ilg in another new Bardo of Pain...asphalt, human skin, and speed is all-ways a very dangerous yogawell finally Lance Armstrong and i share a commonality in cycling performance...we both just crashed out of our last race...
typing this entry is definitely deepening my love for you and testing my pain threshold: i've just lost skin from 4 of my 9 1/2 fingertips, can't sit, can barely walk, and my right elbow and hip are shredded while it hurts to breathe from being skewered at 23 mph...inDeed; typing this entry to Thee is adding more zest to the Punchbowl of Pain that is now my body...
yesterday's bike racing crash was nobody's fault; these things happen in bike races*.
at mile 5.7 however, "there was trouble," as Thomas The Train's DVD narrator (played superbly by Alec Baldwin, i might add, who also has ties to WF) would say.
the racer directly in front me suffered a rear tire blowout.
i bunny hopped over him as best as possible in the milla of a nanosecond that occurred when i saw him go down.
suspended over the fallen, skidding warrior my mind instantly calculated - without fear - the physics of my upcoming crash and how to mitigate the force of impact.
i landed 1/3 onto him, 1/3 onto his bike, and 1/3 onto the asphalt; at, remember, 23 mph.
my right hip took the brunt of the impact as well as my right elbow. the same hip and elbow that took the direct hit from my high-speed mountain bike crash when i won the Pagosa Duathlon last August (see Archives).
i felt something skewer into my lower right rib region.
i rolled toward the yellow line, jumping into yogi squat for an instant facing the crashing-into-ilg peleton before turning and flexing my lats (i'm serious!) to act as a trampoline to the racers crashing into me as i completed another Jackie Chan type of roll toward the yellow line and out of the war zone.
i was bleeding pretty go(o)d...as were 5 others.
one warrior sported a mangled, bleeding arm dangling from his gleno-humeral socket. he was calmly talking to the Race Official who had stopped in the follow up car that he thought he could ride back to the Start Line:
"How's your arm, though?"
"I can't move it."
"And you still want to ride back?"
"Yup."
"What are you, from the Military or something?"
"Yup"
Well, there i was hobbling around in heap of pain and blood thinkin',
"Awww, shit...that does it...i gotta ride back too," and eventually getting the Officials to make my twisted race bike rideable, started off back toward the Start Line..the most intense pain was and still is my right hip...it might be dislocated. it's the 4 career high impact she has shouldered and she is VERY upset with me. and that's not counting my paralyzing spine injury.
what can ilg say?
what is a Warrior supposed to do? trade in a perfectly unused, untested body at the Bardo Entry?
what can ilg say?
can one truly be on the Path of Yoga - the Path of RADICAL SELF TRANSFORMATION - and even call oneself a yogi if she or he does NOT chronically toe the Start Lines and force themselves to practice equanimity on a battlefield of life-and-limb-endangering pursuits?
during my blood-ride back, i focused on Yogic Healing already; mula bandha to preserve the Pranic Light, the HP Asana Mudra to amplify the Pranic Healing and to keep my adrenalinized, shocked body/mind/breath steady, and of course the Sacred Tribal Mantra.
after a few miles, something made me look up from this desolate solo parade among the high desert sage wind. there, on my left, stood two magnificent Pronghorn Antelope, staring intently at this curious, broken warrior. Pronghorn Medicine is 'tenderness.'
after the race, i would eventually drive, solo, back to Durango just in time to hold my daughter in my throbbing arms to watch the Narrow Gauge Choo Choo Train puff by...
may your Practice deliver precisely what is needed for your continued Ascent toward Enlightenment...
whatever it is...Embrace it.
that's WF.
that's you.
there is a lot of OM
in
OUCH!
ouch,
ilg
note to local Durango Sangha; Joy will be teaching for me tonight and Wednesday.
* i was stoked to test my cycling fitness in a race since i was coming into some form, and at Sunday's Galisteo Road Race in New Mexico, i led out the 50-something peleton into a belt of headwind on the mostly flat course. after the first mile, i did everything right:
* stayed in the top 8-10 revolution of racers
* lingered close to the yellow line instead of the ditch when the pack slowed
* aggressively encouraged a rotating pace line up front
* lingered close to the yellow line instead of the ditch when the pack slowed
* aggressively encouraged a rotating pace line up front
