Wholistic Fitness

SNOWDANCE

by Coach Steve Ilg, ryt 500/uscf/cp

7 world championships in 5 different sports

When ilg was 7 years old,  i had a most wonderful pretend Winter Olympic multisport ritual when the snowfall and timing was right.    I’d fashion a mini sort of slalom course upon a large snow pile.  The pile was heaved upon itself, not unlike tectonic plating, courtesy of some neighborhood snow plower whose recognizance has been lost into the bardo of  time/space, at least to my feeble apprehensions.   The pile was huge for me in both physical and metaphysical ways…kicking steps up one side of it, toward its fragile, narrow summit, I’d balance and find my feet.  Invoking an astral Start House around me,  I’d push of it,  requiring no formal skis nor poles.   My snowboots were my skis.  Twigs my poles.  I’d push myself down the icy shoulder of the pile, swerving my  imaginary racing skis to-and-fro through a forest of imaginary slalom gates, my breath and guttural purging like a heaving race horse.  Later in my professional life, I’d become known for my emphasis on Conscious Breathing through intensity.   One should never doubt self-fullfilling prophecies!   Oh,  I would finish in First Place each run, only to refuse the incoming wave of reporters an interview because I had to rush over to my next winter event without delay.

Tonight,  I sit here upon a wooden chair typing toward you.   My legs folded in a variation of  Siddhasana which most 51 year-old males would scream bloody murder in, yet feels so spiritually and physically appropriate for this feeble mountain yogi.    Typing the above recollection to you in conscious breath and posture?   Ilg feels Divinely Blessed.  For somehow, through the Graces,  Ilg has Lived the past 51 years without once losing my chi-ldhood devotion to the simple, beautiful, powerful intuitive wisdom of playful movement, breath, and Serving Oneself and Others.

How Blessed Am i?!

“Through the discipline of training, life bears may dreams.”
coach steve ilg,  THE OUTDOOR ATHLETE, 1985
pic by ilg outside my Temple H(om)e office…WF is like the myriad, frosted limbs, branches, and twigs of this Cottonwood Being…
it’s like;  well,  how deep are you willing to go?!

You’ve obviously caught feeble ilg at a time of spiritual and physiologic ripeness.  Less than one week before my self-created and now 3rd Annual “Winter Warrior 10k Snowshoe Race”  (now a National Qualifier!).   Two weeks out from soloing one of my most precious, Sacred Sweat pilgrimages of my life;  the formidable 75-kilometer/4 sport Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon in Grants, New Mexico.   Though I am one of the most accomplished of Mt. Taylors’ 3 decades of existence,  truth be told;  I have not soloed it since 2009 and quite frankly?  Given the historical hurt this Pilgrimage has placed upon my broken back’d body and very average spiritual capacities?    I’m feeling a wee bit anxious.

One of the great qualities about training for such a Herculean event as Mt. Taylor is that she demands your training to be wholistic and time-consuming.   The former requisite comes natural to me.  I did, after all, create Wholistic Fitness®!   The latter requirement ?  Not so easy these days as a 51 year-old father to a 5 year-old Rinpoche of Endless Chi Force!  The whole Father-As-Provider-Thang has thrown my footloose-and-fancy-free nature into a spiritual cOMbustion of yes, tectonic, proportions.

Yet,  thanks to Bodyhealth products,  ilg is still Here Now, and willing to roll the dice this Presidents’ Day and race in what just may be the GrandDaddy Quadrathlon of all Turtle Island.  Ilg knows in my spiritual heart, that it surely is most my challenging and inwardly rewarding effort.   I’m stoked to toe the Start Line….follow my Facebook page to stay updated on my Noble Effort.

ilg on the notorious, ‘Dreamcatcher Hill’ on Yeti Loop, the northernmost outer section of my self-created and now USSSA-Sanctioned Winter Warrior 10k Snowshoe Race held Saturday, February 9th at the Durango Nordic Center.  I created this race in order to give back to my chi-ldhood saving grace;  the Durango Youth Nordic Team.  Proceeds of my race will go to benefit that Team.  It is my DreamSpeak to one day, host the Nationals at my venue.   Great pic by HP Yogini of the Year;  Sandra Dawagahti Lee who is also Assistant Course Setter.

As a summary of why I love training toward such lofty goals as the Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon?   Let me close with what i did today for training over the past 70 hours;   cycled at high intensity for 90 minutes into a skate ski uphill for 1 hour into 30 minutes of snowshoe running.  This morning,  I classic skied from 6,600′ to over 9,ooo’, up 7 miles (and back down), directly into alpine/telemark skiing with my daughter.  Yoga and meditation and pranayama (yogic breathing exercises) were performed each day..

ilg (in the black and white kit), seemingly surrounded by Southwest Nordic skiers at the 40th Annual Chama Ski Classic at nearly 10,000’…i like the odds!  So far, here are my winter racing results;  if you’d like these type of results?  first step?  make sure you are on my WF Nutritional Triad, including the BodyHealth products of MAP Amino Acids, COMPLETE multi-vitamin/mineral, and DeTox:

• 3rd Place Overall, 1st Place AG; Langlauf; 15k Freestyle, January 26th, Durango Nordic Center, CO
• 3rd Place Overall, 1st Place AG; Chama Ski Classic; 10k Classic, January 20th, Chama, New Mexico
• 3rd AG; Chama Ski Classic; 5k Snowshoe, January 20th, Chama, New Mexico
• 2nd Place Overall; King of the Mountain (10k classic into 5k snowshoe); Chama Ski Classic, January 20th, Chama, New Mexico
• 1st Place Overall; Chama Ski Classic; 7.5k Freestyle, January 19th, Chama, New Mexico

It’s this type of snowdance that just really fuels my inner spirit and grants such endless custody over the versatile spirit of my true nature.  I feel capable across the physiologic spectrum;  strength, endurance, flexibility, and mental/spiritual resolve.  I’m feeling Light in both physical and spiritual ways.  I’ve made the podium in every nordic ski race and snowshoe race I’ve entered this winter and I honestly can’t wait to Toe This Start Line of an incredible inner and outer Journey of my Blessed Soul…

Thank you, BodyHealth,  for keep ilg’s immunity bombproof while the commoners rushed to their ‘flu vaccines’ and still got deathly sick…meanwhile?  Us who believe, trust, and have lived by direct experience the cellular fitness afforded to us by BodyHealth?   Well,  we just do what Ilg did today;

we get out

“…we get out…we get out with our kids, our Loved Ones,  our selves, most of all…and we Breathe..and we Listen..and we Merge…into the SnowDance…”  pic by Sandra Lee of Dewachen Catherine Ilg (5) who solo’d nordic skied over a kilometer before this shot…Blessed Be Chi-ldren Who Are Taught To Enjoy Breath and Movement in Nature!

and do our own Snowdance upon the Sacred Snows of our unique, precious Souls…

head bowed,

spirit vowed,

coach ilg