Lately I’ve been realizing the importance of baby steps.  It’s very easy to fall into the assumption that everything we do should yield quick results.  The fact is: it won’t.  When you go to work on something, a piece of writing or a business plan, the reality of the situation is that you are going to work on yourself.  The product left over at the end is just gravy.  If the product were the main result of your work, then expecting immediate change and impact would be reasonable: you’ve made the product, now it will have an impact.  Duh.  What I failed to grasp until recently was how the product is not what makes your impact.  YOU ARE.  All those hours you spent writing, or working out, or learning about your body weren’t about publishing your fitness manual.  Nope.  They were about transforming yourself; becoming better, more vast, more open, and more accepting.  Because in the end, that’s what gets results.  Not your work, you.

So how do baby steps come into the picture?  Well it’s hard to change yourself overnight.  If it is possible, then it takes unprecedented amounts of courage, openness, and willingness to act.  In reality progress is a slog.  Perseverance is king, and he who has none but a pauper.  The metaphor that comes to mind is a gym.  You can’t be a geek off the street, and walk in expecting to dead-lift 300lbs.  But spend a year training diligently and 300lbs is well withing your grasp (seriously its a lot more accessible than it sounds).  In anything creative (even deadlifting is creative: you’re creating strength and well being) fast results are extremely unlikely.  I’m reminded of an ebook I saw called 242 Days to Overnight Success.  Success is obviously not something that happens overnight.  It takes small creative intervals performed consistently over time with little or no visible reward.  Then one day you reach a tipping point.  People point and say “Oh look, he’s so lucky just falling ass-backwards into wild success.”  They don’t realize the hard and lonely hours you put in to get there.  How you didn’t work harder than other people, you worked much much harder.

There are times where you need to take drastic action to produce an immediate result.  To illustrate I will tell my father’s story of almost dying in Madison Wisconsin.  He moved into a new apartment with his best friend, and they were both really excited beceause the dwelling had a gas fire place.  The only problem was the gas was turned off, so they did what any resourceful chemistry students would do: got a bottle of gas from the lab and hooked it up with some surgical tubing!  As they were sitting enjoying their cozy fire they started to get very drowsy.  Just as my dad was drifting off to a nap, he looked over and saw his best friend doing the same.  They immediately jumped up, opened all the windows, and ran outside feeling lucky to be alive.  My dad had realized instantly that the room had slowly been filling with carbon-monoxide, a deadly gas.  That’s what had been making them drowsy.   If they had fallen asleep they never would have woken up.  Dramatic action saved their lives.  Had they taken a baby step (“let’s just turn off the fire, and go to sleep”) they never would have survived.

Dramatic action need to be taken to end a destructive pattern, whether its carbon monoxide filling a room, or a slow spiral into depression.  That’s the time you will see results immediately.  Then, get back to focusing on your baby steps.

It is way too easy to procrastinate.  I often find myself falling into the trap of thinking “oh, well I’ll just do research now, and then focus on the writing later.”  Initially this seems like a good idea, but in fact I believe its a form of resistance.  Resistance is a termed coined by Steven Pressfield in The War of Art.  It is the supressive force that keeps us from our work.  It is a manifestation of our own laziness.  It is the thing that drives egos and makes people unwilling to change.  Putting off writing for the sake of research is resistance.  Do you need to be well researched in order to write well?  Of course, but research is easy.   It can be done anytime with a mere fraction of the internal gusto that it takes to actually put pen to paper.  Producing a product is the most important thing.  Does research result in production? No.  It never can.  The only thing it can do is enhance the information content and credibility of a piece.

Production then should not be a concentrated effort on making something perfect.  It should be a practice.  Something you show up to regularly and consistently.  Something you do when your tired, energetic, happy, depressed, vibrant, or hungover.  It is work towards overcoming whatever internal challenges you feel at the time.  They say practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.  And perfect practice is regular and consistent.  It’s something you show up for again and again regardless of internal or external circumstances.

Two fighters are preparing for a match.  One fighter has spent hours and hours doing push-ups, bag work, and jump rope.  The other fighter spent all his time sparring.  Which one will win?

Let’s look at it this way: the first fighter has spent all his time and effort to become good at doing push-ups, bag work, and jump rope.  If they were in a jump rope contest surely he would be the winner.  But this ain’t no jump rope contest patna’, this is a fight, and the fighter who spend his time getting good at fighting (sparring) is going to win.

Let’s look at this another way.  The following is a story taken from Derek Siver’s blog, and is a quote from Art & Fear:

The ceramics teacher announced he was dividing his class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right graded solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would weigh the work of the “quantity” group: 50 pounds of pots rated an A, 40 pounds a B, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an A.

Well, come grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity!

It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

What becomes clear, is that those who show up to do work, to move things around even when they’re not perfect (especially when they’re not perfect!) do much better than those who sit around stuck in their own “analysis parlysis” trying to come with the perfect execution.  They haven’t been practicing execution, they’ve been practicing analysis, so when its execution time what are they left with?

This principle cuts at my personal behavior in a deep way.  In a very real sense I have an anxiety of what other people think about me, which is both silly and irrational, but if I could make it dissapear I would.  I have often found myself sitting around practically trying to not take necessary and dramatic action because I’m afraid that the execution will be horrible and will reflect badly on me.  Well guess what Steven: not taking action reflects badly on you, worse than taking imperfect action.  Its time to change this mode of thinking and put some points up on the board, no matter if the shots are ugly, as long as they make it in the basket.

1. Start a blog.
2. Fix an engine.
3. Backpack through Europe.
4. Attain a Black Belt in Karate.
5. Learn to do a backflip.
6. Swim with Dolphins.
7. Learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (in Brazil?). [I learned the Basics]
8. Do a handstand push up in the middle of  the room.
9. Ride the Trans-Siberian Railway.
10. Climb a Baobab tree.
11. Perform 100 consecutive push ups.
12. Perform a “muscle up.”
13. Run a marathon.
14. Ride a camel in Egypt.
15. Ride an Elephant in Thailand.
16. Study Tae Kwon Do.
17. Scuba dive with Manta Rays.
18. See a Whale Shark while snorkeling.
19. Learn to surf.
20. Learn to Eskimo roll a kayak.
21. Be able to play 10 songs impeccably on guitar.
22. Learn to walk across a Slackline.
23. Commute on a Skateboard.
24. Be able to sing in harmony.
25. Play the lead role in a play and/or film.
26. Give a “coffee shop concert”.
27. Get a poem published.
28. Become an author.
29. Become an entrepreneur.
30. Make six figures in a year.
31. Give a six figure sum to charity.
32. Sail a yacht to Hawaii.
33. Sail around the Mediterranean in a Catamaran.
34. Go on a kayak camping expedition in Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
35. Race in a dinghy regatta…and win.
36. Learn Kendo in Japan.
37. Live in my dream home.
38. Decorate a room in said home with my own artwork.
39. Take Golf lessons (in Scotland?)
40. Meditate for 10 straight days.
41. Visit Dharamsala India.
42. Live in Valparaiso, Chile for a time.
43. Live in Hawaii for a time.
44. Climb Mt. Whitney
45. See the Aurora Borealis.
46. Spend at least a week in the wilderness.
47. Go skydiving.
48. Go Bungee Jumping.
49. Whitewater raft down the Grand Canyon.
50. Go Canyoneering.
51. Go rock climbing.
52. Fly in a wingsuit.
53. Kayak surf in Central America.
54. Go Kiteboarding.
55. Go windsurfing with my Dad.
56. Hike in the Swiss Alps, staying in a hut.
57. Go heliskiing.
58. Go Telemark backcountry skiing in Canada.
59. Paraglide in Torrey Pines, Interlaken, or Chamonix.
60. Go vagabonding in Central and South America.
61. Read Emerson and Thoreau.
62. Create a Muse, become location independent, and live the 4 Hour Work Week.
63. Master the art of storytelling.
64. Patent an incredible invention.
65. Visit Antarctica.
66. Help someone who is unable to repay me.
67. Go on a “Volunteer Vacation”.
68. Learn how to say a moving and powerful grace.
69. Go paddle boarding.
70. Learn to Salsa dance, and Tango in Latin America, and perform each publicly.
71. Become conversationally fluent in Spanish.
72. Race motorcycles (in Europe?)
73. Become the most outgoing person I know.
74. Perform 20 consecutive chin-ups.
75. Become moved to tears by the simple beauty of nature.
76. Meet the most vibrant, alive, and beautiful woman in the world.
77. Master the art of simple conversation.
78. Inspire others to live a simpler life, and become wealthier for it.
79. Drive a Lamborghini.
80. Make wine with my Dad.
81. Do something that touches someone so much they cry.
82. Spar with a professional level Cage Fighter and/or champion wrestler.
83. Be able to do 10 pistol squats on each leg.
84. Ride the Copper Canyon Train in Mexico.
85. Get an article published in a magazine.
86. Meet a handful of my favorite authors.
87. Make women swoon.
88. Take lessons in Spanish Guitar.
89. Go surfing on the Isar river in Munich.
90. Climb, then ski down Mt. Shasta.
91. Live in New Zealand.  Again.
92. Witness a solar eclipse.
93. Put a letter in a bottle.  Throw it into the ocean.
94. Climb 6 of The Seven Summits.  (forget Everest!)
95. Rescue an animal from a grim fate.
96. Fast for three days.  Nothing but water.
97. Bike the Pacific Coast Highway.
98. Attend the Olympics.
99. Go to Oktoberfest.
100. Milk a cow, then drink said milk.

Welcome to my Tumblr! This will be a bucket for creative brain vomits of all types. You can find my latest thoughts and discoveries on fitness, minimalism, entrepreneurship, creativity, writing, art, personal growth and spirituality. In essence, its an eclectic potpourri of high impact thinking.      Go there now!

Read More

This year I had strawberries, blackberries, and cream.  The reason?  Right now I’m on a 30 day sugar detox, an experiment in something called a “low and below” diet.  For 30 days I’m eating no sugar, nor anything that acts like sugar in the body.

What acts like sugar in the body? Lots of things.  All starchy foods (flour, potatoes), alcohol (no 2Buck Chuck this month), ice cream, cookies, bread, pasta.  I eat none of these.

So why do this? When we consume a food it delivers nutrients to our bloodstream, one of those nutrients being sugar.  As the sugar enters our blood, our body responds with insulin.  Insulin causes our cells to absorb sugar.  If you eat a lot of sugar, or the sugar you eat enters your blood quickly, then your insulin will spike dramatically.  Insulin is directly linked to two very important things: 1.  Fat deposition, and 2.  Muscular recovery.  I’m interested in the latter, but I’ll cover both.

Spikes in insulin cause the body to go into fat storing mode.  Your cells take all of the excess sugar in your blood and deposit it all over your body as fat.  Habitually eating sugary foods can exacerbate the problem, leading to insulin resistance.  In addition Insulin is inflammatory.  For muscles that have been worked out, this slows recovery down dramatically.

How can you avoid these problems? By adopting a “low and below” diet.  A diet where you only eat foods that have low Glycemic Indexes, or are below the scale altogether.  The Glycemic Index is a measure of how quickly the sugar in a food will be released into your blood stream.  A low GI food, like a Strawberry, will releases the sugar slowly, causing little to no insulin spike.  A high GI food like a potato (a potato is a starch, which is digested into sugars in your stomach) will dump a large amount of sugar into your blood all at once, causing a massive insulin spike.  Preventing insulin spikes keeps your body more hormonally balanced, and combined with intense exercise, will aid in the bodies natural release of testosterone, HGH, and other muscle building hormones.  By staying “low and below” you are helping your body to give you a natural steroid boost!  That means more lean muscle mass, more natural weight loss, and more energy!

Currently I’m half-way through the thirty days.  Before doing this I had no idea how addictive sugar is!  The first three days I was extremely cranky.  This was caused by withdrawal.  I hadn’t realized it previously, but sugar is very addictive.  Have you ever been stressed and pigged out on cookies?  Ever hoarded candy? Ever drowned your sorrows in cake?  I’ve done all of these in the past, and its textbook addict behavior.  After getting over my initial crankiness I felt much better.  I had more energy, and was no longer tempted to break the detox by eating the cookies (which are abundant in my house).

I became aware of a new layer of hunger.  For the first two weeks I found I was hungry constantly.  I was hungry even while I was eating!  I was even hungry after finishing a big meal!  I realized this wasn’t hunger at all, but craving.  My new diet ensured I wasn’t receiving any large quantities of sugar, and like any addict I had intense cravings.  I’m on day 18 out of 30 now, and am happy to report the craving is gone.  I feel completely satisfied after meals, and no longer even miss the sugary foods I once found so important.

My diet these days primarily consists of lean meats, veggies, big delicious salads, and both fresh and frozen fruit (low GI only).  My staples are eggs, beans, apples, fresh ground peanut butter, cheeses, nuts, avocados, carrots, olive oil-balsamic vinegar dressing (most other dressings have sugar), and tea.

I highly recommend everyone try a “low and below” diet for thirty days at least once in their life.  You’ll learn lots about yourself.  If you need support you can find it on the OlsonND website.  One thing I didn’t realize was how sugar has crept into almost every food in our diet: peanut butter, salad dressings, sauces, cereals, breads, drinks, everything!

Break free and live better!

Perhaps not.  What if the inert metals that Alchemists worked with weren’t metals at all?  What if turning lead into gold stood for something much deeper and much more valuable than generation of precious metals?  What if the processes of distillation, transmutation, and transfiguration referred not to processes performed on minerals, but on man?

My first re-examination of Alchemy began by reading Paulo Coelho’s classic work The Alchemist.  A story in which the character, a shepherd, receives guidance from an Alchemist on an epic quest to find lost treasure.  This was an exceptional book that I highly recommend to everyone.  Not to be missed.

The story discusses an emerald tablet which contains the secret to Alchemy.  After a little independent research I was stunned at what I found.  The Emerald Tablet is a real artifact!  It was the manifesto and instruction manual for alchemy.  Sir Isaac Newton, the founder of modern physics, calculus, and consequently science as we understand it today, was fascinated by this tablet.  His translation, found among his alchemical papers, is included at bottom.

Soon I noticed the emerald tablet popping up in other places.  Have you seen The Secret?  In the introduction, while the narrator dictates that the secret has been repressed, a man furiously takes a charcoal rubbing off of… you guessed it!  The Emerald Tablet!  As I listened to famously successful people talk about themselves, many identified with Alchemists, including people like Jack Canfield,  Anthony Robbins, and Bruce Lee.  Carl Jung was purportedly an alchemist.

What is Alchemy, really?

Alchemy is the process of turning the normal (symbolized by lead) into the extraordinary (gold); of manifesting thoughts and ideas into reality.  It is a process of creation and personal transformation.  It is creating something, discarding all but the valuable, then creating again.  A sort of evolution, alchemy is the distillation of the self.  It is reducing and refining that which is valuable within you until there is nothing left but Self.  True Self.  Alchemy is a form of Yoga, or union.  It is a process, a science, and an exercise.

In JKD, one does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity. Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I’ve understood the art, a punch is just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. The height of cultivation is really nothing special. It is merely simplicity; the ability to express the utmost with the minimum.

Bruce Lee

Who are Alchemists?

Artists, musicians,  athletes, scientists, entrepreneurs, martial artists, yogis,  dancers, and actors are alchemists.  Writers are alchemists.  Who else but an alchemist could wave an ink-filled wand over paper and produce scribbles so valuable that people will trade sums of money for it?  Alchemists are creators.  They make the unseen become seen.

How do I practice Alchemy?

Create!  Make something.  Anything!  Look at your creation.  Love it.  What does it communicate about you?  What areas of personal strength does it exhibit?  What areas of weakness does it expose?  Go back to work.  Create again, this time it will be different than before, deeper, and more honest because you know so much more about yourself.  Deepen your connection to the mystery of life, learn from your new work, then continue the process.

All I know is, if you don’t figure out this something, you’ll just stay ordinary, and it doesn’t matter if its a work of art or a taco, or a pair of socks! Just create something… new, and there it is, and its you, out in the world, out side of you and you can look at it, or hear it, or read it, or feel it… and you know a little more about… you. A little bit more than anyone else does… Does that make any sense at all?

Holly Kennedy in P.S. I Love You

The Emerald Tablet as translated my Sir Isaac Newton:
1. Tis true without lying, certain most true.
2. That which is below is like that which is above that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing.
3. And as all things have been arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.
4. The Sun is its father, the moon its mother,
5. the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth its nurse.
6. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.
7. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.
7a. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry.
8. It ascends from the earth to the heaven again it descends to the earth and receives the force of things superior and inferior.
9. By this means ye shall have the glory of the whole world thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.
10. Its force is above all force. for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing.
11a. So was the world created.
12. From this are and do come admirable adaptations whereof the means (Or process) is here in this.
13. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world.
14. That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended.

Thanks Wikipedia!

“Work hard, play hard.”  – My father’s life motto.

Numerous times during my life I have heard the expression “Protestant Work Ethic” to describe someone who goes above and beyond the call of duty.  In a sentence it communicates drive, persistence, and willingness to work.  I’ve also heard discussions about why the Protestant Work Ethic is ruining our society.  It prevents people from relaxing, keeps them from family, causes ulcers and rocky marriages.  It makes life difficult for everyone involved.  For The Protestant Work Ethic to be a universally positive trait, we need to re-define what it means to work.

Work is earning value (perhaps cash) by giving value (work/service) to someone else.

The line between work and play should be very blurry.  The ideal job feels so intrinsically rewarding that you would do it for free.  Most have given up the search, and this constitutes failure.  It perpetuates stagnant social systems, and fails to give your fullest gift to the world.  Live in accordance with your purpose, driving towards a life that both serves others AND yourself.  Serving others while feeling like crap is self deprecation and self-destruction.  Serve others because it feels good; because serving others is benefiting you at the highest level.

Work as play:  Your approach to your job should be one like a kid in a sandbox.  A child kneels, and free to express himself in the moment, picks up a trowel.  He explores how it affects the patterns in the sand, notices how the grains fall from its face, feels the grip, and tests the size of the hole it can dig.  Be a sandbox child at work.  Develop a new marketing plan.  Implement it, noting the customer reactions, the changes in revenue, the spirit among the employees.  Remember to enjoy the process.  If you’re not having fun, what’s the point?  The last thing the world is needs is another unfulfilled professional.  Give up some of the pay and responsibility in exchange for more time to connect with loved ones, and chase dreams.

As a budding entrepreneur, I realize fully that my future lifestyle will be determined by how I shape my career.  Is working 12 hour days 6 days per week necessary to be successful?  Perhaps.  But perhaps by focusing on the high impact tasks of a given business, most of the success (measured in this case by income) can be achieved in much less time.  Why not ditch the fast lane for the scenic route?  The only thing you could lose is some cash, but you gain a life.  You could go skiing on a week day, or take your kids to the zoo dammit! What are going to remember in 10, 20, 30 years?  Pushing pencils, or the time you and your daughters saw a llama spit all over a lady in her Sunday best, and laughing until you cried?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the career/business path.  It’s a path I’m walking myself.  The key to its it success, and I mean that in the most inclusive possible sense, gauging happiness, excitement, contentment, leisure time, and cash flow, is to work with people you love.  Work with people who inspire you, who excite you, who intimidate you, who push you to be better and won’t settle for your “I’m not good enough” crap.  As you step towards challenge you will come alive.  Only then adopt the Protestant Work Play Ethic.  Your job will suddenly start to look more like that sandbox, and lets face it, that’s what we all want.

This world is temporary.  Things wear out.  Statues of long dead great men erode and dissolve until nothing is left.  Nature remembers no names.  Your legacy, literally whatever work you do, will have to stand up to that test.  Ask yourself:  In 1000 years when my great grandchildren’s great grandchildren are gone, will anything I’ve done really have mattered?  Most people will have to say no.  It takes a truly exceptional person to be able to say yes.  But, if you change the lives of even a few people in your era you set into effect a chain of positive events that shifts the present state of the world, and therefore transforms its future.  Forget about the legacy.  Let go of the idea.  Embrace the obliteration of anonymous and eternal bodily death.  Then go to work now.  Change the current circumstances.  Work like there’s no tomorrow, because eventually there isn’t.  If the work doesn’t feel like play to you, then you’re wasting your precious breath in the face of the void.

I don’t have all the answers, but this I know:  The peak you intend to climb determines the mountain face on which the climb will take place.  If the face is unbearable, chances are you picked the wrong mountain.  Pick a peak who’s very existence is a defiant call to action.  One whose whisper your hear in the witching hour: climb me…climb me.  The voice is usually rationalized, rejected, then ignored.  I speak from personal experience.  The risk seems too absurd, the mountain impossibly tall.  But that’s why you need to climb it; to conquer the boundary that it places on you, until all that’s left is your own limitless awareness.  After all that’s why your thoughts picked it.

What keeps you awake at night?  What nags at your mind to be fulfilled?  We have thoughts for a reason.  They are not random events, caused by collision after collision of elementary particles.  They are evidence, designed for us to decipher and pursue.  Your true work, and therefore your true play lies within your own mind.

A job is a way to make a living, and in this society that means earning cash.  Money is earned by rendering goods or services.  Your dream job is therefore giving away your most exciting service.  But developing your dream job will require help, service from others.  In pursuing you own dream, you enable others to serve you; thus engaging them in the pursuit of their own dream.  As others reach for their goals they will enlist your dream service.  You get paid to help others live their dreams simply by living your own.  That is the life you’re meant to live.

Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am -a reluctant enthusiast… a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it.  While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space.
-Edward Abby

The clerk in Denver International looks up through his azure glasses at me, a fresh college grad escaping the grips of day to day existence.  I can’t stop smiling!  Checking into my flight, I don’t realize that in thirty days I will be forever changed by my experience.

Jamaica: Paradise!  Bananas and coconuts grow abundantly from uncultivated trees, yet times are hard.  People ask for money while buildings lay in disrepair.

I meet Captain Eveready, pilot of a glass bottom boat.  A jolly man, he shares himself and his experiences.  He praises his homeland.  He says money is occasionally tight, but asks, “How could anyone be poor in a beautiful place, surrounded by amazing people?”  I meet another man on the beach who shares my name: Steve.  With him the conversation repeatedly shifts to faraway places.  Can he stay with me if he gets a visa?  Can he borrow money?  His eyes darken when making such requests.  He emphasizes his poverty, but wears nice clothes, eats restaurant food, and drinks imported beer.  When asked about his home, he has little praise.

These men are opposites.  One sees wealth everywhere.  Going to work is an adventure.  He loves his home, and loves sharing it!  The other looks for a way out, a better place to go, missing the abundance all around him.  I promise myself when I return home I will savor every experience, every morsel of life it will offer, no matter what.

Colombia:  I walk past a souvenir store on a side street in the north end of Bogotá.  Guitar music comes from inside.  A man is singing.  I turn back, stepping into the store.  I’m greeted with a smile.  A conversation unfolds in English and Spanish.  Introductions are offered:  Profession, home town, instruments played.  Saul, is an artist.  He wakes up early every morning to open his store and pay the bills.  In the evenings he works as a professional piano player, but his specialty is painting large murals.  I note how robust he is.  He works long days seven days a week, yet radiates more happiness than most urban professionals.  He tells me about a mural on 12th street between 6th and 7th avenue.  Leaving the store, I walk briskly.

I look up at the mural.  It encompasses the side of a building.  In the left a woman holds a village of multicultural people to her bosom.  The colors are vibrant.  The villagers are connected, happy.  In the right a mounted demon sets fire to the other side of the village.  His eyes are dark and a money insignia blazes across his chest.
I look down at the postcard Saul wrote to me.

“Steve: This is Colombia with two faces.  One conflicted and dramatic, the other our happy vision of life.  It is necessary for all people to help fix this problem.  – Saul.”

Exiting the plane on October 8th I feel more clear than ever, the world is what you make of it.  Now I see the face of life smiling back at me wherever I look.

The biggest challenge in starting the fitness habit is time.  People just don’t seem to have enough time to begin.  One solution is spend less time working out.  This immediately begs the question: Is it possible to get an effective workout in a short time?  The answer is an unequivocal yes.

The solution: Tabata squats.  20 seconds of all out work, followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated 8 times.

Duration: 4 minutes.

The name Tabata comes from Dr. Izumi Tabata, a Japanese physiologist most famous for his research with Olympic level athletes.  While working with Japan’s speed skating team he developed a protocol that simultaneously maximized aerobic and anaerobic adaptation.  A study illustrates his results: A group of athletes was analyzed before training.  For six weeks they performed the Tabata protocol 5 days per week on a bicycle ergo-meter (exercise bike).  Measured again at the end of the experiment, the athletes had increased their aerobic capacity (VO2max, or how long and hard you can run) by ~15 percent as well as increasing their lactate threshold (how long you can sprint all out) by just under 30 percent!  Compare this with traditional cardio: 60 minutes of moderate intensity exercise, which over six weeks typically yields an aerobic capacity increase of ~10 percent with no effect on lactate threshold.  Tabata concluded that intensity drives adaptation.

The Tabata protocol can give you greater fitness than traditional cardio in much less time.

WARNING: Do not go all out on your first workout unless you would like to walk funny for the next couple of days!  This protocol is that effective!

Instructions:

Timing:  Get a wall clock, watch, or interval timer.  Even counting in your head can work (don’t worry if the intervals are not exactly 20 seconds).  Time 20/10 intervals (20 seconds of all out work, 10 seconds of recovery).  You’re finished after 8 rounds or 4 minutes.

Mechanics:  Stand in a neutral position with your heels shoulder width apart.  Your toes should be pointed slightly outward, never more than 30 degrees.  Hold your arms extended in front of your face.  This will help you monitor posture.  Slowly move your pelvis backwards just like sitting down in a chair.  Continues until your thighs are parallel with the floor.  Pause.  Your weight should be in your heels.  Can you lift your toes off the floor?  Are your knees directly over your toes?  Is your back erect?  Make sure the answer is yes to all.  Slowly rise, thrusting your hips forward until you are fully erect.  No giggling at that last sentence please.  If that entire process was comfortable then you are ready to workout.  If not repeat it while adjusting you positioning until it is.

WARNING:  Squatting can be bad for the knees IF and ONLY IF you have improper mechanics.  It is worth seeking instruction to insure you are squatting correctly.

Scoring:  At the end of you Tabata squat session, write down your score to track your progress.  Your score is the lowest number of repetitions you do in ANY of the 8 rounds.  If you do 20 squats every round, but only squeeze out 13 in last round, your score is 13.

Scaling: For those just beginning with Tabata squats aim for a score of 10-14 (doing 10-14 squats every round).  As you continue add one rep to each set on every new workout.  So if you scored 10 on Monday, and worked out everyday that week you would score 15 on Friday.  Continue with gradual increases until you’re able to go ALL OUT each round.

Benefits:

• Tabata Squats will simultaneously increase your leg strength, lactate threshold, and maximal cardiovascular output.
• Studies show it burns fat more effectively than long slow cardio!
• It speeds up your metabolism for the rest of the day (you will burn more calories just sitting on your butt!).
• The lactate generated will instigate a release of natural anabolic (muscle building) hormones, which will benefit the whole body.

Happy Squatting!