dodgerroger

Willpower

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/the-willpower-trick/

The reason our resolutions end in such dismal fashion returns us to the single most important fact about human willpower — it’s incredibly feeble. Consider this experiment, led by Baba Shiv, a behavioral economist at Stanford University. He recruited several dozen undergraduates and divided them into two groups. One group was given a two-digit number to remember, while the second group was given a seven-digit number. Then, they were told to walk down the hall, where they were presented with two different snack options: a slice of chocolate cake or a bowl of fruit salad.

Prefontaine

Are you familiar with the story of Prefontaine?

Steve Prefontaine was a legendary runner. He went to the University of Oregon. Most racers race with some sort of strategy. You know, you save some energy by drafting off of the people in front of you. You let the people in front wear themselves out and then you strike near the end when they are tired. Prefontaine prefered to race from the front. He wanted to turn every race into an “all-guts” race. He wanted to turn every race into a true test of endurance and willpower, not cunning and tactics. I like that. Or at least I like the idea of it.

“I’m going to work so that it’s a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.”

“a lot of people run a race to see who’s the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts.”

“the best pace is a suicide pace, and today is a good day to die”

“somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.”

“to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”

While I admire him, I can’t help but wonder if all this pushing is tinged with foolishness. With great willpower you can do a great many things, including pushing yourself past awareness and past your limits and lead yourself to injury. I still admire the great willpower, because people are capable of so much more than they believe. I also believe one can change what your limits are. However, I find as your will gets stronger there is a danger that you ego grows stronger as well.

Some people think a healthy ego is a good thing. It is true that you can accomplish a lot of things with a healthy ego. But I’m not interested in accomplishing great things.

I’m interested in skillful living. It seems to me that a big ego would get in the way of this.

Letting go of a number

Yet another day passes where I either planned to do a double or had the opportunity to do a double and I let it pass. There is always some excuse. This time it’s my messed up digestion/diarrhea.

I confess, that part of me was looking forward to putting up a number. I wanted to do as many classes as I could in a year. I thought 400 was in the bag and I had an outside shot at 500.

Now, I think it’s kind of pointless. I am very wary of doing things because of pride, and I’m always trying to figure out my motivations for doing what I do. I’m not sure if I understand myself really well or if I don’t really understand myself at all. I know that there are certain instances when pride has a positive connotation. Take pride in your work. Be proud of where you come from. etc. I don’t believe in any of that. What’s done is done. It’s over. Attaching yourself to something you’ve done in the past limits you. Defining yourself based on your past accomplishments only feeds your ego. The person you are RIGHT NOW could be completely different from the person you were before.

Everyone is different. For some people, doing 60 classes in 60 days is a big accomplishment and it is definitely something I applaud. I just think we should measure ourselves against our capabilities. I did 82 in 60, but I feel no pride or even any real sense of accomplishment. If I had wanted to, I could’ve done 90. I don’t mean that in a boastful way. The question is not CAN I do it, the question is SHOULD I do it?

I like to push the envelope. I like to push the limits so I can change my limits. So that I can grow and learn and develop. I believe wholehearted in leaving the comfort zone to grow. When you leave that comfort zone, there is something that pushes you forward. When your body and your mind want you to stop there is something else that keeps you going. What is this? It may be pride. It may be Ego. For a while I named it “The Will”. Sometimes I feel like we just give something a Name and then feel we understand it. Naming does not lead to understanding, it makes it smaller. Naming attempts to limit a concept and put it in a box. Let me correct myself there - Naming is merely an abstraction. Trying to define what the Name means is what limits it. We do this naming thing all the time. God, Love, Good, Evil - what exactly do these words mean? They are abstractions. It’s like Louis Armstrong talking about Jazz - “I’ve you have to ask what Jazz is, you’ll never know.”

So, I don’t understand my motivations. I’m not sure how important it is to understand why I do what I do. I have a feeling, and I act on it after a bit of deliberation. I’m actually very cautious, even if I am a little crazy.

I DO realize that great willpower or intellect or whatever that is not equally balanced by wisdom leads to folly. I think the key to wisdom is awareness. When you are aware of the consequences of your actions, and the actions of those around you and how everything affects everything else… this is the start of wisdom. Let’s say I did 90 classes and then need two weeks to recover. Well, that kind of defeats the purpose. Let’s say I did 500 classes and then it killed my love of the yoga. That would be what they call a pyrrhic victory.

At the start of the year I decided I would do as much yoga as I could in a year in an effort to improve my practice as quickly as possible. Now I realize that “as much yoga as I can” is a very flexible idea. It is an idea I explored a bit when I did 5 classes in a day. After doing 5 I knew 6 and 7 were possible. But what’s the purpose? Just because something is possible, it doesn’t mean you should try to do it.

So, I’m letting go of the number. I will maintain a daily practice. When I am on break, I will do more yoga. I may end up doing 500 after all, but I’m not going to set that as a goal. I know a lot of teachers talk about setting a goal, but I’m not really goal oriented. I’m process oriented. I don’t believe in looking so intensely into the future. I believe in living in the present.

Is The Will just Ego?

So there is something fundamental about myself and many of the people I admire that I don’t understand. So I did the most natural thing in the world, I gave it a name. The world is filled with Names. God, Love, Enlightenment, Consciousness, the Tao. All names of things we can’t quite define.

One of my favorite says from Lao Tzu is “The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao.” I think what he is saying is that any attempt to describe it or define it necessarily limits it. Once you limit it, it is no longer the Tao. (For those of you who are not familiar with Taoism, I would try to explain what the Tao is, except that the Tao that can be named is not the true Tao.)

I have been fascinated with what motivates the crazy ones. These people that have extreme discipline and pursue their dreams. I’m thinking there HAS to be something there. Something beyond mere motivation. Something beyond mere willpower… so I named it. The Will.

(note: I’ve been reading Eckhart Tolle lately. I’ve found a profound connection to what he says. One of his main principles is that we identify ourselves with our minds. Our minds are not our true selves. The thoughts you have are not You. You may think of yourself as a Christian, vegetarian, environmentalist, intellectual, stock broker, student, yogi, Communist, Luddite, fascist, fat, organic, sustainable, iPhone-using, math-hating, seeker, terrorist, poet, nature girl. But that is not really YOU. These are just things your mind has caused you to identify yourself with. When you identify yourself in this way you limit yourself as well, but even more than that you delude yourself. This delusion is extremely powerful. So powerful that 99% of the population probably makes this mis-identification.

Your true self is something else.)

So, now I’m thinking that this concept that I’ve created - The Will, is nothing more than Ego. Maybe I created a mind-identification of some delusional mental construct. Maybe I created a term to make myself feel special. Oh, I have The Will. I’m like these near super-human crazy people I admire. Maybe I am SPECIAL.

It makes sense, right? The more you accomplish, the bigger your Ego grows, and the more it fuels you, and the more deluded you become…

And yet…

Somehow, I DON’T think it’s Ego. I don’t FEEL special. In fact, the more yoga I do, the less special I feel. The more yoga I do, the more I look at the beginner and admire them. For some of them, just making it thru the standing series is a monumental accomplishment. For some of them, Wearing a skimpy outfit because it’s so freaking hot and just looking at themselves in the mirror for 45 minutes is HUGE accomplishment. I don’t know, I often times find many beginners or bad body types to be even more inspiring than the proficient yoga heros I admired so greatly before (I still admire them, actually).

I don’t think I’m any more special and gifted than anyone else. Yes, I do a lot of yoga but I think ANYONE can train themselves to do a lot of yoga. Scott Jurek says that ANYONE can run an ultra-marathon. You just need the motivation to train yourself and then over time, after a LOT of repetition you improve, your limits expand, and new doors open up to you. This idea of Talent is an illusion or at the very least wildly over-rated.

Now, I still don’t know what or where this motivation comes from. Maybe what I’m calling The Will is nothing more than Love.

Oops, I did it again. Naming things…

Taking it to the Next Level - Hail to the Crazy Ones!

Last week I did an AM/PM double with Ythuan and Jeff. It was awesome. I don’t know if it’s cause I ate some chia seeds but the second class I felt strong and clear headed.

During the second class Jeff asked “So, Roger, do you have any yoga resolutions for the next year?” I guess I wasn’t THAT clear headed cause I said I would do class everyday. Then I quickly changed it to 365 classes in one year. I don’t know if it counts as a 365 day challenge if you don’t go everyday, but for me doing a back-to-back double is far more taxing than going two days in a row.

I’ve been thinking a lot about our limits and changing those limits. I think the largest factor is the mind. You are limited by what you believe is possible. For instance, doing three classes in a day absolutely seems possible to me right now. I haven’t done it all in a single day, but I can conceive of the idea. On the other hand, doing 8 classes in one day with no water is something entirely different. I can tell myself I think it is possible, but this is so far beyond my current reach that I can’t say I actually BELIEVE it is possible. Not in my heart of hearts. I think I am not ready to truly believe such a thing is possible… yet.

One of the ideas that facinates me is a notion I call “The Will”. In my mind, there is a clear distinction between The Will and willpower. The Will is something greater. It’s global. It’s an attitude and a drive. It comes from some place deeper than willpower which I see as something along the lines of “I have decided to do this and I will make it happen.” I think The Will originates from something deeper. I wish I could articulate the difference but I can’t. But I know it when I see it.

For example, a guy like Anton Krupicka definitely has The Will. He inspires me. He’s an ultra-marathoner that will run 200 miles in a week which is kind of insane. And that doesn’t even factor in the fact that he’s doing very technical trail running and runs up a mountain practically every day. My buddy Brian (a runner and a crazy guy like myself) showed me this commercial:

It appeals to me on many levels. I love how Anton has this minimalist philosophy. And when he talks about being in the moment - that is something that definitely resonates with me (it is basically my practical life philosophy). For him, running stripped down to the bare essentials allows him to have as pure an experience as possible. You could take all the things he says about running and translate them to yoga.

Anton runs these crazy mileages and pushes the envelope. He definitely has The Will.

Another ultra-marathoner of note - Scott Jurek, has The Will in abundance. He is arguably the top ultra-marathoner in the world and a legend in the sport. He ran 165.7 miles in 24 hours:

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/health/2010/12/28/ac.el.gupta.ultramarathoner.cnn.html

Not only that, but he is also vegan, which somehow makes it all seem even crazier.

I’ve found some new inspiration in reading Beyond the Mountain by Steve House. He is a high-altitude mountain climber that also believes in a minimalist approach. He is the one who said “The simpler we make things, the richer the experiences become.” He is pretty crazy. In the opening chapter he is climbing a mountain with some other dude. He originally wanted to do the climb solo but some guy wanted to come along. Having a partner increases the chance of successfully reaching the summit. A (relatively) short distance from the summit his partner wants to turn back. They have some crazy altitude sickness and seem to be on the brink. Steve writes:

“There is no partnership, no marriage but convenience. There is just he and I. Separate in our desires. Mine to ascend at any price. Bruce’s to cash out now, before we have committed everything. I wonder ‘Who is this man?”

Steve is ready to give up his life to reach the summit and is disappointed that his partner is not. Crazy.

***

These crazies inspire me. What I admire is not the price they are willing to pay (I am not willing to die for yoga), but their manifestation of The Will. What is this drive that they have? Where does it come from? When asked why they do these crazy things they all have similar answers. They talk about the purity of the experience. Self-exploration. The idea that there is something out there. The desire to see what their body, their minds, and ultimately their spirit can do.