August 31, 2005
COACH COMMENTARY ON A RILKE PASSAGE and TRIBAL CHI PICS 
"Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
until they span the chasm between two
contradictions...For the god
wants to know himself in you."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
photo of Kerry Sheader, WF Warrior extraordinaire somewhere in the Escalante. photo by his dad, WF Teacher "Haku"
*
As i sat in my chair reading the above Rilke poem..that concluding stanza
put such pause in my mind
that i knew by reading Heart Based poets like Rilke, Rumi, and Kabir
i had to set the book down
and allow the passage to take residence in my heart.
"Take your practiced powers and stretch them out..."
Here, Rilke may as well have said,
take that fitness that you have gained in your life and apply that strength of fitness across as many different
disciplines, sports, and activities as you can possibly imagine. in other words, if you enjoy doing yoga,
don't you dare just limit your fitness to a sticky mat! stretch out that yoga fitness into the cardio realms, the strength training realms, go climb a mountain, kayak a creek, climb a rock, dance a ballet! For God's Sake PLAY your fitness!
"...until they span the chasm between two contradictions..."
I am going to have Ananda check my Temple Scrolls...i think Rilke may have been a WF Student for sure! What i hear him saying in this line is that we should preen our fitness not just so that it can allow us to shift from the physiologic contradictions of pure strength to that of pure endurance, he is also saying that our 'practiced powers'
- also known in the Western exercise science as a "training effect," and in the Eastern yogic world as 'siddhis' -
should span the seeming gulf between Body and Mind.
"...For the god wants to know himself in you."
Rilke knows what the sport-specific athlete or the studio yogi does not; Rilke knows that "god hides in the details," of
each sport, each fitness discipline, each activity that we are brave enough to continue to cultivate! Yogically, Rilke is pointing a finger at the union between the Inner Soul (Atman) and the Universal Soul (Brahman). Essentially, Rilke knows
what the WF Student craves and sweats after each day; to know our Highest Self though a multidisciplined and balanced Path of personal training (Practice/Sadhana).
I bow to Rilke.
coach ilg
***
Yoga is everywhere in my life,
for i see Yoga in everything...
even Charlie and Jasper,
the WF Temple Cat Beings...
is it just me,
or have Charlie and Jasper
taken a cat nap in the form of a yin/yang symbol?
May your Practice Jump With Joyful Insight
through Daily Sweat and Stillness...
keep the Awareness cranked Full Throttle, okay?
love,
coach ilg