Moving On, and Taking a Break

Hello Friends,

A sad day is upon us all, and as the harbinger of bad news, I must apologize. Life has taken a turn toward busier, more hectic, not-very-much-free-time. While this blog is a passion of mine, and something I thoroughly enjoy doing, it isn’t in my top five things to focus on in this new year. So, I will bid you all adieu. That is a French word that means “goodbye”, I think.  Once I am finished with school, and my schedule streamlines a bit, I will return to the blogosphere, and I will return with a powerful focus and intent to give this endeavor the attention it needs.

For now, you can still follow all my extraordinary exploits on the Crossfit Woodstock Facebook page; we can also be “friends” on Facebook, and you can see how my life is progressing and all the craziness I am involved in. Or you can shoot me an email every once in a while and we can actually exchange pertinent information about our lives. Thank you so much for your readership, and for participating in the Living Revolution! Strive everyday to subvert the dominant paradigm, and forge your own path in this crazy world! Until next time…

Peace.Tobias.

p.s. when I do return, look for the “FUNctionally Fit” blog title. It will probably be affiliated with the Crossfit Woodstock blog/webpage, so check it out!

Expanding Your Horizons….Forever!

Hello Friends,

I sometimes get stuck trying to think of witty titles for my blog posts, and I often end up using some vague term or phrase to try to encapsulate everything I want to write about at that moment. This is one of those posts. Bare with me.

I started this post with the idea of encouraging you to keep pressing forward as you find new, creative ways to undo the dominant paradigm and carve out your own niche in today’s modern world. I thought about congratulating you on the progress you made, and giving you a virtual high-five for surviving the risks, for enduring the hardships, for overcoming all the odds. I want to inform you that the world has changed for the better, the tide has turned, and we (I assume if you are reading this blog, you understand what I mean when I say “we”), are winning the battle against tyranny, evil, ignorance, and indifference. Unfortunately, I can’t write all this to you, because it simply isn’t true.

This is precisely the reason we need to keep expanding our horizons. The general state of the world today demands that we constantly evaluate our own beliefs, habits and actions to determine if we are effecting positive change in the most meaningful way possible. This is precisely why we must continue to step outside the box, why we must do away with “common knowledge”, why it is imperative that we must make a conscious effort to dispel myth and replace it with fact.

To that end, I am giving you a few links to websites where I find daily inspiration. Some of these are for you word-geeks, some of these are for you fitness-geeks, some of these might even be for you word/fitness-geeks (I know you are out there!).  I hope you take the time to check out some of this stuff, and I hope whatever you find impacts your life in a meaningful way. Until next time…

Peace.Tobias.

Crossfit Lisbeth

Mobility Wod

Zen To Fitness

Physical Living

Crossfit Main Site

p.s. I have a lot more where these came from. Enjoy!!

My Kids Do Burpees

Hello Friends,

Just wanted to post a little blurb this morning to give you some encouragement for the coming work week, and to remind you not to let all the turkey go to your head on Thursday. I read this post on CrossfitLisbeth last week, and it made me realize another important reason why I live my life the way I do: my kids are watching me all the time.

 

all the cool kids were doing, or because you parents told you to, but because you had a desire to feel good, and you knew that doing this thing, whatever it was, would make you smile. I taught my kids how to do burpees because I think they are a great way to burn off some extra energy, and IT FEELS GOOD TO MOVE.

Please check out this video of Tyler getting busy, and find the inspiration to do something today, just for the fun of it!

MY KIDS DO BURPEES

Until next time…

Peace.Tobias.

Realizing Potential and Achieving Goals

Hello Friends,

How often do you consciously set your mind to complete a task, then complete the task, then take time to reflect on how awesome you are for setting and achieving goals that are important to you? This post will be a simple reminder how great it feels to accomplish something in your life, and a reminder that you should take time to realize your own potential more often than you do. Let me give an example from my own life to illustrate what I am talking about.

For those who don’t know, I Crossfit. Yes, it can be used as a verb, and if you need more explanation you should go here. I’ve been doing it in my garage for the last six months, and I was recently blessed with the opportunity to begin training at Crossfit Woodstock. I am also currently enrolled in the Fitness Technology program at Portland Community College, with high hopes of someday being paid a living wage to transform people into healthier, more fit versions of themselves. There are many factors that can potential affect whether or not I actually end up doing that, but I firmly believe nothing positive would happen if I just sat back and let the Universe unfold some nifty master plan. So I continue to take action at every possible opportunity…

I recently decided that becoming a certified Crossfit instructor is what I want to do with my life, and I began the process of studying for, (and saving for) my Level 1 Crossfit Trainer’s Certification. I figure I will have a better chance of successfully passing the test for this certification if I practice often and study hard. I figure one way to get a whole bunch of practice is to intern at a gym where they teach Crossfit classes. I figure the best way to get an internship at this kind of gym is to explain my position thoroughly and concisely and then ask nicely if they want to let me be an intern. So that is what I did.

As of today, I am an intern at Crossfit Woodstock. I have my spot reserved for a Level 1 certification in January. I am two terms away from completing my Fitness Technology Certificate. By next spring, it is very likely I will be working my dream job, changing the world in a positive way on a daily basis, and getting paid well. All because I set a goal for myself, and with help of my family and friends, continue to make progress every day toward living my dreams.

What about you? Are you living the life you always dreamed of? Are you achieving goals that make you life more pleasant? Are you stretching your personality to extract every ounce of potential you have inside you? Drop me a line and let me know how you stay fired up and how you tap into the best part of yourself.

Until next time..

Peace.Tobias.

Here’s A Story You Should Definitely Read

Hello Friends,

I finally finished reading “Change Your Body, Change The World”, the new book from Frank Forencich of Exhuberant Animal. Just to get this out of the way, if you have any interest in making the world a better place to live, engaging in a positive way with the world around you, or simply stepping out of your day-to-day paradigm, you should read this book. You can buy the book here, and get involved in a powerful, effective movement.

In this post, I would like to address a few topics Frank covers in his book, and I want to ask some important questions that I hope you will consider seriously and answer honestly. But first, let’s start with a little bit of history…

When I first found the Exhuberant Animal website, I was intrigued by the idea of “play-based fitness”, and I was curious about the real-world applications of such an idea. I wondered if this idea was just some nifty marketing trick, put forth by an old hippie who was trying to make a quick buck by convincing us we all need to embrace our inner child. I wondered if there was any empirical evidence, or powerful testimony that could validate such an unorthodox idea. Then, I began reading more about the action and effort behind the philosophy. I watched a few videos on Youtube, and I listened to Frank speak a couple times, and I attended an Exhuberant Animal movement seminar. Then I was convinced. And now, I am going to try to convince you.

A vast majority of the problems and maladies effecting human beings the world over are caused by individual decisions and the consequences of those decisions. Granted, there are systemic and systematic factors that cause these problems to effect exponentially large populations, but the root of these problems are generated from an individual source. Obesity and hunger, poverty and super-wealth, relative sickness and health, and many other diametrically opposed problems all result, at some point, from individual action. Many of these problems are exacerbated by the fact that many people refuse to take responsibility for their decisions, and choose to remain ignorant to the far-reaching consequences of what might seem like a trivial situation. But this process in not sustainable, and if we as a species continue to perpetuate this kind of behavior, we will not only destroy ourselves,but also effectively decimate the natural world as well. This situation is unacceptable, and it is time to take drastic measures.

And now is when you reach out and grab a copy of “Change Your Body, Change The World”, and you read through a couple chapters and you learn how to begin making a positive impression on the environment and people around you.

By covering a diverse array of topics, from anatomy to martial arts to the life of Huckleberry Finn, Frank Forencich delineates a simple, creative, effective solution to many of the problems we see around us. In essence, he suggests we remember what it feels like to inhabit our physical bodies, and he suggests we remember how to use our physical bodies in the most effective, efficient, effusive ways possible. To make this change even easier, he goes so far as to suggest a myriad of ways to start creating change in your life today. Here are a few to get you started…

Play more. That is, enjoying what you are doing, and do more of what you enjoy. Watch less T.V. Actually, spend less time in front of any screen. Use all of your senses, all of the time. More smelling, more tasting, more listening, more seeing, MORE TOUCH. With all that comes more communication, more physical labor, more effort and thicker skin. Push boundaries, refuse simple definitions, exalt the complex, avoid the complicated, step outside the lines, refuse to specialize, avoid all the little boxes people create to make themselves feel safe. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea, and I think this is enough to convince you to find a copy of this book and read it, RIGHT NOW!

So here are the important questions. Are you happy with how your body feels right now? Are you happy with the world around you right now?  Are you happy with how you body and your environment interact? Are you happy, period? Consider the answers to these questions, then drop a comment and let me know what you came up with.

Until next time…

Peace.Tobias.

 

Bridging the Health Behavior Gap

Hello Friends,

I am going to start this post  with a quote from the book I recently read titled, “Change Your Body, Change The World”.

“Herein lies the pivotal issue in the world of health, lifestyle and fitness. The problem of modern health is not so much that people lack facilities, expert knowledge or access to trainers and coaches. Rather, it is that they are trapped in patterns of living that progressively destroy their health. Too many bad habits, not enough good ones; it’s a familiar, boring story. If we could figure out how to re-wire our habitual behaviors, getting in shape and staying healthy would be a relatively easy matter”.

I think Americans have created a set of unhealthy behaviors that constitute “normal” day to day life. As a society, we have accepted poor health as the norm because now we have nifty labor-saving devices like cars, computers and microwaves, and we have magic medicines from the pharmaceutical companies.

We have consciously created for ourselves an environment that requires us to put out the LEAST amount of effort possible.

This system is in direct opposition to the lifestyle for which the human body has evolved. We are built to work, and to play, and to move. Cognitive, physical and emotional are all optimized when we use our bodies consistently. By consciously reducing the ways we can work, play and move, we choose poor health and reduced physical capacity in favor of “comfort”.

There is only one way to reverse this process, and that is to provide people with the appropriate information, and allow them to choose for themselves. In the 21st century, we have unprecedented access to information via the internet, so ignorance can no longer be used as an excuse. It is my responsibility as a health professional to inform everyone Icome in contact with that the lifestyle they are living is most likely unhealthy, destructive and unsustainable. Then, if they decide they want to change their behavior, it is myjob to facilitate that change in whatever way we can.

It is obvious how pervasive the health behavior gap is. It is obvious how difficult it will be to close this gap in American society.

There are one millions excuses people make to avoid physical activity. There are one million other priorities that people choose to place above physical activity, health, and wellness. And behind each excuse there is a caveat for why people continue to make excuses, or caveats that shift responsibility from the individual to society at large. This is the real problem, and the real reason why the health behavior gap exists.

As a society, we could place blame on the food corporations for creating a whole bunch of nasty food and selling it incredibly low prices. We could blame city planners for making our jobs so far away from our schools, and our schools so far away from our homes, and our homes so far away from everything else. We could blame our economic system for forcing us to spend so much time working, so we can afford better, bigger, faster, whatever. We could blame the media for “teaching” us bad eating habits, and helping us develop a negative self-image. We could blame technology for “teaching” us to rely on gizmos and gadgets to accomplish tasks, rather than using our physical bodies to get things done.

Or, we could take responsibility for our lives, our health, our families, our environment and our future, and we could make positive, effective choices, every day. We could put forth the effort to live healthy lives, to set positive examples for our friends and families, and to avoid unhealthy and destructive behaviors. And if each of us, as individuals, made this commitment to ourselves, our actions would create reverberations that would echo around the world.

Achieving change is this simple, and it is not difficult. We just need to decide what is REALLY important to us, and then start working toward our goals. That’s it. Until next time…

Peace.Tobias.

What Did You Do This Weekend?

Hello Friends,

I was out and about this weekend, and I want to take a quick minute to share with you some of what I experienced in the last two days. On Saturday, I took a long drive to Seattle and I was blessed with the opportunity to attend an Exuberant Animal movement seminar . I met some great people, and I was exposed to some new ideas about how to change the world through mindful living, physical activity, and FUN! At the seminar I picked up Frank Forencich’s new book, “Change Your Body, Change The World”.  

I will work my way through the book in the next couple weeks, and then prepare a nice report, so you can get an idea of what the book is about before you go get one for yourself.  I had a blast at the seminar, and I was encouraged to see so many people excited and motivated to create positive change in the world.

I drove back to Portland Saturday night, and had a nice opportunity to visit with a bunch of friends I haven’t seen in a while. Catching up is always nice, and I always enjoy conversation with intelligent, passionate people.

Sunday morning brought more socials, and some outstanding cooking on my part. My granma was in town from New York visiting my mom, so they joined us for brunch, along with my aunt and uncle. I spent most of the morning cooking my way through 5 lbs of potatoes, 2 dozen eggs, 4 lbs of bacon, and a variety of mixed veggies and fruits. Melissa made some delicious acorn squash spice bread, and by the end of the meal, we were all close to lapsing into a food coma. Needless to say, a good time was had by all!

To round out the weekend, I met my friend Dan down at The Circuit Bouldering Gym for a quick climbing session. The place was packed, because the weather outside was a bit dreary, but we both climbed hard, and I was able to work off some of brunch, so I felt good.

How about you? What adventures did you get into last weekend? What shenanigans do you have planned for the near future? Drop a comment, let me know what is going on in your life, and let’s start a conversation! Until next time…

Peace.Tobias.

Back to School, Again.

Hello Friends,

Just dropping a quick note here to let everyone know that I am back in school, and on my way to finishing the Fitness Technology program at PCC. What this means for me is less sleep, more homework, and gaining lots of useful knowledge about how our amazing bodies work, and how to make them function most effectively. What this means for you is lots of quick blurbs from me about all the cool stuff I am learning and simple instructions regarding how to applythis cool stuff in your daily life.

While I know you all enjoy my random 700-word  rants on the evils of capitalism or the importance of community building, I am going to work on bringing a specific focus to this blog in the coming months. I am going to scale back the word count a bit, and hone in on a variety of topics related to personal health and fitness. Your personal level of health, wellness, and fitness is easily the most important, but often the most neglected aspect of daily life as a human being. Through this blog, I have the opportunity to provide you with information that may help you understand the importance of taking care of your body, and a plethora of ways to accomplish that task. Because I intend to become a personal fitness instructor, I will use this blog as a forum to discuss the huge variety of physical activities that can be employed to achieve fitness and wellness, as well as some dietary and nutritional measures that can be used to help our bodies perform optimally.

I am looking forward to sharing this great new adventure with you, and I welcome the chance to interact with you and engage in meaningful conversation. If you have some ideas or questions about what topics you would like to see me address, please email me at tobias.shea.livingrevolution@gmail.com, find me on Facebook, or leave a comment here. In the mean time, check out my “Get Fit Here!” page, and get to work! Until next time…

Until next time…

On The Psychological and Physical Value of Novel Experience

Hello Friends,

Summer continues to roll by, and I continue to enjoy the wonderful weather we are having in Portland. Reading in the sun has been a large part of my life recently, so I have a few updates for the reading list that you should check out. I have also been able to get out and play in the sun, so there are a few nifty workout sessions that will be posted on the Workout page. I am learning how to program physical activity, and learning how to design activity sessions that are effective, challenging and fun, and this process is forcing me to think creatively about how the human body functions. This process is teaching me how valuable it can be to THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX and challenge the dominant paradigm, whatever that may be. Which brings me to today’s post…

If you are anything like me, you probably do not consider yourself an “average” person. You probably do not use the terms “normal” or “common” to describe yourself, and you may pride yourself on maintaining an individual identity that in many ways defines you as unique.  You may have habits and patterns of behavior, but you thrive on spontaneity, you enjoy being present and you do your best to live in the moment. You recognize challenges as opportunities for growth, and you relish the opportunity to test your limits, be they physical, psychological or emotional. Constant change keeps you on your toes, and you thrive on learning more about yourself from each new experience you encounter. You are an explorer and an adventurer, and live life to it’s fullest at ever opportunity.

If you see any part of yourself in the previous paragraph, then you already understand the importance of constantly varying the physical and psychological stimulation in your life. If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, I’ll try to explain myself now.

Evolution has hard-wired the human brain to recognize patterns and develop mental models about how we interact with our environment. As we interact with our environment repeatedly, the brain develops habitual behaviors and mental “stereotypes” about our interactions with our environment. In the grand scheme of our existence, this process allowed us to remember which berries were poisonous and which were yummy. It allowed us to recall directions from one frequented location to another, and even today, it hopefully prompts us to react appropriately in life-threatening situations. Unfortunately, once these mental models are developed, it is difficult to retrain the brain, even if our environment has changed drastically. Also, the more repetitive our lives become, that is, the less frequently we experience novel stimuli, the less our brain has to work in everyday life, the simpler our mental models become, and the less we actually have to THINK.

Fortunately, most of us still possess the ability to choose freely what we do with out lives. We can make the decision to seek out challenge and novel stimuli, or we can make the choice to sit in front of a television and devolve. We can make the choice to live mindfully, consciously weighing options and thinking critically about how we interact with the world around us, or we can allow ourselves to be inculcated with a heavy sense of apathy by popular media and advertising. We can continue to follow the destructive, ineffective patterns that have developed in modern society, or we can reevaluate the impact our species is having on this planet and choose to break away from the old patterns in favor of new, creative, effective ways of behaving.

What is so beautiful and difficult about this process is that it doesn’t stop unless we choose to let it stop. As long as we put in the effort to achieve positive change, we will continue to learn and grow. As long as we continue to hypothesize and experiment, as long as we continue to challenge commonly held beliefs, as long as we are willing to risk our comfort for unknown rewards, we will continue to learn more about ourselves and the world around us. There should never be a point when we stop testing limits or pushing boundaries. For those of us who possess the intestinal fortitude, this process should part of every day we exist. Step outside your comfort zone, loosen your grip on what you think you know, and question everything. Who knows what you may discover!

Until next time…

Peace.Tobias.

Did We Forget How To Survive?

Hello Friends,

Last week, I blogged about a book I read titled “Deep Survival”. The basic premise of that book suggests there are innate characteristics in people that either a) predispose them to be survivors, or b) predispose them to be destroyed by their environment. The book is much more complex than those simple statements, though, and much of the research is based on extreme circumstances that often could have been avoided with proper preparation and some forethought.

This week, I read a book titled “Everyday Survival”, written by the same author, Laurence Gonzales. The tag line for this book is “why smart people do stupid things”.  This book takes a more general view of how human beings have survived to become the most dominant species on this planet. Gonzales also questions the physical and psychological systems that have evolved to sustain life on this planet, and he investigates the role human beings play in the functioning of the universe. The main premise of this book is that human beings have evolved to believe we can control the environment around us, and that we are somehow separate from and superior to the other inhabitants and processes that make up our “known, physical reality”.

Gonzales uses this book to caution against what he calls a “vacation state of mind”. At some point in our evolution, human beings forgot how to exist symbiotically with the environment around us, and adopted the mindset that we are in control of “our” environment and can bend the forces of nature to our will whenever we desire. “Everday Survival” explains how terribly wrong we are.

As I worked my way through this book, more and more questions came to mind, and I became more and more frustrated with the evidence Gonzales presented. As a species, are we really re-programming ourselves to on such a grand scale? Are we truly forgetting how to interact positively and effectively with the natural environment? Have we really convinced ourselves of the foolish notion that we are the literal and metaphorical center of the universe, despite all the contradictory evidence? How did we get so confused, and how did we get this far off-track?

In modern, industrial society, we have constructed a series of boxes that now exist as our “natural environment”. You wake up in your boxy bed, in your boxy house. You find your food in an artificially cooled box, then you cook your food on another box using flame-less fire. Then you drive your boxy car to your boxy office, and spend the next eight hours staring at a your boxy computer on top of your boxy desk. Then the whole process reverses itself, and you end your day staring at another flashing box for a few hours before you fall back into your boxy bed in your boxy bedroom. Like a vast majority of modern humans,  you never experienced hunger or danger or pain. You are essentially numb to the world around you, because every day, life unfolds “the way it is supposed to”, and you are never presented with the opportunity to question that fact or challenge that fact or deviate from the simple, stepwise processes we have created for ourselves. Seriously, what are we doing to ourselves?

Not only is the lifestyle causing our brains to devolve, it is slowly diminishing the value of anything that could be called our “soul”, as well as conditioning human beings to exist without consciously and mindfully interacting with the world around them. Our bodies are wasting away from eating nutrient-deficient foods, not engaging in enough physical activity, and lack of stimulation from (and interaction with) our environment. All out little boxes keep us well-protected, and so we are never provided the opportunity to question our mortality, or test the limits of our physical bodies, or employ our mind to work our way through complex intellectual problems.

What does it mean for our species if the premise of this book is true? What will happen if we continue down the path we are currently on? The picture looks a bit dim, but we still have the opportunity to change our course.  How do you stay connected with the natural world, and what are some benefits that you derive from spending time away from the hustle and bustle of modern life? What do you do to get that jolt of epinephrine that let’s you know you are alive? How do you remind yourself of your place in the Universe? Drop a comment, and tell me how you keep your mind right in the modern world. Until next time…

Peace.Tobias.