Wholistic Fitness

Recently, i had a chance to reConnect with one of WF’s most cherished certified WF and HP Yoga Teachers who taught WF Online Studies as well as teaching at my High Performance Yoga™ studio in Los Angeles. we lived together for a while…(and that is just in this lifetime!)…yes…here he is: Teacher Q!

Sweat flowing down face   (5)

I sit and then it hits me      (7)

what he shared was true    (5)

Kali Yuga…pow!                  (5)

Facing the truth of my death  (7)

i smile in my mind             (5)

– Q

in a recent correspondence to me

Teachers Q and Ananda during a HP Yoga™ Workshop in Los Angeles, Spring of 2006

Question #1; Let feeble ilg just say how many times a smile comes across my face when memories of Precious Teacher Q wash across my mind. It’s now been several years since you taught for WF…have you been able to feel the Sangha Love throughout this time?

Answer#1; The sincere spiritual journey can be, and often is, a very precarious thing. For many reasons this is so. I will share one now. As my shadow was uncovered and my practice began to reveal the deep hidden things I tried so hard to hide. Tried so hard to run from. It can turn things upside down. What was up seems down and down is up, and what felt like love seems like hate, and vice versa. The illusions are powerful. So real. So captivating. It broke me. Broke me completely. I lost my whole life. I spat at all that was God, I hated all that was WF. And when my hate was sincere enough, when I was willing to die rather than hide from it any longer….she changed. What was Hate/Love became ONE. A smile came over my face. As I lay in my spiritual vomit the stench became Nag Champa and I couldn’t resist the laughter that came from within. I cried for my brother we call Coach. I cried for his courage and his feebleness. I moved my mangled bodymind and the lessons all became clear. Yes…I felt the Sangha Love. Her deep uncompromising passionate love that’s willing to destroy you if need be. Now I know what all the training was really for.

Question #2; Precious One,  why do you TAF so many Seekers readily accept the notion of spiritual wholeness, yet when a genuine Teacher of Wholeness presents the platter of their gunk-which-must-be-purified before them,  instead of graciously accepting the Steep and Direct Path toward Transformation,  they run away?   Is the genuine Teacher/Student,  Guru/Shishya Relationship extinct on Turtle Island?  Did one ever truly exist for Western yogis?

Answer #2; I have TAF a long time on this one. Allowing for the Teachers own spiritual lessons in manifesting this(a given), it’s an age old phenomena(sorry no spell check in the library, I am without laptop). The Authentic Path has always been arduous and the masses have always shunned or quit long before mastering themselves. Add to that this strange time where spirituality has become en vogue. Every half hour there is another book written for the so called seeker. Oprah and everybody else has jumped on the spiritual bandwagon and have murked the waters sumthin aweful. For Christ sake you can’t have a bad day anymore before 3-4 friends will quote something from Eckhart Tolle they saw on a talk show or PBS special. It’s an interesting thing…a person reads a book and becomes conditioned to feeling if they made it to the last page they got it. I feel this unique to these times. Sort of an one up on the challenging aspects of modern spirtitual life. Many so called Teachers attempt to SELL the Path as easy and quick. We are encouraged to link or spiritual awareness with how much we have manifested or acquired. Struggle is seen as failure. Contemplation seen as a waste of time. The shadow aspect of the Path….the DEATH aspect of the journey is rarely spoke about at all. Hard to find a good marketing campaign for that shit…:-)

Our generation was the last one with a glimmer of being raised to even be aware of the warriors Path. We had Bruce(real martial arts), Star Wars, Joseph Campbell, etc. Today there is practically nothing seen as sacred. Or even taken in the same context as we took it when we were young men. Ergo…no real support from life. Only Kipp understood my relationship with you. Many others saw it as dysfunctional and abusive.

And this is truly MY personal opinion. Which may be coming from my own wounds and experiences. An authentic spiritual teacher. Note I say “authentic” with the understanding that a true Teacher ultimately must be willing to lead and or watch a student die to all his illusions…aka KILL THEM so to speak. It is VERY difficult to CHARGE someone for this privilege. To me it shifts things. Sure you can become a motivator to them, or a Life Coach for pay. But to me that is something different. But YOU…with your understanding. With your energy. You my dear sweet brother are in essence a stone KILLER. LOL!! WF is it’s essence, no matter how you do your best to package it(albeit honorably) is a true potential Path of awakening in many ways. Now this is a VERY difficult thing to do under ANY circumstances. People fancy themselves wanting to be spiritual and walk the PAth and all that. Even I diluted myself.
And when I say pay…I don’t mean no exchange. I feel if you had a Temple or like a ranch. A place which ran all the time. People can come pay to stay and go thru what they go thru. To me THAT would be where WF triumphs.

And lastly. These are INTERESTING times. In a way I TAF we are in a place never before come to. And it has it’s own set of energies to deal with and WF is here now for a reason. Sure it may not be a lucrative one, or even a largely appreciated one…but she is HERE. The Teacher/Student, Guru/Shishya Relationship on Turtle Island is not extinct, it’s just WF has very unique way of expressing this relationship and it’s not popular….wait…

Question #3; Can you give WF Warriors an idea of what your current Training/Practices are?   Any particular WF Teaching and/or Technique stand out for you in your Practice after all these years away from formal WF Training and Studies?   What ‘stuck’?

Answer #3; Interesting to answer dear brother. WF has been with me the last 18 years and so much of it is woven into my being.

For a long time I went through a phase where I held a deep resentment to all things spiritual. I felt they let me down. They were useless. I spent so many years on the Path and it all seemed to lead to despair and pain. I felt I lost so many aspects of life that were so dear to me for the sake of awareness. When my engagement broke off, I lost my place of living, and my father transitioned I began what appeared to be a downward spiral. I mention this because as I hit bottom and felt so close to death…in fact sought it out. Much of what I learned from WF came to my heart.

Much of WF is ALWAYS with me….the lifestyle principles mostly. They are the glue in my feeling to it all. Mindfulness, Posture, Breath, etc. All brilliant. And I still feel as HP yoga flows go you are a genius in class creations. The Miles Davis of Yoga Flows if u will. Ain’t NEVER had a class like a HP class!!! Word Choice practice…essential. Opening and activating the chakras which you have on one of your tapes(look at me ‘tapes’, shows how long I been with WF:-) I found that to be very useful. Daily Cleansing, Neti, etc a big part. And of course my beloved AI IMAWA!!!! One could write a book on just this…wait someone did. But here is the MOST useful thing: WF imparted to my heart a sense of SPACE. Space in which to hold oneself accountable to the Path and ultimately to ones true self. If you don’t know how HUGE this is, well then I pray you come to this knowing.

Also in many ways WF is like what Bruce Lee said in Enter the Dragon…a finger pointing away to the moon. Concentrate too much on the finger and you miss the bigger picture. Yet..missing the picture is in fact part of the Path as well, so it all balances out if one is sincere. All in all WF is a true Path of Heart.

Question #4; How is your Yogi Squat these days?

Answer#4; Suuuuuuure go THERE why don’t you. Cute Coach(muttering under my breath). You know you may have spoiled a dream I had once of a gift I AM going to give you in celebration of my love for having you in my life.

My yogi squat is my MAIN focus these days.(I injured my left glenoid labrum and can’t support any body weight yet on my arms) The squat is coming along very well actually. Special focus on my adductor brevis and longus. And my calves especially. Cause I can get into the sucka but I just can’t hold it. I wonder where this applies in my life? *rolling eyes* It holds the key to something so essential to my being, now I understand why I’ve avoided it all costs. My hips in this lifetime are tighter than a ….well nevermind. Tightness = Resistence=Fear.

But a..thanks for asking.

Question #5: Is there anything you’d like to say to the WF Sangha?

Answer #5: To the Sangha; My wish for this precious family is to cherish yourselves and the God within you. These are interesting times, paradigms are shifting and many things seem so uncertain, well this is what the training was meant to prepare you for. WF was created as a useable practice to navigate oneself to oneself. It is a most honorable Path. Divinely created and multi-layered as each one of us are. Steve would always say to me Train hard, Train Soft. I am beginning to understand what this truly means. I bow to my ole El Coache!! It ain’t easy taking up such a task as he has so persistently done. Love yourselves and oh yeah….HAVE FUN!!

Thanks for letting me share some things and own the lessons doing so allowed.

I love you Coach:-)