For everyone else - it's about fitness. Five years of ever-improving self-discipline, fewer and fewer days without any exercise, more press-ups, more pull-ups, more walking than last year. But still a worrying tendency to accumulate the fat around the middle. So onto the Plank.
Lying face-down on the floor, I push myself up so only my toes and forearms are touching the ground, my legs and spine forming a straight line, like a plank. The pelvis should be tilted forward; as Moni points out from her yoga classes, you need to imagine you are curling your tail underneath you.
So - adopt the position, soldier! And hold it there... for a minimum of a minute and half, then 30 seconds' rest, then repeat for a further 90 seconds, 30 second break, then a final 90 seconds of plank. This is the target. As I'm already doing 50 press-ups in one go twice a day, it's a challenge. Especially the third 90 seconds of planking. I can feel after six days of planking twice a day tighter muscle tone around the middle. More effective than the sit-ups I'd been doing in previous years, a better use of time.
Reading the many fitness articles out there on the internet, it seems that rather than holding the plank position for ever-longer periods of time, it's more effective to plank four times a day, something I'm starting today. My long-term aim will be to reduce my girth around my middle. Today, it's 101.2cm.
I only wish that I had the willpower that I have today 40, 45 years ago; as a youth and young man, my lackadaisical attitudes towards life held me back in my 20s.
Lent is coming soon*, it is a time of year I have come to cherish; a time to strengthen resolve and willpower - not just self-denial but pushing myself to do more, create more, think more - and focus on the eternal and infinite and the most fundamental questions of Life, the Universe and Everything, to quote Douglas Adams. And more about Planck, quantum mechanics, human memory and the search for the bridge between science and spirituality.
A healthy spirit in a healthy mind in a healthy body!
* Well, not that soon - Ash Wednesday is on 6 March this year, with Easter Sunday falling on 21 April. Tradition and on-spectrum RRBI, rather than strict adherence to the liturgical calendar, dictate my slavish devotion to Lenten observance, for the 27th consecutive year.
This time last year:
What happened at the Railway Hotel?
This time two years ago:
How to annoy the passengers
This time three years ago:
Zloty symbol - your suggestions
This time four years ago:
The future of Warsaw's public transport
This time five years ago:
This time seven years ago:
(on the superiority of Polish schools to British ones)
This time nine years ago:
This time ten years ago:
This time 11 years ago:
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