By Ross Blake

Recently at B32 we ran our 3rd iteration of the Female Fitness Framework (FFF 3.0)- an annual update on our learnings and noticings for upgrading health and fitness prescriptions for women and coaches. Hugely popular, the sessions fuelled many discussions on email, in consultations, over the Box Diner’s gluten free chocolate bread, and even permeated a few Sydney gyms. But now it’s time to turn our attention to the business of men.

Manly moments.

Hibiscus flowers hanging from ears, loosely wrapped sarongs, rhythmic ocean waves and the call for another mid afternoon nap embracing my girlfriend. These are the feminine calls of the South Pacific island lifestyle of Mana Island, Fiji. I’d been totally around my woman for a while now, my days continually being showered with feminine energy- radiant, cooling, flowing and colourful. Ocean, music, relaxing, nourishing food and letting go. There’s no doubt, these are all things needed for any man to be balanced and healthy in life, however, too much over too long can be detrimental to masculine energy. You can almost feel it, seeping away…

So, as I sit for the third day in a row quietly reading and sipping flowered tea, it suddenly dawns on me: I need some man-time. A challenge, some solitude and an outcome.

So I leap from my sun bed and go find a rock. Just the reconnection with the idea that I’m a bloke and I can lift heavy things is enough to jolt me into facial hair sprouting mode. Bounding barefoot along dirt trails and soft sand like a man possessed by part bear, part gazelle, I arrive at the end of the beach and begin my search for a sizeable challenge to man-handle. But it doesn’t stop there. Feeling my heart pounding, the sun on my bare skin and the waves crashing on my thighs I begin collecting rocks to pile up, but by this stage, in my superhero mind, I was moving my world one gigantic boulder at a time. Unstoppable and feeling the full flow of masculine energy I toss, carry and slam my way to freedom. And my beard begins to explode from my face.

Man-boobs.

They’re everywhere. If you’ve ever had an integrated health consult with Joelle at our facility and seen your pec skin fold higher than your triceps skin fold you will no doubt resonate with the immensely disheartening truth of what I’m about to say. Whenever you have a little bit too much jiggle in an area of your torso that should be hard as a shield, (perhaps even to the point of shiny), the very core of your man-hood is shattered. And when Joelle points out that your belly skin fold is also too high – immediately telling you, behind her black rimmed glasses no less, that you have the hormonal profile of a stressed out female, you either wheeze or want to go shoe shopping. This is a real problem. Your cellular energetics and hormonal profile can be so drastically affected by your lifestyle choices that your body begins to scream and shout Rhianna songs from its hormone receptor sites.

Your body reflects your path in life. If you choose a path that is a softer and less mission-centric, with a cloudy life’s purpose, you’ll begin to take on feminine physical attributes.

Body fat levels increase, particularly around the breast and thighs and the face softens and becomes more rounded. Mix this with poor food and lifestyle choices that detract from the integrity of the gut mucosal barrier (creating dysbiosis, leaky gut) and you potentially have a cocktail for liver dysfunction. The liver is not only responsible for cleaning out your system, but is also intimately interweaved with sex hormone signalling and balance. A toxic liver tends to show up in the conversion of man-hardened testosterone to softening estrogen. it is also responsible for directing your sex hormones, man hardening testosterone and softening estrogen. Did I say shoe shopping?

Man-types.

There are loads of different kinds of men.

There are those that dominate the landscape with their back arched, chest puffed out with an edge of coldness that huffs at the mere possibility of emotions. This is the macho ego. Then there’re the ones that fill the cracks, back slouched, shoulders rolled forward with a warmth and softness, cowering away from challenge. This is the SNAG (sensitive new age guy, for those foreign to the concept). There are also the male-types that parade around with a veneer of both macho and feminine attention to how they look. Unable to know who they really are they blend the two but when push comes to shove they lack the real balls of the macho and the true humility of the SNAG. This is the metrosexual. Of course there are more stereotypical male types (and many in between) but these 3 extremes ought to suffice for now.

Lets look at the pros and cons for each type:
Macho ego – Pros: upright, ready to take on the world, loves a challenge, mission orientated
Cons: Lacks humility, struggles to truly love the feminine, slow or unable to grow through new possibilities

SNAG - Pros: Able to connect to his emotions, show’s humility to others, moves through new experiences with ease
Cons: Easily distracted form his mission, fearful in the face of challenge, less directed

Metrosexual – Pros: Realises there is feminine and masculine energies at play
Cons: Lack humility, fearful in the face of challenge

We’ve moved from macho ego types of old, through to the SNAG of the 90′s and the metrosexual of the early 2000′s. But it’s 2013. Men are different. So if not stubbornness, ego, absolute sensitivity or a confusion between the two, what makes a man a man in 2013?

Fearless in the face of challenge, despite the outcome, able to show humility when proven wrong and love when experiencing the feminine. The modern man is in control, open to new possibilities, passionate about his purpose and inwardly directed to fulfil his mission.

Reclaiming your manhood.

There are some obvious steps you can take to begin your journey back to manhood. Like, cleaning up your diet, drinking less beer etc, but I’m not going to school you in what to eat right now. There are numerous dietary models out there to convey basically what you need to change and if you’re pretty sure that your hormonal panels are coming back ‘emotional’, then check out How I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson – the chicks love it. I’m here to school you on what it takes to be a real modern man and inform you that your directed life’s purpose and mission should dictate what you consume.

Bro-mance and man-dates.

One of life’s many great pleasures. And only men can vouch for how sacred this time is. Without it we begin to detach from our masculine and give in to life’s distractions. Miss this date and you might as well lick a band saw. Not just because you will have to face the music at the next catch up but your buds will berate you for eternity. And that brings me to my point. Your mates will be the most honest council you hold. If they think for one minute you’re being a coward, your new job idea sucks or your life is off mission – they will tell you, with profound honesty and gut punching accuracy. Use this. These man-dates are the male energetic equivalent to what women call ‘sleepovers’. You know, the ones where they have pillow fights in their underwear and talk about boys (that really happens, right?!) Either way both sexes usually come out the other side of these interactions with clarity and a rebalancing of perspective.

Challenging way to grow.

One of the olympic lifting athletes I coach recently peaked for a local weightlifting competition. Consistent with training, injury free, strong and really freaking fast he was geared up to hit an all time snatch PB of 90kg. Based on his numbers in training, it was clear that this was to going happen and all he had to do was walk on stage and unleash the fury. But to no avail.

So I did what needed to be done. I challenged him. If he didn’t meet my challenge and break through to freedom(a 90kg snatch), he would lose what mattered most to him for a short while – training for weightlifting. For him, weightlifting is one of his highest directed missions in life, and for a man, the threat of your highest mission being taken away gets at you, right where it hurts. Here is the email cut and pasted, verbatim:

“Training this week.

Snatch 90kg.

You have to do it this week. You have until Friday.
As soon as you do it (today, Wed, whatever) I’ll program your next training week. Not before.

Go. “

Harsh but this is how your masculine allows you to grow. Men grow with challenge. Women grow with support – they need praise, they need to be lifted up – both physically and emotionally. (There’s another challenge for you… Go!)

Penetration – more to it than you think.

Your ability to penetrate pushes past the bedroom. Penetration is in fact the very way you should go about your day and life in general. Stand up, put the blinkers on and go head first into your missions with the gusto and the eagerness of sexual stimulation. As in the bed, you will likely face many a false start and lack lustre performance, but you must use these less than ideal performances as part of the journey to refine your mission and purpose.

In the bedroom a modern man is present. Fully engaged in embracing the feminine. This is not the time for your life’s quests, but rather an opportunity to show to your partner your control and blending of love intwined with your masculine urges.

Pride and macho ego: the cries of a loveless manhood.

Pride, stubbornness and ego generate a slowing of your ability to resonate with others and with life. When your ambitions stem from these things alone, you energetically base your growth and development on extrinsic factors, and will tend to use and abuse others, elevating yourself relative to them. In these cases, we sometimes see ego being used as a protection mechanism – shielding fear, insecurity, uncertainty, truth and most of all, covering up your lost sense of self. Losing or not ever knowing your true self, being lost in life and in turn seeking only pride in what you and others do helps no one. This kind of approach to life can manifest in physical injuries to the right side of the body (the masculine side of the body – perhaps a discussion for another time), and actions designed to set up the world around you to cushion your inevitable fall. (Remember that old saying: “pride before a fall” ?) Giving way to humility, the opinion of others and developing clarity of self-purpose will illicit a deeper connection with who you are and the love that can be shared with others.

Cowardess: misdirected mission

All men know what a coward is or have at least been a coward themselves at some point. What brings on the jitters when you are facing fear at work, at play or at home is usually some form of disconnection with your man powers. Much like summoning the power of the Force and the powers of Greyskull a man needs to know that his true masculine energies are deeply rooted and entangled in overcoming fear. When we disconnect from that knowing, we find ourselves cowards in the face of fear. Intuitively we know the power of fear itself but often become detached from the freedom on the other side of overcoming it. Just like you would have experienced before, there is immense relief from breaking through the other side of a challenge. You stand taller, you have clarity and a sense of self purpose that rivals the momentum of storm gods. Reconnecting to your mission and the idea that overcoming obstacles in the face of that mission will only serve to strengthen your clarity and purpose.

Embracing and utilising feminine energy – your teacher in love and relaxation.

Not to be confused with shaving your legs, this section is a universal look at how masculine and feminine energies intertwine to create balance, alignment and healing within and between you and others. For those of you who are struggling with the concept of the healing nature of the feminine, remember back to the last time a beautiful woman walked past you… her hair flowing in curls, the drape of her dress, the slight bounce of her breast. Her radiance and beauty entrance you, then there’s the subtle trail of her perfume and clean washed hair that delivers the final blow like a cricket bat to the head. The encapsulation of the feminine energy bubble is one of radiance and healing. It’s designed to be a distraction. It’s the unbridled flow of elegant energy that’s there to oppose your masculine energy and remind you how to love, care and relax.

Feminine energy is all around you. The ocean, flowers, music, beer, food and distractions are all forms of the feminine. Wow… back track a little here manfriend, did you say beer? Yep. Beer is feminine. If you are pure macho man ego then you will hate that statement and flat out never believe it. But when it comes to distraction from your life’s purpose, beer is about relaxing you and taking you away from your masculine direction, sitting back and taking it easy. But this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. The role of feminine in your life is to induce healing, recovery and connection to the powerful flow of love. All things that as a man we don’t naturally possess.

Take for example a busy day at the office, calls, meetings, direct interactions, outcomes, timelines, adjusting your tie, scratching your beard. Then returning home to your partner, you have to shift your energy. You have to drop it down an octave or two just to communicate. Your words become more rounded and softened. Your shoes come off, you help prepare dinner and become distracted from your purpose… in that moment, you then relax. This all takes place within the influence of feminine energy. And this state can continue right through to your next business meeting the following day when you’re thrust back into your director state of mind- your masculine.

But what if what you do during the day is just another distraction? And not actually part of your true purpose? Often you will give in. You give in to the mid morning tea cakes, you will take your iPhone with you to the loo because you’ve let life distractions own you and this is your only time to check the news, sports score and stock market. Or even worse still: Facebook. In fact you could probably rate your manliness based on the frequency and duration of being sucked into this void of existence. All day you hate yourself. Nothing is driving you to squeeze your crotch and tilt your brow at the challenges that are in the way of your freedom. Then when you get home, instead of the healing powers of the feminine, you succumb to the self sabotaging, self disconnecting forms of giving up even further. More poor food choices, over eating those food choices, a poor sex life or quite possibly the total lack of one.

So how do you keep true to your masculine purpose, direction and mission and integrate the feminine, love, intuition and connectedness?

Be a man in the clear.

Achieving clarity of what you’re here to do takes refinement. Men are like onions, we painfully peel back one ugly layer of self discovery (and tears?) only to begin again. Although as with each layer that is peeled back we discover a smoother and more refined piece within ourselves. Discovering your true purpose is what creates clarity in your missions in life. Clarity lets you be at the forefront of human existence, allows you to face fear head on, teaches you to embrace love and humility and binds your very soul to the ideals of being trusted. If you haven’t yet had a directional coaching session at B32 i suggest you may need to enrol for one. Figure out what you’re here to do. But in the meantime read Living a Higher Life.

I challenge you to be a man.

Over the next week notice the feminine energies in your life, the daily distractions that interrupt your mission and how the challenges you set yourself each week provide you with a calm sense of self. Do all this one piece at a time, of course, for combining all three would appear to be multi-tasking and let’s face it, that’s never going to be manly. In that week, include:

10 man-challenges:

1. Define your current mission in life – do it alone and without distraction
2. See your mates – discuss life and challenge each other to be true to your missions
3. Eat 1 meal alone – no music, no reading and re-align your mind with your mission
4. Have sex with your woman and don’t ejaculate – breathe through her and let her open to love
5. Perform a physical task that is a challenge to overcome
6. Practice love & humility to all who you meet
7. Say no to a distraction in order to fulfil part of your mission
8. Meditate on overcoming your fears
9. Use your man powers to overcome temptation and evade dessert after dinner
10. Part with your wisdom and teach someone something you know

Complete these challenges within one single week. Experience and notice the ones that take you out of your comfort zone. They’re the ones that will have the greatest impact on your man-powers.

I challenge you to be a man. Not one driven by ego and pride and not one that cowers at the face of challenge and not one that cloaks himself in ornaments. These will lead to a life left short. Instead, take on the challenges, embrace feminine energies and stay true to your missions. And when in doubt go find a big rock.

Free from distraction men find clarity in solitude.

If you’re in need of a challenge or desire some redirection lets have a man-date.

Ross