Sunday Story...Steppin' Out

Sunday Story…Steppin’ Out

You circle the parking lot looking for that coveted parking place closest to the door. The stairs, the escalator, or the elevator? The last time you rode a bike was several presidents ago. Roller skates? I don’t think so. We live in a mechanized world. We drive way too much. It all contributes to this faster, fragmented and furious pace we are living.

I am not anti-car. I love my car and I love driving. I love that I can get in it and be someplace in a very short order. If I had to walk to San Francisco I probably wouldn’t get there very often. On the other hand…

The principle of general physical preparedness (gpp) says that I should be able to get up and do what needs to be done with my body. Can I carry a 40 pound child through an amusement park and out to the far reaches of the parking lot? Can I use an axe and shovel all day to dig that stump out of the yard? How about sprinting 100 or so yards to the scene of an accident to render help and being able to do it when you arrive on scene? Climb a tree to rescue your kid’s cat? Maybe even something simple like walking a mile or two because your car breaks down and there is no cell coverage for AAA to come and save you? Maybe even simpler…reach down and pick something up from the floor without bending your knees?

This level of fitness…the general physical preparedness level…requires that you do a number of things. We have talked about these things before. Lift heavy things. Move them quickly over a distance. Sprint once in a while. Pull yourself up, push yourself up, sit yourself up, squat down. Do things in ways you wouldn’t normally do them. Expect the unexpected. Connect your body, your breath, and your mind into a unified whole. Move slowly often.

This last one is the one many of us have trouble with. We are bipeds. That means we were made to move on two feet. We were not made to sit on our behinds. We were designed to move often and with ease and comfort and not in your “fat-burning zone” either. When was the last time you walked from the furthest reaches of the parking lot? On purpose? Or walked up the stairs instead of the escalator right beside the stairs? Or rode a bicycle just to get from point A to point B? No hurry, no worrying about the rpm or your pulse or anything else? These activities are meant to help increase your base metabolic rate. Just like sprinting once in a while will do. And moving heavy stuff over distance quickly will do.

What is your base metabolic rate you may ask? This is the rate that your body burns energy. The more we sit, the more sedentary we become the lower that rate becomes. In other words your body requires less and less energy to maintains its basic functions. So the more I sit, the slower everything moves. And I require less energy to just be alive. This is a good thing if I am starving to death. Most of you are not starving.

Maybe you can think back to a time when you were very active. Not exercising not training but really active. Maybe you were playing and moving; up to lots of things in the world. Your base metabolic rate was probably pretty high. And you were feeding yourself often and without a lot of care. And you weren’t overweight. Then your activity level dropped off. And so did your base metabolic rate. But your calorie intake remained the same and it still wasn’t all that much good food either. Guess what…5 years later your health is declining noticeably. You are tired. You aren’t able to do some of the things you used to take for granted.

Better get in shape, right? So you get on the bike, on the treadmill, the elliptical (human on the wheel) and start doing “cardio”. After all this is what all the experts say will do the trick right? And you start moving into the proverbial “fat burning zone” and stay there for about 30 minutes while you read Time magazine or People or watch the tube. And guess what? While you are on that machine in that zone you are burning fat. So why do we see so many people who are religious about their 4 times a week chronic cardio habits never make any significant changes in the body composition?

Because, and here is the most important part of this whole article, chronic cardio does not raise your base metabolic rate. In other words, once you stop working, once you get off the machine your body stops burning fat and goes back to whatever it was doing before you got on. Which for most of us is burning glycogen (a form of sugar) because that is what we are fueling our bodies with. Our base burn rate is so low that your body doesn’t need to burn fat at rest.

Your body is designed to burn fat as fuel most of the time. When I walk or ride my bike at a leisurely pace I am burning fat. My body is trained to do that. When I run really fast and lift heavy stuff I am training my body to burn energy faster and do it consistently over the course of the day. Of course I am not sitting around all day either.

Get up, get out of the chair, off the couch. Start moving. It is your birthright. Your body was designed as a well oiled efficient machine meant to go places. Being on the treadmill, the stationary bike, the elliptical takes you nowhere, no matter how fast you go. Get off the human hamster wheel. It wasn’t designed for humans, unless you are in captivity. Maybe someday…

So…start moving and start eating real food….animals and plants…mostly plants. Take it one baby step at a time but start stepping. Pretty soon you will be stepping out!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Happy Father's

Sunday Story…Happy Father’s Day

Today is Father’s day. I don’t often link these stories to actual dated events but I am going to make an exception this week.

Every week I write this Sunday Story. I have been doing it for just over 3 years…that means over 156 stories…over 156,000 words (each one is about 1000 words)…over 156 pages at a 12 point typeface. That is a fair amount of writing. Sometimes I touch you, my reader, more deeply than others. Sometimes I reach inside and really spill my heart out and you get it and other times you don’t. It doesn’t really matter because I figure you get the things you are meant to get and all the rest is just so much fluff anyway.

Every week my mother prints this story out so my father can read it over his breakfast. At 78 years old the print is a little larger and it takes him a little longer to read it than it did a year or two ago. My father’s health is failing. Slowly, inexorably, sometimes painfully failing. I suppose it is part of the natural ebb and flow of life but it is still heart rendering to watch and hear about. I feel sad I am not there as often as I would like. Anyway Dad, this one is for you…

There are many things I learned from my father. The older I get the more I realize how many lessons there were for me. The older I get the more impact those lessons have and the more I come to appreciate all the gifts I was given by having a father like the one I had in my life. I hope my children were ½ as fortunate.

I learned the value of working hard. My father worked all day and then came home and worked at home. At different times in my life he was a school teacher, a farm worker, a truck driver, a quality control inspector for nuclear plants and some other things I have forgotten. We lived on a horse ranch for a year or two. We owned a vineyard at one point for several years. I remember my dad worked. When we were raising sheep for 4-H projects he was there to help and to bury the orphan lambs that didn’t make it through the nights. I learned how to prune a grape vine. I learned to put in a day’s work in the field and do the job correctly the first time, no matter how cold it was or how much you really wanted to quit. We milked cows together in the hours before dawn as “replacement” milkers for local dairymen. It was a job that got done no matter what. There was no fail. It was a position of extreme trust that these men placed in my father and he, in turn, in me. If the job was worth doing it was going to be done well.

Which leads me to another lesson...I learned it really wasn’t important what you did. What was important was how you did it. Did you do the absolute best you could? Was the job done above and beyond expectation? Are you the best at what you are doing or are you working on being the best? At one point in my young life I can remember telling my dad that I didn’t know what I wanted to do or be but I was going to be the best at whatever I ended up doing.

Once when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old we had gone to a family reunion. Most of the extended family lived way up in western Washington and we were living in California outside of Sacramento at the time. I was just at that age where all these people were interesting and I really had no idea who they all were. But my dad was inviting them all to our house to visit. I remember asking him later…”Dad, you invited all these people to our house. What if they all show up? Where will we put them all?” His answer was simple…”I invited them because it’s polite and gracious. And if they all show up we will make room for them because they are family.” Of course most of them never came to California and those that did didn’t all show up at the same time. I learned to be polite and gracious.

Another time my father was teaching special education in a small school in Washington. I was 12 or 13. He had to drive something like 50 miles each way to go to work and then come home and run the horse ranch we were living on at the time. I think I resented him being gone that much or something stupid like that and one day I asked him…”why are you teaching those retards anyway?” In a flash I saw his face go from anger to extreme sadness at my thoughtless question. Before and since, I don’t think I have ever seen such sadness and certainly not on my father’s face. His answer went something like this…” these children deserve our help. They aren’t stupid. They are different certainly yet they are, in many ways, like you and I…they want to be loved, they want to contribute and they are often the kindest most loving people I have ever known. I hope I never hear that word come out of your mouth again.” In that moment I learned compassion and the value of seeing every person for the divine spark they carry within their soul.

My father gave me permission to lead my life. He never tried to run it for me. He gave me advice and still loved me when I didn’t take it. He encouraged me to be who I could be. When I made mistakes (and I made plenty of them) I can never remember him coming down on me with contempt and criticism and condemnation. It would have been easy for him to do as many of my transgressions were worthy of all three of those things. I learned to love.
So…
Work hard
Be the best
Be Polite and Gracious
Have Compassion and Understanding
Love

Thanks Dad. Happy Fathers Day.

Love, your son, John.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Flip the Switch

Sunday Story…Flip the Switch

There is a point in your life when you flip the switch. The switch that turns the path, steers the car in the other direction, that takes you down a different road. The question I am asking myself today is what is the motivating factor, the underlying reason that we decide to make fundamental changes in our lives?

We have talked about the pain of continuing on a particular path being less than the pleasure of going down a new path. And although this may be reason enough to lose a few pounds or quit smoking or start exercising, I really wonder if it is enough to have you shift your life into a completely different lifestyle. I think maybe, if the fear of pain or the anticipation of pleasure might get you started, might get you boot-kicked onto the path but is it really enough to have truly alter your life style?

So why do we finally flip the switch or pull the trigger, if you will. What has you go from a donut eating, camel straight smoking, coffee drinking cowboy bent on self destruction (me) to a dedicated paleo eating, crossfit fitness fanatic and martial arts maniac (also me)? These two life styles could not be further from each other.

You have been under attack you know. Throughout your life you have been bombarded by images bent on creating conformity within you. Eat this and you will be popular. Dress this way and you will be cool (like everyone else). All the cool people do this. If you want to be skinny eat this and not that. This attack is simply meant to liberate your money from your wallet. If everyone wants the same thing, eats the same thing then there is a lot more of it to sell and a lot more profit. Marketing is not a bad thing, in and of itself. But over the few years too much of that marketing has been selling us a crock of, well, crap. Bad food, worse habits, quick fixes, and herd think has lessened our desire to be the individuals we are meant to be.

It also didn’t happen all at once. It crept up on you a little at a time, 5 pounds here, 5 pounds there, a poor attitude a bit here, a smarmy, sarcastic remark, the t-shirt with a particularly facetious saying on it and the next thing you know…It’s a hundred pounds, your attitude has no gratitude and your hoping just to keep your average, mediocre boat afloat for a while longer.

That is not to say that this isn’t your fault. It is your responsibility for the way your life looks. You didn’t have to drink that kool-aid you know. And you can stop drinking it anytime you are ready. But it may take a time or two before you finally completely and totally stop drinking at the magical mediocrity trough. But you can do it if you really, really want to.

So how do you really get the switch flipped? What does it take to get on the track you really belong on? What is going to be your over-riding impetus to effect the real change you and your soul are so longing for?

It is going to take one thing and one thing only…a decision backed by a commitment. You need to decide that your life doesn’t have to be this way anymore. There is something else, something more, something bigger, something you are meant to do. Then, once the decision is made, commit to creating a process and sticking to it. No matter what. No matter how many people tell you it can’t be done, no matter who ridicules or tries to pull you off course, no matter if you fall off the path. You will keep going. There is no failure on this journey. There is the learning that comes from experimentation. There is the lesson that you get when things don’t quite work out as you planned. But there is no failure because your course is set, your resolve is unbending, you are on a mission.

For myself, I decided I no longer wanted to die the slow, inexorable death waiting for me down the road I was on. The destination on that road had 5 or 6 little brown prescription bottles, a working relationship with several physicians, a non-working relationship with an insurance company, an unhappiness doing work that simply provided a paycheck and a family life that was more at home in front of the television that anywhere else. No Thanks.

I wanted to be able to do anything I chose. Just like I did when I was 8 or 10 years old and the whole world was wide open. Physically I wanted to be able to do whatever it was that I chose to do without fear of injury or chronic pain. Mentally I am constantly learning and keeping my brain engaged in so many processes. I have a vision for my life and what and how I want it to look. I make a difference everyday in the lives of the people around me. I live a life designed with my purpose in mind and designed to fulfill that purpose. I walk my talk. But it was conscious choice. And behind that choice was the will to commit to the process. And in that process was a road of self –discovery…a place where all knowledge was on the table, nothing was assumed to be true anymore. There is no magic bullet, no magic door to walk through for optimum health and wellness. It is work and it is a lifestyle. And it is a journey I plan on continuing to the end of my days.

The legacy, the inspiration I want to leave you with is this…you can still be whoever you want to be. You can still choose what and who you want to be when you grow up. It’s never too late. Or you can continue on the path of your certain future. For me…I’m wearing shades ‘cuz the future’s so bright!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...The Girl in the Box

Sunday Story...The Girl in the Box

I am, generally, a happy person. At least I like to think so. When I look out at the world it appears to be happy place. In the world I live in, people don’t steal from each other. When bad stuff happens (and it does) I do my best to spin it positive and try to give the benefit of the doubt to the other people.

Before you dismiss me as some Pollyanna person who only sees rainbows and unicorns (8) I know the world shows up as a scary and dangerous place for many people. And for many people it really is dangerous and scary. People die, get horrendous diseases and are treated by other humans in ways as despicable as to be fodder for horror novels. All these things are true.

Yet, do I need to live my life in a box? Scared to stick my head out? Scared to discover all the things wrong or right with the world? Too many of us are living in the box. We see all the horrible things in the world through the lens of sensational news reports and talking heads serving up fear on a platter. When I view the world through those glasses my little box looks pretty good.

The girl in the box is representative of a life lived in fear. The box is safe, the box is secure. There is very little to worry about in the box. When I close the box it is dark and nothing can hurt me. My fear is under control. Yet reality is my fear is controlling me and not the other way around. My life in the box looks safe and secure to me, the person in the box but is it really safe?

There is an old saying…”behold the turtle, he only gets somewhere when he sticks his neck out.” A turtle when he is pulled into his shell (his box) can’t go anywhere unless someone kicks him some place. If you are living in your box you are stuck until someone else kicks you down the road. And how scary is that? You aren’t in control when someone else is pushing the box places. And you won’t even do anything about it; you are so obsessed with being safe and secure you have given up all control over your destination (life).

When you finally stick your head out of the box and look around you have no idea where you are, how you got there, or what you are going to do next. Other than crawl back in the box and hope the next kick lands you somewhere nice and soft. Like Maui maybe, or the south of France in a pretty little villa. That sounds pretty scary if you ask me. Not knowing where the next kick is going to land you is about as far from secure as I would care to be.

You realize of course, that the box isn’t just a box. It is a life unexamined. It is a life that just meanders about with no real plan or passion driving it. Far too many of us are living lives bereft of meaning and purpose. Our lives are defined by a box we have framed and created by default, not by plan.

Are you living in box without realizing it? Is your box so comfortable that it doesn’t feel like a box anymore? It’s decorated nicely, all the comforts of home are there, you don’t really have to do much to keep it up and all your friends and family have cute little boxes too. So it works pretty well.

Until you start feeling like there might be something else, something more that lies outside the box. Then the turtle sticks his neck out and starts looking around, starts exploring the world outside his tightly controlled and confined box. When you start looking around you get to decide if you are looking for beauty or ugliness. Because whatever you are looking for you will find. Look for dishonesty and you will find it. Look for hatred, bigotry, and cruelty and it is there to be found. Look for honesty and it will be there too. Look for people who are up to great things in the world, who are kind, and giving, open and honest they will be there as well.

The world outside my box is beautiful. And it isn’t perfect. There are many things I don’t like about this world. I choose to live outside the box even though it can be scary, ugly and difficult to deal with. I choose to live outside the box because the beauty and the possibility and the joy are greater in every moment than any of the hurt, pain, ugliness, and suffering. You will notice I choose. I choose every day how the world outside the box looks. It is mine to do.

In the choice I make I choose to live with passion and purpose. The box holds my passion down and stifles my purpose. The box does not serve my choices. Why would I choose to close off all the joy and yes even the sorrow the world outside the box holds? It would be like living as half a person. Even if there is pain and suffering it would be better than the stifling life in the box waiting to be kicked down the road by some unknown boot to some unknown destination.

Are you the girl in the box? Why? What are you doing in there? Don’t you know the world needs your passion and purpose? We need you to get out of your box and start sharing all the beauty, joy and passion you have to bring. Stop selling yourself short and cheating the world of your gifts, crawl out of the box.

Now. Today. See you on the outside!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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