Obsession attempt: Modal focus

To not spend too much time by my computer I started subscribing to three serious and rather wordy magazines - Monocle, Fast Company, and (swedish) Filter. The rule was - when it lands in the mail I can read articles online (I can do mail) - until I had enjoyfully finished the magazine. It worked for less than two months. I did read Filter, most of Monocle (but paused to read news online) and didn't even have time to open Fast Co... Fail.

Obsession attempt: Bikram Yoga

Tried Bikram Yoga four times. Loved the "we survived"-feeling of shared experience, but didn't feel too good to sweat liters and just fill up with new water... So - no obsession.

Obsession #4: Barefoot running

I hurt my knee at an earlier (undocumented) obsession attempt of just running. And since that day I felt that even though I though I would hate running (as there was no stimuli) I actually liked it. And I tried again and again, and even if I used to run 20+ km I wasn't able to do 3 km before it started to hurt... And one day I started to read a book - Born to Run. The book started with a story that sounded like mine - that the author hurt himself and wanted to get out in the track again. And he found barefoot running. I felt: Obsession Time!

So I went and bought a pair of Vibram Five Fingers - and started running. 

Excruciating pain in my calves told me that I wasn't use to run that way - BUT - I had no pain in my knees and the pain in my calves (even if it was burning and intense) passed after a day or two - and felt more "natural". (And yes, I started a bit too intense.) Then I read & watched everything I could find - some good video clips (Nature Magazine,  Terra Plana, TED) and an OK book (The Barefoot Running Book - main takeaway: run with a big necklace or key strap and run so that it does not bounce).

Of course I tracked my progress and I can happily say that I ran 10-20% faster and was without injuries. And realised that you can run barefoot in any weather and climate - I did -15C Canada, -2 slushy snow covered Sweden, -10 two meters of snow Sweden, +25 spanish beach - and any surface - snow, beach, grass, and my old enemy concrete too. No injuries.

I kept running and I think I will for as long as I enjoy it. Even when the obsession resides.

Obsession #3: Mindfullness

During xmas of 2009/2010 when I my stepparents I didn't bring my sourdough and as I broke the chain the habit died. So when I got home I threw out the sourdough base.

I started doing research on what to get obsessed about and stumbled on a great talk by David Rock at Google. That made me think that this thing Mindfullness might be interesting to silence all the buzzing thoughts in my head and get some focus. But how? Rock pretty much only said that I should do it.

I found this Swedish (actually it is a Dane speaking in Swedish with danish accent) recording from a yoga institute. It was very hard for me, but I gave it 10 minutes practice every day for a week. And it felt good just to try.

Of course I Googled mindfullness and looked at stuff I found on YouTube, but a lot was just telling me to try it - like this good talk by John Kabat-Zinn, also at Google. A friend of mine recommended a lot of things and one thing, Erich Schiffmann's dry texas voice worked. I found an iPhone app and also a as mp3 tracks. I spent almost every evening doing at least one Schiffmann exercise. After two weeks of this I got skilled enough at being mindful so that I could bike and just bike. When I left my son at kindergarten I heard the bell chime inside my head and biked to worked. As soon as I got off my bike and stopped the mindfullness I felt how relaxed and at the same focused I had been.

I also tried swedish Ola Schenström and found that to add yet another angle.

I really liked mindfullness, and I learned a lot. I'll write that another day when I feel less mindful. 

Obsession #2: Sourdough

I baked a lot of sourdough bread during a part of my paternity leave (1-2 loafs a day from 30 September to 24 of December) and I can tell you a couple of things:

• baking bread is fun, since you feel like you create something
• the worst part of baking bread is doing the dishes
• you can do sourdough bread in less than 20 mins of work and 3 hours
• sometimes it can be hard to taste the difference between sourdough and regular bread
• the major advantage sourdough has over regular bread is that you feel like a pro

It was fun, and was easy when it was a habit. Family and friends loved fresh, tasty bread every day. Sesame seed, honey and manitoba flour was the best sourdough bread I made. (Lemon was good too, but not as useful.)

Period: 2009-09-30 to 2010-01-15 (3.5 months)

Obsession #1: Jogging

The day before new years 2008/2009 I had to get a book on how to teach kids to sleep all night from a friend at the other end of town (and my bike was not functional), so I laced my old jogging shoes and ran over. On my way back it felt kind of good and that surprised me (I always ranked jogging as the next to most boring exercise, with swimming winning the league) so I ran a bit of a detour. When home I calculated that I just did 6 km. That sparked something in me.
So every Sunday (often at 9 am) I ran. At first 10 km. Then the last weeks 20 km. (Even at a conference in Spain I got up at 5 am and run 10 km just to not miss the weeks run.)

Then one day in July when I got back (after 6 months and ca 300 km) my knees started to hurt like crazy. The next week I paused. And whenever I tried to pick up jogging my knees hurt after 2 km... And the running was over just as soon as it started.

What did I learn:

• That jogging can be great. Very surprising for me as I hated jogging before.
• You sleep much better after spending 50 minutes jogging
• I did not get below 50 minutes on 10 km, which disturbed me. Strangely enough I was able to keep the same pace for 22 km, but not increase it.
• When running more than 15 km you need water on the run
• You can run in any weather - any. I did hale storms, pouring rains, snow, summer heat. It all works (but phones die when they get wet).
• Listening to music is great, but it seems as if I ran faster without (I had music anyhow...)

Period: 2008-12-30 to 209-06-15 (6.5 months)

How it all started

I have always yearned to try new things and most of all learn new things and when I was on paternity leave during the fall of 2008 I felt that I had the opportunity. After some dabbling I decided that I would try to have one "focus subject" every 6-9 months which I spent substantial amount of time doing and learning. I'm not sure I will keep it up, but this blog is my documentation of the progress, of my attempted obsessions.

(Actually we did an organized attempt to try new things at Tisdagssvensexan when we tried one crazy "bachelor party activity" every Tuesday, but it got to complicated to get people gathered and frankly dedicate every Tuesday...)