Wholistic Fitness

on the Sacred Peak (5)
mountain biking with Sensei (7)
he Sees lines, but where?! (5)

yesterday i got schooled again by my Sensei of the Singletrack, “Tattoo Bob.”
his curriculum for me and another bro from Prescott this morning:
a 3-hour, billionjillion vertical feet of climbing and
extreme descending over terrain more suitable for rock climbers, not cyclists.

after an hour of Zone 3 climbing up “Sunset Trail” – a famous slice of technical singletrack that pierces
a God-Gifted Temple of wildflowers and alpine hanging meadows.
the only sermons up here are those given freely by the birds who ask for no “offerings” of money or affiliation of your soul.

then, came the 5 mile drop-like-a-brick descent of “Little Bear Trail” which
features a focus-enhancing 800′ abyss on your right and an elbow tearing
cliff on your left. the tiny trail is etched like an Etch-A-Sketch line into the
exfoliating cliff face.

having just threw down one of my best mountain bike rides of my life the day before,
i was on-form and shredding like a mighty aerobic Zen Master who actually does this type of
outdoor stuff instead of sitting around perched on puffy cushions like potted plants.

i was in the Zone, baby…right on the wheel of my Sensei witnessing and attempting to imprint upon my own cellular make up
his deft flicks and flairs of his body, breath, and bike as we soared down, down, down the steep and rocky path.

having already dropped our other companion, there in the early morning light, only my Teacher and i,
sweating a scintillating precious sartori upon the world class singletrack. we only really get Moments in life.
so it’s important to fill our lives with quality Moments.
this was such a Moment.

it was then that my Teacher granted me a private exposure to one of his “Jedi Moments.”
a moment so suspended in Pranic Flow and
non-comprehensible intellect, that if i did not Know better, the whole sequence of events could not
possibly have happened.
at least not on this Plane.

i recall the zen of being fearlessly dialed onto Sensei’s rear wheel as Mother Earth kicked and clapped at our warp speed
down the twisting trail.

i recall a throbbing Mula Bandha and rhythmic breathing as i sustained this shredding at a Level significantly
higher than ever before.

i recall Sensei floating up and over a sudden rock-filled, tree-rooted headwall rising like Shiva’s fist curled in front of me.

i recall practicing what i Teach; “See yourself through the obstacle,” as i almost magically it seemed,
cleaned this sudden dangerous section which i would normally have dismounted and walked up.
then, like coming over a roller coaster high point, another jaw-dropping section of the descent as the void yawned at my right shoulder.

i recall seeing Sensei, just ahead of me, suddenly and without warning, simply vanish in a puff of light and dust, in the way the Road Runner would disappear from the Coyote in the cartoons.

i recall hitting my brakes and skidding, nearly out of control and very nearly off the cliff and into the abyss.

i recall seeing what made me hit my brakes so hard.

there was a huge, fallen tree directly over the trail, with a debris of branches, bark, and shattered rock protecting it like a moat.
there was absolutely, positively no ridable line through this obstacle.
to go left would smack you at a high speed into the cliff band.
to go right would send you like a skyrocket off the mountain and into the ravine far below.
there was, where the tree had snapped off, a tiny space of about four inches which hovered off the right edge of the trail.

i examined this spot carefully, for to me, in that glistening Temple of Sweat and Singletrack morning,
my Teacher had performed a siddhi.
a power.
a miracle of No Mind.
an epitome of Zen in Action.

i saw no tire tracks from his passing over/through/around this obstacle.

as i dismounted and climbed rather ungainly with Gunther (my bike) over the obstacle and wishing the tree Ai Imawa,
i shook my head.
my Teacher has done such siddhi before me a number of times.
this one, however, took the Pranic cake.
i swear he Shape Shifted with the Blessings of the Kachina Gods up here and just rematerialized on the other side of the fallen tree.

after i rejoined him at a secluded Secret Spot several heart thumping miles later, i asked my Sensei about his siddhi through the tree.

“Oh that? Well, you know, i just don’t like to get off my bike. Clearing that tree without stopping my Flow is kinda like in the Martial Arts, you know…i just didn’t think about it. i think i backpedaled to get my inside pedal up, bunny hopped sideways, and kinda shot my front tire through that space…i dunno.”

“Sensei,” i attempted to re-Mind my Teacher, “you were going about 23 mph! how do you do all that in a flicker of an instant.”

With impeccable Animal Medicine timing, a beautiful Northern Flicker flew like poetry to a perch on a nearby snag overlooking the entire Hopi lands far, far below the Great Peak.

“Hey,” my tattoo’d Teacher smiled kindly at me, “dat’s what this shit is all about, brother. Go with the Flow, baby.”

It was then that our other companion caught up to us and skidded to a stop before us, breathless and smiling. He looked at me knowingly, for he has ridden these mountains with Sensei far longer than i and asked me,
“He cleaned that tree, didn’t he?”

It was my turn to smile as the Northern Flicker flapped into the growing thunderhead,
“Yup. He sure did.”

Soon enough, after some easy DharmaTalk which spilled without effort and with much sacred joy from our mouths from our overlook, we remounted our bikes and headed still down and up and up and down with many, many more obstacles for me to Practice my skills upon.

In mountain biking, it’s the obstacles that make it so much fun.

in life as well, though we seldom are skill-full enough to realize it, it is in-Deed the Obstacles (karma) that make our short lives here such a wild and woolly trip until our final exhale.

***

on the final descent, i was honored and thrilled to show my Sensei a brand new mountain biking trail – another of the fabled Flagstaff Secret Mountain Bike Trails – that had just been completed a week or so ago. during one particularly sketchy and dangerous rock garden section, i looked up only for an instant so i could witness the superb descending skills of Sensei, hoping to perhaps assimilate via osmosis some of his talent for getting through this incredibly steep, rutted, rooted mine field of a boulder slope.

instead, the only thing i assimilated was an ass over elbows, headlong fall off my bike and into a rock.

my right hand is hurt, my left knee has a contusion from both rocks and bike frame and it hurts to type.

in the outdoor sports, the Teachings come fast, hard, and painful.
it was from this necessity of focus within the extreme outdoor sports that i created the science of Wholistic Fitness and her subDiscipline of High Peformance Yoga.

it is this instrumental requirement for sustained concentration for hours and hours through high intensity effort that imparts the unmatched Transmission of our little known, yet pretty potent Path beneath the Sacred Peak.

May your own Practice be gifted with insight and a ton of sacred fun…

i gotta go put ice on my hand…

love and light,
your mountain yogi

photos:
1) southwest singletrack. HP yogi ben.
2) coach practicing within the Temple Training Grounds. HP yogi ben.
3) Gunther’s dashboard. coach.
4) WF Temple Manager Ananda, practicing the tough Teachings of WF. coach.