The discipline to keep showing up, the self bow and the commitment to personal development… these qualities are what Dojiva is really about.

There are many types of exercise that will keep you fit. Here’s a list of ten and at some point, I have taught all of these!

1. Aerobics/step
2. Circuit training
3. Spinning
4. Boxercise (martial fitness)
5. Martial arts
6. Interval training/HIIT
7. The gym (with strength machines, free weights and CV machines)
8. Pilates
9. Yoga
10. Dance (I’m a Shakti Dance teacher)

Then of course there is all manner of sports and everything from the world of athletics that can also keep you very fit.

If I was to choose just one of all these, one that most people find full-filling, one that gets great results and is enjoyable, hands down, it would be:

martial fitness

Now, this is different from martial arts which involves contact, a uniform and all the Dojo etiquette. Martial fitness shares many of the same principles but is something that you can do at home either on your ...

It is often said that martial arts build character. What you may not realise is that they do this by breaking that character down. At least breaking down all that is false… that’s all the untruths and any negative beliefs that sometimes creep in and affect life. 

It doesn’t matter if you have ever set foot in a Dojo or ever plan to take up a martial art in the future, you should find that the classes in this week’s cluster are fun, functional and fulfilling!

“How do martial arts relate to me”, you might ask

Well, I believe we all have an innate knowing and ancestry that lives within us on some level and this can show up our actions, movement and intuition. 

As you may know from our healthy eating write ups, I am a big fan of eating whole foods that are ancestrally consistent (so not modern processed foods that have a long list of ingredients).

Another part of primal living would have been the physical side of survival and a typical month would have seen hunting, foraging, climbing...

For safety and success with exercise, there needs to be a match of what the mind thinks is possible and the body’s actual capacity. One could easily outdo the other!

There are many ways that you can pick up an injury. Some are more acute and often unexpected whereas others are more chronic and caused by a repetitive motion with poor body mechanics. 

In both cases, a heightened sense body awareness is always the number one prevention strategy.

But there is a close second, and that’s about keeping your body honed and challenged with regular resistance training. Why? Because it builds:

• Strength
• Balance
• Movement confidence
• Joint resiliency
• And of course it boosts metabolism like nothing else!

Furthermore, with extra muscle mass and less adipose, if you do get injured, sick or have a surgery, you’re more likely to bounce back better and quicker.

Muscle really is your best health pension; so keep building and storing… it can only serve you.

Are you setting yourself up injury?

When you train and move your body in a natural, wholistic and flowing way, something amazing happens on the inside. You start to awaken and develop the more subtle muscles and connective tissues. These provide an inner support that we need for life, chores, exercise, sport and postural alignment.

Before we get to today’s focus, here is a quick note about body balance. Ideally, your body comes to balance with itself… a balance:

• From left to right
• Front to back
• Core to periphery
• Upper body to lower body, and one more thing:
• You need flexibility and strength to come to balance with each other

Too much or too little of either one and movement efficiency declines while risk of physical tension/injuries increase. To help you achieve this balance, the Dojiva membership site has a category called Mobility with over 175 videos.

Although these seven day clusters give you a suggested themed guide, you can use the site’s search icon 🔍 and rehab section to find just the class you need.

This week’s focus and classes are all about developing awareness, flow and movement from the centre of your body. And I would like you to extend this into daily life, sport and gait.

We have dedicated the last two months to sensory awareness and how your choice of household product can affect your health. These write ups are all stored as blogs on my website, so you can re-cap at any time. 

For the next two months, the focus shifts to movement. Aside form individual sporting preferences, there are four maintain disciplines that I recommend you strike a balance of.

This week and next week will we concentrate on functional core strength and mid-line support which come form the world of Pilates. Then we’ll dedicate two weeks to the flexibility, flow and presence that arises form yoga. July will start with strength and conditioning that we enjoy from the gym, (and this includes body weight exercsie, callisthenics and the use of dumbbells and bands at home). Finally we’ll embrace the phi...

“I believe that a heightened state of awareness is not just reserved for deep meditation and extreme sports but can be experienced in day to day life”.

I like to view proprioception as ‘a three dimensional knowing of your body as it moves through space’. But this knowing is also subtle and applies to stillness. It’s an integration of the five senses and a key factor in presence or… simply feeling alive!

A common theme has emerged from these recent write ups about the five senses and that’s about returning to nature…

• Natural tastes with whole foods verses processed foods.
• Natural smells with time outdoors and for household and personal care products to be non synthetic versions (e.g. with organic essential oils and using vinegar and bicarbonate of soda for cleaning).
• Natural vision with plenty of time viewing nature to balance out screen time/indoor lighting.
• Natural sounds - again, back to nature for outdoor time (and inner) listening.
• Natural touch with skin awareness, receiv...

Skin is our protective barrier from the outside world and is a good indicator of health.

We have recently had clusters on sight, sound, smell and taste. We now get to touch, including information about general anatomy and physiology of your skin. Then next week we’ll finish focus this series with touch on the inside (proprioception).

Before we dive into some fun facts and anatomy, here are some notes about the subtle side of touch.

Present moment

Our sense of touch is always in the here and now, so another doorway to the wonders of presence. However, a bit like breathing and postural awareness, it can easily get forgotten about with life’s distractions. E.g when deep in thought, busy at work, watching TV or caught doom-scrolling on social media!

Now, a little day-dreaming here and there is just fine and can actually be a very creative time; during artistry, gardening, music and projects. However, an over-riding tenant of Dojiva is to be…

more conscious of your body in daily life

This week’s cluster is about how your health and wellbeing can be affected by smell… a sense that gives you: 

13,000 opportunities to be present (everyday)!

With millions of epithelial cells in the nose, humans can distinguish between tens of thousands of different smells. With each complete breath cycle taking around 5 seconds, you get over 20,000 breaths per day, which in waking hours equates to about 13,000 opportunities to smell! 

A clear example of preference over presence

Unless you have an olfactory deficiency, smelling is a continuous process that never switches off. If you grew up on a farm then farm yard smells could remind you of home and be a welcome and enjoyable experience.

If someone from the city drives out to the countryside and opens the car window then they might wretch at the same outdoor aroma! So, smelling is a great example of human differences and preferences.

Our smell also has an intricate tie in to taste

The full flavour experience and enjoyment of foo...

As we continue our journey through the five senses, we now get to taste. A sense that is influenced by individual preference, beliefs, marketing and where you shop.

First up, a few fun facts

Your tongue has around 10,000 taste buds, each with around 50 receptors. When we add chewing and smell, we shift from the experience of taste to that of flavour. It allows you to perceive five main tastes:

•  Sweet
•  Salty
•  Sour
•  Bitter
•  Savoury (umami)

Compared to other cells of the body, there’s a fast turn around with taste buds regenerating about every 10 days. That’s good news if you have an injury (like gulping a hot drink) because the taste buds usually repair on their own quite quickly.

Aside from enjoyment, taste also helps us decipher if food is fresh or spoiled and more importantly if it’s toxic (bitter cells towards the back of the tongue help with this before swallowing). Plus we have receptors for hot, cold and spicy!

The mouth (with enzymes in saliva) is also the beginning...

Today, we continue our exploration of the five senses with a final cluster for the eyes... we have information about diet, foods that could be potentially harmful, better alternatives and about the best nutrients.

And, here’s a quick re-cap from the last two week’s that summarises what to do and what not to do for general eye care. (If some of these pointers resonate, why not write them down?

Can you:

• Blink often? If reading a book or lines on a screen, blink every line or two (you can do this one straight away).
• Soften your gaze? There are many opportunities in your day to include your peripheral vision.
• Be consistent with your eye exercises such as cupping, near and far and tracking.
• Spend more time outdoors and take a good walk outside everyday? While out…
• Look at nature? Trees, leaves, flowers, the sun/sky… be present and really look at the colour and texture of what’s there).
• Practice looking into the long distance at regular times in your day?
• Set your lap-top, tablet,...