This contrasts strongly with a general misanthropy I’ve noticed among some of my communities, particularly the local food and paleo/ancestral health communities. There, the party line is that humanity has generally screwed everything up. We defile our bodies, we rape the planet, and we poison the food. The more extreme elements hold that technology hasn’t done us much good either, either pushing off problems or simply creating new ones.

I’ve been in that camp, but I now think it is a harsh judgement. We are still a young species, trying to get control of our burgeoning power, like a child discovering her automony who throws tantrums to test the limits of her freedom. We don’t have parents to hold us back, but perhaps we’ve been too harsh in judging our situation as hopeless and stupid.

We have a lot of influence, a lot of potential, and we have no precedent, so it makes sense that we’ll make mistakes. It’s true, many have suffered as a result, and that is certainly a tragedy. We’ve lost many species and done irreparable damage to our ecosystem. Of course, sometimes to learn a lesson in self-control, you need to break some irreplaceable.

In his book, Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louve talks about how many nature lovers developed their deep appreciation for nature; as kids, they captured frogs, hunted squirrels, dug up bushes, redirected streams, and generally wreaked havoc on their patches of the woods.

They didn’t mean any harm by it, and they probably did minimal damage in the grand scheme of things by virtue of their meager capabilities. The end result of this exploration of their relationship to nature was a deep reverance and appreciation that goes far beyond the simple “keep off the grass” approach of urban armchair environmentalists. Those who have the truest, most honest relationships with nature, those who will lead the way to a civilization in balance with the ecosystem, are these individuals who know about getting their hands dirty.

I wonder if our current relationship to our global ecosystem is simply the same kind of exploration on a societal scale. We don’t want to destroy our planet, but like children, we don’t know ourselves very well. We are still young as a species, and even younger as a civilization.

With China and India industrializing rapidly, there has been a lot of concern over the future of sustainability. We worried that they would take a path similar to the one we did, oblivious to and unconcerned with the damage we did to the environment as we industrialized.

Recently, China pledged to limit carbon emissions. They weren’t going to claim a right to uninhibited expansion just because we Americans did when we were industrializing. It seems that they did learn from our mistakes.

That gives me hope for humanity. I don’t know how well they will live up to that proclamation, but it hints at a growing maturity and a more responsible use of our capabilities as a global civilization.

I guess we get to choose our perspective, and I’ve grown fed up with myself constantly judging people, downplaying everything we’ve accomplished, and generally being a curmudgeon. I’d rather be realistic about things, but I feel that there is a lot to appreciate in people.

Photo credit: pol sifter on flickr

Boulder’s magic strikes again.

I was out for a barefoot run last week and decided to explore a new trail. I was getting the usual stares, when one woman held my gaze. I smiled politely, and she did too, but she didn’t just turn back to her hike. Instead, she yelled, “Another barefooter like me!” I saw shoes, but when I stopped, I realized they were light moccasins. We walked a while together until we reached a side trail where she removed her shoes.

Instead of continuing my run, I decided to take the opportunity to connect with a fellow barefooter. We walked and talked for about an hour, sharing our experiences being odd in Boulder. It was very encouraging for me to have found someone else who was also surprised at how uncomfortable people here were with barefoot hiking.

We all come to our eccentricities in different ways, and Boulder certainly has its share of ‘wellness junkies’ but since barefooting has proven to be relatively uncommon, I wanted to figure out how she had been inspired in the first place.

It turned out we had the same inspiration: Erwan Le Corre.

The only difference was, she had met him in person when he was living in Boulder.

She had been hiking on the very same trail we were on when she had encountered him climbing a rock formation without a crash pad. That had caught her attention and Erwan, apparently always eager to spread the word, had explained his theories on natural movement and human potential. A sideways glance at the heavy boots she was wearing left an impression. After that, she started the transition to barefoot.

My own start had come when I read an article in Men’s Health profiling MovNat and Erwan. The idea that humans were capable of such wild feats struck a chord; as soon as I read it, I knew I had to do it. That road led me to a fascination with parkour, natural movement, gymnastics, martial arts, primitivism, and pushing the limits of human ability in all areas. And now, my chosen path is finally coming into focus: I’m coaching at CU as a MovNat Certified Instructor, working with APEX Movement’s renown parkour instructors, and exploring self-defense and the martial arts, writing about it all here.

I realized how far I’ve come in this quest, but also how far I still had to go. Human Warriorship has a long and ancient history; plumbing its depths will likely take my entire life. However, for that afternoon, on that hike, I got a kick out of realizing that I was walking the same path, literally, as Erwan Le Corre (probably in the same state of undress), the man who’d inspired me to make my dreams of realizing my greatest potential a reality.

What I know of his journey suggests a similar trajectory: training in different traditions of physical improvement, martial arts, and natural living methods, looking for the best of it all and a philosophy to tie it all together, so that he could share his vision of human potential with the world in order to empower others.

Apparently, we both thought Boulder would be a good place to do that for a while. I wonder where my path will lead me.

Photo credit: Craig Sunter on Flickr

Shoot for the stars and hit the moon. – Anon

We all dream of becoming something more than we are, of surpassing the everyday. We have an urge to outgrow ourselves: be more healthy, more wealthy, more confident.

Sometimes, we act on that, and sometimes we don’t, but it’s always there, tickling at the back of our minds. “How wonderful it would be to transcend my limitations?”

To me, one of the most chafing limitations has always been where I can go and what my body is capable of. Whenever I watch movies or even cartoons about exceptional warriors, martial artists, and heroes, I am always surprised by how I feel seeing those fancy moves. It’s not awe so much as jealousy, a sense that, not only do I want to be able to do that, I believe that I should be able to.

Now, obviously I have to keep in mind that most of these shows and stories are fiction, and most of the moves are performed by stunt doubles with the aid of special effects. But there are exceptional humans out there who are not always Olympic or world champion level: club gymnasts, strongmen and women, marathoners and ultra-runners, powerlifters, traceurs, rocks climbers, dancers, athletes, Shaolin monks, stuntmen. Anyone from any walk of life can become accomplished in any of these feats that transcend what we consider normal for a human being. They may not break any world records, but a 2x bodyweight deadlift is a significant achievement, and puts you in the top range of (modern, industrialized) humans.

But maybe it’s not about becoming something more than what we are. Maybe it’s about expressing what we already have within us.

Better Tech, Weaker Folks

Humans weren’t always so frail. Much of what we consider exceptional used to be taken for granted.

• The Roman legions could routinely march a marathon while carrying half their bodyweight.
• Greek Olympians walked 36 miles just to get to the games.
• Anyone who’s ever tried to pick up a sword should respect the strength and power of the warriors who carried them through hour-long battles.
• Himalayas-dwellers are known to be able to navigate steep, treacherous passes while carrying loads that would make us Westerners crumble after a few steps.

As we industrialized and became more sedentary, our capabilities slowly declined. We won other things — healthcare, assured safety, freedom from famine — but sometimes I think we swallowed the pill whole without stopping to think about the side effects.

Nevertheless, despite our few centuries of industrialized living, we are still human, and that kind of ability is part of our heritage. It didn’t take long to lose those standards, so perhaps it won’t take long to regain them either.

An Impressive Pedigree

One thing that drew me to MovNat was that it asserts all humans should be strong, powerful, agile, and useful. In fact, MovNat’s slogan is, “Explore Your True Nature” (emphasis added). You are already graceful, powerful, agile, and useful. Maybe you don’t know how to express it yet, but as a human being, your very nature makes you those things.

Just as tigers have claws for a reason, humans have certain traits and abilities, certain muscle-joint configurations and movement patterns, for a reason. We have complex brains for a reason (so we can muse on why we have complex brains…?). In the same way we feel the need to take full advantage of all the features of any new gadgets, we should also be able to take full advantage of all our own capabilities.

Of course, human achievement is not limited to physical feats. Brilliant intelligence, magnetic charisma, nigh-omniscient awareness, and staggering creativity are just as ubiquitous in our genetic history.

The Heritage of Humanity

What is the full measure of a human being? What is the full potential of any one individual?

I can’t answer these questions, except to say that we’ll know it when we see it, and it is usually far grander than we predict. Imagine a world in which there was no such thing as a superhero, because we were all heroes, not just in our physical abilities, but in the strength of character that necessarily accompanies excellence in any endeavor.

Perhaps we’ll never reclaim those feats, and I don’t think we really need to. Their value lies in the fact that they offer the promise of something greater, something superhuman. Or rather, they suggest that ‘merely’ human is in fact ‘super’ human.

With this in mind, we can hold the honest, sincere belief that we are individually capable of great things. The effort required may be immense, but it’s possible, and knowing that, we can always set our sights higher, aspire to greater, and take on bigger challenges.

Photo credit: hkuchera on Flickr

“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” – Aristotle

Every moment of every day is full of choices. Some choices are trivial and some have life-altering consequences.

• Laugh or get angry
• Eat healthy or eat conveniently
• Read or watch TV
• Walk or run
• Play or work
• Love or hate
• Marriage or dating
• Create or consume
• College or work
• Write or don’t

There are No Turning Points

I often catch myself thinking that I need some big event to ‘turn over a new leaf’ or otherwise start living the life I want/being the person I want to be. I have this romantic idea that I need a crisis in which to make a big choice that defines my character.

But the truth is, those moments don’t exist. Crises might reveal our character, but it is built day by day, by the little choices we make.

Even when we are trapped in a boring job or a crowded city, we can always choose how we respond to our situations, and that choice defines us a little bit each time we make it.

Of course, change is hard and it is always easier to look for excuses to justify the easy way.

Day after day, we resolve to be more compassionate, or more patient, or more joyful, but day after day, moment to moment, we decide that this situation is just too serious, or that right now, we’re too tired to start changing things up.

So, instead of holding the door for the person behind us, we rush through, justifying it with our tight schedule. We put off that choice.

We don’t realize that we have a choice to be on a tight schedule, and we have a choice on how to respond to that. And all the little choices we made over the years about how we live our lives add up to this moment.

The past is behind us. The future exists only in our imaginations. Only the present is real, and that is why the most important moment of our life is always this moment, full of infinite potential to change, to grow, to choose. It is the only one we have any control over.

Choosing Inaction

And of course, putting off a choice is a choice in and of itself; the decision to do nothing is still a decision, and it still has consequences. The decision to continue living our status quo is an active choice to accept what we have now.

Or to accept what others have decided for us.

We choose our priorities. Or else they are chosen for us.

And the decision to become excellent, to live your bliss, isn’t a once-in-a-lifetime choice.

It is a lifetime of choices. It is a choice you make every single moment.

• Choosing to be a writer consists of choosing to write each day, instead of choosing to not-write.
• Choosing to become a great athlete means that, each day, you choose to train and work hard.
• Choosing to be a great mother means that every single of the millions of times your children are a handful, you choose to handle them with grace and love.
• Choosing to live with serenity means choosing to smile, laugh, and be grateful each time you’re stuck in a traffic jam, faced with red tape, or otherwise stuck in a frustrating situation.

Default Settings

The alternative is the default choice: not-write, not-train, lose your temper, whine and complain.

Maybe the default choice is made for you, as when your meal choices are limited by the availability of fresh produce, or maybe you instilled a habit long ago.

Either way, just because it is the easy, non-thinking choice, doesn’t mean it’s not a decision. By simple inaction, you can choose to accept it.

The other option is to make a new default for yourself. Create a habit. Make it so you can’t sleep at night until you’ve put in your 2000 words, or you’ve run your miles. Make patience your first reaction to a tantrum, and learn to laugh at every challenge life puts in your path.

Habitual Excellence

It takes awareness to see the choices in every moment.

It takes intention to apply the energy to make a decision.

Integrity is the result of consistency, and it is what gives you the strength to keep making the right choice.

To paraphrase Aristotle a bit, Integrity is a habit.

How do you create a habit? How do you become a joyful person who laughs at frustration and exercises infinite patience with kids, who meditates daily and never thinks to touch junk food?

You make choices. Little ones. Consistently. Right now.

Go out there and change your world.

What choices have you been putting off? What mindsets have you been cultivating by the choices (implicit or explicit) that you’ve been making?

- (**

Photo credit: Paul L Dineen on Flickr

Utah’s Canyonlands National Park contains some of the most beautiful and harsh landscape in the world, so when I had the chance to bike and camp through it last month, I was excited to explore the terrain away from the campsite. That first evening, I headed up a rocky slope within sight of camp to really experience the landscape up close.

When I got back, it turned out I had upset one of the people I was traveling with, who saw my actions as foolishly dangerous, citing the possibility of me slipping or a tumbling rock causing me to fall. I consider myself a very cautious person (sometimes overly so), and so I was surprised that my actions had caused so much concern. I tried to explain that, while what I was doing might be dangerous, it wasn’t actually risky, given my ability level and the precautions I was taking (I never went anywhere where I could fall more than 4 feet, and tested all the rocks I scrambled on to make sure they were secure, for example). I actually sustained more injuries on the bike, because I’m really clumsy on wheels. I’m not sure I made my point, but by being aware of risk, danger, and my ability level, as well as carefully assessing and balancing them against each other, I am sure I was never in any serious threat of injury.

I wanted to use this post to further explain that theory.

Last week, I wrote a post about training specifically to overcome fear. Instead of simply putting myself under physical stress, I was putting myself under mental stress in order to improve the way I handle fear and adapt to its effect on my performance.

Since fear is a response to perceived danger, in order to work with fear, we also need to be able to work with danger, and to do that safely, we need to learn how to manage risk.

Definitions

First, I need to explain what I mean by risk and danger, since to most people, the terms are interchangeable. MovNat introduced the concept that the two are actually separate dimensions of a situation, and understanding that difference is the key to being able to push your limits while always remaining safe.

Danger is the threat of injury or damage in a given situation. Danger increases as the consequences get more severe. The possibility of dying in a situation would indicate extreme danger. However, just because there is a presence of danger doesn’t mean we are exposed to any actual threat of injury.

Risk is the chance that you will actually encounter the danger, and it is dependent on your skill and the environment.

For example, flying an airplane is an extremely dangerous activity. The consequence for something going wrong include catastrophic death. However, the risk of anything actually happening is very low because of engineering and safety regulations. Thus, even though it is dangerous, it is not risky and so we fly regularly and without incident.

A more illustrative example is balancing. Walking across a 4-foot-wide bridge is dangerous (because there is the potential to fall to your death), but not risky for most people (since most people can maintain their balance on a 4-foot-wide surface). If you narrow the bridge to the size of a 2×4, it becomes much more risky for most people. Their skill in balancing is such that they are at great risk of falling. The danger remains the same, though.

However, if you make it a 2×4 on the ground, the danger is eliminated, but the risk remains the same. You’re just as likely to fall off a 4″ beam on the ground as you are a 4″ beam across a cavern, ignoring the effect of fear.

Manipulating risk and danger allows you to do two things:

1. Test and train your response to fear, and
2. Do dangerous things safely.

The Importance of Seeking Out Danger

Why should we care about being able to deal with dangerous situations? After all, why not simply avoid unnecessary danger in the interest of prudence?

Because danger, or its perception, triggers fear, so it limits us and can be used to control us. Take the example of stairs. Most of us don’t consider climbing stairs dangerous, because for most of us, the risk is so low that we can ignore any consequences. However, as we lose mobility and coordination with age, stairs become more risky, and we become very conscious of how much damage we can suffer if we do slip. We then start to fear them, and that impacts our sense of physical freedom, which of course impacts our mental and emotional sense of freedom. When we fear danger, either because we are oversensitive to risk or the risk actually is quite high, it paralyzes us.

We tend to overestimate the risk of dangerous situations if we are not accustomed to them (on the same note, it is possible to underestimate the risk of a dangerous situation we have become accustomed to, which is also bad). Learning to be comfortable around danger teaches us the limit of our abilities, helps us manage fear, allows us to feel appropriate fear, and instills confidence. Thus, it is important to test your abilities in the presence of moderate danger, as long as the real risk is kept low.

Dangerous but Safe

Take Parkour, one extreme expression of freedom in movement, for example. Many people see practitioners jumping off buildings, doing flips over cars, and running up walls and think it is foolhardy, that these people are testing fate. What they miss is that it is just as easy for an advanced traceur to walk across a rail as it is for you or I to walk across a sidewalk. So when a trained traceur runs across an I-beam 30 feet in the air, it’s not really that risky.

Just remember that they started on rails and bars at ground level, where the danger was practically nonexistent, practicing until their failure rate was almost zero. They then incrementally increased the danger, balancing the ratio of risk (influenced by skill) and the consequences of failure.

Of course, some things are always going to be risky, and some things, while not that risky, have such severe consequences that they aren’t worth doing. Where you draw the line is up to you; some people refuse to go skydiving.

Being able to separate and differentiate risk and danger, and being able to navigate your way between them, is an essential skill in driving personal growth, not just in fitness. Because real-life always contains the risk of danger, practicing any skill in a totally risk-free environment sets a limit on how well you will be able to apply that skill outside of training.

Furthermore, understanding that risk and danger are two different things frees you to take big risks that actually have little danger associated with them, like moving to a new city without a guaranteed job to try to make your fortune. The chance of failure or setback is quite high, but the real consequences are trivial or easily accommodated, and the rewards are worth the work.

If you can find ways to retain risk while minimizing actual danger, you can train yourself at the limit of your ability. As your ability improves, the risk decreases, and you can either increase it to maintain a challenge necessary for growth, or start increasing danger to test your capabilities under stress and expand the range of circumstances you can handle comfortably.

Photo credit: Zach Klein on Flickr

Nature presents the young with something so much greater than they are; it offers an environment where they can easily contemplate infinity and eternity. – Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods

Imagine two children. Both are staring wide-eyed at something, utterly entranced, mouths slightly open. Now back up from each kid and add some context: the first is staring at a TV set, and the second is staring at a spider weaving its web.

What is the difference between nature observation and watching TV? Both involve sitting motionless for long periods of time, observing something else, without much interaction on your part beyond the sensory, and letting your mind get carried off.

But one is distracting while one is fascinating, and I think that is an important distinction to make.

In his book, Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv introduced me to the concept of fascination as that thing a natural setting does to children who have the free time and access to explore it. Fascination is what happens when children

• build tree houses
• play in the mud
• climb trees
• make crowns out of daisies
• or just lie in the grass and watch the clouds blow by

Fascination is a kind of gentle stimulation that occurs on a deeply embedded wavelength. It’s like plugging in our mental and spiritual batteries to the source in order to recharge or resync them with the natural rhythm.

Driven to Distraction

Distraction, on the other hand, is what happens when we are trying to forget or escape from our current state. It’s not a constructive thing; fascination can lead to learning and creativity, but distraction is a response to burnout and simply an attempt to unburden overworked brains.

TV (and most mass-media entertainment in general) is designed to be distracting. It presents us with content that requires minimal focus and provides plenty of simple stimulation. It is easily and intentionally addictive, like sugar, as evidenced by the never-ended storylines of TV dramas. The goal is to give our minds something easy to follow so that they lose track of whatever was burdening them in the first place.

The problem with distraction is, as the name implies, it doesn’t help us deal with our problems. It just helps us forget them for a while. It also promotes a short attention span because that is exactly what it is promoting and stimulating.

Fascinating…

Fascination may not help us deal with our problems either, but it does promote focus, as Louv argues in his book, citing countless examples of children who find their ADHD symptoms alleviated by time spent in nature.

• It can shift our perspective so we aren’t as bothered by our daily problems
• The mental clarity and openness it affords us can actually help us see new solutions
• It lets us carry our burdens with less frustration

The way I understand it, fascination is like going on a jog after work: when you get home, the last thing you want to do is put on your running shoes and head out the door, but it always does you a world of good. You usually feel better afterwards, even though it takes a bit of work and focus to start. How many times have you solved a big problem on a long jog or walk, or simply decided to let it go?

Your alternative is to flop down in front of the TV and try to forget it all for a while.

Fascinated Warrior, or Distracted Victim?

How we navigate this dilemma relates to our practice of Awareness and Intention. Obviously, allowing for a lot of distraction in our lives isn’t conducive to the practice of Awareness, and by stagnating our mental energies, it also saps away our Intention. We can run the risk of making ourselves victims of our stressful lives, reliant on distraction to get us through. The warrior mindset rejects victimization, instead turning challenges into opportunities for growth.

Fascination, on the other hand, I’d argue is the purest expression of  Awareness, relaxed, open, and free of judgement, something akin to how the Buddha said we should approach life. There is a lot to be fascinated by in this wonderful world if we can learn to see it with the eyes of a child.

***

I do want to offer one caveat. For a while, I was dismissing all TV shows as distraction simply because they were on TV. My partner A would have jumped on my opening example to point out that the first child could have been watching a program on spiderwebs, and that would have completely changed the emotional impact of the scene I was painting.

TV is just another medium for human storytelling, and to a large extent, the quality of stimulation it provides is determined by the kinds of stories it carries. Books can be just as hollow and distracting (hence the term pulp fiction). TV programming has been irrevocably tied to advertising however, with the result that even great storytelling has to serve a commercial interest. This creates all sorts of problems for the spirit of art.

Still, there are some great stories out there, with complex, engaging, fascinating plots and characters. These can inspire us as much as some of the greatest books out there.

In case anyone was wondering, I don’t include reality TV in that categorization.

Fascinated? Looking for concrete ways to live the Warrior Spirit? Join the e-mail list to get tips on Aware, Intentional, Integrated living, and get updates on the upcoming book, a codification of the lessons I’ve learned exploring the Warrior Spirit.

Photo credit: Ryan Tir on Flickr

True compassion is true understanding. – Attributed to the Buddha

My worst nightmare is standing behind the checkout counter at the local supermarket. He has been working there every day for 17 years, 8-10 hours. He goes to bed knowing that, upon waking, all he has to look forward to is another day, another week, another month, another year of standing at the same counter, scanning other peoples’ stuff, much of it stuff he can’t afford. It’s not that he’s come to enjoy the job, but he has become numb to the quiet panic that pervades every one of his days.

I’m describing an archetype, not an actual person, the life I don’t want to lead, but a life I know many people do live. It is a life I cannot comprehend and one I’m terrified of finding myself in. Knowing others who live it makes me uneasy because of the assumptions I have about human potential. I don’t know anyone who aspires to being a cashier, and the mindset that can be happy and accept it is one I simply don’t understand.

I did have the chance to get a small taste of that life when I worked at the local grocery store as a deli clerk. At first, I thought the work would be engaging, but it quickly turned tedious and I found myself itching to get out.

But the worst part of the job was the other people, not because they were bad people, but because they were such great people who had given up on ever accomplishing something greater. Much of the conversation behind the counter was dissatisfaction and complaints, constant whining at a job they didn’t want but thought they deserved.

I guess there is a lot to be said for someone who can be happy anywhere, who accepts a low-paying, menial job and brings everything they have to it. But it is worrying to me to be around people who want so badly to do something else, but who don’t believe that they can. The concept of doing a job you hate with little pay for 2 years is hard to wrap my head around. Doing it for 10 years is incomprehensible.

In the speech, “This is Water,” by David Foster Wallace, the speaker describes a cashier as, “living a life of boredom and tedium that surpasses the imagination of any of us sitting at a prestigious college.” I come from a world where that bleak existence is simply unknown. Sure, us college grads might put in our time, working menial jobs for a few months or years, but it is expected that we will eventually move on to ‘real careers.’

But how often do we contemplate what it might be like to have that menial, meaningless job be your entire life.

I worry that most of the people in my circles try to ignore the reality that they could be one of those people behind the cash register. If we ever do the job, we think we’re different (and to a large extent, we are, because we hold the assumption that we’ll move on, while the lifetime cashier doesn’t hold that assumption). But when we do move on, how many of us continue to empathize with ‘service staff’? How many of us try to understand by holding on to that feeling of tedium and meaninglessness that characterized our few months or years, and try to magnify it until it takes up decades?

 ***

It doesn’t seem fair to me that I should have this (assumed) shining future full of possibilities while others, by accident of birth or circumstance, should have to resign themselves.

But then, perhaps I am being pretentious simply by feeling that way. I’m learning that there are so many different ways to be in the world, and not all of them fit tidily into my schema for empowered living.

I have been blessed with a powerful imagination, and I can imagine what it would be like to live that life. I found my heart breaking watching David Foster Wallace’s video, a sincere wish for the happiness of these people who seem to have given up on themselves, whom society has given up on and seems to want to forget.

Do one thing everyday that scares you. – Eleanor Roosevelt

After practicing movement and martial arts for so long, I sometimes lose track of the reasons I started in the first place. Lately, I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus, but I was able to get some training time in last weekend. The combination of time off plus the intensity of training reminded me of why I do this in the first place, and, more importantly, why I want to do this every single day.

You see, when I train regularly, I feel capable. I feel like I can handle whatever life might throw at me. I feel eager to face more tests and rise to more challenges.

I think this is one of the most important elements of any kind of regular training routine: that it allows us to challenge ourselves in such a way that we can overcome small hardships regularly. This gives us the mental stance of seeking out more challenges, rather than avoiding them.

One reason I feel so off when I’m not practicing regularly is because I’m stagnating. In the absence of challenge, the spirit turns soft, just as the body becomes weak in the absence of load.

Applying Your Training to Everyday Life

Many of the obstacles we face require us to trust in our skills, to work with and rely on others, to go out on a limb, or to take a leap of faith. Sometimes the biggest thing stopping us is fear of the consequences of failure: if things go horribly wrong, can I land on my feet?

So how can movement training help with this?

I’ll use this weekend’s training session as an example. The main focus of the workout was actually overcoming fear, so the skill I was working towards was balancing across the top of a swing set. The surface itself was well within my capabilities, but the height added an element of fear that made it much harder. Here is a list of the ways I tried to accomplish that and what I learned.

• Crawl across: I learned that I always have a fallback if I need it. It might not be as fast or effective, but it gives me a way to accomplish the task without any fear of falling. The lesson: Just because you can’t do something well doesn’t mean you can’t, or shouldn’t, do it at all. Starting and making do with what you’ve got is the best way to get better.
• Stand: I tried standing on the beam, and actually did pretty well. As I lifted my body, I tried to do exactly what I normally do when balancing: look straight ahead and trust my feet. Of course, when you’re ten feet off the ground, there is a very strong urge to look down, which I did by reflex. I immediately fell, but was able to easily catch myself and get back on the beam. That alone put my fears in perspective; even if the worst should happen, I had the ability to save the situation and get back on to keep going. Lesson: In other areas of life, we may discount our ability to handle the inevitable crises and difficulties that will crop up, and this can paralyze us from taking any action at all. Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing;  quite the opposite in fact.
• Crouch Walk: Getting across the beam in some kind of walk forced me to hold myself up and actually move forward. Every time I started losing balance, I reminded myself that the fear was extra and had nothing to do with how to perform this skill. I just focused on doing the things I normally do: look up, keep my spine straight, rise off the beam a little, and move forward! Every time I started to think, “This is different from anything else,” I would hunch down and get wobbly. The lesson: Sometimes situations only look bad but are actually something we are accustomed to. We shouldn’t change our routines when we know they work just because the stakes have changed.
• Falling: I fell a lot, but I never got hurt. I was able to catch myself every time, partly because I was being extremely careful but also because I knew my limits. Even if I wasn’t the greatest at balancing, I have good reflexes and am a powerful climber. I’d also tested my falling ability in less dangerous situations, so I knew what I could handle. Each time I fell, I was less scared to get up and try again. The lesson: Know your limits and your abilities. Don’t go beyond them, but also don’t underestimate them. Also, failure is an important part of learning confidence, because it teaches us a) what not to do, and b) that the consequences aren’t as severe as we fear.
• Overall: Being up on the swing was actually really scary, to the point that I would be shaking and my heart rate would elevate just crouching there. I had to focus my breathing and mindset to calm down. That enabled me to perform better. The effect of fear was far out of proportion to the situation. The lesson: our fear of something isn’t necessarily related to how good we are at it, and might not be a good indicator of whether we have any business doing something. Being able to see fear as something separate from the action can help us put it into perspective.
• Climbing up: Climbing on top of a swing set takes some doing. That’s a lot of work to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation. Getting out of the situation (safely) is almost as difficult. So once you’re up there, you’re committed. The lesson: It’s useful to learn how to put ourselves in situations we can’t easily back out of, and it gives an understanding of what commitment entails. We don’t often deal with that in a society that provides safety nets and escape routes for so many things, with plenty of ways to walk away without incurring consequences.

Walking home, I felt more in control of myself, having explored an entire toolbox of mental tools to overcome my inner demons and accomplish my goals despite them. I was energized and eager to tackle the blocks in my life, confident that I could handle them.

Obviously, you don’t have to be ten feet up to face your fears, but the point is that it should be a part of your training or practice. Doing that safely requires a careful and skillful manipulation of risk and danger to challenge your sense of safety without actually putting you in harm’s way.

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Upon returning from my trip to Utah, I’ve found myself caught in a whirlwind of activity, trying to catch up with all sorts of projects. This hasn’t given me time to act on the important things that are normally part of my routine, nor the amazing insights I gained in the desert of the Canyonlands. That’s one reason this post is late. It is a pattern I’ve noticed in myself before, when I lived in Korea and was trying to establish a match between the life and wanted and the life I ended up living.

Every now and then, it’s good to take stock of how closely the life you’re actually living matches the life you want to be living. Are the things that are important to you getting their due, or are they just sitting on the back burner, day after day?

I find that stress tends to lead me to give up on my routines and plans with the excuse of surviving or making do.

It’s like that saying about putting your head down and plowing through. You don’t know (or don’t want to know) where you’re going, you just need to get through whatever’s in front you, as fast as possible, without regard to finesse or tact.

But the problem with doing that is that sometimes you move forward only to look up to find yourself somewhere you didn’t mean to go. Then you’ve got to go back or find another way. You’ve wasted effort.

Or worse, because you haven’t taken the time to plot your course, you end up barreling into another crisis situation, and the only way to deal with that is to do the same thing that got you there in the first place. Then, you become a slave to events, moving in the direction set by each crisis. At first, you are just telling yourself, “I just need to get through this week, then everything will be back on track.” But when that week passes, you haven’t taken the time to set your course, and it becomes another week or ‘getting through,’ then another, then another, until you find yourself lost.

Your Heart is Where you Spend Your Time

There is another saying about working smart, not hard, to apply your effort where it matters (see the 80/20 Principle).

Here in Boulder, I’ve found that it is very easy to get lost in the daily grind, to keep my head down and just try to get by, only to find that I’m not living the life I came here to live in the first place. It’s not that I forget my values, but simply that I don’t make them a priority.

The things that I value most aren’t getting the attention they deserve, based on how much they mean to me. This is a recipe for self-dissatisfaction.

• I want to write, yet I rarely write more than a couple blog posts a week anymore.
• I want to train movement, parkour, and self-defense, yet I’m lucky to get three hours a week.
• Spending time in nature is one reason I moved in Boulder, but I don’t make time to go on hikes.
• There is time in the mornings to meditate, but I never actually take advantage of it.

I hold these things close to my heart — writing, movement training, nature, spirituality — yet as they say in economics, the true test of what matters to people is where they spend their money and their time. So either I have to admit that these things are not as important to me as handling the day-to-day, or I need to rearrange my days to incorporate more of them.

There are some things that I value which get lots of attention.

• Spending time with A during the day and sharing dinner in the evening.
• Contributing to the coworking space I’m a part of.
• Being a part of the local food scene in Boulder.
• Gardening.

These are things I want to be doing, rather than things that need to get done. I get a lot of satisfaction from including them in my life, and based on that, I really do think it is extremely important to try to make our lives align with our values. It may take a lot of work, but it seems the simplest way to be happy.

It All Comes Down to Integrity

How do we do that?

1. First, you have to have awareness of what matters to you. This can take a lot of soul-searching, or it can simply be a matter of being attentive to the things that evoke emotions in you.
2. Second, you have to practice intentional living. Be the one making the decisions in your life. Put in the work to make sure your life is built the way you want it.
3. These two together lead to integrity of being, where your outer life is an expression of your inner values. Maintaining integrity is the great balancing act, though, and it provides constant feedback to adjust your intentions and to check your awareness.

As you can see, I’m developing these concepts into a more cohesive system in preparation for what I hope will be a new book, expanding on all the ideas that have been developed on this blog about living the Warrior Spirit. Stay tuned by following me on Twitter or signing up for e-mail notifications on the blog.

Photo credit: Banalities on Flickr

Yesterday, I was asked the question, “Do you direct your experiences, or allow experiences to happen to you?”

I had to pick an answer in the middle somewhere, because while I normally feel that I should take an active role in my life, lately I have felt that I am intended as an instrument for something. When I am doing the ‘wrong’ thing, my life seems very difficult, like swimming upstream. When I finally decide to stop fighting or stop making excuses for doing the things I want to do, suddenly I’m flowing along and everything comes easily. I make more progress in a day than I would have in a week.

The problem is figuring out specifically what I’m supposed to be doing. Sometimes it’s obvious–I want to go hiking around in the woods, climbing trees, bounding over rocks–but I keep making excuses and don’t make the time. Then, when I decide to stop putting off the things I really want to do, all the stress and stuckness in my life, even in unrelated areas, seems to dissipate. I feel relieved and happy.

Other times, I think I know what I want but really I’m being led by my ego or external expectations of what I should be doing. For example, making a lot of money has been a driving force in my life for a long time, but I think it’s motivated by fear or a need to impress. Not the sort of thing the universe gets behind.

Lately, I’ve felt like the universe is trying very hard to tell me something, and so I’m trying to allow more experiences, rather than directing too much.

I’m not normally a huge believer in the metaphysical, at least not as something that can manifest tangibly, but lately I’ve had some experiences that defy my normally pragmatic, down-to-earth worldview. Visions and coincidences, compulsions and behaviors that fall squarely outside of my normal framework have forced me to reconsider myself and my world.

Take my morning hikes for example. They have started to feel more and more layered, like there is something tangible going on behind what I can see and hear and smell. Every step sends ripples throughout the space, ripples I can’t help but notice because they come back to me, and walking along a trail feels like walking through an infinitely complex web of strands reaching throughout the forest, into the past and into the future.

It is almost as if the facade of sight and smell and sound has been revealed to be a curtain, and I can tell there is a lot going on behind the curtain. Walking along, I’m running my hand on the curtain, and I can sense things happening behind it, sometimes even feel something solid. Life really is starting to feel like The Matrix.

Every now and then, the curtain pushes back far enough that I can actually see back there. And the things I see are both exciting and terrifying. Terrifying not because they are inherently scary, but because they imply so much more to life than I had previously understood or accepted as true. I take this as a sign that I need to reassess the direction of my actions and how my values interact with the world. It suggests to me that I have a lot to learn.

It makes the whole experience very exhausting.

I’ve tried to explain things with rational psychology, but the most rational explanations actually seem to be the mystical ones, or at least of a psychology far more subtle, sensitive, and complex than anything covered in Respectable Publications (or even pop psychology). We’re talking about concrete experiences of collective unconscious, genetic memory, primal heritage, and communion with nature.

I worry that I’m losing it.

Except that one image I had was of a wolf, which is apparently a symbol of spiritual protection, a sign that no matter how scary or weird things get, someone or something is watching over me to make sure I come out of it alright.

***

I’ll be in Utah, lost in the desert somewhere with my dad, until May 14th. This post should hold you until then. In the meantime, ponder this in the comments: “Do you direct your experiences, or allow experiences to happen to you?”

Peace,

- (**

Photo Credit: photo_gratis on Flickr