try clicking on the pics for an enlarged WF CHI hit!
The outdoor athlete should be content to train for and compete in and walk away
from a race for what it is and not as a comment on our life.
Yet, we do.
We cannot help feeling that the scissoring effect from our twofold consciousness, arising from our left and right halves, has in fact, folded us into contracted segments of the Universal Life Force and as a result, we know not where we stand most of the time.
And so we race.
We walk willing into and pay money to suffer like a dog
for one or two zen moments of being
of feeling like an aerobic poet dancing upon an inner and outer arena of
True Self.
We spend enormous amounts of money,
of heaviness upon Mother Earth and Father Sky
to train for, travel to, and retreat from races
in what often seems to be a largely futile effort to
merge our halves into a gleaming, happy, wise whole.
We who race
who do what it takes each day to even toe a Start Line,
confess inwardly and perhaps too often,
that racing is an elegant, sometimes bravado show of narcissism
in the sense that, when we race, the Outer World no longer reflects our
status in falsehood.
We who race
shatter the mirror provided so insanely by society and
put ourself truly, nakedly out there,
into the studied, measured, and reportable space where
breath and body merges into nature.
And as we cross yet another Finish Line,
we
we who race
feel only a New Beginning
for somewhere out on that Race Course,
testing ourselves among our peers,
pushing the very limits of our Practiced Pain,
we have Self Healed the Split
between Left and Right
between Ida and Pingala
between Female and Male
between Emotion and Intellect.
Somewhere out on that white canvas of snow,
whiter than chalk,
more drunk than wine from the intake of Pran,
tanned and windburned from the southwest sun bare upon the ski track,
racing among the vanilla dipped limbs of pines,
I found in my Langlauf Race a secret inside of me,
a secret of union
a secret Yoga
born from steadfast intensity of daily Practice
and a Warrior Gumption
to be brave enough to
be a part of the Human Race
a Race
toward
Enlightenment.
***
coming up; i introduce you to some of my mountain athlete mentors from Durango that helped create
the very root philosophies of WF.
***
photos by Ananda:
1) i attack the 19% Finish Hill for the second of three laps. I maintained this gap between myself and the racer behind me for 14 nerve wracking kilometers. He never caught me.
2)this is called the Nordic Fatigue Tuck. i have just crested three knee cracking hills right before this 20 second recovery downhill. note how i am skeletally bracing in order to perserve muscle energy. this is a categorically different Tuck position than what i would use in an Alpine Downhill race.
3)i love this shot. here is our Lead Peleton coming through the Start/Finish area after the end of the first of three 10 kilometer loops on a course surely set by Hades himself. I say that because each lap hurt like Hell and sucked the very Life Force from the racers legs. Shortly after this shot was taken, Ned Overend and Travis Brown – both quite famous professional mountain bikers – accelerated the pace into a rarified Realm whereupon pretenders like Yours Truly got dropped like an avalanche.
4)welcome to a Mountain Yogis version of a Yoga Studio; the Start Line of the 2007 Durango Langlauf 30k. the cold of nervous energy in this Studio gives upliftment to Chi arising.
5)still standing after all those painful, err, i mean Purifying, kilometers! actually i was so nourished by this H(om)ecoming of mine, that i felt absolutely High on Divinity. until a few hours later when i fall asleep so hard i bruised my cheek. my finish time was 1:35:14. Go(o)d enough for 4th in my Age Group and 12th Overall. Next year: top ten baby! i ain’t gonna let that Lead Group ski away from me!
These teachings are the "Rasas" or "sap" of Wholistic Fitness. You’ll find insights to ponder, student chi to keep your own chi topped off, and plenty of proven training techniques to test on your own body, mind, and spirit! Also, you’ll find my very popular Race Reports, and news of our Sangha’s (community’s) latest transpersonal fitness adventures!