SAR_3_along_the_way

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Above: Footprint after todays 32K SAR dune-beach training

"History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain, as quoted today by George Friedman in 'Borderlands: The New Strategic Landscape'

"Our feet flattened, our backs straightened, our buttocks strengthened their muscular arrangements to permit us to run. And as more and more we became specialised earthlings, so more and more it became anatomically impossible for us to return to the arboreal life. Such trends take place in an evolving world. A minor alteration of behaviour and body, a change of equivocal value, may command that further genetic alteration beer of increased specific value until a course is determined, and horses are set upon their way, men upon theirs. Now evolution becomes irreversible.

As important as our anatomical adjustments to the terrestrial life were the psychological changes which such life commanded. Shyness is a luxury permitted the mountain gorilla in his high, remote, cloud-softened bamboo thickets. The modesty once demanded of the tiny, primitive mammal in his monster-dominated times retained a value in the lives of jungle primates with profound green tangles of vine and leaf in which they might vanish. But for the ape of the field in those long-gone Miocene times, hiding places might be far from hand. Not unlike the baboon today, the aggressive spirit became a survival asset. Time and again we had no alternative but to stand and fight. And the social necessity, since the time of the true lemur a primate compulsion, doubled and redoubled its survival value."

Robert Ardrey, T'he Territorial Imperative', page 255 (published in 1966)

"The drive to maintain and defend a territory can be regarded not as a cause but only as a condition of human war. One can recognise its workings in the fury of a Finland attacked by a monstrous large enemy; in the madness of Hungarians attempting to reassert their land's integrity; or in the lonely, irrational heroism of the Battle of Britain, when never did so many owe so much to so few.
These were defensive social actions taken in strict accordance with territorial law and deriving from profound instinct the unbelievable magnitude of their energy. But in every case territory was the condition of war, not its cause.

Robert Ardrey, from: 'African Genesis' (1961) as quoted on page 245 of TTI

"For Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Azerbaijan […] there is not yet an emergency. But one could materialize with surprising speed. The Russians are not intrinsically powerful, but they are more powerful than any of these countries alone, or even together. Given American strategy, the United States would be prepared to begin providing aid, but substantial aid requires substantial action on the part of the buffer countries.

The first and second world wars were about the status of Germany in Europe. That was what the Cold War was about as well, although framed in a different way. We are once again discussing the status of Germany. Today it has no western threat. The eastern threat is weak, far away and potentially more of an ally than a threat. The force that drove Germany in two world wars is not there now. Logically, it has little reason to take risks."

George Friedman, 'Borderlands: The New Strategic Landscape'

Training/today_footprint

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Above: I prefer to have my training around sunrise: it multiplies the already good effects, stimulating results during the day to come.

Todays training was 'equal-as-usual' in distance and terrain. It was in the afternoon though, it had more wind, more blue sky, more tide; different training altogether, best suited for the day!

And dedicated to an excerpt, published today, from a (new) book by Mark Divine. His writings, courses and trainings are an inspiration to many people:

"Drive provides a lifelong source of energy if focused on a passionate and worthy end. But be wary, because drive can have a dark side, too. When you’re driven solely by “me” reasons and you confuse determination with stubbornness, you can easily lose sight of the “we” in your life, leaving your coworkers, family, or other teams wondering what happened to that nice man or woman they used to know. The type of drive that powers elite operators is a “me plus we” drive. It means you’re driven to grow and learn new things in a way that benefits yourself and your team, and that is balanced with the needs of the organisation."

Mark Divine: Excerpt from 'The Way of the Seal'.

More here: http://wayofthesealbook.com/ and here http://www.sealfit.com/blog/marks-blog-excerpt-way-seal/

Enjoy!

In the name of the Father, and of the Zone, and of the Holy Spirit

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If there is one climax to the whole bunch of training-sessions reported on this website over the past few years, it will be that at the Core of all anabolic¹ action there is balance; unity of time (conquered from passivity) and space -- the Zone.

Balance. Raising the bar, pushing the limits, though not violating them (which leads to exhaustion). From the bottom up: act, grow, energize. Respect and enjoy rest and recovery - trough meditation, breathing, sleep and balanced food intake (don't vegetate by sinking deep into the comfort-zone into catabolic² behaviour on an overdose of entertainment and snacks³). Out of the Zone = out of balance. 

"An artist who feels that he is driven into creating by an external deprivation and who is then again obstructed by a longing for life can rise above these conflicts to a renunciant view of life which recognizes that it is not only impossible but perilous to live out life to the full and can, willingly and affirmatively, accept limitations that appear in the form of moral conventions and artistic standards, not merely as such, but as protective measures against premature and complete exhaustion of the individual. [I]n the end his creativity [...] is freed from the need to justify one or other mode of life -- in other words, from the need for compensation." Otto Rank on page 417 of 'Art and Artist', first published in 1932 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

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¹ I.e.: life-enhancing. See: 'Power vs Force' by David R. Hawkins

² I.e.: life-consuming. Ibid.

³ No news, TV and all that is not a bad idea at all. In fact it is a very good idea. It provides time and frees the mind of negative, fear based crap! Time to be given to training. Training in the Zone is done for the creation of unity, for the benefit of mankind. To merely consume the world trough the eyes of journalism and advertising is a waste of health mostly (an apology generator!) Trough training we develop looking at the world trough our own eyes. That is the real victory!

SAR_sarsential™_toolbox_12/14

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Above: PGIA SAR training. Sarsential 12: Pit-Stop-Run™ (PSR) [ short, efficient training whilst on the road, supporting the blood flow and happiness of tendons, muscles and bladder ]

"We're in a car gotta get off the road, pronto!"

From 'Pulp Fiction, a Quentin Tarantino screenplay', last draft, scene 72, page 119. First published May 1993. In 1994 re-issued by Miramax books and Hyperion, New York.

"Hollywood has learned by trail and error to respect our 90-to-120-minute ultradian rhythm. If movies are too long, the audience will get restive and bored. The acute master of mood, Alfred Hitchcock, once wrote: "The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder." […] In baseball or football, we see the same ultradian need reflected in the seventh-inning stretch or halftime break, when fans get up and move around. […] That's what feeling good together means: being in synchrony with each other."

Ernest Lawrence Rossi on page 171 in 'The 20-Minute Break', first published in 1991 by Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles

"One of the movies of which I'm most proud is Peter Bogdanovich's 'Paper Moon'. We wanted to evoke the classic b&w Hollywood tradition pioneered by cinematographers like Arthur Miller, John Alton and Gregg Toland. 'Citizen Kane' was our biggest influence; I had seen it for the first time in Budapest in 1948 and it had made an indelible impression. Orson Welles and Peter were very close friends, and I got to meet my 'god' while we were preparing our film. I'd been testing b&w film with various filters but still hadn't found the right look. Orson said, "Use red filters, my boy." And I did, because although the filters reduced the film speed and meant I had to use big arc-lights to achieve the deep-focus look Peter wanted, the red filters created incredibly beautiful, dramatic skies and gave us exactly the expressionistic look we were after."

László Kovács about shooting Peter Bogdanovich's black-and-white movie 'Paper Moon', from interview 'The Storytelling of László Kovács, Cinematographer' by Jason Whyte, as quoted on http://www.cinematographers.nl/PaginasDoPh/kovacs.htm

See also: http://bartvanbroekhoven.com/en-US/running/134-sar-sarsential-toolbox-10-14