Maggie Downie, Author at Personal Euphoria: Pilates & Fitness Classes in CT

About Maggie Downie

Thank you for giving your time to stop and read my blog. I hope it encourages you to keep moving. Move and the body will be happier. And when you're moving you can hike, run, swim in Jell-O, race over non-Newtonian fluids, travel the world or build igloos--if that's your thing. If not, you can watch me do it. This is just a spot to try and feel good about life.

Plank Story: A Scarlet Macaw for Halloween

Pirate and a Scarlet Macaw, well, maybe.

I’d only left three days to plan my Halloween costume this year. So on a whim I decided Matt could be a pirate—a costume we basically had—and I could be a parrot. In my mind I was going to be a beautiful parrot, red like a scarlet macaw. I hunted on Pinterest for easy ways to transform myself into the spectacular bird.

Then I placed an order on amazon for red, orange, yellow and aqua boas (these would be my wings and feathers); a red bird mask and beak (the don’t sell parrot beaks); a rainbow-colored feather wig and a red unitard. I had my doubts about the unitard as any sane person should, but I figured I could pull it off with everything else for one night.

All the costume parts arrived the day of the party with little time for adjustments. I attempted to get myself into the unitard, and I can’t quite express how bad it was. It was tight, shiny and somehow didn’t fit anywhere. Important parts couldn’t fit in it, my back didn’t even make […]

Plank Story: A Scarlet Macaw for HalloweenMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:10-04:00

Wiggle Your Tail Bone Because You Can

Did you know that you can move your tail bone just like you can move all your vertebra? At least you should be able to, but to feel it you may have to do a little digging. The best place to try it is in the shower. Next time you take a shower, find your tailbone with your finger. You don’t actually have to go too deep into any crevices to find it. When I was in China and getting a massage, the therapist rubbed my tailbone. That was shocking and unwelcomed, but when you are searching for your own it’s not that invasive.

Once you find it, by engaging your pelvic floor (think do a Kegel) you should be able to feel it wiggle just a little bit. Think of the range of motion you can get from the first joint of your pointer finger. It’s not a big movement, but you should feel something.

The tailbone is really the last bone of your spine. If something in the body is meant to have mobility, we want to keep it mobile. Since everything is connected, if your pelvic floor is too tight or too slack that effects the positioning of the […]

Wiggle Your Tail Bone Because You CanMaggie Downie2018-02-14T15:33:38-05:00

Movement Beats Polio

My Grandma inside the igloo!

My grandma contracted polio when she was nine. She was so sick her mother had to push her in a baby carriage to walk her to the hospital. She was embarrassed and mad at her mom because she was nine and didn’t belong in a baby carriage. No one else in the Waterbury area had been diagnosed with polio so at first the doctors didn’t know what was wrong. Before long there was an entire ward of children with polio.

For six month, my grandma was strapped to a wooden plank to immobilize her. It was the early thirties. The hospitals didn’t have air conditioning and she talks about how hot it could get in the room she shared with a group of polio-infected children. Those that died were wheeled out. One of her best memories from her time in the hospital was on summer Saturday nights when the nurses would wheel patients who were well enough out onto a patio for fresh air. The nurses would turn on music and dance.

When it was time to go home the doctor told her mother […]

Movement Beats PolioMaggie Downie2017-10-25T15:49:42-04:00

Running Goals: Are They Worth the Pain?

The folks who motivate me to keep running.

Last week I went for a run with my iphone, a playlist and some earbuds. That probably doesn’t sound event worthy to most people, except that the last time I had music when running it came from a Walkman.

In college I used to run six miles a day and eight to twelve (usually eight) on the weekends. I preferred running alone and only occasionally ran with others. Running companions were so rare that I remember every time I had a running buddy. Originally, not a lover of running, taking on long distances happened by accident. One day I went for a run with friends, fell behind (I’ve always been slow) and got lost. I figured if I kept running it would all be over sooner. In the end, I’d run six miles. And once I realized that I could, I wanted to do it all the time.

Now, I rarely enjoy running alone. It’s too bad because I think I got a lot of ideas and worked out a number of problems in my head jogging by […]

Running Goals: Are They Worth the Pain?Maggie Downie2017-10-25T15:49:49-04:00

Tree Swallow Cruise–Connecticut

The tree swallows in the sky along the CT River.

Some friends and I went on a Tree Swallow Cruise with RiverQuest down the Connecticut River last week and if you can arrange it you have to go. It’s really reasonable ($40 per person) for the time (3-3.5 hours) and what you get to see (half a million to a million tree swallows flying around at dusk).

It was incredible, and if you live in Connecticut it is right here for us. So often when I want to see something naturally cool I feel like you have to travel to see it—Mexico for the butterflies, New Zealand for the glowworms, etc. But this is right here.

You bring your own drinks and snacks and board the boat by the Goodspeed Opera House. It takes about an hour to travel downriver to Old Saybrook while Mindy and Mark, your hosts, point out all different birds and information about the river along the way. Shortly before sunset the birds start to trickle in—a few at a time, then a few more, than hundreds, then they […]

Tree Swallow Cruise–ConnecticutMaggie Downie2017-10-25T14:24:29-04:00

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