Wholistic Fitness

Namaste Noble Warriors!

“Following what we know to be essential for our growth may mean leaving unhealthy relationships or jobs and taking risks that jeopardize our own comfortable position. It may mean making choices that are not supported by consensual reality or ratified by the outer culture. The truth is rarely convenient. . . .”

Donna Farhi, Yoga Mind, Body and Spirit

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Those who seek the easy way do not seek the true way.

Dogen

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It�s been over a month and a half since many fitness warriors made their �New Year Resolutions.� Wholistic Fitness Online Training Services has welcomed a strong number of new Students each of whom have embarked on their one-on-one guided Journey into the guts of the world�s most transpersonal fitness method; Wholistic Fitness.

We are fierce but loving Teachers who staff my humble, but powerful, Temple. I make sure of it. World-class training is what each and every Student receives when they undertake my style of training. I oversee all my Staff�s training and coaching.

Ability level matters little in WF online training. All are welcome to apply for entrance. Ages range from 80 to 14. Some are elite athletes. Others are dying. In this Temple, podiums are used in the same exact way disease or dying is; as Vehicles of Awakening. i have never trained a person in my life. i train their spirit.

In other words, a potential student�s Attitude is what matters most along the WF Path.

A love of learning is also essential.

Humor, too, must be quick at hand. The ability to laugh at our folly and embrace our weaknesses is a trainable one and certainly keeps the Journey fun! Otherwise, why get up and dust yourself off, if you know more laughter is not up ahead, around the next Corner? Why do anything that does not ignite Higher Play?

The dance of wide spectrum personal fitness is perhaps the most Noble action a human can undertake. When i use the term, �wide spectrum,� i mean �fitness that is practiced across the physiologic continuum.� Endurance as well as flexibility. Strength as well as agility. A calm, controllable mind as well as a low percentage of bodyfat. Appreciation of your car as well as your tenacity to bicycle an errand or two. These are qualities associated with wide-spectrum fitness, or Wholistic Fitness.

A good number of New WF Students will quit their training in the coming months. Their once idealized notion of having a body and mind that is geared for Higher Consciousness and displays growing caliber in my Five Fitness Disciplines: Strength, Cardio, Yoga, Meditation, and Nutrition will have proven a bit more than they can handle.

Another batch of New Students will quit as they feel the inconvenience of a spiritual Path treading into their cherished comfort zones. This usually occurs after i teach a New Student how to merge their Fitness Discipline into everyday life through my Four Lifestyle Principles; Breath & Posture, Mindfulness, Appropriate Action, and Practice. It is at this time, that WF philosophy hits New Students really hard like a Tyson body blow, i would imagine. Suddenly, they realize that WF means they can no longer sit, stand, walk, or eat without paying attention to their posture. Nor can they now linger unconsciously in showers wasting water or look past a store clerk without a smile.

My WF maxim, �Your workout is everywhere,� threatens the average fitness enthusiast. Such a common �worker-outer� has not yet been taught how to �work-within� and thus keeps their practice of fitness within the confines of a gym or yoga studio. Such a person rarely brings – let alone cultivates – fitness within the fabric of their daily Moments. It is much easier to read about Meditation in SHAPE magazine than it is to rise early and sit in the cold upon achy knees.

This is how my WF Temple has remained so small over the 20 years since i introduced it in Boulder, Colorado. Ours is a difficult Path and most will not last long enough to earn even my Intermediate Level �Warrior Student Inka� like Scott Adams of New Mexico just did under Teacher Sheader. Even fewer will persevere to attain a �Master Student Inka.� Becoming a Green Beret is probably easier. Master Student �Fit Kit� Johaneson of Vernon, B.C. said, �I came to WF to train for Ironman triathlons. Now, I do Ironman triathlons to prepare me for WF study!�

i prefer it this Way. my fitness training for even one of my World Championships pales in comparison to doing my daily WF awareness studies, which is basically �making what used to be unconscious, conscious.� Observing my thoughts, reactions, posture, breath, tendencies, and karma.

The inherent barrier of ego fatigue that i�ve built within WF philosophical teachings coupled with my infamous body withering workouts keeps my Temple simple, clean, powerful, and full of genuine body/mind fitness Warriors. Monks of musculature and mind study here. We enjoy the Buddhahood of Intensity, the Personhood of Daily Practice. We don�t give a crap about living longer; just Higher.

Just outside my Temple is another, much larger sangha. This global community of curious onlookers is full of yogis, athletes, and fitness enthusiasts. They enjoy watching us crazy wisdom warriors of WF do our thing. These people are probably like you: they enjoy reading DIRECT LINES, maybe use my HP Yoga video, and read THE WINTER ATHLETE. Maybe every now and then they fall to wondering what it would be like to sign up for WF Online Studies and begin formal Practice with a Certified WF Teacher. Come on in, my Temple Door is ajar. We are waiting for you!

Come next January, when my fifth book is released through Hyperion Press, the CHI and the BEAUTY and the unparalleled POWER of Wholistic Fitness will soar from the hard covered pages and hit thousands if not millions like a prana-seeking missile. As in years past, many Seekers will again arrive at my humble Temple, wishing to take this strange Training. I will turn most away. I don�t do what i do for money. The wise should enter the Temple now, before the rush. i am a mountain yogi, i don�t like people that much anyway. crowded Temples foster bickering instead of silence. i prefer pine trees and raven streaked skies simmering above talus torn arroyos.

And, so the cycle dances.

Besides, I�m not gonna be around forever, you know. Well, at least in THIS form! When feeble ilg goes, WF goes. My lifework will be like a Tibetan Sand Painting…gone into the winds of the world. Perhaps, my Certified Teachers will carry on our WF Ways, but the Temple will have been demolished by Shiva to make room for new Growth. So, begin your study today because those SUV�s are getting bigger every month and my bicycle commuting gets more and more dangerous in this crazy city of cell phone addicted Angels. In fact, i think i was safer when i was a free soloist in the high mountains!

Then, again, we are all free soloists.

And, we are all climbing our various mountains.

Inner ones.

Lovely ones.

Magnificent ones.

Divine ones.

May you in-Joy your climb Higher,

and may all beings benefit from your attempts in self-cultivation.

i�m going skiing.

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COMING UP NEXT UP IN DIRECT LINES:

Dharmatalk from some of the New Students now taking formal online training in Wholistic Fitness.

i bow to you,

coach ilg

wholisticfitness.com