The Tao Athlete


I’ve taken some time out from writing my new book to address this months Blog topic about the Tao athlete and the Tao in general. To give some background I will use myself as an example. I realized very early on in my bodybuilding pursuits that I was somehow different in the way I looked at bodybuilding than almost anyone I had come in contact with at that young age. For years I could never put my finger on it but I just knew that when I interacted with other bodybuilders, I just didn’t pursue bodybuilding in the same way or for the same reasons as my fellow competitors. That realization would follow me my whole career. It wasn’t until the last few years that I even became acquainted with the concept of the Tao athlete; and of course the Tao itself.

At one of my very first seminars I answered a question that would be most revealing over the next 20+ years. I was still in my 20’s and I was asked about motivation for a contest. I really had no prepared answer because I had been an athlete, even mentally my whole life, so the idea of being unmotivated or not motivated never actually occurred to me till that very moment. But my answer had some people shaking their heads. I said what motivates me is that my body is the house where my true self will reside for the rest of my life. Like any house, the more I like the surroundings and lack of clutter and the more clean and organized that environment, than the more likely I am to think more clearly and “be” a better me. That was my answer even way back then about motivation.

And the thing was, it was the truth.

Early on that is exactly how I felt about my training and workouts. Even then I had connected my spirit self with my athlete self. The Tao nature of that would become obvious over time. I was never comfortable identifying myself as a bodybuilder. My whole career, instead I saw myself as an athlete, who did bodybuilding. It was a difference that still exists today.

The Tao and the Tao nature is about the path, the fulfillment or filling you up from being on the path. It’s about YOUR path. It is unique. The Tao is about balance. It is beautiful in its context that it can be about pure devotion and commitment but at the same time not be about obsessive compulsive preoccupation with outcomes, or results or externals that take us off its path and away from balance. It is said even to discuss the Tao is to lose it. It’s kind of like trying to hold on to running water. It is a natural truth that you know only when you know it. Seek it and it cannot be found, live it, and you become just like that flowing water. There is no need to hold what you are part of, and what is part of you.

This is Tao, and at the same time, not Tao.

For the Tao person of focus it means you are always in and of the moment. The past and future do not exist in that they cannot be part of this moment, and this moment does not have externals, only your voice of your path within it. This is also Tao. To try to express it, or capture it, is to negate it. But for the Tao athlete or person it is the most powerful force to achievement, and the easiest path to get there. Many, like my former self are on a Tao reality path without even knowing it by that name. They simply live as examples of expression.

The Tao is beauty without a judgement of beauty. It is your SELF recognized from the level of self. Maybe in a great many ways, to understand Tao would be to illustrate what it is not.

For my personal history, competing never had me feeling quite right or comfortable. Competition for me, at least in bodybuilding took me away from why I did it to begin with. I lost myself rather than found myself in competing. I think many people also have a similar experience. For me, it wasn’t about beating someone else. To my mind, how was that even possible in a bodybuilding contest? I used to think, will winning this show really measure who worked the hardest, who overcame their genetics by the widest margins, who showed the most honest commitment? None of these could possibly be accurately rewarded within the context of a contest. Competing quickly lost its appeal for me, on a personal level. But the artistic side of me loved the entertaining of the crowd in the posing routine. The artistic side of me purely appreciated a fine sculpted physique, in art or on a bodybuilding stage. So the question for me was one of what is gained, and what is lost by competing. As an athlete my whole life I understood and appreciated competition as well. I loved competition, or loved witnessing it; especially in its also artistic dimension of the human spirit.

But the Tao also dictates that you lose by gaining and you gain by losing. This was also my experience. My early contest successes and lessons were starting to get me to focus on other things like contests, numbers in the gym and on the weight scale. I gained in terms of recognition, status, victories etc, but also I lost my inner compass and inner reason for the initial pursuit. I was lucky enough to make that note early on and go back to pursuing it for my own personal growth. I realized what I had forgotten. This activity for me was supposed to be a path to fulfillment, not a path to grow and enhance a sense of lack or need or negative emotions.

I re-discovered my inner compass. By not competing any more I gained. Not only did I get back passion and purpose, but I ended up more successful in the process than almost any other bodybuilder I know of in Canada. And of course one’s definition of success varies.

So here is the thing. Is your undertaking, no matter what it is, truly a vehicle for growth in your life or is it mirroring your attitudes and behaviours in other areas of your life? Are you pursuing it from a sense of lack, as in not good enough, not smart enough, not thin enough, not popular enough, not enough enough, or whatever?

Is it fun and exhilarating or is that part of why you do it now just a distant memory? Are you concerned more with accumulating results, accumulating recognition, accumulating placings, accumulating trophies, accumulating “stuff” as the main reason why you do what you do? Are you compulsively driven to workout, to lose weight, to compare to someone else? Are you always measuring yourself by externals like the weight scale, the tape measurement, the weight on the bar, the number of workouts, the number of calories etc? These are informational tools only. They do not measure anything of self-worth. To be so attached to outcomes and results it to lose by gaining no matter what external success you may acquire. This is counter to your Tao nature. How many times have I discussed Figure competitors who have lost from gain? They have won contests only to permanently damage their metabolisms and lose self-respect and self-esteem long term, and thereby create a never ending struggle to gain it back.

The Tao athlete has a mature orientation to knowing and trusting the inner compass. To be externally focused is to lose that compass entirely. The goal should always be toward self-discovery and self-direction; the mental and emotional gains from this lead to physical achievement. To be attached to externals is to start to lose oneself. To understand the strength of Tao is to know that many people out there struggling to lose weight and struggling against the scale do not see what is most obvious. The Tao centre is the answer to that question. It is not “what you are eating, but what’s eating you” that is holding you back from achievement. Because achievement comes from fulfilment; fulfilment comes from process. If you do not enjoy and are not challenged by process, then you will not find what you seek; and what you seek is more than likely not on the path you are currently following.

To recognize imbalance is to find a way back to the Tao centre. The Tao centre is the trunk of the tree and the roots as well. It is the base, the strength, the power, the centre from which all else branches out. This is also the Tao.

So back to what is not Tao. The question begs at what price do the numbers in your training log or competition history come? Is balance represented? Are you firmly rooted by this pursuit? Is chasing numbers on a scale or on a barbell or in a training log or in a contest placing enhancing your being? Do you know on a gut level the feeling and knowing of enjoyment, enthusiasm, and essence from the experience of your current path? To answer no, is to answer absence. To answer no is to answer emptiness. There can be no fulfillment from empty.

I can tell you from going on 30 years in this game, its extreme demands and extreme pursuits are guaranteeing more imbalance than balance, and more people lost from their path than on it. If you pursue results at the expense of balance what you will experience is the results of imbalance which are usually some form of pain and suffering either physical or existential.

When balance is skewed toward the extreme the irony is that most people experience neither results nor achievement.

This attachment to outcomes is producing an epidemic of mediocrity in performance and overall burnout from activity. To be unaware of the brilliance to even to be able to do what you do; to be unable to appreciate the efforts regardless of the results is to empty your Source of experience. I will address that source in a minute.

When I was early on, before the placings and awards, when I was truly in touch with a deeper purpose it all came so easily. I remember in University the gym would always be empty at exam time. Everyone would be pulling all nighters, no one working out. Because of my centeredness, which I didn’t realize at the time, I was the opposite. I was studying less and working out longer during those times. Why? Because it invigorated me. It cleared my mind. It restored my Source Energy.

The “how” in my process I have realized has been my secret weapon all these years. I have managed to never veer very far away from my roots and my trunk. When I did, that is when I lost the most and experienced the most anguish. That is when I lost by what I gained. That is when I felt a drain on my Source energy.

In the Chinese tradition there are three energies of the path. The first you have all probably heard about. It is Chi. The Chi energy is your daily energy. This is both and always physical and spiritual. It can fluctuate and it includes the importance of what I always discuss, biofeedback. This is why rest and recuperation are so important to the true SELF; because rest and recuperation also represents rest and recuperation of your spiritual daily self as well. Without this rest one is more likely to burn out than to wear out. And if the whole time you are resting you are obsessing about what’s next, then you are not recharging.

Your Shen energy path is the energy you radiate out each day. It is a vibe if you will that you put out into the world. It is what the world experiences from what you radiate. Your Shen energy is real, cannot be faked. It is not the vibe you want people to perceive, but is the actual real vibe you put out. Someone with a lot of Chi energy will also radiate a lot of Shen as well.

Your Jing energy is your life’s spiritual battery. It is your stored energy that you are born with, and it is fixed at birth. We steadily deplete our Jing energy throughout our lives. Hating yourself, your body, your workouts, your job, your surroundings etc, will deplete your Jing; and this will deplete all sources because your Jing energy feeds your Shen and your Chi. Negative emotional attachments and emotions also most intensely deplete Jing and age us.

This is why so many Figure competitors struggle so much in my opinion. Instead of enhancing their energy Source, they drain it by measuring against external standards they cannot possible maintain.

Not to get off track but as poet DH Lawrence said “the cruellest thing a man can do to a woman is to portray her as perfection.” And now in our world, man no longer has to do so, as the media and culture and women do it to themselves at a huge expense.

From my new book is the next point. Depression, anxiety, shame, guilt, anger, envy and jealousy are often rooted in low self-opinion. Although this is an emotional context, it reflects mentality. It is so very important to not assume you are only as worthwhile as your achievements, love life, social status, attractiveness, wallet size, fat percentage or whatever. Many of these externals are temporary at best.

They are only reflections of oneself, not the ‘root’ of oneself. When you measure your worth on the basis of one or more external factors, you are likely to go up and down like a Yo Yo in both mood and self-conception. Life is always changeable. Higher levels of awareness neither force nor resist change. To be rooted is to be grounded, to be grounded is to have the strong trunk base of energy. Self-assessment needs to replace self-judgement. The most important thing someone can do to this end is to remove self-rating from self-acceptance. Again, you will not be happy “when you lose all this weight” but finding happiness will make weight loss easier. Its not your diet that is weighing you down, it’s your thoughts that are weighing you down.

Trying to “control all variables” is an exercise in folly that only produces and induces stress. Look to external variables in a way that allows you to “keep them alive” rather than being slaves to measurements that then induces judgement. This is to lose “the way” The Tao. The Tao athlete truly understands energy levels connected through the self are reflected in and through the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual self. It truly is a mind over matter attitude toward looking inward, and using external variables, not judging oneself within them for good or bad.

Sport or any activity of pursuit should always be a vehicle to enhance and fulfill oneself. What the Tao student knows is that a passion for learning is greater than a desire to get good grades. The former nurtures energy and strengthens, that latter reduces by an attachment to externals that produce stress, anguish, worry and other energy draining emotions.

So the question is whatever you are pursuing “do you attach self-esteem to the pursuit?” If so you will not find what you seek, because what you seek is not “out there” at the end of the path, in say a contest. What you seek is actually already “in here” and is a part of being on the path, experiencing it and knowing it. This is why the Tao cannot be adequately discussed and explained.

When we allow our obsession to take the fun out of pursuit, we diminish not only who we are, but our Source energy as well. You should follow any path because of what it gives to you, because you love it, not because you seek something from it. This is me. I always always always loved to workout more than anything. And I was always connected to myself from it. In that sense while others were suffering from their pursuit I was growing at an exponential rate as a person. I was, through this pursuit more complete because I used it to connect the dots of mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical self-awareness. It strengthened me beyond measure, because I didn’t measure. I knew then and now know intuitively that it is not about the diet and not about the workout.

The Tao athlete preserves that “kid in a candy store” type of attitude and challenge. It is not something measured and judged but is instead something that is experienced and assessed, but not just in physical terms. Pursuit of any kind should always represent "fun and games" in the mental sense. How many of you have approached your diets that way in any stretch of the phrase? I remember early in my career when I thought I was really hungry on the diet, I would cut cals even more, so mentally I would say, “now I know what real hunger is” then when I went back to the calories I thought was making me hungry, I would just mentally laugh at it. I intuitively kept it alive, kept it a challenge, kept it ‘fun and games’ but made it a difficult challenge as well. At the time it may not have been the most scientific approach, but on the other hand, I was never one of those competitors “just wishing it was all over” Ask yourself, what kind of experience are you truly going to have if your mental state is just wanting to get it over with?

All worthy pursuits will still boil down to very hard work, incredible discipline and commitment, and scientifically applied expertise or approaches. But the attitude of “experiencing” and the knowledge to always “be present” is to know the Tao of pursuit. It is to know real accomplishment. The Tao is the constant communication of the little self with the Source SELF. The mental state is one of anticipation and excitement even in the face of fatigue. So the question begs, “Are you as strong in your head as you are in your body?” If doubt, worry, guilt, factor in to your active mind, they you are not on the path of right for you.

Where doubt exists possibilities will not.

Champions at life do not know the word “try” They only know I WILL and I AM. This is the nature of the Tao process. That does not mean there will not be set backs. It does mean we are only responsible for efforts. Following a path just to “be” a better athlete will lead to results.

One of the reasons competing ended up not being for me was because I wasn’t trying to be better than the next guy. I was only trying to be better than I was before. Eventually I realized I did not need a stage to assess myself against that. And I certainly didn;t need the opinions of seven others to validate it either. Once I accepted that challenge I made incredible gains.

A workout was never about how much I could lift, or how perfect I could eventually look.

The Tao athlete sees and knows all of that 'process' as a way to better understanding oneself. The results are not something to record in a log book as a numbers game of a job well done. The results are instead a part of who you are. Always striving to train to one’s limits, or burnout a training partner, or trying to find meaning through the external attachments to workouts and diets only leads over time to utter contempt replacing childhood fascination. You begin to hate what you once loved and strived after.

If this sounds familiar,you need to go back to just a concept and attitude of “allowing.” Allow the workouts to happen. Remind yourself of the greater purpose, not the smaller one. Focusing constantly on externals like weights lifted, calories expended, and whatever else, will reduce your efforts to “have to, must, and should” these will sap your energy sources. Yes, devotion to these factors is always important; but emotional attachment to them is immature. A workout is not something to conquer and vanquish, a diet is not something to endure and survive.

I had my first sense of Tao awareness a many years ago. I used to see video tapes of rock and roll bands where the musicians would smash their guitars into pieces. That never made sense to me. To me, the musical instrument was a part of who they are. In my mind it would be like me setting my arm or leg on fire. It made no sense. Later I was pleased to know that many other musicians felt the same and treated their instruments as true extensions of themselves as artists. This is to know the Tao.

I see the same in things like award ceremonies like the Academy Awards and the Grammy’s etc. No artist begins a creative act seeking an award at the end. No one reads a script and thinks, “This will earn me an academy award” No. Instead, as artists they take on roles or create music that resonates within them. This is also to know Tao nature. The externals are nice but not sought after.

I think the same can be true for physical training toward cosmetic enhancement. Finding the right activity or path for yourself is key.The journey is the destination. Competing then can be an external extension of that pursuit but only if someone approaches it as vehicle to self-improvement or self-knowledge. In that sense, success is always bigger than winning.Experience will always reveal essence.

This is the Tao athlete.

Some of you will get it, some of you will not.