rule of green thumbery:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

This also means that I work through a series of projects as best as I can. Schedules will only cripple the psyche.

So this year I'll build that canoe I've been planning and get back on the water sailing. I'll learn many more soul line dances and maybe try to get a club together so a 'line' actually exists when the music starts. I'll keep up with the boxing, kettlebelling, walking and kickbiking because I luv that stuff.

I'll shoot more movies and hone my editing skills....

As for the rest -- as yet unspoken and untyped -- we'll see.

But to give you an idea how all this works, one of the thrills this last year was the very recent discovery of 'urban soul' line dancing.

I'm a frustrated muso and while I have played a little bit of this and that my illness thwarted my instrumental engagement because my reflexes have stiffened and any capacity to hold the music in my head failed me. Since I cannot easily remember proper nouns and numbers -- verbs and adjectives won't get you very far with sheet music.

But -- and here's the really thrilling part -- I discovered that I can commit dance steps to memory because I can associate the moves with the beat and with the melody. Each element , it seems, reinforces the other inside my brain and I get to dance because I can remember the steps.

Dancers learn to repeat things not just with their bodies, but also with their hands and in words. This process of repeating what you just saw or heard until you've committed it to memory is a skill, and it serves dancers in all aspects of life, both inside the studio and out. (ref)

Any remembrance is sweet when you are threatened by poor recall. I can lay out a whole presentation in my head and deliver it the way I planned in front of an audience but I cannot commit one line of text to memory. True: not one line.

But I can take a sequence of dance steps and a succesion of dances -- and replicate them.

Dance Therapy

It was the dancing When my little boy Dimitri died…and everybody was crying… Me, I got up and I danced. They said, "Zorba is mad." But it was the dancing — only the dancing that stopped the pain. –[Zorba, in Zorba the Greek]

And that's so true.

Despite my stiffening musculature I can make my tootsies go places they have not visited before.

The late English comic actor Terry Thomas suffered from Parkinsons Disease and made a remark once that makes so much sense to me:

"Sometimes I don't sleep very well, and when I wake up I get a piece of chocolate and I have to go through a door from my bedroom to the kitchen where the chocolate is. One night, coming to the door, I couldn't get through it and I had to force my way through. It was as if one's feet were glued to the ground. I've tried tricks like dancing thorough and sometimes it's worked."

You betcha Terry. I don't have his malady but the fact that I can dance when I can hardly walk is such a wondrous discovery. I'm no Fred Astaire of course, but to do this when I am so often so physically challenged is amazing.

Talk about happy feet! Dancing does indeed stop the pain.

I used to think that the endorphins produced by exercise were the ruling opiate. I used to wallow in a Runner's High when I was a jogger way back when, so I knew there was something on offer if you sweated up. But I didn't expect such Zenhood from dancing -- in point of fact, dance with repetitive movements like line dancing.

We tend to think of dance class more as a rite of passage for elementary-school girls than a therapeutic outlet, but mounting scientific evidence suggests a surprising range of psychological benefits, from greater calm and elevated mood to an expanded sense of fulfillment and control. "Dance allows people to experience themselves in ways they didn't know they could," says Miriam Berger, a dance professor and dance therapist at New York University. "You can change your internal state through external movement." Dance Therapy: Spin Control

So this year I'm seizing the day and gathering ye rosebuds dancing...

New video camera means more and better videos...in time

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 07:35:17 PST

After neglecting my digital media options I am now back doing the videography after being given a very cheap, refurbished Kodak Zi6 (pictured).

Amazing little camera that shoots great video.

For my work in progress with the Zi6 check out my video pages .

It's a learning curve -- using the camera and mastering iMovie 11. So for now, if it moves, I shoot it.

Practice. Practice.

The problem with these little cameras is camera shake. You'll notice the shake in what I've shot early on. I used to shoot with my DV Camera with a small tripod/monopod strapped to my arm. But this new video camera is just too light to anchor in space like that, so I've employed the string and washer trick. This DIY works fine.

It works better than that: it's a photography a-hah! moment.

My camera has a toggle so I loop the string to that with a carabiner clip and drop the other weighted end to the ground...and stand on it.

By anchoring the bottom like this I can pull on the string to create enough tension to stabilize the camera in my hand.

Portable plus.

Once I've learnt to shoot and not shake the shot I'll work through some audio options.

The camera cost $63 and at that obscenely cheap price -- and ease of operation -- anyone should be making movies. (Just so long as you edit the damn things before you upload them...please!)

My daughter wants me to do some video editing training (she works for Apple) and I think that may be a good idea as editing is where the art kicks in (so long as you also edit as you shoot).

But looking back at my video making career -- so far that is -- there are a few films that work (for me at least). I love the atmosphere captured in Twilight Carrum Summer 2010 and some of the sequences inPort Philip Bay. I also appreciate some of my political videos for their reportage and focus and I like Northside Boxing because it tells a quaint story.

But you can see how rough as guts so much of it is, especially in the edit.

Give me time....

Cloud Cleanup time: renovating the homunculus and the Lone Ranger returns -- Hi-yo, Silver!

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 16:30:40 PST

Graphic:Raegan Maddox

It's coming to that time of year when a 'cloud cleanup' is called for. Going through my online presence I delete old blogs, websites and the like that have fallen into disuse. Some people may renovate their homes or dress up dollies, but I play around online changing my meme. Out there/up here it's all me/ all digital me in dress up like a homunculus. And I'm clothed in layer upon layer of typed words, images and video.

It's not an ego thing -- the activity anchors my thinking...I'm online computer dependent. My brain, you see, is idled.

Gah gah.

En route, cleaning up, I'm sure to get into some innovative hacking. I love hacking by deploying OPHs -- 'other peoples hacks' . Hacking is a wonderful 'what if?' challenge that already some one else has thought of and solved with creative verve (and many more skills than I).

Meme I merely replicates.

My hope is that after a couple of rough years which have undermined my online engagement (I've tended to be less aggressive and innovative than of yore because of ill health) I may now mount my trusty mouse-stead and re-assert my digital creativity.

Hi Yo, Silver, Away!

Narrator: The Lone Ranger!
[gunshots are fired]
The Lone Ranger: Hi-yo, Silver!
Narrator: A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty "Hi-yo Silver" - the Lone Ranger!
The Lone Ranger: Hi-yo, Silver, away!
Narrator: With his faithful Indian companion, Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early West. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. The Lone Ranger rides again!

USLD: 'Urban Soul Line Dancing' -- the name maybe says it all

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:53:26 PST

We were having a chat here at la maison Dave about a name that we could deploy to label our shared line dance preference. We wanted a descriptive name that would distinguish the style from stereotypical country line dancing.

It seems the preferred term is "soul" as that marks off the music -- but then the dances run into hip hop as well as dancing to James Brown and Jill Scott. But nowadays everything seems to embrace hip hop. This creative fusion is exciting:popping meets the stomp meets the hustle meets the slide... Even Zydeco (which is a rural dance/music form albeit very syncopated) hip hops. (FYI: Zydeco is very richly experimental and Nourveau Zydeco even embraces Reggae ).

So instead of relying on one word -- 'soul' -- we thought we'd also utilise the other marker: 'urban'. Thus

Urban Soul Line Dancing

Does that work, do you think? Does it tick enough boxes?

So if we were to form a local club and hold regular dance nights and call the activity thus.... the penny would drop, right? In a fashion at least.

Not cowpoke stuff. Not Zumba. Not ballroom. Not night clubbing. Nor aerobics....But a form that has a distinct musical preference.

I'm sure any potential network here would maybe balk at the mention of Hip Hop. But the game there is to do the hip hoppity thing without the gymnastics. Stay off the floor and don't try to dislocate your major joints for the sake of showing off. Hip Hop for the more mature dancer. The arthritic. The dancer low on hormones.

Just so long the zen rule applies: sweat happens.

More sweat in the lower limb department

noreply@blogger.com (Dave Riley) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 20:00:50 PST

I don't mean to go one and on but... I am beginning to register some choreography in the lower limb department.

After mastering -- at least in my crude fashion -- the Zydeco Bounce -- (an easy dance)

I can now dance the line dance that got me turned onto Soul L ine Dancing in the first place , the Zydeco Shuffle. If you can't shuffle you can't Zydeco.

For a slower version and oh so smooth , you moderate the 'shuffle' and make it more a slide.

My current project is a more up tempo and vigorous Slide:

I then have a couple of Zydeco dances choreographed in Texas, like the L'Argent -- which straddle Zydeco and Hip Hop styles -- to tackle before trying to master a cute , almost Rap fusion based on and remixed from a Chris Ardoin tune, the Mo Bounce:

I then would be well set up to broaden out my repertoire to embace some of the kick ass Soul routines coming out of Philadelphia and some of the Stomp syncopations from further south (eg: Florida). It would be at this stage that I could begin to dance more Funk -- some James Brown moves for instance (eg: the James Brown Slide).

Maybe...maybe en route I can form a local club to dance this stuff. That's the game plan, you see: add to the line with sweaty bodies.