The IronPriest is Micah Jackson, an Episcopal priest currently serving at the Seminary of the Southwest. He is a doctoral student in homiletics at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He is trying to be a better steward of his body, and this website is a part of that effort. You can write to him at micah at ironpriest dot org. He keeps his more general blog at St. Jerome's Library
Welcome to IronPriest! This is a blog about the fitness challenges of clergy, and about my own personal journey to fitness. See where I began by reading the first post. If you want to follow along, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read about my participation in the LIVESTRONG Challenge and donate here. Thanks for visiting!
I’m taking a short break from my discussion of Systema. But don’t worry, I’ll be back at that soon, eventually with some thoughts about the spirituality of Systema, but for now, I want to say something about diet.
In his excellent book “Once a Runner,” John L. Parker discusses the runner’s metabolism, “He was not a health nut, was not out to mold himself a stylishly slim body. He did not live on nuts and berries; if the furnace was hot enough, anything would burn, even Big Macs. He listened carefully to his body and heeded strange requests. Like a pregnant woman, he sometimes sought artichoke hearts, pickled beets, smoked oysters.” I loved this quote, and found it comforting on days when my training asked me to eat more than I was used to. Of course, for me, it wasn’t Big Macs, but rather Peanut M&Ms. But when you’re running 45+ miles a week (as I used to routinely during my first brush with running), your furnace is pretty hot. Of course, I weighed 135 pounds and was in my early 20s.
But when I quit running after a bout with Plantar Fasciitis, I didn’t adjust my diet much. Eventually, I discovered that I had gained more than 50 pounds. You’d think that I’d have noticed that before such an extreme gain, but it doesn’t always work like that. You gain it slowly, and anyway, you’re not running so much so you don’t notice yourself slowing. Relatively quickly after that I dropped about 15 pounds through stopping eating so much, but I didn’t realize until recently what was stopping me from losing the next 10 (to reach the 160 pounds that is really the upper limit for a guy of my build). I was still eating like a distance runner.
You see, distance runners require a huge amount of carbohydrate fuel. Parker’s list of foods is not random. Chris Carmichael suggests that some endurance athletes should have more than 66% of their nutrient intake come from carbs. I had a diet like that. But I don’t need it anymore, and the nutrient mix was beginning to affect other aspects of my health.
About a week ago I went to the doctor for my checkup, and even got a good report. (No sign of diabetes, for example, in case you were wondering about my previous post.) My total cholesterol numbers were well in the zone. However, I had mildly elevated triglycerides coupled with slightly depressed HDL cholesterol (the good kind). Since this combination is a risk factor for heart health (which I take very seriously) it can’t be allowed to continue. Some research has revealed that this combination of high triglycerides and low HDL is associated with diets which are high in carbs and low in fat–exactly the diet which used to be so healthy for me when I was running!
Now, however, I need a different mix. My new sports and fitness program doesn’t require so much carbohydrate fuel, and I might need a bit more good fats to keep my blood chemistry in the zone. I’ve made some dietary changes to address this imbalance (goodbye M&Ms, hello fish oil, for example!)
So, what’s the moral of this story? I have two lessons for us today. One–get checked out with your doctor before you’re sick. Take the tests you need to make sure your internal machine is working properly. God made it to work in all sorts of mostly broken conditions, but that doesn’t mean it’s OK to put the Lord to the test. And secondly, think about what kind of fuel your body needs, and get it. If you are an endurance athlete, don’t fall for that Atkins business. You’ll bonk. And, if you’re not keeping your furnace that hot, don’t think that any old crap will burn. It isn’t what goes into the body that defiles, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.
We are able to praise God and honor the creation in many ways. Attention to diet is an important one.
Like all martial arts, Systema has two origin stories. There is the story of the recorded history of the art, often involving the lineage of the great masters of the past. At the same time, there is also a mythical story of where the art came from, which is also important, even if it is not strictly true. Anyone who knows me should realize that I think both stories are key to understanding the art.
The recorded history of Systema goes back to a man named Mikail Ryabko. He is the acknowledged master of modern Systema. He still lives in Russia, and is an advisor to the Minister of Justice. He also teaches in his gym in Moscow. Ryabko’s most senior student is Vladimir Vasiliev, who now resides near Toronto, and is the source for most Systema instruction in the West. Vasiliev has certified more than 100 teachers, who are offering Systema instruction all over the place.
But where did Mikail Ryabko get it? Well, that’s where it starts to get mythical. Legend has it that Ryabko was introduced to Sytema at the age of 5, and was taught by one of Stalin’s Falcons, his personal bodyguards. But where did the Falcons get it? That’s the realm of true myth. The story goes that the medieval Russian knights, the Bogatyr, developed a fighting art that was flexible enough for them to prevail, no matter which fighting style was employed by their many enemies. This fighting art was preserved throughout time by Russians of all kinds. It was likely a family-taught thing, with styles and techniques being highly variable based on the teachers encountered. When the Communists took power during the Revolution, they suppressed all traditional fighting arts (as had happened, for example, in Japan). In reality, however, they were only suppressed among the people. The Army, and especially the Special Forces, retained these traditional arts because they were effective. Another piece of the legend is that Systema was preserved not only in the military, but also in the few monasteries which survived the Revolution.
From the standpoint of an historian, little of this story can be verified. I don’t care. The presence of references to traditional fighting arts in pre-Revolutionary monastic communities argues against a claim that the Spetznatz developed it whole cloth. It is certainly true that the Systema that Ryabko teaches is strongly influenced by Russian Orthodoxy, a part of the art which those close to Stalin would not likely have preserved. Therefore, it seems reasonable to me that these two strains (which those familiar with Eastern martial arts traditions might call the “external” and the “internal”) were preserved separately, and re-merged by Ryabko. Clearly, even in my limited experience, they reinforce each other, and were intended to be practiced together. In a future post, I’ll talk about some of the foundational concepts of Systema, and start to discuss what beginning to practice Systema has done for me.
I’ve not been much of an empty-hand martial artist before. I have done fencing for years, but it is purely sporting, without much of an underlying philosophy, unless you consider tweedy French aristocrats to have a philosophy. Which I don’t. I played Kendo for about a year and a half, and loved the physical aspects of it. Eventually I began to perceive a conflict between the mindset of Kendo (or, more to the point, no-mind-set) and my Christianity. It just didn’t work out for me. I’m not saying that no Christians should do Asian martial arts, or get involved with Asian practices, but this Christian found it hard.
Therefore, imagine how excited I was to discover Russian Martial Art, also know as Systema. It’s a seriously physical martial art, but with an underlying philosophy that is entirely orthodox (because it’s, you know, Orthodox). For a couple of weeks now I’ve been delving into Systema, and it’s been absolutely transforming. I’ll be writing about it more and more as time goes on, I’m sure. But for now, I’ll just say that I’m really happy to have found this practice and the community of its practitioners here in Austin.
More later. I think that next time I’ll talk a bit about the history of Systema, some of its principles, and how it is that Systema is changing my life. See you then.
Well, here’s the thing… As I wrote last time, I think that consistency for me is going to require some kind of community, some bunch of people who will push me to reach beyond my goals, and would miss me if I slack on my training. I think I’ve found out how to do that, but I’m not ready to talk about it yet. When I write again in two weeks, look forward to the “big reveal.”
One of my goals for this period in my training is simply to be doing it. I set up a training plan, of course, and I intend to follow it, but some days, I’m just not there. For various reasons, some of which I’m aware of and some of which I am not, i do not have much internal motivation for exercise, and few sources of external motivation. This makes it easy to skip workouts, since nobody much cares. At least, that’s what the voices say many days in the early dark when I get up to exercise.
The monks of Taize have a wonderful admission in their Rule. It says (and I paraphrase), “Some days prayer will seem difficult. On those days, let your presence in the community at prayer represent your desire, temporarily unrealizable, to praise God.” It’s a great pastoral accommodation for a short time, but it’s important that a place of rest not become a habitation.
So, there have been some days in the last two weeks when I have gone to gym and done only a nominal workout. There have been some days when I merely went to the gym, sat in the locker room for a while, and then took a shower. But I’m trying to make it that there are very few days when I don’t go at all.
But overall, I think I need a community of accountability, some group of like-minded, and like-struggling people who will notice if I don’t do what I said I would do, who can help me to be the fit one that I feel I need to be to live out God’s call to me. Perhaps it need not be necessarily a drill sergeant who will shout, but maybe more like one of the angels who stands near each blade of grass and encourages, “grow, grow!”
Or, maybe it does need to be a drill sergeant, at least until fitness becomes an unbreakable habit.
