Wholistic Fitness

the picture quality of the photographs below relates to two things;
1) i could only use my camera phone, and
2) my effort so great, that only my Love for you produced the extra chi to stop and take these few pictures…

* special thanks to Ananda for picking my ass up in Ouray and
to HP Yogini Leslie for many of the Dharma quotes below…

enjoy…

“Sounds of the valley stream
wash your ears clean;
the canopy of pine trees
touches your eyes.”
– Zen

(above photo; i begin climbing into “Ajax Basin” to gain altitude on the historic “Tomboy Road”…an old ‘burro path’ that was built in the late 1880’s to access the mineral ore wealthy “Savage Basin”, home to the million dollar mine of Tomboy and other mines that still teeter in the elements at around 11,800′. required reading for ALL OF YOU: “Tomboy Bride” by Harriet Fish Backus. Trust me.)

DAY TWO TRAINING INTENT: 13, 114′ Imogene Pass from the Telluride side. Ananda will pick me up in Ouray. if i make it.
DAY TWO CONDITIONS: rainy, 52 degrees in Telluride. the summit, 4,000′ higher is cloud soaked with rain; 39 degrees.

(above photo; just beginning the ascent, looking back toward T-ride and some of the ski runs that drop like a brick directly into downtown. don’t worry, you can’t see more than a fraction of the world-class ski runs that loom for thousands of feet above the tiny town. i devoted my effort today to the ‘sad-eyed’ warrior beasts…the burros that pulled unfathomable amounts of mining machinery and timber each day, each year, even through winter up this part of the pass to get to Tomboy Mine.)

this ancient tunnel marks about 3.5 miles into the climb. it took me nearly an hour to get here. that is how steep and difficult the pass is right from the start. i bow to those ol’ burros. i could hardly haul MY own ass up here…let alone pull a freakin’ city of steel behind me!

you know, more than a few spiritual elders have said, “We can learn a lot about the spiritual maturity of a society by the way they treat animals.”

i finally make the left turn into the Savage Basin and immediately start encountering Mine ruins…everywhere. The pass is pretty much a streambed from here all the way up to the summit, another 2.3 miles over my head. my effort has manufactured more doubt than i cared for…i could see the summit, still cloaked by dense thunderheads and it seemed FOREVER away…using WF Meditation Techniques and a whole lot of Pratyhara – developed through the WF Early Morning Ritual – i kept drawing my senses inward and allowed the stunning, historical chi of these Sacred Grounds to erase physiologic fatigue. i had, to this point, only seen one person; a solitary runner at mile 2.8. i felt al(l)one up here among my family…wind, high pure air, and Father Sky sitting so close to wet Mother Earth. loved it…i cherish being al(l)one, training al(l)one, feeling al(l)one…Bardo Training; “Only in solitude do we find ourselves,” said de Unamuno.

“It is our mind,
and that alone,
that chains us
or
sets us free.”
– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

an instant self-portrait classic…one of the many long stretches above timberline – and snowline – that i could not possibly ride and had to walk, and walk, and walk. right here, in this shot, is how much i love you. i have pushed myself hard, really hard, all these years and across all these crazy sports in order to be One Thing:
A Genuine Teacher Of Yoga…
i push myself across the physiologic spectrum so that i know – by direct experience – my personal edge in internal and external, East and West, Yin and Yang polarities. my Teachers will not allow me to teach that which i do not know by Direct Experience. i know that YOU deserve the Mt. Everest of Personal Fitness Training. i make sure that i not only RAISE the Standard of what a Personal Trainer or Yoga Teacher should be…i attempt to broaden all minds, all bodies by broadening my own by using, trusting, and TESTING that which the Ancient, Enlightened Ones taught…

during this section, the rain was pelting me in freezing bullet ways, the summit seductively yet excruciatingly kept lingering, lingering…never drawing nearer…so it seemed. step by wheezing step it was Doubt that ran through my system more than oxygen…
“What would my Sangha expect from me in this moment?” became my moving mantra up into the rarefied Zone Of The Mountain Gods.

i could not turn around…what is the worse thing that could happen? death?
sign me up if i were to die up here; feed my limbs to Raven yet tether not my Soul
for that which does not die is developed up here, rather it is nourished in the fields of Great Doubt.
even Doubt,
oh Noble Warriors,
is trainable.

“The body is the most gross manifestation of Prana.”
– Yoga Sutras

i feel that if i can develop my body – across the physiologic spectrum – to world class levels of pain/purification,
then my Prana will have to be – by inference and Scriptural testimony – world class.

that is what WF Training produces; world class personal pran…straight from the Mountain Yoga Tradition, stylized to adapt the current era. There ain’t nothing like Wholistic Fitness…and there sure as Heaven ain’t nothing like a Wholistic Fitness Warrior or Warrioress!

ACROSS THE SPECTRUM WE DANCE TO DEVELOP WORLD CLASS PRANA!

i was as high as Brahma’s kite here…the final half mile to the summit was actually drier and more ridable than the previous 6.5 miles…however, even here, the summit ridge in view..you can see how steep the pass is!

nearly moved to tears by my effort, and feeling sooooooooo sacredly potent, even proud, of my effort and overcoming of doubt i was nearly hit by a motorcycle within 800 meters of the summit, then, 3 more huge jeeps carrying fat people nearly barrel rolled me…as i turned the corner to gain the summit of the pass what was supposed to be…and ALWAYS HAS BEEN a very austere and silent, sacred vortex…looked like a red-neck party at a KOA…i mean, motorcycle punks and lard asses were ripping back and forth across this fragile, fragile alpine tundra that i first ran across under my own foot and lung power from Ouray in the seventies!! i counted dozens of tourists from three different “JEEP TOUR” companies discharged upon my beautiful summit, drinking beers, sodas, smoking, and the noise from all these polluting machines and people was worse than LAX before the weekend. i was appalled…
i looked around at my once sacred terrain…
and cursed the profane…
i apologized to Father Sky and Mother Earth…
“i am sorry for my Tribe…i am doing my best to restore Consciousness to them…yet they do not Hear Me…”
i apologized to the deer, the elk, the birds, and the marmots…
i apologized to the mineral kingdom…and the plant kingdom…

i looked out over the idiotic spiritual ignorance of My People
and cried…i really do not know what it is going to take to bring My People
back to their once cellular respect and honoring of nature…

“Let us try to recognize the precious nature of each day.”
– the 14th Dalai Lama

(looking down my descent toward Ouray; 13-miles and 4,000′ below!)

“Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”
– Georgia O’Keefe

as you can tell, the descent was hairball; wet, muddy, rocky, talus-filled, and the god-Damned JEEPS and MOTORCYCLES were INSANE!!! here i am, basically naked with my self-effort and hypothermic on the descent, and these JEEPS and ATV’s were just friggin’ coming straight at me while the motorcycles ripped by my elbows like i was Jeremy McGrath on an off day! JESUS!

i am taking Engaged Appropriate Action to stop this insanity.
to me, particularly now, the high country should ONLY BE ACCESSED BY SELF-PROPELLED EFFORT!
FUCK EM!
if you want some polluting machine to haul your fat, ignorant ass up into the Throne Of The Mountain Gods, than by god you better be willing to cough up a HUGE PERMIT FEE…

if you see that i have been thrown in Jail..
smile,
cuz i swear to Lord Milarepa of the Himalaya,
i will give my LIFE to stop this Earth Abuse of our tiny, treasured alpine lands!
I GREW UP HERE!!!!!
WHO ARE ALL THESE POLLUTERS, THESE ABUSERS!??!?!
AND WHY,
WHY,
WHY cannot they respect their Mother enough to
sweat with Her?
breathe with Her?
get cold with Her?
get wet with Her?

Love Her?

“The sound of the stream,
after all,
is without present,
without past.”
– Ching An

(i stopped here to wipe mud from eyes…this is looking back UP toward the summit from the Ouray Side. the reads simply; “Imogene Pass”.)

Lower Camp Bird Mine, looking toward Ouray…the route takes a mile long traverse across a 400′ cliff band here before resuming a steep downhill joy ride into town…i reached 48 mph during one section of this descent. those big piles are “tailings” which are continual scars across my San Juan Mountains…tailings are refuse from mineral ore extractions. you may not like the look of it, yet, you probably like having a car and a home and a countless amount of other ‘luxuries’ in your life that come directly from The Mineral Kingdom. am i wrong?

tired warrior ilg.
Ananda caught me inspecting my inner eyelids here as i crashed on a sidewalk bench in one of my most beloved of all San Juan mountain towns; Ouray. you and i will be visiting Ouray this winter for ice climbing!

my time from Telluride to the summit of Imogene Pass was not too feeble, given the conditions; just a few twinks past 2 hours!

the descent was half that.

the training effect from this Ride Among The Mountain Gods?
pretty darn go(o)d…today, in fact, i cashed in a little Telluride Training Camp gold with a 2nd place, 1st place, and 1st place on our Training Race this morning! the resultant pranic effect upon my current capacity to work with the five major vayus and nadic channels has produced an ongoing Shift that is, to me, worth more than gold could ever buy…

so,
are the Colorado High Mountain Mining Camps still not producing gold?

depends on your definition of gold, i reckon.

for Ananda and myself? i tell you for certain; we struck it rich, once again among the ether of my Beloved
Rocky
Mountain
High…

i’ll seal up this Telluride Training Diary next with another bow to what’s truly valuable about
getting
out
and
doing the Do…
even through the Doubt…

may my words, borne from genuine effort and love for you,
be of some possible benefit to make your Practice more potent
and in turn,
make All Beings More Awake…

namaste for now,

your mountain yogi