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Sept. 24, 2011. Udine half marathon: a 82 man hits the European record, 1:39:50, missing by 10″ the World record. (and beating my PB by other 15″)
Trento. Sale sulle cime del Brenta a 103 anni .A 103 anni, con lo zaino di un tempo, la corda, la piccozza, le racchette, sulle cime del Brenta. E’ l’impresa portata a termine dalla storica alpinista Rita Fava, che assieme al nipote è salita sulle montagne sopra Madonna di Campiglio, spaziando dal Tucket al Brentei fino al Dos del Sabion
Study and practice are both very important, but they must go hand in hand. Faith without knowledge is not sufficient. Faith needs to be supported by reason. However intellectual understanding that is not applied in practice is also of little use. Whatever we learn from study we need to apply sincerely in our daily lives. (Dalai Lama)
Yoga and Running are alike in many ways: asanas,like running sessions are “meditations in action”, sequences are like training charts, backbendings are energizing like fartleks, inversions are enriching like trails, forward bending are restoring like easy, careless runs. But they are even more so the way they are sometime misunderstood or underestimated. Especially from those who have not yet experienced running or yoga practice on the their skins, inside their bodies before their brains.
You don’t need to an ultra trail runner and you don’t need to be in Raja Kapotasana , before you hear people around you stating that that amount of kilometres or that amount of elevation gain, or that amount of running hours are not even conceavable to them . In fact, those are the people who’d typically say they couldn’t even run 1k and that, after all, running is bad for your health . In this perspective, yoga is dangerous in the very same way: it hurts your knees, right? And if you are a woman it’s even worse: your reproductive system is certainly put in danger by running and doing armabalances or abdominal poses. Chances are, those people are overweight, with high cholesterol and, therefore, on pills that keep it down, instead of following their doctor’ sadvise, to do regular sport activity…like running. This is usually the dead end of the conversation: your image at the finish line (or in padmasana) is badass, BUT sport and yoga” are “(they don’t even consider the word “can”) dangerous for your knees. No matter if you feel well, satisfied, fresh in your head and clear in your thoughts. Running to them is sub 3 hours 42k or it’s no running. Yoga is the most gymnic pose or it’s no yoga, for those who only experience running and yoga virtually, through the images, not through their skin.
Above all, those people are right in concluding that they would disintegrate themself in only trying to run a half marathon or in attempting a half Lotus. They are right. We would, too. That’s precisely why we train, with a religious zeal, day in day out, ritually alternating some exercise load and practice, with some relaxing, cross-training, restorative activity. To avoid injury. And to advance gradually , step by step in order to get to our distant aim, task, pose, race in a silent, calm disposition of the mind, prepared in the body, so as to reach the maximum performance with less stress possible, to our mind and to our body, knees included.
Those people would be surprised to see us running in the rain, doing tons of repeats at the same prefixed speed, practicing the same old Down-Dog for gradually increasing minutes.
Those people would be even more surprised in seeing us falling, failing in races, in teacher exams and still NOT quitting. They would find us at the Start or, like me at the exam, for the third time in front of a jury of yogis who keep saying that, although you teach well, you study well, you practice,( albeit you run), nonetheless your muscles are too big, your body is too nervous to pass . Those people would be even more surprised to see that athough the steps are tiny, invisable or even more than expected, with sudden back jumps, you, we are still there, studying, practicing, running .And we are always back there. At the Start line. “what is essential is invisible to the eye.” (A.de St.Exupery).
It’s a question of perspective: the start line is the end of the training period for us, not the beginning.In the middle, we learn all possible, infinitely tiny details that make up our body-mind and emotional system,. “Knowledge is power”, not money, not even strength,not even willpower. In the end those who are used to training in any discipline realise a very uplifting truth: that the last step after all the effort, right before the real act of starting a race or getting into a pose is the most relaxing and careless and faithful thought: being in peace with our mind for havind done everything, having gone through all steps that make us ready to confront with the situation. We know every inch in between, from Start to Finish, from starting a pose to ending the pose. Calm breath and faith is in between. But this is only possible after a long journey of study.
Study and faith had already explained in the 15th cent. a.C., in the Yoga Sutras (Aphorisms), in Sutras 1:12-16 . Abhyasa,and Vairagya, practice and non-attachment are the two core principles on which the entire system of Yoga rests. It is through the cultivation of these two that the other practices evolve, by which mastery over the mind field occurs, and allows the realization of the true Self .
- Abhyasa/Practice: Abhyasa means having an attitude of persistent effort to attain and maintain a state of stable tranquility . To become well established, this needs to be done for a long time, without a break. From this stance the deeper practice continues to unfold, going ever deeper towards the direct experience of the eternal core of our being. It also means running intervals!
- Vairagya/Non-attachment: The essential companion is non-attachment, learning to let go of the many attachments, aversions, fears, and false identities that are clouding the true Self. Even the most experienced runner knows that a Personal Best is far from being automatically repeated or , even more, ameliorated.
What’s most important, Patanjaly explains that they work together: practice leads you in the right direction, while non-attachment allows you to continue the inner journey without getting sidetracked into the pains and pleasures along the way.
That’s why we, who train or practice regularly, will be always there: at the Start to the last Finish line high and prepared in our Tadasana, the Mountain Pose, grounded and high in our spine, with nothing to hide, fully centered in our “meditation in action” to go. The Finish line will come sometime. It always comes. But we won’t be afraid.
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