Maurice Daubard

Sand Marathon

In April 1998, Maurice DAUBARD took on a new challenge.
It was still in the extreme, but this time he went from cold to warm:
He took part in the Marathon des Sables, run in southern Morocco.

Note that in the late 1960s, he had been the first athlete from central France to run a road marathon.

In temperatures fluctuating between 40 and 50 degrees, he covered almost 230 kms in very testing conditions, in six stages and self-sufficient.
“The man of the cold”, as he was nicknamed, became the “Yogi of the Extremes”.

If Maurice DAUBARD was able to achieve such performances, it’s because he has a perfect knowledge of his body and exceptional mental strength, which he draws from his practice of yoga.
“Six months before I immersed myself in the ice, I ordered my mind to be ready for the appointed day,” explains the man who began exposing his body to the cold to make it react.

“My main motivation for taking part in the Marathon des Sables was to find out what it was like to go from extreme cold to extreme heat. Contrary to what you might think, I don’t like extreme cold any more than a polar bear has to like it, but it has adapted. There are also a lot of people who think I have exceptional gifts, but in fact it’s just a question of training and determination, being in SANKALPA.
In the extreme heat, at over 50 degrees, I confirmed my intuitions, on the one hand for myself but also for others, that the essential thing is in the mind when you orientate it, prepare it and above all it’s confirmation that Toumo Yoga stimulates our adaptive functions in a general way, not just for the cold.”

“All I have in my head, in my heart, in my guts, is the intense determination to put everything I see in front of me behind me, concentrating on each step, each stride, without thinking about the millions of others I still have to do… My only opponent in this race is myself, and the desert becomes my guru, my teacher.”

For the last kilometre of the final stage, Mohamed AHASSAND, the winner of the race, welcomed and ran alongside Maurice Daubard, to pay tribute to his courage and determination.
 
“One of my most vivid memories of this race is of a 6 or 7 year-old Moroccan boy, without a head covering, standing still like a mini palm tree, 2 bottles of water in his hand, in the middle of the day, on the hot sand along the course. I walked past him, only his big black eyes seemed to be saying: take some water if you’re thirsty and give me something… He didn’t move, didn’t say anything. I looked all around me, as far as I could see, no tent, no human being, just the mountains all around, far, far away. His presence here, at this moment, will remain a mystery to me.”

MAURICE DAUBARD

Voluntary exposure to cold and Tummo
Sand marathon
Ice immersion
Mountain biking in the Himalayas
High-flying diving
Tummo
Yoga Asanas
Tibet September 2006
Tummo in Pirolin January 2007
Expedition to Finland March 2007