Wholistic Fitness

WF Student Lees of Clan Ananda in Hanumanasana.

Symbolized within this pose is the great strength and suppleness of Ram’s warrior helper, Hanuman. So strong and supple was Hanuman, the ‘monkey god’, that he was able to leap across the abyss from the phenomenal world to the inner world, thereby imparting spiritual depth to the ignorant, non-Practitioners.

The recent Oscar winning film, “Brokeback Mountain” was a snapshot of two humans who did not cultivate their inner world. With no Daily Practice nor Dharma Teacher in their lives, they both attempted to open their heart by relying upon their outer worldly relationships and sense pleasures. Seeking for external means however, to provide inner fulfillment, is but karmic exercise in futility. Their spiritual grasping was poignantly and artfully expressed by Director Ang Lee.

If you have read my books, listened to my CDs, watched my DVDs, and have read the over 1,300+ entries in DIRECT LINES, then you know that i have tried very hard for a quarter of a century to get Fitness People keyed into the notion of using their Fitness as a Spiritual Practice.

Fortunately, as i grow older and fatigued of pioneering this seemingly common and beautiful sense against the flow of the mainstream’s addiction to entertainment and body-only fitness, a new generation of WF Warriors and Warrioreses like Student Lees, are maturing in their own WF Practice. The grace of the Divine Download from the WF Deities, Hanuman included, are really starting to show up in the expressive bravery and willingness of such WF Trained Yogins to Live Their Practice Out Loud…

OM SO TI
“May there be happy omens.”

Coach Ilg
founder/Wholistic Fitness� Personal Training
& High Performance Yoga�

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Fitness as a Spiritual Practice
by WF Online Student Kristi Lees

The idea of using fitness as a means to attain greater spiritual understanding may seem like a strange concept to some. After years of what would appear to be neglect of the body in favour of reaching a higher realm, the concept of embracing the body and training hard physically may come across as some what narcissistic.

In the quest for enlightenment (in times past as well as present) spiritual aspirants and devotees are recognised for transcending and disassociating themselves from the body idea. From a spiritual perspective, it’s often viewed that the more detached from the body and its urges a person can become, the more �spiritual� they are considered to be. Spiritual endeavours were, and still are, very much a form of denial and recluse in which it is/was encouraged to leave all worldliness behind; including thoughts and cares of the body, of appropriate exercise and conscious nutrition.

As Steve Ilg, creator of Wholistic Fitness� writes in his recent book �Total Body Transformation� (Hyperion 2005), �We go to church to do our �spiritual fitness� and we go to the gym or lace up our running shoes to do our �physical fitness.� We�ve not put a lot of effort into linking the two�. There seems to be no honoring of the connection of body to spirit in today�s Western society.

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read more at WF Student Kristi’s Lee’s blog; “Reflections”:

http://www.kristi-trinity.com/reflections.html

i bow to Student Lees and her WF Teacher Ananda for living their Practice out loud…
no more flyin’ low on the radar;
the world’s needs Awakened Leaders…