A Meditation for the month!

Meditation is nothing more than spending quiet time focusing on your inner self. Some people call this prayer or talking to God. The problem with these last two concepts is that we spend too much time talking and never enough time listening. Trying to train the mind so that we can listen is a never-ending process.

Here is one of my favorite ways of training the mind or meditating. Take time to find a quiet place where you can sit and have total privacy rather than trying to "let your mind run free", a problem that most of us have already. Focus on a great writing from one of the great spiritual teachers. Try to memorize this writing then repeat it over and over with your eyes closed, concentrating on every word and it’s meaning. Make the words your own. Ingrain the concepts of these words as your life’s work. Soon you will find these thoughts permeating your everyday business and your life will be infused with the positive ideals of these teachers.

Here is one of the most powerful "prayers" of all time. The St Francis Peace Prayer, it embodies all of the best ideals for living. Learn it and let it live through you.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.

Prepare for the slopes!

If you’re like me, you can already taste the snow in the air and are anxiously waiting for that first powder day. So there is no time like the present to prepare your body for that day.

To be a proficient skier you need to focus on leg power, core strength, quickness, flexibility, endurance, balance and agility. In other words you need to prepare for a sport that requires being an all-around fit athlete. Start your training sessions with a good cardio workout, with leg strength like running stairs. Running up will give you power and endurance while running down will create the same eccentric muscle contractions and neurological firing that skiing does. This is something that the muscles don’t get during a "normal" workout. After you have mastered running down try bounding from side to side mimicking the lateral movement in skiing. This will improve your eye-foot coordination, which is also very important in down hill skiing.

In the next part of your workout, grab a soccer ball or any ball and just kick it around. This will help to loosen up tight muscles while increasing flexibility and training eye-foot coordination. These types of exercises are called plyometrics. Plyometrics is a jumping or bounding exercise and can be done anywhere, on a staircase, jumping over logs or a rope tied between two trees. Jumping up and down off of a picnic table will work or just do standing tuck jumps in an open space. Keep in mind that this type of workout should never be done more than twice a week.

The idea is to coordinate the environment and your time constraints to a fun, balanced workout that is exciting and challenges the body with variety. In the long term your fitness and body will be better for it and you’ll be much happier on the slopes this winter.

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