In this image, I stand on my property overlooking the Rio Grande and Rocky Mountains. I am carrying a piñon pine log down to my house in order to heat my home. I am living my dreams through the power of my body.
As shared in my Origin Story article, I have been dreaming about living in communion with Nature for as long as I can remember. Now, using my body to gather the fuel I need to warm my off-grid home also heats me up and satisfies me to my very core. But bringing this dream to life was not an easy, linear process. I can’t help but ponder: “Why did it take me decades to make my dream happen?” It’s clear to me now that how and why I used my body often distracted me from my true path.
I learned at a very young age that having a powerful body could help me accomplish things. My dad initiated me into the sport of wrestling at age 4 and taught me the art of lifting weights at age 7. I led a successful martial arts career, which included highlights such as placing second in the NJ state championships, earning a DI college scholarship, and eventually representing the USA in a world grappling championship where I won bronze. These experiences, along with my weightlifting training, made it clear what I could achieve as an athlete with a powerful body.
After college, I started a job as a personal trainer at a Gold’s Gym because it seemed like an obvious way to make money given my skills and experience. I also thought I could help others live a better life and feel successful by building their body’s power. I did believe that training our body’s strength and power to be a training of our “life force.” Yet, my actual approach to helping others and myself was polluted with this idea of MORE. More muscle, more weight, more repetitions, more time spent in the gym. As a young man in my early twenties, I would exercise for 1+hrs, 4+ times per week. I was motivated by impressing others with the size of my muscles and the amount of weight I could move. I enjoyed how the power of my body was helping me look good, gain status, and earn money. But was it actually helping me live my dreams?
In an attempt to get on track to living more closely connected to Nature out West, I decided to take my fitness career into the Rocky Mountains. It all seemed perfectly logical to me: run a gym in a small mountain town in Idaho so that I could live connected to Nature. However, as a gym owner and class instructor, I found myself spending most of my time in the gym. I eventually had to leave the West and I distracted myself with achieving extreme strength feats, such as StrongFirst’s Beast Tamer challenge (a pistol, pull up, and 1 arm press with a 106 pound kettlebell) and extending a martial arts career that had already run its course.
I was so habituated to my fitness lifestyle that even while I was camping in Sedona – one of the most beautiful places in America – I made it a priority to go to the local gym each morning for over an hour. Looking back on this trip, I wonder why I couldn’t just get my “workouts” in by hiking and exploring in Nature? But I now know that it was because I allowed my workouts and “gym life” to steal too much of my energy and actually get in the way of my dreams.
Years later, I found myself starting another gym in Connecticut to make ends meet; I couldn’t have been further off my path. I was hoping I could make the money I needed to eventually help me make my way back West. Yet, the pressure from my athletic career and heavy weightlifting training left my thiry-year old body feeling tired, slow, and tight. I was often injured or on the brink of injury, with chronic pain in my neck and back. I distinctly remember a moment of being in that Connecticut gym, lying on my back pondering the true meaning of fitness as it was the very thing that seemed to be leading me further from my truth. I was staring up at the artificial lights and could feel my soul dying as I wondered how I ended up so far from the simple purity of my Nature-connected dreams.
It was then and there that I began to wake up to the prisons I had created for myself. It was at this point that I took a few steps forward, and a couple backward, by adopting a new training style: Natural Movement. I loved its emphasis on moving in Nature and how the system drew upon martial arts. I also loved how it helped free me from the gym lifestyle because now I had more of a reason to go out into Nature. I also liked how it had more fluidity built into it through ground movement, rolling, and balancing. Yet, I got sucked into the culture of becoming “capable” according to arbitrary standards. Though my body felt better in certain ways and I was outside more, I was still pushing myself incredibly hard to maintain physical standards that did not fully resonate with my own. It started to feel like I was training to perform in someone else’s circus rather than being on my own true path.
This is all to say that each step in my body path had truth in it. But, oftentimes, it was powered by someone else’s standards or dreams rather than my own. It took me years of spiritual work and intervention from the power of true love to finally step into a training practice that made me feel healthy, balanced, powerful, and most importantly, free to pursue my highest purpose of communing with Nature and helping others connect to their true self. To me, that is the point of training your body: to be free to be yourself and live on your truest path.
There are major implications when we workout for reasons that lead us away from ourselves and our true path. My story is one of both self-imposed prisons and the breakthroughs that freed me. The following are five breakthrough principles, which are the lessons learned from my fitness journey thus far:
#1: Keep workouts short and simple.
I used to let my workout schedule run my life. An hour or more long workout, composed of 3-5+ movements per workout, with many reps and sets (sometimes at almost full capacity), was what I did to build muscle, increase strength, and express my power. But I was literally blowing my load on every workout!
As a result, I have learned to simplify my workouts to short 15-20 minute practice sessions. My workout frequency is only 2-3x per week because that is what works for me (and of course my weekly frequency of practice sessions ebbs and flows with what is going on in my life and how I am feeling).
Since minimizing and de-stressing my workout schedule, I have become more energized and willing to engage in real life beyond my training time. I now not only move better, but also have more focus and zeal for living my true purpose.
See the video under lesson #4 for an example 20 minute workout.
#2: Work with your inner Nature.
It took me a while to understand that the energy that moves through me is just an extension of Nature. Even though I knew that weightlifting and athletics were an expression of one’s life force through the body, I wasn’t actually taking care of my life force. I now see it as a fire that needs to be tended, water that needs to be expressed, and air that needs to mature and be channeled into true purpose.
Instead, I was steadily depleting all my fire through my workouts and mindset, while ignoring the other elements within. Now, by intentionally connecting to the elements within and around me, I not only better move better, but I also build a better relationship with Nature’s divine wisdom.
Now, when I do a workout, I just do whatever my inner wisdom tells me I need to do. Sometimes its a short but fiery workout. Othertimes, its a water or airy one. Oftentimes it’s a blend of whatever needs to be expressed and leaves me feeling fulfilled. The elemental frame really helps with this more intuitive style of training.
#3: Be aware of your body’s geometry as much as possible
Our body is designed for movement; especially to support our true purpose. However, if we abuse it, we break down and movement becomes a chore (or hurts). That is why the key to effective movement is to sometimes slow down and tune into the shapes we make with our body. This is how we tune into our Earth element and keep our body healthy. Like a circuit, the electrical power of our fire flows through the geometric structure of our body, causing movement. Therefore, in order for our power to flow productively and safely, we must first be able to create, hold, and move through simple shapes. Then, eventually more complex shapes.
For this reason, I try to tune into my body’s geometry as much as possible in life. This practice of slowing down and tuning into the shapes I am making with my movement also serves as a good way to warm up for workouts and prepare my joints for faster movement.
#4: Power (fire) is the foundation
Power is the foundation of all movement ability. It takes electrical power to activate our muscles and move, after all. By training to be faster and better at activating our movement systems, we are literally teaching ourselves how to tap into more of our body.
For most of us, our true purpose will mostly draw upon basic movement patterns, such as walking, lifting, carrying, and ground movement. Therefore, before we can focus on becoming fluid and graceful in these movements – or ascend to more complex movements – we need to focus on having baseline strength and structure to build upon.
Even if we naturally prefer watery movements, such as dance, yoga, ground movement, etc or airy acrobatic type movements, its very important to ensure that we maintain a baseline amount of strength and power. From that base, we can channel our energy into the other elements and our true purpose.
Here’s a power focused workout you can try today:
#5: Train the movements that mean the most to you.
How often do you find yourself engaging in movements that you don’t actually enjoy and/or are interested in? Just like we are drawn to certain colors, foods, smells, etc., we are drawn to certain movements and we need to listen to this calling. Usually, its because they are hints at our true purpose.
I am finding that when I train the movements that I enjoy and mean the most to me (because I see an application for them in my life and they align with my dreams), then I get the most out of training sessions. Also, when I can visually connect them to something I meaningful I would do in life, it stirs me to be more powerful, creative, and graceful in my practice.
In conclusion, I want to emphasize that there’s nothing wrong with experimenting with various styles in the fitness industry, as I did, for it’s all part of our evolution. It’s just essential to be aware that no matter how pure our intentions seem to be as we enter any pursuit, it’s easy to let the culture we immerse ourselves in speak to our primal urges for attention and security, which pollutes our true power by diverting us on our path. That’s why it’s a spiritual practice to appraise our own motivations, and make distinctions between what is true to our soul’s quest and what is not.
At the end of the day, my criteria for a “fit,” wise body is this: one that allows your soul to flow through at its most brightest and true. Embodying the wisdom of your soul allows you to live your dreams, which is always your truest and fittest path.
spiritualperformance.net 
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