Wholistic Fitness

Namaste Noble Warriors!

Guess what?

I�ve finished my book manuscript! I�ve made my deadline! Barely. It came down to a sprint finish. I won by a tire�s width, or ski tip, or whatever analogy works for you.

Now, it�s up to NYC….my Agent has to prep the manuscript for delivery to my publisher. He�ll take a long look at it and give it either the green light or….

hell, i don�t know…

if he doesn�t accept it i reckon i�ll either shoot myself or

go for a mountain bike ride.

Probably the latter.

It�s worked numerous times before.

What I do know is this:

1) i�ve done my best and was brave while writing it,

2) my spritual victory has been secured just by my sincere effort,

3) Kathy is a very understanding new wife and i owe her a honeymoon,

4) my brain is mush,

and

5) if it was not for HP Yoga, i�d have carpal tunnel syndrome for the rest of my life. My wrists and fingers and entire body is MAXED out from two years of working on this book!

I�ve published four books already…but no writer am i. i�ve not the constitution. i am an outdoor fitness warrior both by trade and nature. Each hour spent behind a computer feels within my cells like being a newly caged tiger… I WANT OUT!

I WANT TO MOVE and BREATHE !!!!

Based on how my own wrists feel right now, and a certain �wrist ailment synchronicity� that has suddenly appeared within our Tribe, I have dug from my archives the following which I now gift to you…

If you�d like to excerpt from it, like always, please just ask me first.

We just found another guy down in the south United States, doing a column called, �Wholistic Fitness�…he was paraphrasing my copyrighted stuff and calling it his own.

No, I am not suing him. I�m taking the yogic road…and letting the Law of Karma uncover all rhythms of soul.

It�s one thing not to be brave enough to fulfill your own creativity or have the gumption to pull your own research…but it�s another to steal someone else�s!

Oh well, it�s all go(o)d.

Enjoy….

�

HEY! GET A GRIP!

Exploring the Wrists From a Body/Mind Perspective

by Steve Ilg

Founder/Wholistic Fitness�

I know from doing and teaching Yoga that wrists can often rebel at the most basic Yoga postures such as Adho Mukha Svanasana (down dog) and Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (upward dog). In fact, limited wrist flexibility is one of the primary �obstacles� to be overcome by many hard reaching Americans as they begin a Yoga practice.

The Yoga masters from India never really talked much about the need for opening the wrists. I can�t find one reference to such a stint in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. I suppose this is because they naturally have more open wrists from living with less fancy �things� like we do. That is the dilemma about Western lifestyles…we�ve engineered so much activity out of our life that we�ve lost our natural suppleness. Because of this very fact, I often spend a lot of class time on poses that soften and strengthen the wrists, because I know in my own experience how delightful it feels to overcome over gripping the world with too tight of wrists.

HAND-LING LIFE

Wrists allow our �doing energy� to finally manifest outwardly. If flexible and healthy, wrists can gracefully articulate and express ease and freedom of movement to our actions…think here of the sensual hand movements from a belly dancer. When our wrists are tight and rigid, our intended action is jerky and clumsy…think here of Shaq trying to shoot free throws! When I owned my own boxing/martial art gym in Boulder, Colorado the most feared athletes in the ring were not the boxers, the wrestlers, or even the kung fu guys. The guys that made your toes curl in fear before even stepping into the ring were the damned grapplers. If you have ever locked horns with a grappler, you know all too painfully quick, just how vulnerable the wrists and fingers are to a master grappler. Here is my final word on the subject of grapplers; ouch.

Metaphysically, our wrists permit us to be supple and beautiful in the way we �hand-le� our various affairs in life and in the manner we express our inner feelings. As energy becomes more fluid through the wrists, we find ourselves more capable to express ourselves with less concern with �what others might think.� We become, in effect, more true to ourselves.

When wrist energy is compromised – as in a sprain or in arthritis – it can be indicative of an inner conflict with what we are doing. There might be a certain tension permeating our actions, a restrictive tendency that hampers our action, a shying away from what we truly think or feel, or perhaps stalling from doing something that we know needs to be done. Through our wrists, we try to hold on to something that really is no longer appropriate to our self cultivation.

Think about those last two sentences for a moment.

Thanks.

CONDUIT OF LIFE ENERGY

When I give bodywork, I pay close attention to wrist energy. I can often gauge how effectively my student can or cannot release tension through the nature of energy running through their wrists. I�ll adjust my work accordingly. When someone I am working on is able to �go with the flow� of the session, the carpal bones will often adjust into a more optimal alignment. I can feel their energy flow more freely, like they are a conduit of life energy instead of a particle within It.

In summary, I think it is interesting that the under appreciated wrist joint is just a bunch of small, crunchy bones seemingly smashed as if by Divine design. Bone tissue is the most concentrated form of energy in our tissues and thus represents spiritual energy. So it is that at the very junction of where our doing energy makes contact with the outer energy of the world, all of our movement depends upon a working unison of fragmentized spiritual energy. It is almost as though, it seems to me, that in reaching out to the world we wish to become more whole.

May you in-joy the opening of your own wrists and feel the freedom of flexible but strong wrists!

Namaste,

coach ilg