Shawn Phillips - Igniting the Flame of Intensity

Gratitude Bill for posting this article at the Masculine Heart. This discussion on WIE was the catalyst for my beginning strength training after almost 12 years of distancing myself from it, associating the practice as spiritually vacant. This interview opened myself up to the potential of strength training as a fully integral practice and continue to this day to pursue strength training within the context of my own development - beyond the body.

This is an old interview with Shawn Phillips - Igniting the Flame of Intensity - from What Is Enlightenment? magazine.

I admire his focus and intensity, but mostly I feel that he is raising some of the traditional masculine traits (strength, focus, pushing through limits) into more refined and spiritual levels, taking them beyond the merely "power" orientation they have held in our past,

Igniting the Flame of Intensity

The Spiritual Journey of a New Kind of Bodybuilder

An interview with Shawn Phillips
by Ross Robertson

Shawn Phillips

Bio & resources

“My life, while out of the ordinary, does not feel like a hero's journey to me,” wrote bodybuilder, businessman, and fitness author Shawn Phillips in an email to me the day before our interview. But as someone who has seen pictures of Phillips with his shirt off, I reserve the right to disagree. If heroism can be measured by the size of a man's “six-pack,” Mr. Phillips would give Hercules a run for his money. Yet for this truly original yogi of the weight room, a jaw-dropping Olympian physique is but the material reward of a lifetime devoted to the mastery of an inner fire.

“Focus is the spark that ignites the flame of intensity,” he writes in one of his more than seventy-five articles, and he's not just talking about muscle development. Sure, weightlifting is his profession, and he made a name for himself by helping to bring the sport into the mainstream with his brother Bill, founder of both performance-nutrition company EAS and Muscle Media magazine, and author of the New York Times bestseller Body for Life. But in the gym, Shawn Phillips is more sensei than jock. His principles of Focused Intensity Training, which he has developed over the course of the last twenty years, are designed “to deepen the impact of people's training—physically, mentally, and spiritually,” he says. “Simply stated, I'm seeking to integrate the principles and practices of the martial arts into an activity that millions of people already do each day.”

Coming from a man who sees strength training as a legitimate path to spiritual deliverance—and whose generosity and lighthearted humor are every bit as noteworthy as his muscle definition—it's no surprise that the title of his book, ABSolution (2002), is a conscious pun. Founder of www.nutros.com (a resource for expert knowledge on performance supplements), Phillips is currently finishing up a new book officially introducing Focused Intensity Training to the world, and he's also developing a complete ITP (Integral Transformative Practice) program in conjunction with Ken Wilber's Integral Institute.

As we began our conversation, this reluctant hero did admit to at least some measure of greatness: “I do accept that in a field that is without the structure and heritage of martial arts, I am considered a 'master' by many.” But nothing could have prepared me for just how innovative, just how limit-smashing, his journey across the inner frontiers of weightlifting would turn out to be . . .

Excerpted from the interview:

WIE: How did you first get involved with the practice of strength training?

PHILLIPS: I took up weightlifting in college, and it soon became my passion. I was getting into intense daily workouts— all-encompassing energy events—and I'd spend hour after hour studying the body. I wanted to be a professional bodybuilder, and although I knew I was never going to be Arnold Schwarzenegger—I didn't have the genetic capacity to be huge—I also knew that I could have a great physique. So I thought, “What about this Frank Zane guy?”* At 180 pounds, he looked amazing, like a living Greek sculpture. And at the center of his perfectly symmetric physique were abs that just pulled your eyes in like a magnet. He had a trademark pose called “the vacuum” where he could literally draw his entire midsection up into his rib cage. His abs seemed to disappear right before your eyes. It was actually a bit on the freaky side, but I was inspired by the power of the connection between mind and body that gave him this amazing ability to control his abdominal muscles. So I decided that's what I would do. I spent two hours a night in the gym for six months learning to independently control every muscle fiber in my abs. I could literally pull up one ab at a time and drop it down again like a shutter.

WIE: That's amazing!

PHILLIPS: Yeah. These days I like to say, “That and two-fifty will get me a cup of coffee at Starbucks.” But it did teach me the power of single-minded focus, and the clarity that comes from that. For those times, I was free of the stresses and concerns of a young life. You know, an intense workout could cure my ego ills for two or three days. It was just like armor plating. When I would leave the gym, it was with all the confidence and ignorance of a warrior. I mean, I felt like there was nothing I could not achieve. And that was a lasting sensation—a tangible, incredible, deep state of ecstasy. When you train like that, it makes you feel so strong and powerful that you can walk into a room and your little tiny fear-based self actually recedes far enough into the background that there's space for you to be present. I didn't have to be aggressive physically and I didn't have to be outspoken. I didn't have to be anything, because my presence alone made its own statement.

WIE: How did you develop such an unusual intensity of focus?

PHILLIPS: It was mostly an intuitive thing. When I was nineteen, I had to drive twenty minutes to the gym, and on the way there I'd go through a preparation ritual—snacking on a baked potato, meditating on the challenge, setting my intention for the day, and visualizing the result. I also developed breathing rituals—I was very specific in how I would breathe and engage the weights. At the time, it wasn't unusual for me to squat 750 pounds, and when you're pulling that kind of weight, it absolutely demands a ritual level of focus. You have to pull every bit of energy from everywhere you can in the world. And you know that if you allow anything to come into your head other than what you are doing, there is no way you will be able to do it. You will be crushed.

I was very fortunate to engage and ingrain this depth of intensity and focus early on, because now I can access that space at will. When I give lectures today, I tell people it's not about the amount of weight you lift—I can take a five-pound weight and just fire every single cell and fiber in my bicep. It's about developing and mastering a mind-body neurological connection. From the beginning, what I was connecting with in the gym was a universal energy source. I would just feel it flowing. Even when I was twenty years old, I called the gym my church. When I was there, it wasn't about being social; it was about doing my practice. I was in it. I was in the zone. I remember being so tuned in to people's energy levels, I could read the emotional state of every person who walked by me. If I traveled to New York City, I'd have to go in and out of the stores because I couldn't handle being on the street too long.

Go read the whole article.

The Philosopher of Strength

Ive quoted a bit of Rob McNamara's work here on the blog. A lucid writer and a deeper thinker, Rob has a powerful voice on the integration of strength training as a deep developmental practice.

This recent response to a blog entry on mine at GAIA that is worth a read if you get the chance:

Sorry not to respond sooner - thanks for bringing up the two edges of practice - the capacity to awaken into Novelty and the capacity to entrench habituation.

This is a huge issue for any serious practitioner who's committed to the Unconditioned Ground of Awakening… or whatever you want to label it.

So, I'm just going to throw out some things for you here… here we go.

Reflectivity…
Is sounds as if you've slipped into a pre-reflective practice, which is the heart of habituation, the unconscious articulation of your conditioned history over and over again.

When you say that you're experiencing a loss of reflection, this is what I hear.

This reflective practice sounds like what you're drawn to, attracted to and find fulfillment in.

I'd like to point to something else though, a post-reflective practice that's radically different than both of these yet can integrate and include both in a new sphere of engagement.

I could be wrong, but I think in your heart of hearts you're looking to actually step beyond reflective practice where you look back and discover a new path of transcendence for your practice moving forward.

This is an invaluable process, but when you are the reflective process you can see transcendent avenues opening, but you have yet to radically embrace and embody the very activity of the transcendent itself in the moment.

Stepping beyond reflection is stepping into a radical acceptance and embrace of your practice in a novel way. This direct practice of immediacy is what you're really really after my friend.

That's my bias of course… :-)

So you've got your conventional purposes to strength training, these are important and to be integrated into the larger activity of Transcendence Dancing with Resistance, but as you articulate so well, conventional purposes can entrap and ensnare your conditioning such that the vitality and emergent novelty of who you really are becomes the forgotten dream.

Integral practice and strength training must embrace the post-conventional purpose which is radically non-linear. So it throws purpose in the conventional understanding on it's head. There's no purpose outside of this direct immediacy.

To leave this out is to live your life without a heart. To leave out this most essential component is to fall into a training that seeks not to unfold and awaken your larger sphere of identity, instead your training has the purpose of keeping you in a slumber, shackling your body-mind to cave walls, shadows and the distorted life too afraid to face the radiance of their authentic calling.

So how do you know if you've fallen into habituation?

Ask yourself this one question: do you seek other than what's here?

If the answer is yes, then you're deluded and fundamentally stuck on at least some part of your conditioned history, if not huge sections of your conditioning.

If the answer is no, then you're deluded and fundamentally stuck in avoiding the truth of your history and the embodiment of your relative vehicle.

If you answer with a Silence that holds both… you're getting back on track ;-)

The Integral Fitness Solution

From William Harryman who writes in a number of very powerful blogs. This article is from Integral Options Cafe offers a place to discuss a wide forum of topics from integral theory, mens issues, Buddhism, culture, politics and humour.

As a professional fitness trainer, my job usually involves helping people lose weight. I get the occasional person who wants to build some muscle or get stronger, but most often the goal is to lose body fat. People who join a gym and hire a trainer are actually the minority among those who are seeking to lose weight. My clients are willing to work their bodies as part of the process.

Most of the people wishing to lose body fat are looking for a magic pill. The underlying belief is that fat loss is a matter of making our bodies do what we want them to so that we can continue to eat badly and avoid exercise. The magic pill might be literal, or the newest fad diet, or some kind of gadget advertised in an infomercial. It is not surprising that most of the people who begin a fat loss program fail to follow through with the plan for more than two weeks.

However, if we take a step back and look at all the issues involved in becoming overweight, it is apparent that there is more to it than poor diet and lack of exercise. There are actually four major areas of our lives that contribute to our issues with body weight: our bodies, our psyches, our cultural beliefs, and our social structures. Addressing all four areas of our lives is the foundation of the Integral Fitness Solution.

The Body
The obvious place to begin is with our bodies. There are two major areas to look at here, diet and exercise. We all know we eat badly, consuming too much sugar, the wrong kinds of fats, and too much junk food. We also know that most of us don’t get enough exercise. Those are the easy ones. There is also disease to consider, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. All three of these are usually caused by poor habits in diet and exercise, but once they manifest, they can impact the ways in which we work with our bodies to get healthy again.

Another area to look at is genetics. Biology is certainly not destiny, but it provides limitations on what we can expect to accomplish or how we work toward our goals. Some of us are designed to be bigger and some thinner. A woman can be healthy and fit and still not be a size two. A man can be healthy and fit and not have visible abdominal muscles. Beyond the obvious physical considerations, there are also other factors to look at, such as hormones, age, body structure, innate energy levels, and so on.

Yet the solution begins with exercise and healthy nutrition. As little as an hour a day, five days a week is all the exercise it takes to make significant improvements in cardiovascular fitness, cholesterol levels, and blood sugar metabolism. A program of moderate cardio exercise and weight training can improve body composition, depression, self-esteem, sexual desire, bone density, strength, flexibility, and an assortment of other physical and quality-of-life components. Additionally, simply eliminating sugary beverages from the diet can produce weight loss of between five and fifteen pounds in a single year. If fried foods are also reduced and baked goods eaten in moderation, cholesterol levels would improve for many people.

The Psyche
The second area we must look at in understanding how we become overweight is the psyche. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to place several distinct areas of inquiry under the umbrella of the psyche: emotions, intellect, soul, and spirit. Each of these is a unique developmental line in our lives, each with a unique impact on weight issues.

Emotions The emotional self is the most powerful aspect of the psyche factoring in weight issues. For most people who are more than twenty pounds overweight, fat loss is not merely a matter of better diet and exercise -- there are patterns of emotional eating that have contributed to weight gain. Emotional eating may involve something as simple as gravitating toward the snack table at parties as a way to deal with social anxiety or rewarding a positive behavior with a favorite treat, or more often, soothing difficult emotions with “comfort food.” I know many people, women and men, who hit the ice cream or cookies when they are angry, depressed, or sad. Among men, the tendency is to grab a few beers and order a pizza or some fast food.

Emotional eating serves one key purpose for those who engage in it -- it allows us to bury our emotions beneath a flood of soothing neurochemicals. Look at the foods most people favor for binge eating: ice cream, chocolate, cookies, cake, potato chips, soft drinks, and so on. All of these foods are predominately carbohydrate based, and the resulting change in brain chemistry is an increase in serotonin. Serotonin is known to be a calming substance associated with relieving depression, inducing relaxed states, and facilitating sleep. Many of the prescription anti-depressants work by making more serotonin available for uptake by brain cells.

Once we learn that certain foods can produce specific chemical reactions in our brains (a learning that is often unconscious), we can become addicted to the mental state produced by those foods. Over a period of months or years, emotional eating becomes a way to avoid dealing with difficult emotions. All of those emotions that are not worked through go “underground” in the psyche, and occasionally leak out in ways that totally baffle us. Over time, an emotion that is buried will gain in power until it eventually becomes a psychological complex that can act as a distinct personality all on its own.

Many of us feel our emotions in our bodies. Anxiety is felt as butterflies in the stomach. Stress is tension in the back or shoulders. Anger is often a clenched fist or general contraction of the body’s musculature. Sadness or depression is often experienced as a loss of energy in the body that results in slumped shoulders and a rounded back, as though we are carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders. Over time, as we engage in emotional eating to bury the emotions, we develop a layer of fat that serves to insulate us from our feelings. We become less able to feel our bodies. Instead of our bodies animating our emotions and feelings, they become dead weight we drag around with us. Many seriously overweight people have a lot of repressed emotions that will surface as they lose the weight.

The situation is made worse by a cultural sanction of “comfort foods.” As often as not, this is a tradition passed down from a mother to her children, although it can also circulate among friends. I cannot count the number of times I have seen women I know or work with share chocolate as a way to deal with a broken heart. Of course, now we know there is a chemical in chocolate that triggers the same part of the brain that is active when we are first feeling the flush of new love. Not only is this behavior shared among friends, it is also culturally sanctioned -- it is something we see on television and in movies.

Intellect For some, intellect or education can also be a factor. In fact, despite the efforts of the media, few people really know how to eat healthy. Maybe because of the media overload and the contradicting studies that come out nearly every day, most people don’t know how to make sense of the information available. Few of us are actually taught how to think discriminatingly and to separate useless information from what is valuable. Should we follow Dr. Atkins or Barry Sears The Zone, Dean Ornish (low fat) or Bill Phillips Body for Life? Few of us know how to choose the correct approach for our own goals.

Part of the solution is to become better educated. For some this will simply mean reading food labels or one of the many books published each year that offer sound advice on healthy eating. For others, there may be a need to learn to think more rationally or discriminatingly. For all of us, the more we know, the better the decisions we can make about how best to feed our bodies.

Soul & Spirit I firmly believe that soul and spirit (simply “soul” for our purposes) play a crucial role in optimal health, as well. How and what we believe about the nature of reality has an impact on our health. If we dismiss soul as woo-woo mumbo-jumbo, we are not likely to believe our efforts amount to anything, so why bother? However, if we believe that we are here for a reason, we are more likely to put forth the effort to be healthy. Failing that, we at least might see that dying young of a heart attack would prevent us from fulfilling our purpose on this planet.

No matter what our belief system, if we cultivate an inner peace through some form of contemplative practice, we can build an inner strength that will serve us well as we struggle to overcome defeating emotional patterns and physical habits. In fact, contemplative practice can offer us a unique tool to assist in our efforts. One of the first things that happens as we meditate or pray, practice mindfulness or walk in nature, is that we begin to develop an observer self. The observer is a part of our psyche that can disentangle itself from our behaviors and watch them as though it is an impartial observer. When we gain the ability to observe our own behavior, we have much more power to identify limiting behaviors and replace them with expanding behaviors.

Cultural Beliefs
A third area to examine when trying to understand weight gain is the cultural influence on our beliefs about food and our bodies. As mentioned above, our culture rewards and promotes specific beliefs and behaviors that run counter to having a healthy body, such as emotional eating and comfort foods. There are other cultural influences, as well. Each year, around the holidays, many offices become a heaven for baked goods lovers. Cakes, cookies, pies, fudge, and many other forms of delicious and unhealthy food appear in the break room each morning. To refuse this generosity of our co-workers is seen as rude and (this is the sinister part) perceived as though we are depriving ourselves of the good things in life. There is an unstated cultural rule that says we must indulge our every whim or else we are depriving ourselves. This is not the reality. I personally enjoy almond butter on celery as much as most people enjoy Krispy Kreme (quite possibly the unhealthiest food on the planet, short of eating lard dipped in sugar), and my almond butter is great source of healthy monounsaturated fats.

If our ideas about social eating are strange, our ideas about healthy bodies are even stranger. For most of the '90s, the “anorexic model” look (also known as heroin chic) was the ideal for women. Not only is this ideal twisted (the women look like adolescent boys), but that level of thinness is a sickness and is in no way healthy. Until the last ten years or so, men had been immune from these unrealistic ideals of how bodies should look. Now there is a rising trend in teen and young adult males of eating disorders. The ideal has become the “ripped abs” of the models in men’s style magazines or on billboard advertisements. Magazine cover models are inspiring young men to starve themselves, spend crazy hours in the gym, or use steroids so that they can have the “shredded” look these genetically gifted models obtain only for the occasional photo shoot.

We must look at how these beliefs shape our behaviors. Do we believe comfort food makes us feel better when we are sad or hurt? Do we think we need to lose 10 more pounds to be attractive? Do we need cosmetic surgery because we feel inferior to the cultural standard for beauty? None of these things is inherently wrong. However, if we hold these beliefs unexamined, they can shape us in ways that are beyond our awareness and, therefore, beyond our control. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. The truth is that the unexamined life is not our own, but is instead a life shaped and controlled by cultural beliefs.

Social Structures
Finally, there are social structures that contribute to our problems with weight control. How many of us have time to cook healthy meals each day? Fast food is prevalent and easy.

Our capitalist society is set up to reward those who work hard and make sacrifices to get ahead. Further, capitalism also rewards corporations who can create products that the public will consume. These two basic tenets of capitalism create a dynamic in which most of us are struggling to have enough time in the day, a situation which forces us to look for quick and easy meals that taste good. Most fast food is among the worst choices a person can make when trying to eat healthy foods. This is changing a little bit with the introduction of items on many menus designed to attract those who eat healthier.

Still, capitalism also rewards the cheapest production with the highest profits. Many of our foods could be made healthier, but it would cost more money and reduce their market share. Take produce, for example. We know that pesticides and fertilizers sometimes leave toxic residues on our produce, but organic production costs more and reduces the beauty of the produce. Until more of us demand healthy alternatives (and only ten percent of us buy organic foods now), production sources will not see a need to offer healthier choices.

“Sin taxes” on junk food will not solve the problem either. The government needs to quit taking money from lobbyists for the food industry and make some tough choices, such as banning trans-fatty acids from our foods (a cause of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer), rewarding organic produce growers with tax incentives, and providing incentives for meat producers to raise free-range poultry or cattle.

Conclusion
All four areas of our lives -- our bodies, our psyches, our culture, and our social structures -- must be examined when we attempt to understand our nation’s struggle with being overweight. We can seldom solve any problem by addressing a single area, or even two areas. Different people will have different needs in working with these concepts, but in general, we must address all four quadrants of our lives. The approach I am advocating is an integral approach to fitness -- The Integral Fitness Solution.

After nearly 30 years of fad diets and fitness crazes, we have seen that simply addressing the physical quadrant of our lives is not working. Addressing the psychological without working through the other areas also will not work. Both of these approaches focus on the individual, but we must also look at how our cultural values and social structures impact our health. All four quadrants of our lives are interconnected in uncountable ways. Only an integral approach will ever solve our obesity epidemic.

On Edge of Strength and Spirit

This is a reflection more than a beginning of a discussion thread, but would be interested on anyone else view on a similar subject.

The nature of any practice is to develop capacities beyond the limits set by our self - to transcend. Be it meditation, yoga, philosophical study, religious introspection, or as the subject here is a focus strength training. Any system of practice has the capacity to set us free from the normal waking consciousness and into different states or stages of development. These same systems of practice also have the capacity to limit our capacity of growth through attachment, routine, egoism, illusion, delusion, lack of mindfulness and of minimal spiritual intent.

This is where I have found myself with my own practice. No longer do I feel connected to strength training in a developmental capacity, rather I feel limited in pursuing lifting as a form of strength and body training without reflection. Its the same reason I needed to leave a yoga asana practice - the common link is me.

So I find myself thinking about the edge between practice as a focus on to itself and practice as a form beyond itself. Is it natural to fall in and out of attachment within these practices, and how does one recognise the signs before we feel we have drifted too far from the edge and into a maya of form over real substance. I don't want to withdraw this time, deny the nature of my true self and the relationship to a practice I know instinctively has a deep and profound capacity for deep introspection. So what do I do from here…..continue, change, withdraw (maybe all three).

When you walk the edge of strength and spirit maybe this is natural, a falling in and out of spirit. Maybe a consistency of a strength training practice is important to reveal this evolution, reflecting that spirit may not always be the focus, but a dedicated intense path that strength training is will break us down spiritually only to build us back up.

Strength: Your Spiritual Pursuit

Posted on Mar 24th, 2006 by Rob Mcnamarra

Strength, What is it? What is it and how does it manifest in your life? Or, perhaps more importantly, how, when and where does it NOT show up in your life? Strength, from my vantage point it is simply the capacity to do and be. Simple yet profound...we'll get well into the profound here shortly. The doing part is fairly straight forward - kind of like a beer commercial.

Rob's inner dialogue: "wow, girls...attractive girls, not wearing too much, but acting like scientists at the south pole researching cosmic background radiation...maybe not... but look at all those people smiling, wow they look happy! Oh that was funny, gosh they all are drinking beer, my goodness that girl sure looked like she wanted me...I hope Em didn't see that and get all jealous and attack the TV again" But I digress... Strength in its more conventional sense is the ability to do - or not do as Yoda would say. This is fairly simple. What I'm really interested in is strength from a more "post conventional" perspective. And this runs us straight into the second half of the equation: being. Now we've got some interesting depth to play with. Yummy! Being is perhaps the most central pursuit of any authentic spiritual discipline (for you integral freaks out there we're not talking "legitimate" or "translative" spiritual practices, we're kicking back and chilling with their authentic transformative and sometimes hidden underbelly - you know the kick ass shit!). For those of you who don't classify yourself as an "integral freak," here's the rough and dirty.

I'm talking about spiritual practices that are primarily focused on transforming the practitioner. This is the Authentic thread of spiritual practice. Now not all spiritual practice is focused on transformation, this is where the Legitimate thread comes in. Not that there's anything wrong with non-transformative spiritual practice, it just serves a different function in society and for the individual who benefits from these elements. Follow? ... rock on ... So being, why is it of such importance? It is placed at the core of nearly all of the worlds authentic spiritual practices because this is the true seat of strength. "Go Rob! Go Rob! Your The Man! You brought this back to strength!! YEA!!! Keep rock'n it out..." Hey cheerleader beer chick, keep it down, I'm trying to dive into this And this true seat of strength intimately shows us our own face. Not the face we conventionally identify with but the one that we've always known.

Ask yourself this, what resides beyond the very act of your personal perception? I'm talking about your conventional self, your ego, and its moment to moment act of perceiving. What's beyond this? It's being. It's like a deep black velvet that envelops and holds everything. It's the very essence of peace, the truth of immense stillness in which all motion occurs. Tasting this, feeling this within your transcendent body-mind leaves you.... all Donk'd out? Perhaps that's not the right expression, but you get the point. Even if you don't think you do :-) But anyway, this being thing rocks the kosmic party - literally! This is where strength really comes from and itself is strength. Strength to BE. Being is strength. So let's talk strength as a spiritual pursuit. The authentic spiritual traditions and their rich array of practices all aim at going beyond the conventional self... its Rumi's field beyond thought. "Yo, Rumi, what's up dawg? Oops, Shit... there isn't any thought out here. Sorry God, I'll keep quiet. I know I know - detention again. Well fuck me..."

Anyway, all authentic spiritual practice is aimed at this strength, thus in some crazy sense - spiritual practice is "strength training." Now I'm not talking about just lifting weights - although I'm certainly not excluding it either. But literally, all authentic spiritual practice is aimed at expanding one's identity to embrace and include this transcendent seat of being. It's focused on training every day your capacity to first connect with and eventually be strength. Then once you identify with this transcendent "donkey" (yes donkey is a technical spiritual term that is presently undefinable) then the really really good teachers shatter this identification. Yea sounds shitty, but its much worse than any conventional imagination can come up with.

Which leads to what you really really don't want right now - liberation - freedom which you kind of sort of want some of it - but certainly not all of it - hell no! This is another story though... For now let's focus on getting beyond our conventional selves - let's talk about "hunting the ego" (thanks for the ego hunting term Diana), finding it and then killing it while preserving it's essential function and beauty as we shift beyond... Ego, your conventional self, is rooted around one particularly nasty little attachment - ok so a few, but let's look how they all stem from one. Your ego hates pain.

This part of you will do anything and I mean anything to avoid it. Look at planet earth and tell me, what's off limits? I'm not sure there's much if anything that's off limits... Anyway, because ego hates pain we tend to create 3 almost timeless habitual strategies. First, we try to reject pain. Second we try to grasp onto and perpetuate anything that's remotely pleasurable - which unfortunately backfires on us, biting us in the ass. Finally we just try to numb out and not feel anything. Crazy I know, but take a look at your conventional self - your ego - and I'm sure you'll see these beautifully rich and creative strategies expanding faster than Google's profits (and Microsoft wants to take them on? Hell you guys can't even get a new operating system out and you've been doing that for decade...sorry but I couldn't pass up the opp to rip on Microsoft)

What is even more crazy is being, just plain and simple being, resides beneath all of these strategies. Thus if we are unable to move beyond our aversion to pain and these basic strategies from which ego rests upon, that is if we can't find the strength to shift beyond ego we'll never really know the divine bliss resting right here in this very moment, and that my friend, that is crazy! So strength training, what is it? In its most basic essence its training our capacity to be and then do. It certainly doesn't happen the other way around. True strength training is any activity from which we are able to differentiate from our conditioned history - it's cultivating a new relationship with the present moment. True strength shifts our identity to ever expanding wholes - well beyond our little fragile egos, well beyond the tears of believing with all our known conventional selves and into the tears of radiance streaming from pure empty being. There's a sword with two very real edges right here in all our lives.

We simply must deal with this. We need to train. We need to practice. Yet the more we do something the greater our tendency is to fall into a pattern, a habit. When this happens we stop living. That's not really being alive - that's just kind of like being on auto pilot. Instead we trade in our vibrant vitality that can cook and burn your ego until you find the essence and radiance you've always been. We trade this in for the safety of some known "me." Sounds like a late night infomercial rip off...What do you think? I think we must collectively find a way to compassionately jolt one another from our fascination with the shadows in the cave. History tells us one thing in relationship to spiritual practice. Pain, yes pain, is one of the few paths that forces us to wake up to this ever present moment. In order to strength train, truly strength train, that is to genuinely shift our identity beyond ego and into the vast forest of being most of us need pain. My buddy Ken commonly cites a study involving meditators who were broken into two groups - one group just meditated, while the other meditated and did strength training (we're talking lifting weights right now). The results... Strength training and meditation produced far greater contemplative development than did just the meditation alone. Yes its a huge plug for cross training in general and certainly integral practices, but why weights?

Why this particular often seen 'superficial' practice? Here's my take. Weight training is the most potent form of integral practice when integrated with meditation and a serious intention for growth, development and transformation - and no we're not just talking about the body here...although we're not talking about leaving it out either. We're talking integral development. But let's get back to this pain attachment. I don't know of any other practice that enables you to confront your ego's conditioned history to pain as safely and consistently and as often as lifting weights. Ok, well there is one other vehicle - life - but let's take a look at some of the available options within "life" If each set is engaged fully, all sorts of strange things happen. For starters, you're ego is going to flair up, negotiate, create stories, employ deep seated beliefs and not to mention just generally "check out" for you to both avoid the flame of intensity and the vibrant moment burning to explode throughout your body-mind. In fact the ego might just resort to pulling on the strings of some early deep seated issues around the body to keep you from doing engaging. Just avoid - says the ego... we'll find wholeness some "other" way... You get to watch this incredible display flair up every few minuets.

I don't know about you but in terms of accelerated meditative development this is far more efficient than just conventional sitting practice alone - whatever tradition you might employ. Hell, most of us have years of training ourselves to keeping our sitting practice as comfortable as possible... years of training on how to manipulate our experience on the cushion. Strength training while lifting weights, If the intention to cultivate a new relationship with pain is held and maintained, you've got one potent vehicle to cut through and propel you beyond ego. In the intense vibrations within a set, you can cultivate a new body-mind relationship with pain. A new relationship with the moment. As you shift into the storm of the ego - instead of buying into the ego's persuasion - as the weights move up and down rhythmically, you can watch your habitual tendencies - your conditioning to close down from the life that's radiating in this very moment. If you stay with your intention - to continue to "go into" the immediacy of the moment, pain transforms itself into your greatest ally, your greatest teacher.

Pain turns into vibration, the body-mind dissolves into energy currents and vibrations. Pain turns into pleasure, radiance, joy and ecstasy. Suddenly there's an immense stillness within all of this dance. You're tasting strength - true strength. Peace, Rob

Awareness

http://www.gymjones.com/schedule.php?date=20080823&GymJonesSess=0e7fca23cf761fa1950c2fb4bc4f3834

Awareness of one’s actual capacities isn’t clear simply on the basis of daily training. The power meter tells an objective tale but it can’t know or predict the level of effort one might produce given adequate stress and motivation. In the gym the weight is the weight and it cannot be deceived – we are quite able, however, to deceive ourselves. But on the day those same plates might feel lighter. They might float upward easier. And how are we going to know if we are limiting ourselves in training or not? How can one have an epiphany by following daily routine? How do you know how you might perform on the day if there never are any of those days? Buy the ticket. Pay the entry fee. Take the test. You will probably surprise yourself.

Strength, Your Reservoir for Love

By Rob McNamara

http://campaign-archive.com/?u=8308d445c626221b2a3e4a866&id=5d9990f0da&e=oa6kLhqhcm

Did you know that Strength Training has much more to do with the very Heart of your Being than your physical muscles? This might seem like an odd question given our cultures relationship to “lifting weights.” Culturally, we love to compartmentalize and strength training is no exception. People exercise for their bodies, people lift weights for their muscles.

People often don’t bring themselves fully into their fitness activities. As a result, they lose the most precious gifts in life. Reducing strength training (or any “fitness” activity) to movement that’s just for the body isn’t just horribly uninformed, it’s a crime committed upon the seat of your soul. To detach that which is the very heart and center of who you are from what you’re doing is to allow something precious to die in each moment this compromise is committed.

Strength training impacts your brain plasticity as much as it does your muscles. It strengthens your immune system just as it does your bone density. It increases your cardiovascular fitness just as it releases the impacts of stress. While strength training works wonders on your body’s physiology as it makes you biologically younger with every workout it’s hidden dimensions develops your mind, evolves your soul and walks you toward a liberation and fullness in life never glimpsed without this rich practice.

To yield the benefits to your mind, heart and soul requires you to bring yourself fully to this practice. You cannot compartmentalize yourself in this activity. Bringing the fullness of who you are always starts with a clear intention. I suggest three to get you started.

My intention is to not re-create past experiences or manufacture future expectations.
My intention is to be fully with what’s already here.
My intention is to bring the fullness of who I am into each movement.

With weights in hand, intentions clear it’s time to explore the some of the depths of strength training. Many people veil themselves from the true vulnerability of this practice by focusing on “getting stronger,’ which is certainly a by-product; however, the very heart of the process of strength training is to explore what it’s like to be weak. It’s through diving deeply into our weakness in which our greatest heartfelt humility is born. So with each set of exercises, push yourself until you’re so weak that you can’t lift the weight even one more time.

Dive into each set with an open heart and the clear intention to be with this process fully without an agenda. Allow your conditioning to avoid pain and attach to pleasure to fall aside in the face of your soul’s unconditioned presence to witness the full dance of your life and your heart’s complete engagement with the weights.

Strength Training is inherently painful if you’re doing it right. The agenda to avoid pain is however one of the best ways to perpetuate more and more suffering in your life. With each set you have the opportunity to cultivate a new conscious relationship with yourself as each set of weights is lifted. As your mind refines in its ability to focus, each repetition will become more intense. As each set explores more intensity and discomfort, you can turn toward these sensations, face them with a welcoming heart and in the process transform our relationship to how you face suffering.

In the process of bringing the fullness of who you are into the simple activity of lifting weights, I guarantee you’ll learn much more about life, love, joy and suffering than the person next to you just “going through the motions”. You’ll grow both your hearts ability to hold both pain and joy in addition to increasing your bone density. You’ll find yourself not only getting stronger muscles, but you’ll also find that the process of being weak awakens your soul’s love and kindness both for yourself and the world.

Perseverance...

http://inthelabrynth.blogspot.com/2008/08/perseverance.html

From a good friend of mine who blogs at a site inthelabrynth.blogspot.com who is not only one of the fittest physical individuals I have ever met also has a maturing spiritual outlook on life and an expression well worth listening to.........

What makes one strive for excellence? As sit and watch the Olympic games at the physical capabilities of some, wonder in amazement at their natural talent, their worked capabilities and their mind of such purity, blankness and strength. As each event passes, some beyond recognition, some leave the rest of the best of the world for dust. But in most events it is very close, and each individual competitor is well aware of this, they have worked years for this one event, to prove to themselves and to the world, to their peers, to their families and loved ones, and to those they hold dear to them, that they are the best in the world, all that compete, believe they can do it, otherwise they wouldn't be there. So what distinguishes Athlete to Athlete? when approaching the line, so close, when running that marathon, with a few kms to go, they all push, they push hard, they are all full of fitness, full of strength, as fatigued as they are, as sore as each joint is, as each of their lower backs scream for softness, for a pain free second, they all push through it, they've been there before, its nothing new.

is it purely physical that gets them over the line, or does something higher drive them to victory? i would like to say it is a combination of bother, as fit and strong and powerful as each individual athlete is, one is always better than the other physically, it is simply how it is, but on the day, it all changes, the past means nothing, now means everything, all the athlete has is NOW! physically the other may be better, but on the day, it can all change...

the mind prepares the body for everyday work, for those grueling training sessions that you don't want to do because your body is burning, it is aching, another 3 years before the Olympics, you can't do it your mind keeps telling you, but then you focus, your mind alters its position within yourself in relation to yourself and your mental state of being. your mind allows you to focus, your mind allows you to persevere, its about setting a mind set and having the single mindedness and commitment to hold that close to your reach, as your body strengthens through focus and intelligent wise training, your mind also strengthens.

You see here a domino effect is created between mind and body, the two are separate, yet the two are one in the same, they are integrated, they are one, and rely on each other.

What get them over the line before the other, focus, dedication, physical attributions, but primarily it's a purity of mind, this purity is so pure and clean that no other thought penetrates you or exists... It is all that you know, and the athlete is self absorbed and attentive inwardly...

Episode 25: Rob McNamera Pt 2: Mind/Body Nutrition and Exercise

From the New Man podcast.....

How much exercise is required to build strength and feel great? In part two of our conversation, Rob lays out a simple and straightforward plan to build high-performance strength. The good news: it's not Olympic level marathon training, Rob says we can do it in under 3 hours a week.

Rob highly recommends Shawn Phillips new book, Strength for Life as a great resource for getting started on a program like this.

Rob goes on to talk with us about Full Strength, a meal replacement product developed by Shawn Phillips that has been clinically shown to produce positive results in muscle building and fat and cholesterol reduction. A recent clinical study at the University of Oklahoma confirmed the wisdom that went into the production of Full Strength and documented surprisingly positive health benefits to the participants.

Listen as Rob gives rounds out our discussions on the role of Strength for The New Man.

Episode 24: Shawn Phillips: Pt 2 Hitting the Wall vs. Balanced Recovery

http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/238-the-new-man/episodes/6531-shawn-phillips-pt-2-hitting-wall-vs

Are you noticing instability in your life as you push closer to your limits of performance? Operating at "full-bore" may not be the best way to get where we want to go.

Shawn Phillips advises that for optimum performance, rest can be just as important as exertion. This applies to our physical bodies as well as our profession, our personal relationships and our purpose in life.

"Recovery is like the silence between the notes, that makes the music." Says Shawn.

For many of us, our lives are driven by our attachment to our goals. Shawn and Tripp also explore the possibility that there is a difference between commitment and attachment. Attachment is our dependence on an outcome. Commitment is our willingness to "play" regardless of the outcome. When we get too far into attachment we lose focus, lose our power, and lose our ability to remain present in the moment.

"I'm committed to the game without attachment to the outcome" Shawn says.

Listen as Tripp continues his dialogue with Shawn Phillips, Author and Human Performance expert.

more.

TC from T-Nation on T-Man Defined, 2008

Of all the philosophers/writers out there on the subject of strength training and its deeper context, TC from T-Nation is one of the rawest, honest and most passionate. I’m a big fan of his work on T-Nation and recommend others to go have a look at this article and some of his previous articles.

Now T-Nation may not appeal to all in its confronting style and intent – but see through the advertising, images and the focus on getting massive (for massive sake) and there is a quality of information and depth on this subject that is well worth embracing.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sex_news_sports_funny_social/atomic_dog_tman_defined_2008

All of us who come to this place lift weights for some purpose, whether it be for sport, the artistic pursuit of an aesthetic body, to gain strength, or to look better naked so that bedding women is a little less daunting. But there are other places you can go to gather info about lifting weights and eating better and turning yourself into a badass mofo. Granted, I don't think any of them come close to us in quality and depth, but that may a biased opinion.

None that I've seen have an underlying life philosophy. Most have the intellectual depth of a toilet seat. They have function, but no life lessons to teach or share. They are as soulless as the Tupperware site.

Likewise, those who visit Bodybuilding.com remind me pretty much of a group of wandering village idiots who gathered around a dim light bulb because they couldn't figure out how to build a fire. While they feature the occasional quality article, their core members generally represent every meathead stereotype that makes most of us want to lie about the fact we lift weights.

A bodybuilder? Who, me? I laugh! The truth is, I do a lot of gardening. Push around heavy wheelbarrows filled with sod and stuff.

But I think we're different. We not only want to build your body, but we want to build your mind, and at the risk of sounding pretty lofty and presumptuous, we want to make you (along with ourselves) better all-around men, too. Of course, we have our own fairly unique idea of what the modern man is and is not.

Maybe you've heard the term "T-Man" bandied about on the site. It doesn't just refer to the members of the site. Instead, it refers to men who've adopted the T-man philosophy.

And get this straight: just having muscles or just being a bad ass doesn't automatically make you a card-carrying member. You have to be equally committed to building your mind — spending as much time building it as you do your body — and you've got to have integrity.

And just to be clear, the brains and integrity part are even more important to the notion of a T-man than the physical part because with brains, you can build brawn, and that's what this company has invested heavily in.

But I sure can't diminish the iron. We all come to T-Nation because of a mutual love of iron. Maybe we all share in common a specific genomic sequence on some lonely chromosome. I've read that most of the world's population can be traced back to any one of probably five or six conquerors throughout history, so it's possible we're all related to Genghis Khan's weightlifting cousin, Manny "Big Guns" Khan.

There's just something about the iron, maybe it's the feel of the bar, or maybe the sound; talk about the music of the spheres, what sounds better than 45-pound plates jangling against one another? Maybe it's the feel of hoisting something overhead that most people can't budge. Maybe it's the ache that indicates a workout well done, or maybe it's the looks of muscle and sinew that's synonymous with some ancient and fleeting definition of heroism.

That trait might not be essential in defining a man, but it's sure a hell essential in defining a T-Man.

Then there's the question of demeanor. Gone, hopefully, are the days of swaggering around in cut-off shirtsleeves. Have you ever seen a well-pedigreed pit bull walk down the street? The other dogs bark or yap ceaselessly, but the pit bull is generally indifferent. It knows its power and is confident in it.

Similarly, a "well-pedigreed" T-Man displays the same type of quiet confidence. Unprovoked displays of machismo or violence aren't cool and only denote weak character.

Of course there are times when you need to use the muscles you've cultivated. Sometimes there isn't a way out; sometimes somebody needs help. That's when you cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

T-Man is Batman, not Superman. He didn't just show up with powers, he had to train his brain and his body and his skills. He gets dirty along the way. His character might be a little less sunny but it's bulletproof.

It's a funny thing, being a man. Women are born women, but men have to be made. Blame it on culture, biology, or endocrinology, but a man is expected to be much more than his anatomy. There are, or at least there used to be, great expectations placed on the brow of a male. These are the things I'm writing about; the old, maybe antiquated notions of maleness.

I don't know why I care if men aspire to these same ideals, but I do. I don't know why I want to improve myself in every way, but I do. It's probably pretty sad that I even have to talk about such things, but these masculine ideals sure as hell seem to be in decline.

Maybe this whole column comes off as cornball to some, but I hope not too many. I need to think that this mindset is shared or appreciated by at least a few; I need it for my sanity.

Shawn Phillips: Health is Killing You!

Link

Is settling for mere "health" actually sending you to an early grave? We all think health is something we should be happy with when we have or something to get back to when our health fails us.

Shawn Phillips will not settle for mere "health."

Shawn calls us to enter a life of Strength, a place where our abundant health can serve us in all aspects of our lives and allow us to put ourselves out there in the world.

We've all taken up a workout routine, trying to get "back in shape" because we think we should. Shawn invites us to get past the should's, and find our true strength, the source of our potential greatness.

From this place, the weight room becomes an expression of the abundance of our lives, and our bodies will show the results.

Listen to Shawn and Tripp talk about how to stop "doing fitness" and start being fit.

more.

What is Strength? - Link to Podcast by Rob McNamara

Rob McNamara: What is Strength?

http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/238-the-new-man

Are you feeling at your best physically? Are you looking for that edge to keep you sharp at the workplace and help you handle the intensity of life's challenges? If you are like the average man, chances are you have not felt that great since you were in your teens. Not only is our poor physical condition slowing down our bodies, but its slowing down our minds as well.

This week we are talking with Rob McNamara about strength. Strength is the abundance of power. This abundance is true for our muscles as well as our brains, and affects our performance across the board. We can increase this abundance with regular strength training.

Listen as Rob breaks down the secrets of strength and shares with us the dire importance of taking care of our bodies.

Strength Training as an "Authentic Practice"

The principle aim for me of strength training is to find the pure motivation to engage in the the discipline of strength training completely, to exit these peak experiences through training and leave the attention of my physical practice where it was, with an increased awareness of where I am at now. This is my test of engaging in this practice as an "authentic practice" as opposed to a purely conventional one.

Ive been going through a reflection for a while now on the motivation to engage in the practice of strength training based on conventional benefits (strength, power, vitality) at odds with the motivation to pursue as an intense focus of awareness and towards a deeper practice. I have to recognise that have conventional goals based on what seems to be gross physical and superficial basis, however I am at the same time still seeking to experience different depths of a strength practice in partnership with this conventional intent.

My perspective in going through this dichotomy is to recognise that when my motivation is purely superficial, the practice oscillates depending on my physical and emotional states. When this is the case I can engage in a deep practice but its not a given. If I wake and I'm tired, busy with work and family and with a superficial motivation for practice, these influences will block the natural flow of experience to practice and ultimately influences my capacity to be fully in the moment. Its when I recognise between those moments that the practice of strength training has capacity beyond the superficial, I can engage in it and experience depth, regardless of the reality of my external influences and internal reactions.

Intent of Balaprana

This online space is devoted to a discourse on the expression of strength training as a powerful form of personal and spiritual development.

The name "Balaprana" is formed from two Sanskrit words, "Bala" meaning strength and "Prana" meaning spirit, lifeforce, or energy - hence the title of this blog being "On strength and Spirit".

I will endeavour to use this site as a reflection of my own practice of strength training as a spiritual practice and as a hub to other information to help others along this path.