“If you want to win the Human Race? you gotta stay focused on Enlightenment. You’ve been graced this Human Incarnation from your countless lives of competing since you did what it took to split the cell…don’t give up your Practice, drive deep into your weaknesses and develop wholeness because wholeness is the foundation of Enlightenment.”
by the Turn Around point at 7.6 miles? i knew i was going strong; sure i had moments of weakness…ahamkara (ego) pleading, “Stop this pain! Less pressure! you’ll blow up on the final climb!” and other such egoic bullshit. The Wholistic Fitness® cure for such lower mind antics? Mantra. Recenter on the Breath. Keep the Cadence…surrender to the wind, the rain, the mud…and i did. Felt Eagle Medicine sweep me through the highly dangerous final curve into the final 3k climb…i settled willingly into the Pain Cave wherein the Noble Silence empowered my pedaling…
yeah, my kids are using ‘real’ yoga mats like the ones my ‘peer’ teachers and their mass of rich, white adult students are using a few mountain passes away at the Telluride Yoga Festival…nope, we hand cut these Emergency Material pads from a hardware store….wanna help get my Rez Kidz some REAL YOGA mats? contact me at: steve@wholisticfitness.com
pic: D-cat and i take an evening stroll (by Durango standards, which means tracking Bear and collecting hundreds of ancient snail shells upon the Mancos Shale intensely hilly topography)…Cardio is a most traditional Yogic discipline; inherent to the Ancient Enlightened Ones Practice (consider Gandhi’s Salt March, Swami Rama’s Himalayan treks, etc., etc…) STUDENT Q&A: […]
Yesterday at 10,910’… surrounded by my lifelong friends; cold, snow, and high heart rate! Felt fleet, felt a sense of Wu-Wei – effortless effort – and raced to a top 10% of all 400+ finishers…today? well, not so much…
DAY TWO: 2nd Stage of the IRON HORSE BICYCLE CLASSIC – CIRCUIT RACE.
in bike racing there is an oft recited catchphrase; “Sometimes you are the hammer, and sometimes? Well you’re the {explicative} nail.”
this morning? feeble ilg was the latter.
in fact, i finished very nearly DEAD LAST!
sure, of course, i love running, snowshoeing, skiing, mountain biking, hiking, and nowadays taking my daughter along the sinewy sweetness of the massive network and drop-to-your-knees beauty of the Four Corners trails! doh!
but, what only a few of you know?
i love creating and maintaining trails even more!
why?
i love the seduction; trails beckon us further, higher…toward purer terrain. Trails are metaphors for our own yogic, fitness, and life journeys.
i want to do my part in protecting the vinyasa of trails for my daughter’s generations and many more…
Daddy: “Okay kids, stop there…great, now, turn around and say,’BEAST HILL!’…
Dewa (pictured in black); “SERIOUSLY, Daddy…OMG”
Dighándíshwo’go bee shidziil…
(Running makes me strong)
***
running felt more natural to me than walking.
why walk,
when you can run like a Wolf?
until i broke my spine.
nowadays?
i still run.
i still race, kinda.
it ain’t the same.
not carefree feet flirting like Dewa’s upon and across Mother Earth’s skin.
not any more.