We can all agree that the concept of exercise is to create or maintain health. It can be used for other things for example: It can be used to increase physical ability like speed, strength, stamina etc…, or changing physical appearance.
Over generations the concept or even the meaning of exercise and/or fitness has morphed into something else. Something to placate our emotions in the guise of health. Just as the western world has extracted a very tiny part of the multifaceted and dynamic practice of yoga (the physical) added heat, weights, music and more and still call it yoga.
When I say “placate our emotions” I’m really taking about one emotion which is fear. We are afraid of not being physically attractive, of not being seen as beautiful, of not fitting the image we have been incessantly barraged with through friends, family, marketing and media.
So much of the time exercise is being used to “change oneself” instead of it’s original objective of “caring for oneself”. Or due to this morphed definition and our indoctrination into this morphed definition, we are caring for themselves in an absurd manner, in a harmful way.
You get the point right? Lets unpack this a little further. Exercise was developed to compensate for our sedentary lifestyle not placate our insecurities or feed a morphed definition. This doesn’t mean exercise shouldn’t or wouldn’t facilitate strength, flexibility, stamina etc… it means the intention or objective is health and nothing more.
In other words if one’s muscles are weak or atrophied exercise should tone them so one can feel better, not so one can look impressive. Now even if your desire is to “care” for yourself as opposed to “changing” yourself, many of you go about it in an absurd manner or harmful way because all we have ever seen is this morphed concept of exercise and we have accepted it without truly considering it, the yoga world would say “without awareness” or perspective.
It’s like we have been taught one way of doing something and believing it so deeply we don’t even have an inkling that there may be another way, or a better way! It’s pretty much psychology 101 that the more we see something the more we believe it even if it’s absurd.
Regardless of the type of exercise if the mentality behind it is “more is better” or “no pain no gain” then you are really not thinking for yourself, you’re just following along with our cultural mentality. This is actually the mentality (more is better) behind the entire rat race. This mentally has been embedded within our psyche and permeates our culture and it plays out in all we do especially when it comes to exercise.
For exercise to be holy beneficial, the mentality needs to be about caring for oneself as opposed to changing oneself. And the only way in the whole world you can care for anything is to touch it gently.
Gentle doesn’t mean avoidance but it does mean to avoid being aggressive or forceful. You’ve never seen a healthy relationship in your life respond positively to force and aggression including the relationship you have with your own body.
The reason you have sensation is to guide you and keep you safe. If you’re not feeling anything you’re probably not being that effective, but if you’re feeling pain it is harmful. The idea is to find that place somewhere between too much and not enough that gentle place or moderation.
Gentleness or moderation is not easy because if you’re gentle you’ll never get yourself into that Lululemon outfit two sizes too small or grow your bicep bigger than your head so you can crush people with your bare hands. Gentleness means that you’re more dominated by your wisdom than your vanity and there’s not too many places in our culture (outside of poweryoga.com) that supports that type of mentality. Remember the harder you are on anything the faster you destroy it. If you want to live for as long as possible and feel as amazing as possible, the last thing you’d ever want to do is push your body hard, again gentleness is the key.
sincerely, bryan
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