Wholistic Fitness

Namaste Noble Warriors!

�Rid your body of its impurities,

let your speech be true and sweet,

feel friendship for the world, and

with humility seek wealth and knowledge.�

– yoganjalisaram, sloka 26

krishnamacharya

�

i don�t pretend to know, nor do i personally care, what are the life priorities of other men my age. i�ve got my own hands full…i need to soften and spread my toes.

that�s right. i�m talking toe spread. if you are a conventionally trained fitness enthusiast or new to my style of transpersonal fitness philosophy, you better buckle up. it might be rough sailing for you over the next few paragraphs. my premise; the state of our toe spread has much to do with our personal and spiritual growth.

right now, the bulls work of my feeble march toward Enlightenment in this lifetime is centered upon increasing the suppleness of spread between my toes.

you may find this rather odd and certainly not a priority for someone just opening their own business along with a host of ongoing matters and circumstance. but if i know if i can keep softening my brittle toes and spreading them wider apart from one another, my solidarity in life will increase. a holistic training effect will emerge from my more supple toes. since each toe is inextricably linked to one of five major organ systems, my entire organic and hormonal balance and function will improve. even my chakras will benefit from simply making my toes more supple. but this spreading and softening of my toes demands intense concentration and consistency. that will also benefit me, since those are two primary qualities which will, in the long term, further stabilize my mental energies for advanced spiritual progress.

you see my beautiful fitness sadhus, those are not just TOES down there latched mysteriously onto your feet. no sirree Bob. them there are energetic portals, hooked up to the powerful voltage of your nervous system. the more brittle your toes, the more brittle your internal organs. and in WF, we�re not into shutting down and being stiff. we use personal fitness to open and embrace and accept. a very, very good place to start is with your toes.

in the spreading of my toes lies the next expansion of my self.

my ten toes have suffered lifelong abuse from being stuffed into ski racing boots, mountaineering boots, motocross boots, and that was just an appetizer for a decade of ultra running, consistently running over 100 miles per week. by the time i switched from running into cycling i had already further suffocated my toes for another decade by jamming them each day into rock climbing slippers fitted so tight so as to make my forehead bleed.

so my journey into softening, aligning, and spreading my toes has been a daily battledance since i started doing daily asana practice seven years ago. but yesterday, i hit a yogic jackpot.

during my solo practice i finally stumbled upon a key ingredient to my toe spread. i laid upon my back, feet in air and squeezed an 8 lb medicine ball between my knees (to deepen Mula Bandha, a yogic internal lock which makes asana practice much more pointed and poignant).

lying there in my home zendo like a stinkbug turned belly up, i flickered and fussed my feet and ankles around for a solid ten minutes. i was just exploring without attachment or technical concern. it came to me in a flicker of awakening; if i strongly dorsi flexed my feet i reached a state of deep relaxation through the shin muscles. sustaining the relaxed response, i pressed like an accelerator my feet into plantar flexion but maintained the alignment of the navicular tendons. in that moment of pressing, a completely new array of nerves came online! i could actually – for the first time in my life – draw my hammered, ignored, abused little toe AWAY from the others!

it felt AMAZING!

my toes LOVED it! i felt something deep release in my heart area, near the back. my toes were zinging with life force… an infant network of pran started feeding my internal organs…this was rich stuff!

this was reflexology not given away to somebody else…it was MY self-induced reflexology and i can now do it anytime i want because

i

have

learned

my

own way

with

my

own

feet

using

the strength of my own mind

not

someone

else�s.

this type of breakthrough

though completely irrelevant to anyone but me,

is the best example of

what i think true

person-al

fitness

is all about, baby!

it�s so much fun…

watching your toes spread from a state of contraction

toward one of healthy expansion…

is the same as watching your entire self

navigate the same transformation.

i guess what i am saying is,

that watching my toes spread

is to me

a million more times more fun

then

watching

TV.

May your Practice be TOE-taly strong and sincere…

coach ilg