Why poetry?

For anyone familiar with the Turtle Power Fitness WhatsApp group, you’ll already know the context of this blog post. For anyone not familiar, here’s the context: there’s a WhatsApp group, open to anyone, where I post information about all the group classes being offered. I also post a lot of poetry, typically 3 poems/week. The connection between the group classes and poetry probably isn’t immediately apparent, so let’s unpack that a bit.

Let’s start by zooming out. As I’ve hopefully made clear throughout the entire website, Turtle Power Fitness is not a traditional fitness business. There’s no focus on weight loss of aesthetic goals and I don’t think anyone who doesn’t work out has a problem and needs to start training - if they’re happy, I’m happy. Most importantly, the scope of what aspects of the person I’m trying to engage extends beyond muscle strength/bone density/VO2 max etc. (VO2 max stands for “maximal oxygen consumption,” and it’s a measure of your body's ability to use oxygen during exercise.) In addition to strength training, I also offer Shiatsu and Qi Gong, both of which are founded on the principles of Chinese Medicine. From the perspective of Chinese Medicine, there is no mind/body dualism, and physical imbalances and dysfunctions have emotional and spiritual corollaries. And vice versa. This is the perspective I’m operating from, and it’s this perspective that determines the scope of the entire Turtle Power Fitness project.

To narrow the focus slightly, I’ll share a fictional case study inspired by true events. Let’s imagine someone older, say in their mid sixties. They’ve had maybe a few joint replacements, maybe have struggled a bit with weight loss, and maybe are at a point when they feel unhappy with what they can and can’t do, physically. So they begin coming to me for one-on-one strength training. I would approach this situation by first laying a solid foundation for strength training: core strength, strengthening weak areas, restoring ‘normal’ gait patterns as much as possible, balance and coordination, etc. At a certain point however, it becomes apparent that some of their weaknesses, imbalances, and/or compensations are intractable. How do I respond?

The first, and most responsible, response is to refer out. It’s very possible that I don’t have the expertise to help them with certain things, and consulting a more specialized provider is a great idea. In addition to referrals, however, it’s also worth considering the possibility that some of these issues simply may not change. There are a few uncomfortable truths that the mainstream fitness industry does not like to acknowledge, and one of them is that sometimes injury, illness, or other chronic conditions are here to stay. In those instances, the focus needs to shift from fixing the imbalance to changing how we relate to it. And this is where the value of poetry comes in.

To return to our case study - let’s imagine that, after a year or so or consistently training twice a week, and seeing a few other specialists, this person is unable to lift their arm above their shoulder or turn their head more than 15 or 20 degrees to the right, due to previous shoulder and cervical spine surgeries. These two limitations cause this person a lot of distress in daily life, limiting their ability to drive and reach things in their home. While many other aspects of their training program are progressing well, these two problems do not seem likely to be solved. Consider the following poem:

I want a word that means

okay and not okay,

more than that: a word that means

devastated and stunned with joy.

I want the word that says

I feel it all all at once.

The heart is not like a songbird

singing only one note at a time,

more like a Tuvan throat singer

able to sing both a drone

and simultaneously

two or three harmonics high above it—

a sound, the Tuvans say,

that gives the impression

of wind swirling among rocks.

The heart understands swirl,

how the churning of opposite feelings

weaves through us like an insistent breeze

leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,

blesses us with paradox

so we might walk more openly

into this world so rife with devastation,

this world so ripe with joy.

~ For When People Ask

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

In everyone’s life, and in everyone’s body, there will always be something we cannot change. As much as we would like to believe otherwise, we do not have the power to endlessly modify the world to force it to conform to our preferences. This is a re-statement of the uncomfortable truth named earlier, the one that the mainstream fitness industry does not like to acknowledge: namely that sometimes injury, illness, or other chronic conditions are here to stay. When we’re presented with something like this, rather than exhaust ourselves trying to change the condition itself, it’s more prudent to change how we relate to it. I think poetry has a unique power to help us do this.

This particular example is very specific, and not all of the poetry that I share in the WhatsApp group is intended to help people change how they relate to a chronic condition. What all of the poems have in common is that, like the example above, they all invite us to change how we relate to some aspect of our lives. All of the poems shared are intended to broaden our perspective, to help us remember that there are shades of grey in between the binary of black and white, that there are other stories besides our own, happening simultaneously, or that slowing down and feeling ourselves, while not always comfortable, is valuable and worth doing. 

I’ll state it explicitly: while 3 of the 4 services offered by Turtle Power Fitness (strength training, Shiatsu massage, and Qi Gong) are intended to improve our experience somehow, (create a stronger, more flexible or more comfortable body) the poetry is intended to transform how we relate to something. 

This skill - the skill of changing how we relate to something difficult, as opposed to trying to change it into what we want - is an important, probably even essential, life skill. It’s both a skill that I want to incorporate into the larger project of Turtle Power Fitness and one that can be developed through poetry. I think this skill is an essential, albeit uncomfortable, aspect of wellness - and one that the mainstream fitness industry ignores entirely.

Changing how we relate to difficult and uncomfortable life experiences is not easy. It can be helpful to work with a therapist, psychologist, or spiritual teacher or advisor. It can also be helpful to join a practice community, read poetry, and notice the quality of your attention… all of which are things you can find through Turtle Power Fitness.