Ah, you know me well, by now Ann,
yes, she is just glad I’m alive & so am I.
Compared to one year ago, when I was getting 1 hour of sleep every night in January, I’m doing a lot better. Sleep is good now. Aside my unsettled eyelid, and every other day locked-glute, both unexplained mysteries, I’m more settled. Motivation is good, and I since my 1 km milestone I feel I’m on a roll, and sensitivity is starting to take shape…
thx for following me, Roland
Thank you, Simon,
yes, you raise a fundamental truth ; I did not accomplish my 1 km with elegance. I got the job done, and now I can concentrate on getting the job done with more efficiency and less expenditure of energy, since the human body is amazingly efficient (unless recovering from stroke or even a simple injury). In fact, if I had no elegance at all, I would not even get the job done. So stage 1 : get the job done stage 2 : refine the process.
In fact, while starting off my 1 km challenge, I was following some great tips given by my physio 2 days earlier ; “heel strike”. Once I remembered this, my efficiency went up by 30%. I could feel the easier stride. In fact, this tip helped me reach 1 km… without it I might have failed. In the big picture, the heel strike probably gave me an extra 3%, but there will be lots of little areas I will focus on to achieve a smoother ride. Your idea to do 200m with less effort is spot on. Only that improvements will happen gradually, in increments, one step at a time. I think the order of progress is 1) Get the job done, in the rough 2) Refine and improve the style. It has to be that way around; just imagine practicing something until it looked smooth, and then walking 1 km… very unlikely.
These are the same steps I would take learning or teaching a difficult passage on the violin. First get the job doe, then refine the style. I’m not a physio, and sometimes we reverse the order, or change our priorities, but instinctively we know when we’ve stumbled across a more efficient way of doing something. The trouble is that I have a long way to go, since Ronald (Roland’s stroke-half) is about as flexible as a piece of cardboard, right now.
Thanks for putting me in contact with Charlotte Vye; we’ll see if it leads to anything. I enquired about joining Linda Radestad’s 2 week rehab course in Cyprus, but at 9.5k euro + hotel, the cost is prohibitive for me.
Thanks for the great discussion, take care, ciao, ciao, Roland
Just in case anyone wishes to follow a little more closely.
My Facebook post for 11th December reads:
“I Walked 920 steps at Blaise castle this morning! That’s about 0.5 km but not without difficulty ; severe paresthesia (pins and needles along the length of my leg) from the first step. Could not do it without my wife’s encouragement!”
Amazing to have doubled my range in a month (actually 920 steps is 65% of the 1400 steps I did on Sunday). Also The “539 Steps” post was on 15th Nov. That was going back another month when I did 400 metres.
Well done great effort 
always interested in your latest thinking, Simon
my physio pointed out a number of bad habits that have crept in. Always, whenever I understand how and why the error, and why the correction is better, it really helps and motivates me to improve.
Right now I’m painting a Train, here’s a little Village in Northumberland called Craster where you can get good Kippers for breakfast
off topic, are kippers the same as capers? LOL.
On topic…I learned to walk messy first, just walk. I learned standing and everything else the same way. I am getting much better at the eloquence over time, almost without even trying. It is like my brain just remembers the skill once I have gotten the movement going a bit.
Hi DeAnn,
I wonder what Kippers and Capers would taste like together?
That’s good you stand and walk with eloquence. I feel a long way off, still. When you say your brain remembers a good style, was it like learning something totally new ? or like returning to a familiar feeling ?
ciao, Roland
Definitely like returning. So much so, that I have to think to be a bit more cautious as it feels safe and familiar, even though it sometimes is not. Stairs can be fairly easy, or slippery, different size steps, etc… I must proceed with caution but sometimes don’t think to until a near fall. I have to remember to look before leaping in.
Call me lazy for relying on you to look it up. Too much for my brain to contemplate. I forget what I was looking for and get sidetracked. I am very easily distracted, which is why I forget meds or paying bills on occasion. Still working on that! Thank you. That explains why I like capers. I thought they were some kind of seafood, which I very rarely like.
PS Roland, I also took something called Cotillion classes as a teen. Meant for coming out parties and walking the catwalk for beauty pageants in the Southern USA. So walking like a cat, one foot in front of the other, while balancing a book on one’s head to encourage good posture as well as keeping one’s head up. Much like my typing posture came right back when sitting in my chair with an old school keyboard rather than the flat laptop model. All that training may have paid off from retained long term memory.
Hello DeAnn, did you have a nice partner for your coming out party? Posture/core is key for walking well. Personally I’m aiming for a swagger like John Travolta in the opening of Saturday Night Fever 
No party for me. I am a Yankee. We don’t do that. But I was staying with a friend in Tennessee, who was taking the classes for beauty pageants and modeling, so I also got to attend. She won many pageants and did do some modeling. I could not have afforded a dress for any of that, nor have I ever been pageant or model material. It wasn’t exactly a fun class, but I did learn much that has been helpful in the social realm.
Was she a Daughter of the Revolution too?
Yes, she actually is.
Hopefully not, but very possibly also a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Craster is just North of us, but not been up that way in ages … it’s a lovely area
Val
amazing @mikey903 well done. Another bit of independence for you.
That’s an achievement, Mikey, well done
Bravo, Roland
Congratulations, that’s such a fiddly bit of coordination to master, well done
That’s no excuse Simon, just try tying a piece of string around your shoe 
I can be such a hard taskmaster 
