Fitness, which should be all about health, right? and however in my experience, and as the observer and empath that I am, I have in my short journey encountered a world of ego. No surprise here, as it is directly linked with the dense realm, the physical world, the body.
For the majority of the fitness professionals, the looks of the body is what matters the most. And fair enough, I am a full advocate of sculpting the body, working hard, getting stronger and leaner for the sake of beauty. It is to me very clear the correspondence between a beautiful, proportionate, symmetric body and a healthy look with a healthy inner state of mind/emotions/spirit. However, very often it is not the case because it’s not always a result of natural habits. There is a lot of cheating: surgery, injections, drugs, chemicals. The material world (what we perceive through the 5 senses) is always very easy to deceive. Specially amongst those who live their lives unconscious, and believe that only the material is all there is, purely for convenience.
How insecure and ignorant of oneself one must be when one is willing to undergo an invasive treatment – no matter the consequences – in order to ‘look’ good. I personally don’t get it. Anything you do to yourself that ‘aids’ you in providing a temporary solution, is in the long term going to hinder your ability to get stronger, heal, and be a better person. Taking the escalators when you can take the stairs, lifting a heavy object instead of using a trolley, taking a painkiller when you should allow the body to naturally go through the healing process, having a massage, removing your wrinkles, etc. they are all passive solutions (you are not actively participating in them, someone/something else is doing it for you) that later on your body will have to work double to undo to really repair itself.
The world of Strength & Conditioning is full of testosterone. And that includes women. Women who hide their vulnerabilities and natural femininity under the appearance of looking physically strong. Because it’s just so trendy to be a strong woman, right? Well, being a strong woman has nothing to do with lifting heavy objects, even though this of course contributes to your mental strength and makes you look good, and yes you will be physically strong, but it’s just that, an acquired skill that stops then and there. The strength of a woman lies in realms far away than what can be seen, for example in her patience, or her silence. Appearances are just that, appearances.
I had two experiences with two strength and conditioning (male) masters, very well known in the fitness world. They have written books with specific methods and have a big number of adepts. While they may be good at what they know (mental aspect), and I do appreciate and value their findings, they completely shut me down and ignored me when I brought up to them the breathing issue. Just because both of them (and this was on different days, and they aren’t related to each other) were breathing improperly and I told them my opinion. Breathing is not just breathing, you see. It’s not just about the Wim Hof method – I do not agree with it – or any other trendy well marketed technique, they are just the tip of the iceberg. And it really gets me when someone is ignorant of something that I know so well, that I have practised and experienced not only on me but on hundreds of students.
“I only follow the science, and anyone who doesn’t, is an ignorant” – one of them said. Poor chap, if some papers written by others based on a momentary study with a certain set of variables on a specific group of people are going to define Truth, well, that’s a bit narrow minded. Science is meant to be ever-changing, never set in stone. “I have many certificates and I have studied this all my life, you aren’t going to tell me what to do”. Here we go. “Why don’t you just listen to what I have to say?” – I was going to explain to him the technicalities and show him an example of what I wanted to convey, but he didn’t let me. “I don’t want to hear anything” – he said. So that was it. He shut me down completely and I was left questioning everything else that he teaches. If someone of his calibre discarded my point with such ignorance, well. It says a lot about him, doesn’t it? I was disappointed, to say the least.
The other coach, didn’t even bother to contemplate a single word on the subject. I should have previewed his level of consciousness, when, in the middle of explaining something else, he candidly said “I love to fall asleep with my mobile phone on my chest while listening to a meditation”. I think I blinked, horrified. But he was totally happy as if he had just revealed some great achievement. “Why do you make that sound – ‘tss’ – when you breathe out on contraction?” – I asked. His reply had nothing to do with my question, he said: “You breathe in, and then breathe out on your belly, look”. He then asked one of the other students to lie down on the floor and put his hand on his belly, in a wrong way, breathing in expanding the chest and breathing out sinking in. That had nothing to do with my question, and even then he managed to tell me something else, wrongly. I then explained: “I am not referring to where you grab the air, but more to the position of your tongue in between the teeth and the stress on the jaw/tongue, which is unnecessary, and that energy could well be employed in the actual muscles we are trying to work on”. He shut me down completely, saying: “Next!” (referring to someone else asking another question).
And that was it.
When ego rules someone, they discard what they can’t explain instead of being open to the possibility of knowledge. Change. Something that could shatter their paradigm and make them greater. But no. They need to be in control. For the sake of their ‘reputation’ amongst peers of their same calibre, which is just smoke and mirrors and perpetuates a mirage.
And, like this, medical schools, laboratories, fitness scholars, sports people, etc. they all follow a model based on what is observed through the senses, for then creating rules and methods, principles, etc, based on observable, measurable data obtained from a certain group of people responding to a certain stimulus at a certain point in time and space, without taking in account other variables such as the effect of the influence of the actual observations and everyone’s consciousness at that time, the intention, mental state, capabilities, worries, preparedness, etc. just because those aren’t measurable with a device. Not immediate, anyway. Thus, creating a pseudo-science that then everyone gives each others a pat on the back for, with a medal, a certificate, or a job, feeling themselves entitled and righteous. And that’s the end of their ‘science’.
To finalise this article, I’ll leave here some quotes of people who’ve investigated and dedicated their entire lives to observe the universe, and who did not sell their souls to those who wanted to create a world of convenience and corruption.
singersfit.wordpress.com 