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The Principle Aim of Strength Training, The Authentic Heart...

Rob said Mar 21, 2008, 8:10 PM:

A sliver from some of my recent writing:

“Strength training is fundamentally not interested in getting you stronger, getting more muscle or getting in shape. To follow these common side effects, or to chase after these often worshipped conventional benefits is to be confused at a very basic level. Strength training is fundamentally invested not in you getting somewhere, but in you growing in your capacity to be here right now. This is the principle aim of this discipline. To miss this essential point is to miss everything. Now lift to discover the fullness of who you are right now, train to embrace your most essential freedom.”

~reflections from practice

I'd love to get some of your perspectives on this… What's the heart of this discipline as you see and enact it?

Peace,

~Rob

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Re: The Principle Aim of Strength Training, The Authentic Heart..

Damon [no longer around] said Mar 22, 2008, 12:05 AM:

Ive been going through this confusion for a while now - the motivation to engage in the practice of strength training based on what you refer to as a conventional benefit at odds with the motivation to pursue as an intense focus of awareness. I still have conventional goals, and am still seeking to experience different depths of this practice.

My perspective in going through this confusion is to recognise that when my motivation is purely superficial, the practice oscillates depending on my physical and emotional states. When this is the case I can engage in a deep practice but its not a given. If I wake and I'm tired, busy with work and family and with a superficial motivation for practice, these influences will block the natural flow of experience to practice and ultimately influences my capacity to be fully in the moment. Its when I recognise between those moments that the practice of strength training has capacity beyond the superficial, I can engage in it and experience depth, regardless of the reality of my external influences and internal reactions.

The heart for me is to find the pure motivation to engage in the the discipline of strength training completely, to walk out of my gym and leave the attention of my practice where it was, with an increased awareness of where I am at now.

I enjoy reading your writing Rob, it opens up a reflection of different dimensions of this practice that are there but hidden from view…..

Strength and Spirit

Damon

Re: The Principle Aim of Strength Training, The Authentic Heart..

Rob said Mar 26, 2008, 6:12 PM:

Damon,

Thanks for bringing up the rich topic of motivation. Practice simply cannot develop beyond the conventional norms unless the practitioner looks closely at his or her cause for action. Without investigating one's motivation, often times the cultural context around the practice dominate the practitioner's unfolding course of action. And while it may feel like it's his or her practice, it has yet to truly belong to them. They're simply playing out a script that was handed to them.

Anyway, I'd like to say that the post-conventional approach to training, the heart of training I set forth - does not have to be in any opposition with achieving the more conventional benefits of strength training. What it does do is add freedom from being enslaved to the conventional aims of more power, more strength, more size, more endurance and so on. Freedom from an entrapment to the conventional aims of strength training brings two things, the choice to engage the discipline without such aims (here the conflict does surface between the conventional aims and the post-conventional aims).

The second element this freedom brings is an ability to engage the conventional dimension with more fullness, more intensity, more intention, more passion and so on. It is here that there there is no fundamental conflict between the conventional approach of getting some relative gain and the post conventional aim of establishing a greater seat of being in the moment.

This union of the conventional and post-conventional is absolutely necessary for individuals wanting to explore the further reaches of the relative gains their body-mind can achieve for it is precisely the attachment to these ends that inherently limits their greater potential.

I'm just throwing out some thoughts for you to chew on here, perhaps it will lend some clarity to your confusion around when your motivation is purely superficial vs when find and animate your practice from the motivation to be more fully in the moment. Perhaps these can be not-two?

The heart for you is to find the pure motivation, to engage the discipline completely. I found this absolutely precious Damon. To engage the discipline completely - this is a beautiful intention and a powerful motivating force. What is engaging strength training completely entail for you?

It sounds like it results in a change or shift following your workouts, leaving you more grounded in the moment, more awake in the moment, more fully engaged with what you're doing. This, I may suggest, is precisely what I'm focusing on with Body-Mind-Moment Training: Bringing the body-mind deeply into the moment with profound freedom as your most basic essential seat.

Peace Buddy,

~Rob