Wholistic Fitness

Though they be fierce, HP YOGA PROP WORKOUTS unconditionally serve to press our ego buttons thus, with consistency, spring open latent chakras and purify the nadic system to create a bombproof body/mind toward Capable and Appropriate Awakening. another case in point below…click here to order your own DVD of my The Infamous HP Prop Workout

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in respect of Student A’s Awakening, please read this DL with an Elegant Spine so your own chakras can receive the Transmission…thank you…

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two months ago, as the utterly ripped, handsome young warrior (Flagstaff is chock FULL of such Beautiful Beings) first came to my HP Yoga class at the Northern Arizona Yoga Center, i Recognized him as a Lineage Brother immediately. the Om So Ti came as fast as Monsoon Thunder over the Tetons; he did not speak much at first as is the Warrior’s Way… preferring to let me see his consistent Sweat within the Practice Cave. sweat he did. rarely have i witnessed such fierce focus in a new student. the rhythm of his Practice revealed the knowledge of Abhyasa(1)from some other discipline; he mindfully unrolls his Practice carpet in the same place in the Practice Cave; rear row, middle. he stands in Tadasana or kneels in Virasana in the minutes before class drawing inward his senses as all natural yogis do. when i did speak to him, humor ran through his piercing sword-colored eyes which riveted their radiance upon mine with the calm, confident spirit of warrior fearlessness. as weeks passed, his Practice grew in leaps and bounds that even Hanuman Himself would smile upon; a common characteristic of any warrior with verve enough to attend HP Yoga and HP Prop Workouts consistently. i found out that he, like myself, just recently had a child, actually two. and like Joy and i had to do during Dewa’s second week, he and his wife had to spend anxious days in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

sure, Yoga Teachers receive paychecks.

but truly, i say unto Thee, those are not the true paychecks. you can’t make a living on those.

however, we Yoga Teachers do certainly make a life out of our Service.

what follows is the true paycheck of a Yoga Teacher…when the Om So Ti line up like dominoes, and…should the Teacher’s Teaching remain at a High Level of Love, then…chakra’s (2) open and the Spiritual Abundance flows from the Heart of the Student into the Soul of the Teacher. the best advice for my own attempt to Teach Yoga in general public fashion came from Teacher Blanchard;
“Just bring the Love,
and you will feel the Love.”

enjoy my paycheck, courtesy of HP Yoga Warrior Student A.

Namaste and May Your Practice Be Thus Inspired,

coach ilg

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Steve,

Good evening to you and your family. I know you’re all enjoying a peaceful evening just down the road. It’s the only way you’d have it. Rowan, Celia and I are enjoying some music and a mellow night as well.

Thanks for your energetic leadership again tonight in Prop Class. I must say, I am consistently thrilled to work in so focused a manner within such a strong community.

I waited a bit for you tonight after class, but you were already engaged and so decided to deliver this long-intended email to you, instead. But such artificial communication can’t pass for serious communication (no disrespect intended regarding your internet training business) in my opinion. I would very much like to set up a time when I might be able to meet with you to dialogue concerning various aspects of my life and aspirations because I value you as a teacher and as a student a bit farther along a path I’m already treading. But this email can provide more of a history than that with which I’ve already provided you, and you can decide whether or not, or how you might like to engage me.

I grew up in Missouri, just south of St. Louis, the youngest in a family of five. I was encouraged to participate in various sports from an early age, but at age 10 decided to begin swimming year-round. For the next ten years I swam between four and six hours a day, eventually becoming ranked in the top ten in the nation in multiple events and swam at a Division I school for the first two years of my undergraduate college “career”. At age sixteen, I was encouraged to attempt a triathlon; the focus which results from the determination necessary to push through the pain in that combination of disciplines was addicting, and at eighteen I turned pro. As the youngest member of the national team, I qualified for the next two World Championships. I was sick for the race in Lausanne (Switzerland), and although I was racing well domestically, I dropped out of the Perth (2000) race with double flats as I was breaking away from the pack on the last hill of the crit-style course. I would almost certainly have finished top five (my ten k time off the bike then was 33 mid) had I not suffered those flats.

I was extremely disappointed in myself during this final experience, which was compounded by the physical and emotional exhaustion attendant to pushing oneself continuously for years on end.

As a young athlete competing at a high level, I unfortunately did not have, or did not allow, others to counsel me through what I perceived as a failure of will (I could have finished the race and not have had a chance of placing, but instead, I quit it.). I realized that what I was racing for, and, in my opinion, what organized competition is all about, represents/ed an extremely immature understanding of the value of performance. So I no longer race, for a multiplicity of reasons which I won’t go into right now.

Suffice it to say that I wandered inside the boundaries of who I could become for the next two years, nearly drowning at either end, before I was fortunate enough to come out here for a semester of school focused on the geography of the Colorado Plateau. I reveled in running long distances of desert, skiing talus slopes in canyons, boating wild rivers, learning to climb… enjoying all the freeing ways of interacting with this place. And that’s just it: most importantly, I learned the power of place. The power of mountains, and rivers, the way the prickly pear vibrates just before it breaks into blossom. The way Datura mimics the tongue of the moon.

I finished school, then went to Chile and Argentina with some friends and climbed a peak in the central part of Patagonia (Cerro Tronador). It was largely a slog up a glacier with a moderate rock pitch, an easy mixed pitch and a pitch of sugary snow, but I was hooked. For the past five years, my focus has been on climbing in the mountains.

In 2006, after I got my MFA in Poetry at the University of Oregon, I had the good fortune to climb two stout new lines on two 6000 m peaks in the Cordillera Vilcanota in Peru. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to return to the Greater Ranges since. I climb every winter in the Canadian Rockies, sprint all over the North Cascades in winter and spring, have worked for four of those past five summers in the Colorado Rockies above 13000 feet… the alpine has captured my heart.

The feeling of commitment on big, serious routes on big, serious mountains is largely what I dream of.

As a father, I can’t live out of my truck anymore, or, I should say, between trips. I can only manage at best, three 2 to 3-week trips per year now, I think. Maybe two month-long trips. This abbreviates the apprenticeship necessary for climbing serious technical routes. But I think (hope) I can develop the mental focus and commitment necessary to succeed on serious routes while being a responsible father.

I just need some help designing a framework within which I can work toward that goal. Maybe we can get together sometime to talk. And I’d love for Rowan to meet Dewa.

– Know the flowers, stick together, travel light.
A

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Most Noble Warrior Well On The Path Of Awakening,

last night,
after Prop (22 Warriors!!! how FUN was THAT?!?!?),
shopping in Basha’s for “Playtex® Drop-Ins®”, lingo that now, remarkably, i understand –
my mind Connecting with yours, the thought came through
as beautiful and wild as a Glacier Lily on some remote Canadian ice flow,
“it would be great to go climbing with Andrew, he is such a Maha Warrior of our Tribe…i wonder if he climbs?”

i will breathe into the Rasas (spiritual essence) of your gorgeous, chakra spun letter during my
nordic ski workout this morning and be back to you promptly.

i will say this, Oh Mighty Limb’d Warrior, once the True Self reMembers with Her high, Himalayan Yogi
samskaras (reverberations from previous lives),
the Itch is Endless.

and..Here We Are,

head bowed,
heart open in poetic In-Just-Us…

your fiercely loving coach

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(1) Abhyasa – steadfast Practice under a Teacher’s guidance
(2) chakra’s – energetic centers within the subtle spine like DVD disks which have recorded everything the Soul has encountered over the countless lifetimes.