Fitness

What It’s Like to Be Indigenous in Fitness Today

Published

6 hours ago

November 18, 2024

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What It’s Like to Be Indigenous in Fitness Today

I GREW UP on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa reservation during the ’80s and ‘90s. It was infamous for some of the highest rates of Type 2 diabetes worldwide and occasional newspaper headlines about violent street gang crimes, all while tourists flocked to our new, bustling casinos and pristine golf courses. These visitors seldom paused to appreciate the rich legacy of the land’s true stewards. Through my eyes, O’odham land was the place of legendary southwest runners, where the two sacred rivers, the Salt and the Verde, and people unite in prayer to manifest good things for the community.

Courtesy Collins

Author Thosh Collins

My dad paved the way for my journey as a husband, father, and community man. If you walk through the east-facing front door of his house to this day, you’ll notice a wall covered in family photos from before the iPhone era. Mule deer antlers adorn either side from well-remembered hunting trips. And there are more printed memories: Black and whites of O’odham and Piipaash warriors standing strong and sinewy, a testament to our pre-colonial athleticism. As a boy, I’d pause my play to stare at them, stories of the old days coming to life in my imagination: How the men could run down a deer, run to the Baja with minimal food, or shoot a moving cottontail from horseback. My dad took me to men’s gatherings, where we’d sit under the stars on the hardened desert ground inside the ocotillo-made roundhouse to hear of ancestral feats as the aroma of mesquite wood smoldered into the night. These experiences built my Indigenous worldview and would eventually serve as a spiritual compass to guide me back on the Red Road as a young adult.

I was a photography student in California in my 20s, and like many Native people, I had experiences with alcohol and substances. Back then, I recalled the advice of our medicine people: always remember you are O’odham. I moved back to the rez in 2011 and re-discovered the connection to our inherent O’odham athleticism. My goal became to continue that tradition and avoid the health epidemic that was taking a toll everywhere I looked in Native country.

I began to work with the Native Wellness Institute, a non-profit whose gatherings I attended as a teen. I learned that diseases like diabetes, obesity, addiction, and depression were once non-existent in pre-colonial times yet were now widespread across Native communities (and beyond) after generations of violent colonial onslaught. This disconnection from land, food, movement, ceremony, and everything else that helped us thrive for thousands of years left us reeling with historic trauma. Everywhere we went, one thing rang true: the keys to healing lie within our original lifeways, including contemporary and original movement modalities driven by cultural values.

Being part of this movement taught me that a fire burns within all people. Attached at birth, our fire is never taken from us, no matter how much trauma we have endured. It may dim, but it never dies. When our fire is strong, we use it in all aspects of our lives to become the mightiest forms of ourselves.

There are many lifeways to build our fire. Physical movement is a powerful one. Movement is like a ceremony, a pathway to celebrate and give thanks for what health we have. My training style is an amalgamation of a modern combat athlete, an Olympic sprinter, and an O’odham warrior. When I move, the teachings of Indigenous knowledge keepers echo in my mind: “Always dance for those who cannot, run and pray for those who cannot.”

Applying these teachings helps us see fitness as a more profound spiritual endeavor, not just a vehicle for aesthetics or cardiovascular health. This energy helps manifest purpose. As the activist movement to heal from historical trauma thrives, many leaders have emerged, including the men recognized in this package. With fires burning strong, they demonstrate what it means to be a healthy Indigenous man in 2024. As fathers, husbands, coaches, councilmen, hunters, and farmers—each carries out visions where nation-building, prosperous health, and cultural evolution are the norms for the next seven generations.

We have approaches to tackle these health disparities that are spoken eloquently in our languages, nourished through our foodways, and connected through our ceremonies and kinship, all curated by the land. We invite you to walk with us on this epic journey and be inspired to do the same. If you have one takeaway from our stories, remember this: Keep your fire strong.

– Thosh Collins, author, community health educator, and content creator