C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

 For this latest installment of my semi-regular "Fundamentals" series (inspired by the great IronMan  writer of my youth, Bradley Steiner), I thought it would be a fitting time to discuss a few of the fundamental lessons  that I've learned from lifting, lessons I sure-as-hell wish I'd known when I was first starting out.  So here goes... Matthew Sloan builds his muscle mass through "consistent" training! Lesson #1: Consistency Trumps Everything      The first lesson here is the one that most people intuitively "know" to be correct.  If you want to gain plenty of muscle mass, get stronger, lose bodyfat, or whatever-your-goals, it's not going to happen without consistency.      In other words, showing up  isn't just "half" the battle; it's the foundation that underlies everything else.      Now, since this is the one lesson here that is naturally intuitive, how come folks don't have more success at, well, anything involved w

  Nothing Special: Everyday Zen and the Art of Lifting In her seminal book, 'Nothing Special: Living Zen' by Charlotte Joko Beck, Beck writes, "Beyond the meditation cushion, where do you ultimately find the profound clarity, presence, and simple joy of Zen? Where it has always been - in everyday life, whether it's raising our kids, working in the office, or even cleaning the house." Or, I might add, in the simple joy and surrender of lifting weights. There's nothing special about lifting weights, not really.  It's a very simple exercise.  Pick weights up, put weights down, repeat - that's about it.  Of course, its the sheer simplicity and very Zen-like nature of lifting that does  make it special, and therein lies its true worth.  And after doing it for a length of time, it simply becomes something that one does, but also something that one cannot but  do. Some posts ago, I wrote something very similar to this on the Zen-like practice of lifting weigh

This may be a bit of an odd post.  It's basically whatever is simply swirling around in my head at the moment.  I will try my best to make sense of it.  Not for me.  It makes sense for me, however abstract it might be.  But for you. I've often felt that what makes us good, makes us bad, as well.  Let me explain... A Saint Who Wasn't When I was accepted into the Orthodox Church (or, as the Orthodox refer to it, the One Holy, Catholic, and Orthodox Church), baptized, and then chrismated, I took Saint Christopher as my patron Saint.  It made sense to me, since my parents had given me the name Christopher (after the very same saint, Christopher the Christ-Bearer).  (They also gave me two other middle names, one of them being Stuart, for those of you who actually give a damn.  Hence, the name C.S.)  But Christopher is not the saint I would have originally chosen.  No, that honor would have gone to Saint David, or the Prophet David, to be precise.  (Unlike the Roman Catho

     “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to contemplate, to enjoy, to love.” – Marcus Aurelius      The Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius, of Seneca, of Musonius Rufus, and – yes – of Epictetus is a philosophy of life.  As William Wallace says in the movie Braveheart, “Every man dies, but not every man really lives.”  How many people do you know who waste their lives on things that have no purpose?  The truth is this: the vast majority of the people of this world waste their lives on trivial matters, on concerns with “fun”, on things outside of their own lives.  Let us not do this – let us return to Epictetus so that we may learn how to live, and how to imbue our training with philosophy itself, let our training be a place where we can apply philosophy so that it carries over into all of our life outside of training. Epictetus on the Importance of Training Our Minds:      When walking, you are careful not to step on a

     In the beginning of the original “Conan the Barbarian” movie, the title character’s father is discussing what you can trust and what you can’t trust in life.  In one of my favorite lines in movie history, he quips, “You must learn its discipline.  For no one, no one in this world can you trust.  Not men, not women, not beasts” – and then he points to the sword he has just forged – “ this you can trust.”      I agree with Conan’s father in that I feel the same way about philosophy (and I feel the same way about lifting weights – the iron is always the same; it never lies).  To follow Epictetus’s way – and the way of the other Stoics – is to follow a path that can be trusted.  The ways of the world are folly, but the way of philosophy is a sure path – not to success, or power, or many of the other things that humankind too often puts its faith in – but to peace of mind.      Let us return again to Epictetus’ Enchiridion, and see what other wisdom we can gain from its pages.

Epictetus Pumps Iron, Part One Note:  This article series is – in many ways – a continuation of my earlier post “ Life Lessons Learned from Lifting .”  If you haven’t already, you may want to read that entry first before beginning this series.      One of my loves – outside of lifting weights – is philosophy.  When you hear/read the word philosophy, there is a good chance that another word – “boring” – springs to mind.  But I’m not talking about the dull, dry, armchair/academic variety of philosophy that is prevalent in modern Western society.  I’m talking about philosophy as it was originally intended to be: a way of life, a way of being .      In recent years, philosophy as life-practice is on more of an upswing, probably because of the rise in popularity – or at least the growing interest among Westerners – of Eastern philosophy: Buddhism and Taoism respectively.      But Western philosophy, once upon a time, was also a viable way of practicing life.  In fact, I would