Wholistic Fitness

Namaste Noble Warriors!

wow, i guess the CHI from my last two entry’s hit a lot of you! that’s great! THANK YOU for your amazing words of kindness and appreciation for DL! i’ve stopped putting in a lot of your beautiful comments because part of me thinks that new readers will think DL just a depository for my ego enhancement! truly, this forum is just an offering from me to you as part of my Practice in Karma Yoga. but thank you and i am enriched by your enjoyment of DL’s inspiring ways!

today, before winter slips too far into spring, i want to share this essay from WF Online Teacher, Joseph Sheader (check out his new and constantly rotating photos on the INSTRUCTOR link on my homepage).

Enjoy the essay and thank you, Teacher Sheader for your contribution! i always welcome contributions, not only from my Teachers, but from formal online WF Students, friends, and fans of our spiritual fitness tribe!

– coach ilg

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I think over again my small adventures

My fears

Those small ones that seem so big

For all the vital things

I had to get and to reach

And yet there is only one great thing

The only thing

To live to see the great day that dawns

And the light that fills the world.

-Ancient Inuit Song

The day broke with wonder as I tapped into the excitement of the dogs. Ootek

(my sled), myself, and the huskies entering perhaps for the last time this

season the dance of snow, pine, storm cloud, mountain sky, cold breeze,

Raven, and the silent music that only winter can make.

The night before provided perhaps the last snowfall. Four new inches, but

the dogs scent the way. I trust.

I am not aware yet of any creature so expressive at displaying joy in the

present moment as the canine. Such joy in the run has always come to me as a

teaching for my own flights along trail and track.

I am presently running with four Siberian Huskies; Tundra, my primary lead

dog and running companion who I have been endeared to since the day she was

born; my rescue husky Balto, a gentle spirit who truly eats like a mindful

monk; and their pups Cheerful Chinle, whom many mistake as all wolf, and his

sister Taiga, red and ornery as a fox.

Siberians (no longer classified as dogs but as a subspecies of wolf) are an

ancient even Paleolithic breed from the indigenous Chukchi natives of

Eastern Siberia; bred for endurance and as companions for their children…

Ideal for many a WF warrior! Humans rank high in the animal kingdom as

endurance athletes, top four or five in fact, a little higher when they

practice Wholistic Fitness, but these sled dogs are numero uno. When

trained, they will run a 100 miles or more day, between 5-6 minute mile

pace, in sub zero temps as low as -70� for days on end, wholly for the love

of running and being alive.

When we all come together it is the pack transforming into a team. There is

a unity and oneness that reverberates with primal memories. The illusion of

separation evaporates in the cold air. When dialed in, even commands like

Gee and Haw become unnecessary. When however, you are less than mindful,

distracted, divorced from the present reality…well then karma happens

fast…sled’s tip, dogs get tangled, trees approach at the speed of sound.

Poetry can turn into chaos in a split second. The primarily teaching in such

an instance being akin to one’s training in Wholistic Fitness under similar

circumstances… Don’t Let Go of the Sled!

On this day, as the dawn expands onto the snowscape before us, my yoga is

expressed here… in the quiet glide of the Ootek thru pines as the husky

prana steams back to mingle with my own breath and muscles pulsate with

life, like invocations to spirit wolves.

I encourage all to read about these Winter Athletes in:

Winterdance. By Gary Paulson.

Its right there on the shelf by Coach Ilg’s The Winter Athlete,

Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh, and

Aphorisms of Patanjali.

May your practice be as beautiful and as great as the dawn that fills the

world,

WF Teacher Sheader