Wholistic Fitness

�The disciplined mind is your only treasure.�

– coach ilg

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Namaste Noble Fitness Warriors!

i have pulled myself from the high Sierra and am plugged back into LA. The transition is difficult: From a wild and white place of deep, natural integrity to LA where anything of substance, if still existing, must be bolted down, surfed, skated, moved, developed, smoked, snorted, or swallowed.

Sure LA is easy to poke fun at. In LA, the rumor is that anything even remotely resembling personal substance is quickly and guiltlessly replaced by an obsession with appearance. Perhaps, but Her contractions are reflections of our own; they come frequently and must seem absurd to others. For example; LA…the health-and-fitness mecca of the nation also has one doughnut shop for every 7,000 Angelenos…far more than any other U.S. city!

LA: Where local ski areas �don�t need no stinkin� snow�… they just make it (a questionable use of precious water in a drought stricken coastal desert – even to me).

LA…where celebrities do private yoga sessions between Xanax dosages upon $875 Gucci yoga mats and find no philosophical quandary in driving the latest model of Hummer. For the numbers, the tank like Hummers go for $50k and gets (a never-advertised) 10/mpg!

Can you say Patanjali�s Yama Guideline; A-P-A-R-I-G-R-A-H-A ?

LA: Where Beverly Hills plastic surgeons now offer �biceps implants� to complement their client�s facial, breast, buttock, and calf �work�. Thank God…now we can finally use gyms for what they were intended; hitting on hotties.

LA: Where the omnipresent freeway noise near my home carries the unmistakable 9-5 rhythm of individual spirits being crushed, one by one, day after day.

Don�t let me mislead you. There are a lot of great things about living in LA. The seafood for one. It is so fresh it�s practically pastry. The perfumed air of year round flowers. The way morning climbs into the marine layer to float sunshine over the glimmering ocean. And, the amazing amount of very good-looking, very fit people. You feel young and sexy just breathing the same ocean air as them. Hec, i maintain my tan just from the glare off all the perfectly white smiles around here!

Sure LA is easy to poke fun at. So is Wholistic Fitness. Perhaps that is why i chose the City of Angels to do my spiritual �big city work�. LA is open minded and free thinking. But anything that is open is also vulnerable to judgmental minds. What�s that line by Bob Dylan, �Don�t criticize what you can�t understand…�

I think about that line every time i hear rap or heavy metal music.

At least in LA, people receive you for you. She won�t try to change you. She accepts you for whatever and whoever you are. Whatever you choose to wear, to drive, to consume, to enjoy, to Practice. It�s all good out here. LA lies in a vortex, like Sedona, Boulder, or Santa Fe. The �Vibe� is different here. Measurable. The wavicles within the circuitry of earth/sky energy is palatable here. It effects in positive ways an inner way of being. LA is like asana made manifest; she wants to open you up. For here, between pavement and palm tree, circumstance and synchronicity dance hand in hand.

Personally, I love LA.

I met my Beloved Angel here.

It�s damn fun living here.

But still, I love high altitude mountains more…

Just hours ago i was gazing into the cirque above Lake George at 9,893� taking a breather from a pre-dawn skate ski workout. I just stood there, on my skis, feeling. Looking. Listening. The frozen lake began to sing as the sun appeared and began to warm the icy bed.

Have you ever stood on your skis, surrounded by glistening snow, to witness just one sunrise? Breath – frozen – clings to your face as eerie cries rise in dolphin like tones from beneath a frozen mountain lake awakening? The opera continues and finds applause by an emerging emerald sky. Long i stood there and fell to meditation.

Here was yoga.

Here was the Union of the Divine and the Personal of which Himalayan Masters speak. Here Prakriti and Atman, Shiva and Shakti display clandestine secrets. No finer temple than these soaring cathedrals of granite domes. No better robes to wear than my skis. No holier water than my sweat used to get here. Here is my pew. The snow covered mountains, my altar before which i pray my glory of breath and sweat.

Too much thinking dilutes power of both prayer and mind. That is the drawback to the City life; she keeps you thinking by so much input. But here, the majesty of Mother Nature distills random thought into a shock of clarity. All cells are firing, full throttle, with life force.

One thing my boyhood wolf, Apache, taught me long, long ago is this: When in the wildness, be still. Listen. Feel.

The more your breath goes out

the more Nature moves in.

As your thoughts take leave

mind becomes still

birds enter

streams mutter

tree limbs lift

winds dance

snowflakes flutter

and

entire mountains shudder

with

Grace and Divinity.

I had to move to the Big City

to climb my Highest Mountain

to hear my deepest Silence.

I had to move to a busy city

to deepen my stillness.

I had to let go of fitness

to gain a Higher fitness.

Where are you moving

to become Whole?

Which edge are you pushing

– right now in your life –

to cultivate your Highest Yoga?

�When the pain of leaving behind what we know outweighs the pain of embracing it, or when the power we face is overwhelming and neither flight nor fight will save us, there may be salvation in sitting still. And if salvation is impossible, then at least before perishing we may gain a clearer vision of where we are. By sitting still I do not mean the paralysis of dread, like that of a rabbit frozen beneath the dive of a hawk. I mean something like reverence, a respectful waiting, a deep attentiveness to forces much greater than our own.�

-Scott Russell Sanders,

from Settling Down, Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World.

Stop by DIRECT LINES tomorrow for

Student Updates, Dharmatalk, and much more!

and as always,

may your Practice be strong and sincere today.

i bow to you,

coach ilg

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