Wholistic Fitness

“Just as a writer learns the spontaneous freedom of expression only after years of often grueling study, and just as the simple grace of a dancer is achieved only with enormous, patient effort, so when you begin to understand where meditation will lead you, you will approach it as the greatest endeavor of your life, one that demands of you the deepest perseverance, enthusiasm, intelligence, and discipline.”
– Sogyal Rinpoche

above photo; bursting out of the “White Lightning” trees last season, i apply some telemark dancing to the snow. This season, learning to tele ski those same trees remains my Yoga and Meditation Practice. i was raised as a competitive speed skier in all the alpine ski disciplines. groomed and icy fast races courses was my entire way of Being on skis…learning how to tele ski in deep powder in thick trees? ooooof! the Lessons of Tree Skiing come as hard as Ponderosa tree trunks. Make mental note again: gotta get some medical insurance one of these years… Photo by Ananda.

***

Meditation In Mountain Yogi Action: Tele Skiing Through Steep and Deep Trees

in March, i skied 19 out of 23 days.
Each of those 19 ski days were my Yoga Practice.
Each of those 19 ski days were also my Engaged Meditation Practice; field testing my Teachings to you to make sure i am Teaching you in the most practical and proven ways of calming the mind.

To me, and to this Path, that means placing the physical body at danger. If the Mental Self is not being trained to be disciplined while the Physical Self is at risk, then, to me…
in this Steep and Direct Path of Yoga…
“Mental Training” and “Meditation” and “Yogic Equanimity” is intellectual bullshit.

***

As many of you know, i was one of the, if not the – first personal fitness trainers to professionally incorporate and teach Meditation as an integral facet of long-term personal health and fitness.

I have been meditating pretty dang solidly for a long time.

To this very day, i always do my best to take my Early Morning Meditations with me and weave their etheric value and principles into my days. Here is what my Yoga Studio looked like in LA. I taught and practiced Meditation within its beautiful walls:

Here in Flagstaff, recently, my main Applied Meditation Studio looks like this:

These are the double-black diamond trees in between two double-black diamond ski runs. click on photo to enlarge. i have been attempting to tele ski (ski downhill on cross-country ski’s) through these trees with two Main Priorities to Practice:

1) ski with power, grace, elegance, breath, flow, and empty mind as possible
and…
2) not kill myself.

yesterday, i came close.

here is what it looks like in this Mountain Yoga Tree Skiing Studio…this shot, taken from my phone camera reveals the Steep and Deep nature of this particular “Mountain Yoga Mat”:

see how close those old-growth Ponderosa’s are? my Yoga is trying to learn how to gracefully tele ski in between these trees and adapting to micro-second reactions on the difficult to turn tele-skis without wrapping my skull casing around the trunk of one of these Beautiful Tree Beings. At 10,800′ in altitude, this type of Yoga sends the heartrate and adrenal gland rate into the ionsphere. Tele skiing is a lot of fast-twitch, explosive power combined with agility. Snowboarding or alpine skiing through these trees is something i have already touched Mastery in, so doing that Practice no longer interests me. Tele Skiing through these monsters, however, is, i feel, going to take me quite a while…yet each time i force myself into these trees and start applying my Teachings and my Teachers’ Teachings and relax into the intensity…the yoga (union) of breath, snow, trees, and empty self draws just a tad closer…

i love Mountain Yoga…
i love my life…
i love my Path…
i love my Sangha…

in fact, while Practicing my Tree Ski Yoga yesterday, i came up with a Haiku just for you:

***

Face first, into tree (5)
Yoga Practice in progress (7)
When you suck like me (5)

Thank you for reading,
Thank you for Practicing strongly and sincerely and with a Ton of Focused Fun today…

May all Beings everywhere be happy,
and know the causations of happiness.

Maybe see you in the trees today?…

OM SO TI,

coach ilg
“the mountain yogi”