back to indexIdo Portal: The Science & Practice of Movement | Huberman Lab Podcast #77
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Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,
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where we discuss science and science-based tools
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for everyday life.
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I'm Andrew Huberman,
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and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology
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at Stanford School of Medicine.
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Today, my guest is Ido Portal.
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Ido Portal is somebody who truly defies formal definition.
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He is, however, credited by many
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to be the world expert in all things movement.
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Movement is one of the more fascinating
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and important aspects of our nervous system.
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In fact, it was the great Nobel Prize winner, Sherrington,
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that said, movement is the final common path.
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And what he was referring to is the fact
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that so much of our nervous system is dedicated to movement,
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and in particular, that the human nervous system
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can generate the greatest variety of forms of movement.
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We can run, we can jump, we can crawl,
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we can move at different speeds.
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Far more variation in movement and different types
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and speeds of movement
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than any other animal in the animal kingdom can perform.
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My interest in bringing Ido Portal onto this podcast
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stemmed from a discussion about just that,
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about Sherrington and the enormous range of movements
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that humans can engage in.
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Ido is both a practitioner and an intellectual.
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We all know what a practitioner is.
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It's somebody who walks the walk,
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who actually performs the thing
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that they are knowledgeable about.
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And indeed, Ido has studied capoeira,
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a number of other martial arts, dance, gymnastics,
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various forms of sport.
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He's trained top athletes like Conor McGregor,
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and he has many, many other credits to his name
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as a practitioner and teacher.
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However, he is also a true intellectual of movement.
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I define an intellectual as somebody
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who can both think about and talk about a subject
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at multiple levels of granularity.
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That is, with exquisite detail and with exquisite simplicity
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depending on their audience
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and depending on the topic at hand.
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And as you'll soon hear from my discussion with Ido,
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he is both a practitioner
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and a true intellectual of all things movement.
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Today, through our discussion,
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you will learn how the nervous system generates movement
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and the different forms of movement,
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the different speeds of movement.
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You're also going to get an incredible insight
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through Ido's mind and eyes of how movement can serve us
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in the various contexts of life,
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not just in sport, not just in exercise,
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but in every aspect of our lives
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from the time we get up in the morning
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until the time we go to sleep at night,
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how we engage with others, how we engage with ourselves,
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indeed, how movement even informs relationships
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of different kinds.
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I found our discussion to be one of the most enlightening
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and interesting discussions that I've ever had,
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not just about movement, but about the nervous system.
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I can assure you that by the end of this episode,
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you will not only learn a tremendous amount about movement
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through the eyes and mind of the one and only Ido Portal,
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but you also will learn a tremendous amount of neuroscience
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about how the cells and circuits and hormones
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and neurotransmitters of your body assist in creating
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the various forms of movement that you can generate,
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that you're trying to learn and generate,
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and that perhaps you should think about
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trying to learn and generate.
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And indeed, you'll learn some protocols and tools
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for how to do that.
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In science, we have a phrase, actually it's a title,
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that's reserved for only the rarest of individuals.
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We say that somebody is an N of one,
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meaning a sample size of one.
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And as you'll soon learn, Ido Portal is truly an N of one.
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Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast
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is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
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It is, however, part of my desire and effort
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to bring zero cost to consumer information about science
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and science-related tools to the general public.
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In keeping with that theme,
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I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.
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Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens.
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Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin mineral
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probiotic drink that also has adaptogens
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and digestive enzymes.
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I started taking Athletic Greens way back in 2012,
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and so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast.
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In fact, when people ask me what's the one supplement
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they should take, I always say Athletic Greens,
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because it covers all of those essential nutritional bases,
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and the probiotics, adaptogens, and digestive enzymes
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are vital for things like the gut microbiome.
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Your gut microbiome is trillions of little microbacteria
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that live in your gut and that support your immune system,
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your endocrine system, and the so-called gut-brain axis,
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which is important for mood and neurotransmitter production,
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a huge number of biological systems in your brain and body.
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Athletic Greens also tastes great.
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I mix mine with water,
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and I like a little bit of lemon juice or lime juice in there.
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As I mentioned, I drink it twice a day,
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usually once in the morning during the phase of the day
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in which typically I'm fasting or around breakfast time,
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and then again in the afternoon or even in the evening.
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If you'd like to try Athletic Greens,
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you can go to athleticgreens.com slash Huberman
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to claim this special offer.
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Today's episode is also brought to us by Roca.
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Roca makes eyeglasses and sunglasses
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that are of the absolute highest quality and practicality.
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I've spent a lifetime working on the visual system,
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And now for my discussion with Ido Portal.
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Ido, thank you for coming here today.
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I've been looking forward to sitting down with you
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to talk for a very long time.
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I was first exposed to your work,
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my post or a podcast, I believe,
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of you had a group of people walking down handrails,
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literally the handrails along stairwells.
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And as a, I don't want to say former skateboarder,
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once a skateboarder, always a skateboarder.
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As a skateboarder, handrails have a particular meaning,
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but I was really struck by, first of all,
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the incredible range of skill that people had,
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and yet their willingness to do this, right?
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I think of handrails and walking on handrails
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or skateboarding on handrails as a potential hazard.
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And yet some of the incredible proficiency
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that some of the people there, including yourself, had.
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So like many people,
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I was drawn to your practice and your work initially
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through a wide-eyed, wow,
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they're doing some incredible stuff on natural objects,
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much as skateboarders or parkour folks do.
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But over the years, we've been in communication
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and I've come to realize that you're a true intellectual
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of the topic of movement.
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And I define an intellectual as somebody
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who can understand a topic at multiple levels of granularity,
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detailed, general, specific, connections, et cetera.
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So to start off, could you share with us
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your conception of this idea of movement?
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Obviously, movement involves translation through space,
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but when you talk about a movement practice,
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what are you really thinking about?
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What are we talking about
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when we talk about a movement practice?
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It's a big question.
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I somehow left the definition,
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the very tight definition of it out for myself
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because I felt it was starting to constrict me
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and I let the practice itself really define it.
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But I think part of our sense of everything
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is actually a sense of movement
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and then the stillness in the background of that.
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So for me, this is the entity that I refer to as movement
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and using that perspective for self-evolution,
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development, of course, the physical side,
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but also movement of emotions,
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movement of thoughts and any other movement streams.
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And by switching these layers
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and examining it from different places,
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you get a better and better sense of it.
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I think the visuals nowadays and media
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are what defines for people in the beginning things
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and then little by little with experience,
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they can dive deeper, which is good.
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There is some aspects, sexy aspects or not so sexy aspects,
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and then you pull on it and you start to examine
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and dive deeper and then you receive
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the gift of finding out more.
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I heard you say once that we are not just a brain
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with a body, but we are a body with a brain,
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which I absolutely love because as a student
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and a researcher of the nervous system,
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I never think about the brain as its own isolated thing.
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I think about the nervous system
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and the fact that the brain and the spinal cord
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are connected to the body
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and the body is connected to the brain in every direction.
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It's everything truly is connected
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at the physical level, physiological level.
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Could you just share for a moment
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how you think about this body-brain relationship
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in terms of, you mentioned movement of emotions,
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movement of the body,
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that you can't really separate the two.
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And for the typical person who's listening to this,
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they might not immediately understand what that means.
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Maybe it's something that has to be experienced,
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but when we think about the body and the brain
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and the whole thing working as one cohesive whole,
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what does that mean to you?
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Or put simply, when you do a movement practice,
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what are you focusing on?
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Are you focusing on the movement of your limbs?
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I have to imagine that's true,
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but are you also focusing on how that makes you feel
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or how your feelings make you move?
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Okay, so some thoughts.
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I will try not to answer any of your questions
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during this interview,
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but I will definitely give some thoughts
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and then we can play with it.
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I think these definitions,
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and in general the limitation of words,
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ends up creating some kind of a corruptive process.
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The words corrupt us and corrupt our understanding.
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So I think the brain, body,
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this Cartesian state of mind and thinking,
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brought a lot of good,
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but also brought a lot of problems.
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And movement for me is the entity
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that ties everything together.
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It's the forza anima.
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It's when the coin spins
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and you see both sides appear at the same time.
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It's a beautiful analogy from a friend of mine,
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So the mind and body are one of those pairs,
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and I call it the movement, body, mind system.
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When it's integrated, it's in motion.
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There is also a stillness that appears there, of course.
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Without it, there can be no motion,
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but maybe that is a very good way
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to start to think of things.
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There is no really pure mental processes,
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cognitive processes.
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There is no pure physical processes.
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Everything touches everything.
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There is a wholeness, and that wholeness is in motion.
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Yeah, the movement practice takes these bits
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and examines them, and here is a pragmatic thing.
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The scientist, the cerebral thinking about movement.
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This is important.
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The emotional side.
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Coloring, feeling the colors and the textures of motion.
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A lot of people who are involved with a movement practice
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never end up feeling motions,
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really focusing on how it makes you feel
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or how it feels itself.
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And then the actual movement, the action.
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So it's action, emotion, and thought.
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And those are three streams of movement,
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and they interlace together
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into this kind of braided experience and whole experience,
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and I try to bring all these aspects into my practice
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and the way that I live my life.
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I think most people who embark on a movement practice
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will first want to know which movements to do, right?
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Squats, planks, push-ups, pirouettes, right?
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Pick your movement, it could be any movement.
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Are there any sort of just basic entry points
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that you believe everybody should walk through
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as they embrace a movement practice?
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The first time and maybe even every time
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they do a movement practice.
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I mean, earlier today I had the great privilege
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of being guided through a long series of movement practices,
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and yet the first practice we did involved,
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at first anyway, stillness, not movement.
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So if you would, could you inform us
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how people should think about
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approaching a movement practice?
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What is the first layer of any good movement practice?
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So you touch the word movements,
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and it's important for me to separate it
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from the word movement, with a capital M.
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Movements are the containers, and movement is the content,
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and the content cannot be carried
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in any way without containers.
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So the first entry point is to choose containers,
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and then the second thing to make sure
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is to put specific content into those containers
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and then enjoy them.
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I tell people that it's like a cup of water,
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and you're being handed that cup of water,
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and nowadays, very often,
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people will start to chew on the cup.
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Instead of drinking the water,
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making it yours, discard the cup.
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And then maybe later, you want to have bone broth or soup,
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so you use a different container, a bowl.
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So a movement practice can start from anywhere.
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It's a rhizome, it's an open system.
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It has no center, it's decentralized,
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and it can be approached from anywhere,
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and that's its magic, and that's the benefit of it.
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Some people find the body a good entry point.
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Some people don't even enter from the body.
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Sometimes you can enter from other perspectives,
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and then inside the body, for example,
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where should we enter if we decided
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to take the body approach?
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The spine can be a nice decision,
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but some will choose just the pelvis.
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Any one of those points are valid,
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and then playfulness can be an entry point,
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an attribute, or, and this is so open,
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so I don't want to limit people and limit their minds
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in the way that they engage with a practice,
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but I also want to encourage the self-inquiry,
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am I doing movements practice,
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or am I doing a movement practice?
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So could you help me distinguish the two
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a little bit further?
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I think I understand the difference
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between sort of the noun versus the verbs,
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and in some ways, here we are dealing with the challenge
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of the barriers that language present
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to something that's physical, right?
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I mean, indeed, there may not be a,
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I have to assume there is no perfect verbal language
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There are certain movements that defy language.
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I could say somebody jumped at a particular trajectory,
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at a particular speed, and moved this limb and that limb,
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but by fractionating it, something is most definitely lost.
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So if someone wanted to, let's say,
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get in better touch with their body, in quotes,
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in order to explore the infinite space that is movement,
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how might they begin to approach that?
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Does it begin with an awareness, with practice, or both?
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It begins with education, and that's probably
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the most stable point of entry, awareness to something
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as a concept, that it is a concept,
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that there is a validity or,
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because sometimes people look for that,
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to looking at this entity, this open entity,
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and that's part of the reason why answering questions
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is not something I can do or even attempt to do.
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I believe in the power of the non-complete process,
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like making this table, but leaving something undone,
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not perfecting the product.
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Because it offers some kind of a dynamic nature of evolution
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that naturally unravels from it.
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Almost like sometimes I do it, I count reps,
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and I'll only count to nine,
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because it tends to leave people in the count,
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and it keeps going instead of giving them the 10.
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Everyone wants to end on 10.
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Yeah, which is because of the decimal system, et cetera.
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So, all kinds of things like that is also important
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with the movement idea is to discuss, to examine,
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to look, to taste, to try,
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but then also not to try to capture,
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because if you like the invisible loop of Hofstätte,
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if you look at it too closely, it's gone.
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But if you look away, it functions
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and exists just like us very powerfully
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and obviously gives us the experiences that we have.
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So, when people enter movement practice,
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it is about education,
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bringing some awareness to the fact
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that they are living in a body,
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that they are living in motion,
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that their mind is a type of movement,
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that their life is a type of movement,
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bringing attention to the movement of the emotions as well,
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bringing just attention to the fact
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that things are in motion,
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the euracletus pantare, all in flux.
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Nothing stops besides something that is the background of it
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and allows it to express, and this is the beauty of things.
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And this, for me, is the movement practice,
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is this examination and bringing this awareness into things.
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As we see it now here, I'm also aware of my body.
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I'm also aware of the way that things make me feel,
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the way that your face is communicating to me.
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And I'm not just in some limited
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and very verbal, overly verbal state,
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because it misses a lot of the beautiful flux.
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I'm going to inject some, or project some ideas,
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and perhaps you would tell me if they're ridiculous,
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potentially useful, or useful.
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As I understand what we're talking about now
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and what we've discussed earlier is that movement
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can and should be incorporated into one's entire life.
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I've even heard you say that even before
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getting out of bed in the morning,
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one can experience movement and it doesn't necessarily
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have to be of the intimate kind with somebody else.
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It can be paying attention to the rhythm of one's breath
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or how you get out of the bed,
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or actually in anticipation of you arriving here today,
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I noticed that as I was going up and down the stairs
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in this house, that I was injecting a little bit
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of playfulness in the way that I might have many,
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many decades ago, but haven't for a very long time.
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And I asked myself whether or not
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that's what Ido is referring to when he talks about
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threading this body awareness throughout the day,
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as opposed to, but of course not exclusive from just saying,
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I have 45 minutes, I'm going to do movement practice
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before I shower and have some dinner, right?
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I have to imagine both are helpful,
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but in terms of moving through the day
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and having bodily awareness,
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clearly there are an infinite number of ways
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one could do that.
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Maybe you could just share a few.
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You mentioned, I mean, one could pay attention
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to their breath, could pay attention to posture,
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and this notion of play is a very attractive
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or as we say in science, it's a sticky concept,
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a concept that kind of draws one in.
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Maybe if you would, could you share with us
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just some ideas to get people thinking about
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or maybe even incorporating movement practice
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into their day and maybe even touch on
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the potential role of play or playfulness?
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Yeah, those are some good directions.
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I think one thing is this, what you call wordlessness.
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I have been recommending to people nonverbal experiences
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and the awareness of the body,
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which is not really the awareness of the body,
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as you know, not purely or not fully,
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the awareness of motion is a very good way to start,
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to bring awareness to that layer
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and that layer will start to get clarified
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more and more and more the more you practice
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and then it will enable for most people
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a safe haven away from many states and difficulties
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and will unlock a lot of potential attributes
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and strengths and freshness and a lot of beautiful things.
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Really, one of the really perspectives about who we are
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comes from a person who influenced my thinking,
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a lot Moshe Feldenkrais, the late Moshe Feldenkrais,
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and he talks about the body as the core three elements,
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the core nervous system.
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Two is the mechanical system of muscle, skeleton, et cetera,
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and the third is the environment,
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which is a unique way to look at it.
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And he talks about how the nervous system
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is both receiving information from the outside
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and from the inside and in the first years of life,
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you work a lot on differentiating what is me
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and what is not me.
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And I think movement, when you feel movement,
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you feel the movement of the outside
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that is, of course, arriving to you and receiving this
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and also your own internal movement
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and the same can be said for stillness.
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So, bringing the attention into those layers,
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it's a tricky thing.
link |
It's one of those elusive things to look at,
link |
but it's definitely of huge benefit to start to train it,
link |
start to practice it, to feel not our thoughts,
link |
not necessarily our body,
link |
but to start to recognize the dynamic nature,
link |
the flux, the motion, and it occurs in all these layers.
link |
So, you will need to find it in multiple locations
link |
before you start to more and more make it your own,
link |
make it really yours.
link |
How, for example, simple pragmatic things.
link |
I used to do this, I spent some time in Hong Kong.
link |
I would need to get my practice in,
link |
but I'm really turned off from commercial gyms
link |
and there is not a lot of nature accessible there,
link |
so I would just strap on my bag
link |
and I would walk the streets of Hong Kong,
link |
which are very crowded,
link |
and then I would try to avoid touching anyone.
link |
And it would be like two hours of just like moving,
link |
involved, fully involved, fully in my body
link |
and experiencing beautiful things
link |
and enjoying and developing myself as well
link |
in all kinds of scenarios, up and down,
link |
and in the escalators and off.
link |
So, this is an example of a way to practice.
link |
And then the way that we're sitting, like these chairs,
link |
for example, our chairs are not very dynamic,
link |
but there is rocking chairs, right?
link |
And this is something I recommend for a lot of kids.
link |
Like in schools, I used to rock on the chair,
link |
which is very common.
link |
Yeah, I used to have my skateboard underneath my chair
link |
and roll it back and forth
link |
and the teacher would tell me to stop.
link |
And I'm just slowly, little by little,
link |
trying to get the most subtle movement I could
link |
without them telling me they were going to take it away.
link |
Which is probably horrible,
link |
horrible advice and instruction.
link |
Just like sit up straight and chew with your mouth closed
link |
because they remove a lot of the self-education
link |
and a lot of the self-development
link |
and the practicum and discoveries that are necessary
link |
and even will damage focus
link |
and thinking processes in some ways.
link |
So, for example, I would make the chairs even more mobile
link |
and I would support more motion
link |
and then I would be able to bring attention there,
link |
but I would also be able to bring attention away from it
link |
into other things.
link |
And it keeps refreshing me.
link |
So I don't become stale, the water doesn't stand.
link |
This is the beauty of movement.
link |
So you can focus for long periods of time
link |
and do incredible things with the mind,
link |
with focus, with awareness, attention.
link |
And it's with skin in the game.
link |
So I'm not talking as some meditator
link |
and he's describing the act of being very focused,
link |
but then I put a stick on the edge of his fingers
link |
and I tell him, balance it.
link |
Everyone can do it for 10 seconds.
link |
And I tell him, okay, now hold it 10 minutes.
link |
And you see that the skill has, he has no skin in the game.
link |
It wasn't developed in various scenarios,
link |
so there is a delusion that start to develop.
link |
And that's how movement keeps me very honest
link |
and humble in the way that I view humility
link |
and in a way that protects me and keeps me fresh.
link |
I love the example of moving through the crowded street
link |
with a backpack because of the way
link |
in which it's completely adaptive
link |
to the situation you happen to be in
link |
and highlights the fact that one doesn't need a gym
link |
or any specific scenario.
link |
Although we will certainly touch
link |
on ideal learning circumstances for movement
link |
and some of the work that you're doing, of course.
link |
The less of your own personal practice
link |
and understanding and knowledge you've done,
link |
the more toys you need.
link |
The more you've really worked on yourself,
link |
the more high-tech you are.
link |
The more low-tech are your tools,
link |
the more high-tech you are.
link |
And this is the most advanced technology
link |
by far on this planet with all the advancement.
link |
It doesn't even start to scratch,
link |
and you know it from the way that we understand the eyes
link |
all the way to, with all due respect to the Boston Robotics,
link |
a five-year-old motion movements
link |
or animal motion was very underdeveloped
link |
still relatively to us systems.
link |
So important to remind ourselves.
link |
A lot can be done with the body and gravity.
link |
Floor, a piece of floor, a piece of wall.
link |
A corner of a room is a beautiful scenario
link |
which you can become, discover in and play in.
link |
But we are not so developed, so we don't see those options.
link |
And this is something that I try to stimulate,
link |
and that's why I made it a point
link |
to avoid any of the big sponsorship and high-tech tools.
link |
At one point I brought a stick into big conventions,
link |
or sometimes I use a shirt with holes in it,
link |
just like I use shirt as a point to make
link |
when I'm addressing a crowd to keep things
link |
where it's important.
link |
And it's important, we are important,
link |
and our experience is important.
link |
And we have to be very careful.
link |
These habits and these directions,
link |
they come from many times good intention,
link |
but they are the devil many times.
link |
They turn into the devil, just like our technology nowadays
link |
and what is happening with people,
link |
with depression, with meaninglessness,
link |
also with the body in various perspectives,
link |
or even I will also flip it into high-performance sports.
link |
And their price, because for me
link |
this is not a movement practice.
link |
It erases the person in the center of it.
link |
And then came places like skateboarding or breakdancing,
link |
where somebody with a disability
link |
becomes the best in the world,
link |
turns it into the biggest advantage,
link |
but you would never be accepted into gymnastics class.
link |
And that change, to place change in the center,
link |
You touched on mention of a few sports.
link |
Maybe it was Charles Polquin,
link |
or maybe it was another trainer that I heard once say
link |
that for kids, one of the worst things they can do
link |
is over-specialize in a particular sport.
link |
The idea being that it leads to improvements in performance
link |
in a very narrow domain,
link |
but they raise the idea of a sport that is
link |
that it perhaps also constrains the development
link |
of the nervous system such that certain emotional states,
link |
certain intellectual abilities will forever be shut off
link |
because of the intense plasticity that occurs early in life.
link |
The more I learn from you,
link |
the more I'm thinking that that statement
link |
really should be extended to all of life.
link |
And I loved to remind people,
link |
because I started off as a developmental neurobiologist,
link |
that development doesn't start and end.
link |
You don't have to do that.
link |
Just that development doesn't start and end.
link |
You don't have childhood and adulthood.
link |
Our life is one long developmental arc
link |
from birth until death, however long that might be.
link |
So if one is going to be anti-specialist,
link |
maybe even we call that a generalist,
link |
what does that look like?
link |
What are the different domains of movement practice?
link |
And as I asked this, I realized I am in serious danger
link |
of fractionating movement into a list of words
link |
like strength and speed and explosiveness and suppleness,
link |
a word that I've heard you use before.
link |
And yet I think for most people,
link |
because we think in words often,
link |
some of those categories can be useful.
link |
So let's say I was going to embark on a movement practice
link |
or a child was going to embark on a movement practice
link |
either throughout the day
link |
or for a dedicated period of time.
link |
What are the sorts of categories of movement
link |
that I might want to think about?
link |
Ballistic movement, smooth movement.
link |
Maybe you could just enrich us
link |
with some of the landscape around that.
link |
Okay, first I'll address the first part that you mentioned.
link |
And I've learned from you about certain changes
link |
in the way that things develop later in life
link |
versus earlier in life.
link |
And you're right, this was something
link |
that Charles Poliquin also mentioned
link |
and I learned from back in the day as well from him,
link |
which can seem dark a bit and kind of hopeless,
link |
but then you should go beyond that.
link |
One thing that does seem to appear for me
link |
when I look around is these concepts of unique postures.
link |
And I think this is true for postures of thought,
link |
emotional postures and movement postures.
link |
Truly, earlier in life,
link |
we are creating these unique postures
link |
and they get into these drawers or like a language, letters.
link |
Later in life, the process moves more towards integration
link |
of these unique postures into all different organizations.
link |
The beauty of it is that you can use very few postures
link |
to create many possibilities,
link |
just like Leibniz search for a language
link |
that contain one symbol only versus two,
link |
which he discovered.
link |
And this is something that is often seen,
link |
like you take someone who moves in a certain way
link |
and you teach him all these new sports or techniques,
link |
but essentially, if you look deeply and you're sensitive,
link |
you see it's the same postures
link |
that he will have to work with till the end of his life.
link |
The same thinking postures.
link |
And this is really problematic,
link |
where we are not freeing the mind beyond
link |
this, how would I say, a scaffolding of thinking
link |
and we are actually letting go of the content.
link |
We get more and more focused
link |
on the way of thinking versus the thinking itself
link |
or habitual ways and forms of thinking,
link |
associative thinking, et cetera, and emotionally the same.
link |
We are constructing these emotional postures
link |
and then we have to go through the rest of our lives
link |
working with that.
link |
So, this is the dark side, right?
link |
But of course, there are always possibilities,
link |
both, I think, invading this early system to some extent,
link |
even if it's 5% or 7% or whatever percent.
link |
And also, on the freeing yourself
link |
of going beyond all postures, period,
link |
working with the postures you have,
link |
but towards a posture-less way of doing things.
link |
So, this is something interesting to work,
link |
when people work with movements,
link |
but finally are able to go into movement
link |
and this magic starts to happen
link |
and then the techniques fall apart
link |
and something appears and it's a phase change.
link |
It's a transformation.
link |
It's not a, it's a binary moment.
link |
There is a jump there, for sure,
link |
and it's very rare to see,
link |
both in thinking and emotionally and in other ways.
link |
We have many names for it
link |
and some talk about enlightenment
link |
and some talk about all kinds of processes related to it
link |
and I think most of them are shadows of the sun,
link |
but it's not the sun itself, really.
link |
And then talking about ways of thinking about movement.
link |
This is where I use something I call my slice and dice.
link |
Because of the problem of using words and definitions
link |
and categories, I try to create a lot of them
link |
and I write them on the paper
link |
and then I crumble them, throw them into the bin
link |
and I keep doing it all my life.
link |
The writing them down and the geeking on it
link |
is very important, also very important to let it go.
link |
I tell people, what you forgot is not the same,
link |
forgetting is not the same as never knowing it.
link |
The crumbling and throwing away is a form of forgetting,
link |
but it leaves some kind of a homeopathic trace behind.
link |
So let's take some slice and dice and try to look at it.
link |
Here is a physical one, contraction, relaxation.
link |
and pretty much everything falls on this spectrum.
link |
Also in terms of analyzing a person or yourself,
link |
you can tell me if you feel closer to this side
link |
or closer to that side.
link |
And then it allows you to examine your practices,
link |
how many of the practices are moving you towards balance
link |
and how many it's your addiction
link |
of just doing what you're good at versus what you need.
link |
Here is another example, physical culture.
link |
So we have the dance, really,
link |
working with internal concepts and expressing them,
link |
abstract concepts, expression.
link |
Second perspective, the martial concept,
link |
but not in the sense of just fighting, but also partnering,
link |
working with another person,
link |
a dynamic entity that is communicating with you.
link |
The third one is I call the elements,
link |
working with the environment.
link |
The next one is a somatic one,
link |
is the internal practice.
link |
And of course they are all gray zones
link |
and another one is object manipulatory,
link |
which you can think of it also as the environment,
link |
but it's more small objects, heavy objects,
link |
many objects, few objects.
link |
And then you can look at this way of thinking
link |
and you can say, oh, I have many of my practices
link |
in this direction, but not so,
link |
and you can draw it for yourself.
link |
So that's another perspective.
link |
And this way I use dozens of perspectives
link |
and with the years, it gives people a sense
link |
of where they want to go, how they want to do it,
link |
and what they need to address
link |
versus what they like to address, et cetera.
link |
Those different bins are very helpful.
link |
I really appreciate that you mentioned
link |
that people will often practice what they're good at
link |
as opposed to what they need.
link |
In gym culture, we refer to this as the guy
link |
that always skips leg day type person, right?
link |
Big upper body, skinny legs,
link |
or you'll see people that have these enormous thick torsos
link |
and they're bench pressing all day,
link |
but they clearly need to pull on an object
link |
every once in a while to create some balance,
link |
but they don't do it because they, for whatever reason,
link |
they have an obsession with moving greater and greater
link |
poundage or something like that,
link |
which in certain sports like powerlifting
link |
where aesthetics aren't the goal
link |
and it's simply to push more weight off one's chest,
link |
you could imagine that there's something beneficial there.
link |
However, I think that it's really important
link |
in intellectual endeavors and in movement endeavors,
link |
if I understand correctly,
link |
to bring oneself to a place of real challenge
link |
on a regular basis.
link |
In fact, earlier today,
link |
I was in a state of constant challenge
link |
because it was all new to me.
link |
And as much as I told myself, beginner's mind,
link |
beginner's mind, beginner's mind, it's hard, I confess,
link |
to not want to do well, to perform well, right?
link |
And I think that's a natural and healthy thing.
link |
Not only natural, it is necessary.
link |
But I want you to keep it on that side
link |
and to bring something to balance it.
link |
If there is not this challenge, the process will not work.
link |
It has to be this scale.
link |
And you're talking about scales of pain, pleasure,
link |
and this is another scale.
link |
And this discomfort, again, is necessary
link |
and should be recognized as I'm in the right place.
link |
When it becomes too high and I'm unable to resolve
link |
to make any progress, I went overboard.
link |
But when it's not present, I don't do nothing here.
link |
Nothing that I'm truly interested in.
link |
I'm just gratifying myself.
link |
Wankery is, in essence,
link |
it's not about searching for the discomfort,
link |
but it's a marker.
link |
And I think the question should be,
link |
Because people do not serve themselves, in essence.
link |
They serve part, parts of it.
link |
Some kind of a fraction of themselves.
link |
And this separation of oneself from oneself,
link |
and this is also a result of the practice, a good practice.
link |
I think maybe the biggest gift I received
link |
from the practice is I can say,
link |
although it will take maybe a certain context,
link |
I am not my friend.
link |
At times I am, but many times I am not my friend.
link |
And by creating this separation,
link |
I can assume a certain stability
link |
in the face of everything all the way up
link |
to our own mortality and death,
link |
which is, and maybe beyond, who knows?
link |
Yeah, it was a striking moment for me earlier today
link |
when I was really challenged
link |
with one of the practices we were doing.
link |
And you said, this is exactly
link |
what I experienced this morning, Andrew.
link |
That's what you said.
link |
And I couldn't imagine that you were having challenges
link |
doing what I was attempting to do.
link |
And of course you weren't.
link |
I believe what you were referring to
link |
is that you had put yourself at that edge earlier in the day
link |
in which you were making failures.
link |
You were failing to execute
link |
the way that you were attempting to execute movement.
link |
I should just, to inject some neuroscience
link |
and neuroplasticity there, I can't help myself.
link |
This is what I do after all.
link |
There are beautiful data in animals and humans
link |
showing that in the seconds and minutes
link |
after a failed attempt at a motor execution of something,
link |
the forebrain is in a heightened state of focus.
link |
And when you hear it, it suddenly makes perfect sense.
link |
Of course, why would the nervous system change
link |
unless it got a cue to change?
link |
And the cue almost always comes in the form of frustration.
link |
The ah, or as we said earlier, nah.
link |
The nah signal is the one that preps you
link |
to extract more learning from the subsequent trials.
link |
And yet for a lot of people, they feel that,
link |
oh, that failure to execute
link |
or even to approximate execution,
link |
and they feel and experience that ah, negative signal,
link |
and they lean out of the practice.
link |
They start to depart either mentally or physically or both.
link |
And if there's anything I think that perhaps we can offer
link |
is this understanding that that edge, as some people call it,
link |
or that failures aren't just necessary,
link |
they are part of the learning process.
link |
They are the entry gate to neuroplasticity.
link |
Yes, contextualizing or re-contextualizing,
link |
that sensation is something I work a lot with
link |
and I just remind it to people, and I also remind it to myself.
link |
And if it wasn't difficult
link |
and we didn't need to redo it again and again,
link |
we wouldn't be again on the correct scale,
link |
which is dynamic and moving, just like rolling downhill.
link |
So there is definitely a necessity to succeed, to orient.
link |
There is certain aspects that you want to achieve,
link |
but then there is also the letting go of it
link |
and the de-ambitioning of it.
link |
And within that tension, the plus and the minus comes movement.
link |
And that's how the...
link |
And again, if I stretch it too far away
link |
or if I increase one of them too much,
link |
then I would have some issues.
link |
But you will, with practice,
link |
learn to recognize the optimal point of progression.
link |
Of course, it takes many years and a lot of play and exposure
link |
to get a sense of it regardless of the layer in which it is applied.
link |
So I'm sure in your field and in your pursuits,
link |
you are already aware of it and applying it in your life,
link |
talking about focus, talking about ways of thinking, creativity, etc.
link |
But then it's enough that I pull into another perspective
link |
and you will see that people are specialists
link |
and then they don't have really the real essence of the concept.
link |
It's applied specifically.
link |
The one who changes all the time gets the general component
link |
because what appears when everything changes,
link |
that is that new entity.
link |
Everything changes, something stays.
link |
That's what we want to get, this concept and this understanding.
link |
I've heard the statement before, we are just a meat vehicle, right?
link |
We're just a sack of cells and I truly despise that statement
link |
because first of all, it deprives us of all meaning of our lives
link |
and we can go down the route of philosophy
link |
as to whether or not there's meaning or not.
link |
But more importantly, it divorces us from the idea
link |
that the body and brain are interconnected
link |
and have at least equal value at any one moment.
link |
They're informing each other.
link |
Emotions inform movement, movement informs emotions.
link |
One thing that I've heard you say before
link |
and I'd really love to hear you embellish on
link |
is this important principle that human beings
link |
are truly unique in terms of the enormous range of movements
link |
that we can perform.
link |
And yet we are excellent, maybe superior to all other species
link |
at certain types of movement.
link |
The one that comes to mind is walking, strides, striding.
link |
So maybe we could just explore that idea
link |
because obviously a cheetah is very fast.
link |
The gibbon seems to have a lot of proficiency
link |
at grabbing and swinging from branches,
link |
but human beings perform an enormous
link |
or can potentially perform an enormous array of movements.
link |
Do you think all human beings are potentially able
link |
to explore all the different types of movement?
link |
And if so, how does one approach that?
link |
So basically what I'm doing is I'm tabling a concept
link |
which is not range of motion, right?
link |
For the gym rats, discard with range of motion.
link |
I'm talking about the variety of movements.
link |
First, it's not important what I think,
link |
if it's possible or not possible,
link |
or if it's even possible for you or not possible for you.
link |
What is important is what you truly want to do,
link |
what you truly are after.
link |
And it's important for me because many times
link |
this way of thinking about things is already limited.
link |
I like to say a man doesn't go to the ocean
link |
to empty it with a spoon.
link |
A lot of the types of dressing up of the concepts nowadays
link |
is trying to fit an elephant into the hole in the needle.
link |
Like for example, the concept of practice.
link |
And then our lives, as if we have a life.
link |
We have some kind of a stream of behaviors.
link |
We have, there is an argument of free will, et cetera.
link |
There is a multiplicity.
link |
Definitely a man is a legion.
link |
That's the real meaning of that phrase.
link |
One day you wake up like this.
link |
I say, Andrew, let's meet tomorrow at 7 a.m.,
link |
but I don't know who's gonna wake up tomorrow.
link |
And then you send me a text message.
link |
I'm feeling off, right, at 6.55 and go back to sleep.
link |
So, examining that and seeing that,
link |
I think, frees you up eventually
link |
and start to orient you in a better direction.
link |
So, what do you want to do and what,
link |
but in the orientation of also what you need to do,
link |
what you sense and what you are developing
link |
as an evolutionary direction for you.
link |
This is the important bit.
link |
Is it possible for everyone to engage
link |
in certain specific physical movement?
link |
For example, in Scandinavian countries,
link |
the squat is not very approachable.
link |
It's very difficult.
link |
They're more built for dragging heavy things
link |
and also in this climate, I guess,
link |
it makes less sense to squat
link |
because you're gonna freeze there.
link |
So, this is, and then you see the squat in warm climates
link |
and it's like so open and accessible.
link |
They are very good deadlifters, usually.
link |
Not good squatters and the-
link |
They wanna get away from the ground.
link |
Yeah, the shallow hip socket, which allows one activity,
link |
but then the stability of the deep hip socket,
link |
the architecture of the hip,
link |
the femur heads, the cue angles, the shapes, et cetera.
link |
So, we are all unique and there are certain elements,
link |
which like, for example, my squat challenge is like,
link |
for most people, there is something there.
link |
But you remind people what the squat challenge is?
link |
The squat was my attempt to bring a new,
link |
fresh state of mind into the word squat.
link |
Not as a strength element,
link |
it's a fundamental resting position, really.
link |
Actually should be one of the most abundant ones.
link |
We replaced it with sitting,
link |
which is not really, doesn't work well
link |
if you're in a natural environment.
link |
It's not very comfortable, actually,
link |
to sit for long periods of time,
link |
rocks and different terrains.
link |
So, you end up lying down, standing, and squatting a lot.
link |
Also, when you're moving low and dynamic,
link |
like even collecting berries,
link |
the squat is much more dynamic and open.
link |
And then elimination is happening there.
link |
So, it's like, it's such a fundamental thing
link |
and we totally eliminated it.
link |
We eliminated many other things,
link |
overhead movements, behind the back,
link |
all kinds of back realm, what I call the back realm.
link |
It's totally absent in people's awareness.
link |
So, that was my attempt to bring it back into people.
link |
And I recommend it in order to really get the transformation
link |
going to accumulate 30 minutes a day in the squat position,
link |
unloaded, just resting down.
link |
Not correct, not erect.
link |
Many people make this mistake.
link |
They didn't read through the whole thing.
link |
It's just resting down there.
link |
And of course, you have to be mindful of dosages.
link |
Some people will get hurt if they try to do it too quickly.
link |
So, they might need a build-up process towards it.
link |
And also, I'm not talking about 30 minutes straight,
link |
but accumulation throughout the day.
link |
And this does a lot of good for digestive problems,
link |
for lower back pain, for hip pains, for knees,
link |
and generally for aging,
link |
because it's basically folding your body
link |
in the most basic way.
link |
Are you folding your body?
link |
If you're not folding your body,
link |
you will lose the foldability of your body.
link |
And this is probably the easiest
link |
and the most abundant way to fold a body.
link |
But this is an example of something that can be very useful
link |
with many, many people,
link |
but there will always be unique individuals
link |
which need something else.
link |
And there are benefits in examining things,
link |
and also there are benefits in getting hurt,
link |
which is not often discussed,
link |
especially not in these parts.
link |
So, I'm one of the only ones, as a teacher,
link |
that says I injured many of my students.
link |
And if I did not do that,
link |
I would be totally useless for them as well.
link |
The totally safe system has nothing to offer, practically.
link |
Nothing is totally safe,
link |
and we can, of course, we don't approach it
link |
with a ballsy or machoistic thing,
link |
but we are aware that sometimes
link |
we have to go beyond the boundaries.
link |
And hopefully those would be the small injuries
link |
that will help us avoid the big injuries.
link |
But if you try to avoid the small injuries,
link |
maybe you'll get those big injuries in there.
link |
So, examining which types and forms of movement,
link |
the location of the body,
link |
speed of execution,
link |
the type of organization of the body.
link |
Which is a whole thing that we can discuss.
link |
All of this is up for the grabs,
link |
and it's something that we have to create
link |
individual relationship with,
link |
hopefully with good guidance,
link |
where we can get the right scenarios,
link |
a facilitator of good scenarios for our learning,
link |
which is what I try to do.
link |
And less of a technical state of mind,
link |
do this ABC or, yeah, like chunking,
link |
what I really dislike.
link |
Really dislike from a long time is like,
link |
many people, they tell me,
link |
have you met this guy?
link |
He's an amazing teacher,
link |
because he chunked the process into these bits,
link |
and not even in the correct places to chunk.
link |
It's like, and it doesn't offer,
link |
it locks us, this state of mind.
link |
I talk about the chemistry model.
link |
I call it my chemistry model,
link |
where an atom, a molecule,
link |
and then a compound is conceptualized
link |
versus just chunking.
link |
So there is an actual evolution,
link |
like I call it also sketch learning.
link |
I'm not going to try to draw you,
link |
if I know anything about art and drawing.
link |
I'm going to start by capturing something very rough.
link |
And I need to practice that first,
link |
that dynamic entity before I go into the rendering
link |
and the shading, et cetera.
link |
So the same way to learn things.
link |
So big picture to small details.
link |
And unlike many of my teachers that I ran into,
link |
and I say with the greatest respect,
link |
because I don't know who taught me more,
link |
my good teachers or my worst teachers.
link |
But some of them just teach from the small details
link |
into a big picture that never arrives.
link |
Given that humans can generate such a broad array
link |
of types of movement, run, jump, duck, squat, leap,
link |
all these types of movements,
link |
do you think there's value in observing the movements
link |
of other animal species?
link |
I know I certainly enjoy watching other animals move.
link |
I think the most, one of the more spectacular animal facts
link |
that was shared with me is when I was a graduate student,
link |
someone down the hall was working on the little pedals
link |
of the chameleon, which can walk up walls.
link |
And it was a great mystery is whether or not
link |
they were suction, but it turns out they can do it
link |
in a vacuum, so it's not suction.
link |
Whether or not there was some sticky substance.
link |
And it turned out, I don't know,
link |
I feel compelled to share this with you,
link |
so I'm going to do it because I have a feeling
link |
it will lead us to an insight of some sort,
link |
that those little tiny pedals are so thin
link |
and so close together that the chameleon actually sticks
link |
to the wall by what are called van der Waal forces,
link |
meaning it's a very weak molecular force,
link |
but strong enough to stick to the wall
link |
because they are actually exchanging molecules
link |
with the surface they're on.
link |
So obviously we can't do that.
link |
And yet I spent hours,
link |
because they were in the lab next door,
link |
watching videos of these little chameleons walk.
link |
And the articulation of these feet is incredible
link |
because they're literally rolling those little pedals along
link |
in a way that kind of defies anything else I've ever seen.
link |
I told myself this was useful,
link |
A, because I thought it was interesting,
link |
but B, because I never really thought
link |
about how I articulate my foot.
link |
I've thought about being a heel striker
link |
or a toe striker when I run,
link |
and no one can tell me which one I'm supposed to be.
link |
Maybe you can tell me.
link |
But the point is, or I suppose the question is,
link |
do you think there's value in observing the extremes
link |
of animal kingdom movement as a way to inform the play space
link |
and the exploration space
link |
of our own human movement practice?
link |
I think first it's inspiring, it opens up,
link |
it opens up, but I will take it away
link |
from the romantic point of view,
link |
and I would offer another way to examine
link |
all these movements existing us in ways, in certain ways,
link |
like the work of Grokovetsky on the spine,
link |
the spinal engine, and to see how these old ways
link |
of moving, even all the way up to exoskeletons
link |
and primary, very ancient, or even single-cell things
link |
are still within us to a certain extent.
link |
And then, of course, this gets developed,
link |
like the Darwinian state of mind got stuck
link |
for many years on the survival of the fittest.
link |
But actually, I always believed,
link |
and I saw some information about it lately,
link |
that mutation is the heart of the model,
link |
not survival of the fittest.
link |
Yeah, people often hear the word mutation
link |
and they think, well, mutations are bad.
link |
There are maladaptive mutations,
link |
and then there are adaptive mutations, for sure.
link |
And in these places, the word change in the heart of it,
link |
what it wants to do, change.
link |
So it does not want to become better.
link |
There is an inherent change in it.
link |
And then, of course, the become better at XYZ fittest
link |
is the secondary perspective that arrives
link |
in relation to certain things,
link |
but there is still a stronger, more ancient driving force
link |
So for me, this is cool to see these animals
link |
take it all the way to this extreme,
link |
but it's also still reflecting within us.
link |
So I love to do, like, for example,
link |
I introduce with people spinal waves.
link |
And by bringing these waves into the body,
link |
sometimes you get weird experiences,
link |
like emotional releases, and other times,
link |
it can become an incredible tool to help an athlete
link |
which specialized and reached the top of the top,
link |
and then you defrag his system a little bit
link |
and offer him some freshness and some segmental movement,
link |
and first you fuck him up.
link |
That's usually the case.
link |
Technically, he's off, his coordination's off,
link |
but later, the growth will arrive.
link |
It's a form of playfulness.
link |
It's a form of examining things
link |
regardless of their success or failure,
link |
more understanding that change is important.
link |
And then after that, we can also look at
link |
the more competitive state of mind
link |
and the more success and failure orientation.
link |
But there is no game without change.
link |
So this is the primary one.
link |
And that's why I say, okay, you want to succeed
link |
in the tasks like we did earlier,
link |
but you stayed within the game, to sustain the game,
link |
the infinite versus finite game, right, perspective.
link |
To sustain the game means to continue to change,
link |
continue to transform, and then to win the game
link |
sometimes means game over.
link |
So it's like, yeah, within that tension,
link |
I think it's beautiful to play and to exist and to be.
link |
You mentioned something that for me
link |
is an incredibly important concept for a couple of reasons.
link |
And you mentioned these spinal waves, right?
link |
I have to assume that's taking the torso for us,
link |
you know, movement morons that I'll just refer to
link |
in coarse terms instead of thoracic spine.
link |
I mean, we'll stay away from the technical anatomy
link |
and the torso and creating movement either side to side,
link |
undulation or arching and extension of the spine.
link |
Yeah, dorsal, ventral, side to side,
link |
rotational as well as spiraling.
link |
Have you ever had the experience of yourself
link |
or other people engaging in those types of movements
link |
and experiencing particular categories of emotions?
link |
And I have a particular reason for asking this.
link |
There's no right or wrong answer, of course,
link |
but I'm just curious whether or not movement of the,
link |
let's call it the core of the body,
link |
things close to the midline as opposed to far away
link |
from the midline, like the digits far.
link |
Is there any, do you have any evidence
link |
that that can evoke a certain category of emotional states?
link |
Evidence, I have none, but I have experience
link |
and I have some thoughts about it.
link |
Ida Rolf is known to have created Rolfing
link |
or structural integration,
link |
as I said, the issues are in the tissues.
link |
And around the spine, the spine is us, as you know.
link |
It's like you can take an arm off a limb,
link |
but there's been attempts, but there is no brainy alone,
link |
this cerebral thing alone,
link |
that the spine and maybe more parts of end systems
link |
inside the torso are important.
link |
So that's why I like to start from that core entity.
link |
And then these little fluctuations,
link |
they create, they unblock things,
link |
they start to move things,
link |
and you can avoid, funny enough,
link |
mobilizing those areas by doing big frame motions
link |
and competitive motions and techniques all your life.
link |
So even some, most yogis, for example,
link |
they look extremely mobile,
link |
but then when you're actually going into the small,
link |
what I call the small frame,
link |
I borrowed this from Chinese martial arts,
link |
small frame, big frame.
link |
The big frame is these big changes
link |
of our total body in space posture.
link |
And then the small frame is barely moving,
link |
but mobilizing the little bits
link |
that comprise the same pretty much posture.
link |
So these are very beneficial,
link |
and it has totally disappeared from our physical culture.
link |
When you introduce it back,
link |
the small frame offers the big frame,
link |
but the big frame doesn't offer the small frame
link |
because, of course, the small detail
link |
come together into the big picture.
link |
So if I wanna place my body in a specific position
link |
and I have all these bits moving well,
link |
I can construct it in whatever way I want.
link |
But if I just work on the big one,
link |
most chances are I just mobilize certain areas
link |
while other areas are totally held or blocked,
link |
and then I'm specialized one more time.
link |
Take me out of this realm and I'll have difficulties.
link |
What will sit there in this stagnation?
link |
Emotion, material, thoughts, traumas.
link |
That's why people get discharges.
link |
The body, the memory is not what we think it is.
link |
That's how I believe.
link |
It is stored everywhere.
link |
And I've had those experiences.
link |
A lot of people have the opposite.
link |
When a certain emotion is evoked,
link |
they start to undulate the spine.
link |
So this can be worked from this direction
link |
or from this direction,
link |
and I believe by applying such a practice,
link |
You basically turn over the land
link |
and you are allowing things to shift
link |
and to move and to adapt.
link |
So I highly recommend it,
link |
and we teach it in a very elaborate and gradual way.
link |
And this is needed really because people,
link |
when they just go into some general recommendation,
link |
they usually just get stuck into a new pattern.
link |
Ah, that spinal wave, okay.
link |
So I've been using, again, these slice and dice,
link |
like teaching dozens of systems of moving the torso
link |
until a person is freed to really move the torso,
link |
like the language is created,
link |
the small enough units are created in your understanding
link |
from all these systems, and then you improvise.
link |
You reach the highest level of the practice.
link |
I love the answer.
link |
Let me tell you a bit of why I asked.
link |
So there's a principle in neuroscience,
link |
but especially in neuroevolution, they call it evo-devo,
link |
sometimes evolution and development, how those link.
link |
If you look at, so we have motor neurons, as you know,
link |
but for the audience that live in our spinal cord
link |
that cause transmission and contraction of the muscles
link |
allow us to move our limbs.
link |
And then we have motor neurons up here
link |
called upper motor neurons that control the motor,
link |
So once something is reflexive or learned,
link |
we're not thinking about it, so to speak.
link |
We mainly use the lower motor neurons.
link |
We know this because you can do an experiment.
link |
It's a rather barbaric experiment,
link |
but it's been done many times,
link |
called creating a decerebrate cat.
link |
You actually remove the neocortex,
link |
and these cats will walk on a treadmill.
link |
It's called fictive motion.
link |
No problem at all.
link |
There are human beings who don't have a neocortex,
link |
or much of their neocortex is missing.
link |
They generate perfectly fine movement.
link |
The pattern has been downloaded.
link |
And it's truly downloaded into the spine
link |
and the connection between the spine and muscles.
link |
Now, the motor neurons that control the spinal waves,
link |
as you call them, are of a particular category.
link |
They have a molecular signature, a physiological signature.
link |
They were identified by, he's dead now,
link |
but a biologist at Columbia University named Tom Jessel
link |
and many of his scientific offspring.
link |
Here's what's interesting.
link |
In fish or in animals that really only have the opportunity
link |
to undulate and flap their little, you know, fins,
link |
the motor neurons that control undulation in those animals
link |
are identical molecularly to the motor neurons
link |
that control the spinal undulation in humans.
link |
What's been added in human evolution
link |
are extra rows, literally,
link |
categories of molecularly distinct neurons
link |
so that as you move from the center of the body outward,
link |
unlike a fish, which can move its fins,
link |
but can't actually, it doesn't have digits,
link |
we have special motor neurons to move these little bits,
link |
these bits, these bits, and I can't do a spinal wave,
link |
but I can do the mudras thing, like the belly thing.
link |
That comes from seeing the movie E.T. when I was a kid
link |
and puffing out my stomach and then realizing
link |
that I could wave it, but only in one direction
link |
and currently not up.
link |
Anyway, the yogis out there can chuckle at that, but-
link |
The yogis actually do it to the side.
link |
I don't know if I can do that.
link |
Anyway, my spinal wave is weak, but I'll work on it.
link |
But what I find so interesting about these layers of,
link |
I don't want to say sophistication,
link |
but with evolution came the addition
link |
of more pools of opportunity.
link |
These motor neuron pools, as they're called,
link |
are opportunity to engage in new,
link |
more elaborate types of movement.
link |
But with each new pool became the opportunity
link |
to create combinations of new movement.
link |
And so the reason I asked you why spinal waves
link |
create one category of movement is that
link |
if you touch a fish on one side of its body,
link |
it moves to the opposite side.
link |
It never moves toward it.
link |
But earlier we were doing a practice somewhat similar
link |
of testing this similar reflex.
link |
And sometimes I or someone will move toward a touch.
link |
We don't deviate to the opposite side.
link |
So I have this untested, at least formally tested hypothesis
link |
that movements of small digits and portions of our distal,
link |
as they're called, far from the midline body parts,
link |
evoke different sensations,
link |
maybe even far more subtle sensations
link |
than movements of the core of our body
link |
and the stuff closer to the spine.
link |
Again, it's just a theory,
link |
but I'm grateful for your answer
link |
because it lands at least in the general vector direction
link |
The central orientation is mostly gone from our culture.
link |
We don't even walk, basically, these days.
link |
If you look at traditional culture,
link |
the amount of walking you do on a rest day,
link |
And so we started to create technologies
link |
to bring everything into the periphery,
link |
controlling it with the fingertips, et cetera.
link |
So we have incredible neurological development
link |
relating to this, but our central patterns,
link |
swimming, running, jumping, throwing,
link |
throwing is not pushing away.
link |
That's an example, right?
link |
Some people, when you give them a ball to throw,
link |
you can tell if they've never thrown a ball before.
link |
Yeah, they throw like a girl.
link |
That is often said here in the US.
link |
And it's, of course, unfair,
link |
but it relates to experience, right?
link |
That is less maybe promoted or offered for females.
link |
So you get this peripheral pattern
link |
instead of a central generated pattern
link |
that progresses towards the extremities.
link |
One thing I wanted to ask you is,
link |
I know an area that is not often mentioned
link |
is that some of these ancient patterns and systems
link |
are primary in many ways.
link |
Hence, those newer developments inside of us
link |
are constrained by using the connections
link |
running through these ancient systems.
link |
Hence, we are much more limited by the gene pool.
link |
We are hitchhikers on a piece of DNA, I like to say.
link |
And that gene pool is driving something so primary
link |
that even when you are in kind of the driver's seat
link |
in your eyes, you're actually not,
link |
or you're being totally constrained by that.
link |
And I wanted to hear about this.
link |
Yeah, recently we had a guest on the podcast
link |
named Eric Jarvis.
link |
He's a professor at Rockefeller
link |
who was offered a position to dance
link |
with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company.
link |
So an accomplished dancer and comes from a musical family,
link |
chose to become a neuroscientist instead
link |
and study speech and language.
link |
But he said something incredible,
link |
several incredible things.
link |
Really looking forward to getting your reflections on.
link |
First of all, he said that when you look at the species
link |
in the kingdom of animals, including us,
link |
that have elaborate language and true song,
link |
they all also have the capacity to dance.
link |
All the, it turns out hummingbirds actually have a dance
link |
and a song capacity that perhaps,
link |
and this is the going idea now in neuroscience
link |
and evolution of the brain,
link |
that singing actually came before finally articulated
link |
speech and language.
link |
That voice involved first to sing, to communicate.
link |
I mean, to enunciate, ugh, or ugh, or you know, or mm.
link |
But then song may have come first.
link |
Where you have song, you have dance
link |
and the capacity to dance,
link |
which of course is movement of the body.
link |
And where you have song and dance,
link |
you always find that those species
link |
can generate elaborate language.
link |
Now, the simple version of this is, okay,
link |
sophisticated brains tend to create clusters
link |
of sophisticated capabilities, but the other possibility,
link |
and it's the one that Jarvis proposes,
link |
and I think it's in line with what you're perhaps
link |
raising here, is the idea that movement of the body
link |
and range and sophistication of movement of the body
link |
through all these different systems
link |
may have actually promoted or even driven the evolution
link |
of the things that we think of as, you know,
link |
speech and language and the ability to have multiple words
link |
for the same concept or to have elaborate
link |
articulation of speech.
link |
I find this incredibly attractive as an idea
link |
because certainly from, as a hierarchy of needs,
link |
we needed to move first to survive and to mate
link |
and to flee and to attack.
link |
It makes perfect sense to me that the layers
link |
would be built up fundamentally from the body to the mind
link |
and not the other way around.
link |
So that's one piece.
link |
And then the other piece, which I'll just share
link |
for any reflections you might have,
link |
that just blew me away was Jarvis told me that when we read,
link |
if, and this has been done experimentally,
link |
if one records the EMG, the low level muscular activity
link |
in the larynx and pharynx,
link |
we are actually repeating the words that we read,
link |
but so subtly so that we don't actually speak them out
link |
unless there's some sort of neurologic deficit,
link |
which some people have.
link |
Some people mumble why they read,
link |
but what that tells me is that language is movement
link |
and movement is language.
link |
So again, we have this convergence,
link |
but at a very basic level,
link |
I'd love your reflections on, those are all his ideas.
link |
I want to say, I'm just repeating what he said
link |
and not nearly as precisely as he did,
link |
but how do you think of movement
link |
as either the foundation of language
link |
or as its own language that perhaps even defies words?
link |
Wow, those are beautiful perspectives
link |
and I definitely feel the same.
link |
There's a lot to say about singing and dancing as well
link |
and also as a form of ancient programs of transmission.
link |
Sometimes there is this, in some ancient practices,
link |
the mantras and people don't realize
link |
that they are tantric practices.
link |
They contain a form of vibrating and breathing
link |
all tied together into a very elaborate way
link |
to promote a certain effect.
link |
And how would you do something like this in ancient times?
link |
This is ingenious.
link |
We, even until today, we need a full book
link |
to describe something like this
link |
and it wouldn't work as well.
link |
So it's like a very ancient form of transmission.
link |
The more accurate we became with the language,
link |
the more dead it became
link |
because it is less of a movement entity.
link |
It is less of a dynamic entity from its nature.
link |
And that's why Yukio Mishima says it's corrupting.
link |
So definitely, definitely the,
link |
the conducing force or the primary force for me
link |
is movement that is experienced.
link |
Every time we talk about movement,
link |
basically, even now, we are spilling it into a container
link |
to call it what it is, but it is beyond that.
link |
So then it is applied into dancing,
link |
into singing, into language.
link |
There is no other language that I see as a primary mode.
link |
And this is a nature of space, time, things moving.
link |
So I think everything moves into the direction
link |
of understanding that more and more.
link |
And maybe it's not so popular to call it movement.
link |
People have some connotations and it's okay.
link |
You can throw away this word and put another word
link |
and we probably need to do that also, like regularly.
link |
Like, I start to see the end of this word for me.
link |
Things get corrupted again, overused, abused,
link |
and then we need a new word.
link |
And that's, even that word is only needed for communication
link |
and for specific processes of education, exchange.
link |
It's important to stay within the experiences.
link |
It's important to continue to promote scenarios
link |
in which the experience is primary.
link |
A more open experience, let's say,
link |
and not try to hold down and define overly accurately,
link |
or if it's done, throwing it away and starting again.
link |
So there is no winning concept.
link |
You got to the winning concept, you got nothing.
link |
You were able to grab it, you were able to,
link |
this is very science, right?
link |
Like, we got it, we got it.
link |
And then it turns out to be nothing.
link |
And more and more time passes,
link |
I feel science is becoming more humble
link |
and things are being discussed in this way.
link |
And because really what the science do,
link |
report the sun came up a certain amount
link |
of billions of times and then tomorrow
link |
it will come up again, statistics.
link |
Yeah, it's good prediction.
link |
Yeah, but we can go beyond.
link |
There is something inside of us that can go beyond.
link |
Hard to communicate, I can't offer it right now here,
link |
but I have the experience and thankfully I have a practice
link |
and a way to sense it, to feel it, and to re-examine it.
link |
And then we can talk about it and have something from that.
link |
Edward Wilson, the great sociobiologist,
link |
he actually founded the field of sociobiology,
link |
E.O. Wilson, they call him Edward Wilson,
link |
had this beautiful word and indeed named a book.
link |
Actually the word was better than the book, sorry Wilson,
link |
but the book was a little bit meandering for my taste.
link |
But then again, he's the Harvard professor, not me.
link |
Well, Stanford's pretty darn good.
link |
This word is consilience, this idea of a leaping together
link |
of divergent forms of knowledge
link |
to create a truly valuable concept, which I love.
link |
I love it because of course I'm formally trained
link |
as a scientist, I look at things mainly
link |
through the lens of neuroscience,
link |
but experience is real and observation is real.
link |
And even in the field of medicine,
link |
you have double blind placebo controlled clinical trials
link |
and then you have case studies, N of one, right?
link |
Not often discussed, right?
link |
I mean, H.M., the most famous example in neuroscience
link |
of a patient that had no hippocampus informed us more
link |
about the process of memory and indeed the function
link |
of the hippocampus than thousands
link |
of independent experiments that followed.
link |
So you can't have one, you need all these different forms
link |
of exploration, which is, I think we share the belief,
link |
if I may, that convergent forms of knowledge,
link |
eventually this process of consilience
link |
can eject a new concept.
link |
And yet the challenge again is that if we don't have
link |
a language for it, it becomes hard to transmit.
link |
One of the things that I find incredibly,
link |
I'll use this word again, sticky,
link |
is this notion of movement culture.
link |
I don't know who coined that phrase,
link |
or I've seen it in the circles and accounts
link |
around your Instagram account and others,
link |
I don't know if that's a phrase that you coined,
link |
but this idea of engaging in movement practice with others,
link |
whether or not it's dance or other movement practices,
link |
because it's so dynamic, there's the unpredictability of it.
link |
Even to like today, two practitioners
link |
at vastly different levels of knowledge and experience
link |
in movement practice, there's information,
link |
I like to think, to be gained from both sides.
link |
So one thing that I've heard you say before,
link |
which really resonated with me is this idea
link |
that people have, maybe in particular in the US,
link |
have this concept of, oh, I have my yoga friends
link |
or the people I dance with are distinct
link |
from my family friends, are distinct from,
link |
but as you pointed out, gathering around movement
link |
is an age-old tradition, and that perhaps
link |
we'd be better off not thinking about people
link |
we exercise with or train with,
link |
but that friendship and connection made through movement
link |
is perhaps the most valuable form of connection.
link |
Yeah, I think it's a product of those practices
link |
that are maybe not so aware or not so movement-oriented
link |
in the open sense, and then you get this sensation
link |
with people, but alone we do nothing.
link |
So much so that we're never alone, also on the inside,
link |
and we will manufacture and produce entities inside.
link |
So we're constantly in a dynamic exchange,
link |
cultural exchange, and practically,
link |
I learned this lesson in Capoeira.
link |
It's a cultural manifestation.
link |
Things happen within this context.
link |
We rub against reality.
link |
We rub against each other, and their movement occurs,
link |
and their insight is to be gained, and development happens.
link |
And then comes other thoughts, collective knowledge
link |
versus self-knowledge.
link |
We are transmitting knowledge.
link |
If we go on top of some mountain, 20 people,
link |
20 normal individuals, and we spend 20 years
link |
just fighting, four hours in the morning,
link |
four hours in the afternoon.
link |
We do it for 20 years, but we're isolated
link |
from any other source of knowledge.
link |
We would still not reach anything
link |
that a very young fighter these days has.
link |
We will be unable to develop those techniques,
link |
That's where collective knowledge comes in,
link |
and transmission jumps us forward.
link |
But what is the problem with that?
link |
Staying within just those technical constraints,
link |
and never making it yours.
link |
That's the part of self-knowledge.
link |
The digestion of this collective information
link |
until it becomes digested and becomes part of yourselves,
link |
and then you are it versus you are doing it.
link |
And this is a clear separation that you can see in sports
link |
on a very high level and on a not so high level.
link |
Even though I would be honest if I say
link |
that some people reach very far
link |
just with collective knowledge
link |
and a very technical approach,
link |
and others reach extremely far with very little of it.
link |
And there is always outliers.
link |
There are always outliers in that case.
link |
Another thought I had when you mentioned evo-devo.
link |
Evolution, development is also the Greek concepts
link |
of poiesis and pisis.
link |
The growing of the seed into the tree,
link |
and the other process of the manufacturing
link |
of the chair from the tree.
link |
Two processes of development, evolution, very different.
link |
One from everything to something,
link |
the other from nothing to something.
link |
One is accumulation-based, one is subtraction-based.
link |
Both of these processes relate to collective knowledge,
link |
self-knowledge, but they're not exactly just that.
link |
And what should we do?
link |
This is a question that my friend Rasmus,
link |
he asks in his thesis and thoughts.
link |
What is the ultimate for us?
link |
Should we manufacture our chair
link |
or should we grow into the tree?
link |
Civilize the mind, live savage the body.
link |
Is it in this way?
link |
Or should the mind also be left wild?
link |
Wild and wise is a nice combination of words
link |
that I like to place together, wild-wise.
link |
So, this is something that I try to bring
link |
into the way that I live my life and my practice.
link |
And I try to bring the information and the wisdom
link |
and the collective knowledge,
link |
but I also try to let go of more and more
link |
until an essence is gleaned, until something is appearing
link |
and because everything was already there.
link |
For example, if I'm sitting here,
link |
all the movements are already occurring.
link |
All the possibilities are...
link |
So, it's just about, I open this window,
link |
the air would come from here.
link |
If I open this window, the air would come.
link |
I don't need to drive my motion.
link |
I need to discover what is stopping it from happening.
link |
Something is constantly holding and when we remove this,
link |
immediately movement appears.
link |
This is real deep movement versus the driven movement
link |
that is very wasteful at times, like walking.
link |
You see people pushing through the walk.
link |
Instead of the controlled falling that it should be,
link |
fighting, punching, to manufacture the strength
link |
and then to have someone who knows how to facilitate
link |
the conditions in which you are knocked out.
link |
It doesn't knock you out.
link |
It hits versus I hit, like Bruce Lee said.
link |
So, this is a beautiful thing to examine
link |
and to work within that.
link |
So, to see, am I skateboarding?
link |
Am I using this perspective or am I trying to control
link |
because of risk and danger, I'm trying to overly control
link |
something that actually can never be controlled.
link |
The way to control it is to let go of the control
link |
and then, okay, but what about all this collection
link |
of information, knowledge that I can bring in?
link |
Where do I wanna play?
link |
I can play down here or I can play up here.
link |
The collective knowledge is maybe take you further in
link |
and then you're still gonna need to do your individual work.
link |
A lot of people like to romanticize on that
link |
and you don't need teachers, we don't need nothing,
link |
we don't need information.
link |
It's not fully honest.
link |
You don't need, but depends on where you wanna function
link |
and how you wanna function.
link |
They shouldn't be demonized,
link |
but they shouldn't be overly glorified as well.
link |
You mentioned about the opportunity for movement,
link |
perhaps even all forms of movement
link |
coming from deep within.
link |
It raises to mind in the neuroscience of motor systems,
link |
we talk about motor neurons, as I described,
link |
the ones that actually evoke contraction of muscles.
link |
And then there's this category of neurons
link |
that isn't often discussed, but certainly exist,
link |
aren't often discussed in kind of popular nomenclature
link |
of neuroscience, which is the premotor system.
link |
Most of our movements are the reflection
link |
of certain patterns of transmission breaking through
link |
from the premotor to the actual motor.
link |
In other words, we are always
link |
in a anticipatory mode of movement.
link |
And I think you, the way you describe it,
link |
you clearly intuitively understand this,
link |
you feel it and you recognize it.
link |
Think of it as it's like a layer of neurons
link |
that's constantly humming, ready to go.
link |
And it's the release of these gates
link |
that allows movement to occur in a particular way,
link |
could be very smooth, could be very ballistic.
link |
Which is DNA, the same, turning off and on,
link |
but all the information is already there.
link |
And then the possibilities are just allowed.
link |
So I'm allowed, I don't do free will already,
link |
but I am allowed to do.
link |
I am, there are possibilities
link |
and I am dancing within that dance,
link |
but I am not the only dancer.
link |
So that's my sensation, at least with most
link |
states of being, let's say.
link |
Maybe there is other states that could be reached,
link |
a stability that will arrive from the waters,
link |
from the movement of the waters.
link |
This humming, these potential possibilities,
link |
to be in that state, to vibrate like this
link |
is very powerful for our lives.
link |
To wake up in the morning and feel that living thing
link |
is the feeling of movement,
link |
and for me it's a result of the practice.
link |
And so then it's easy not to stagnate
link |
and then the mind can stay focused for hours
link |
like we've done today and I can listen and tune in
link |
and I won't lose you, which is very difficult.
link |
Like I haven't had a good conversation here in the US.
link |
It's very difficult and I've had your attention
link |
and you're listening, but it's rare.
link |
It's rare that somebody can do that
link |
and it's a struggle, always a struggle,
link |
but it's definitely my trick, my dirty trick.
link |
In the, you said you're allowed.
link |
And again, when I'm taking some of the language
link |
and what you report about your experience
link |
and I'm trying to map it to some concepts
link |
that relate to neural circuits,
link |
in the principles of neuroscience,
link |
we talk about instructiveness versus permissiveness.
link |
There are instructive cues, like for instance,
link |
the ability to pick up this pen, right?
link |
There's an instruction, clearly there's a motor command,
link |
but that's just one way of looking at it.
link |
The way it actually works is that there's a pre-motor system
link |
that's already generating that movement.
link |
And what we've done is we flung open the gate
link |
and allowed that movement to occur precisely.
link |
Surfing it, surfing that current or this current
link |
or another current or opening the window.
link |
And if you look at the formal study of movement
link |
and improvement of movement,
link |
the most basic example I can give is like a tennis serve.
link |
And they, if you just, they've done this many times over,
link |
you map the trajectories and in a novice,
link |
the lines are all over the place.
link |
It ends up looking more like a tangle of rubber band ball.
link |
Whereas in the Federer or the expert,
link |
you almost wonder if it's just one line being drawn,
link |
but it's the trajectories are incredibly stereotyped.
link |
That's the reflection of one little narrow gate opening
link |
again and again and again, of course.
link |
Let me, let me inject something here
link |
from an old neurologist, you can say Berenstain,
link |
the Soviet, and he talked about degrees of freedom.
link |
And they did, in order to increase productivity
link |
in Soviet Union, I don't know if you've heard this story,
link |
he was brought in to examine the movement habits
link |
of the workers and he collected some information.
link |
He placed, he was one of the first kinetic,
link |
I don't know how it's called in English,
link |
the kinetic capturing of motion
link |
with moving pictures in that time.
link |
And so he placed these thoughts and they took these photos
link |
which became kind of moving.
link |
And what he discovered was something very interesting.
link |
The accuracy of the hit of the sledgehammer
link |
increased while the variance in the various points
link |
became more, not less.
link |
So it wasn't a fixed pattern, it was a meta pattern.
link |
And this pattern is adjusted in this way
link |
to achieve the perfect execution.
link |
Those were very early findings.
link |
I'm not sure how does that sit with everything,
link |
but I'm sure there is some truth to it from my experience.
link |
Basically, the self-adjusting dynamic nature of the system
link |
allows you to reach a very constant and stable end result
link |
by being so open and letting go of your control.
link |
The example you give fits very well
link |
with the one that I described before
link |
because I'm recalling the experiment.
link |
If people want to look this up, it's a paper,
link |
we'll put it in the show note caption.
link |
The guy also happens to be at Harvard
link |
named Benza Oliveski, a Hungarian,
link |
I'm clearly pronouncing his name wrong, but I know Benza.
link |
And I remember the slide in my mind's eye
link |
and the trajectory that was mapped
link |
was the movement of the tennis racket,
link |
not of the limbs themselves in the Federer case.
link |
So that I think aligns well with what you're describing.
link |
Yeah, that exploration of degrees of freedom
link |
is where the opportunity for real advancement
link |
and expansion of skill shows up.
link |
I think the way it's been described to me
link |
is that we go from unskilled to skilled,
link |
and then there's mastery, and then there's this top tier,
link |
which is this beautiful thin layer
link |
that so few people occupy, which is virtuosity,
link |
in which the practitioner invites variability
link |
and chance back in as an opportunity to do truly new things.
link |
It made me think many years ago,
link |
this kind of thinking about, so what is that entity?
link |
Because obviously it's not technique.
link |
And it wouldn't even be honest to say
link |
it's a movement pattern.
link |
There is too much diversity there.
link |
I started to talk about, I called it movement sleeves
link |
or meta technique.
link |
But the word technique is already misleading.
link |
So there is some kind of a dynamic sleeve
link |
in which you can move.
link |
As long as you're not out of this sleeve,
link |
you're still within the boundaries
link |
of achieving the result that you're after.
link |
And then there is all this adaptation
link |
of all these elements inside to keep you in the sleeve.
link |
The sleeve is not constricted as we once thought.
link |
Oh, beautiful technique.
link |
There are many ways to skin a cat.
link |
And that experience and that variety,
link |
that diversity goes into virtuosity.
link |
It's true freedom because your focus is on the right thing.
link |
You don't point at the moon, look at your finger.
link |
And that's really in essence being a virtuoso for me,
link |
like mastery, let's say, if there is such a thing.
link |
Oh, I do believe there is such a thing and I'll flatter
link |
and attempt to embarrass you by saying,
link |
I think that I'm not alone in viewing you
link |
as a virtuoso movement.
link |
I think that's what comes to mind
link |
because there's this notion
link |
that not everything is pre-planned,
link |
that even you might not know what you're going to do next
link |
until the moment of execution.
link |
But that here I'm projecting my own assumptions.
link |
I'd like to talk about mindsets
link |
in approaching practice a little bit more,
link |
but I want to wade into that territory
link |
by talking about vision in the eyes,
link |
something that we both share a deep interest in.
link |
I, from the background of visual neuroscience,
link |
but also from the realization
link |
that we have this incredible ability
link |
to adjust the aperture of our visual window.
link |
We can focus very narrowly and we can focus very broadly.
link |
This was something I encountered, I think,
link |
realizing that I could spend all day watching ants play
link |
in a very fine domain and then look up and go inside
link |
and realize there's a whole world and realizing,
link |
wow, I'll never be able to consume the full range
link |
of experiences at any one moment.
link |
There are ants probably in the corner of this room
link |
doing their thing.
link |
And so too, our approach to movement can be,
link |
as you mentioned, very big and dynamic
link |
in terms of the broad movements of our limbs
link |
or fine articulation.
link |
When you begin a practice or,
link |
and as you move through a practice,
link |
do you apply a regimented way of focusing your vision?
link |
Are you in panoramic vision?
link |
Are you in a very narrow field of view
link |
or does it entirely depend?
link |
And for the person who's a true beginner,
link |
true novice like myself,
link |
how should I show up to the practice with my eyes?
link |
Yeah, the eyes are a good starting point
link |
as you help a lot of people to understand.
link |
And when you encounter difficulties with other layers,
link |
it's very powerful to start with the eyes.
link |
Another thing important to understand and to experience,
link |
you can't believe me or you gotta examine it for yourself,
link |
we do not move the eyes as well as we think we do.
link |
Because as long as you can see and move the eyes,
link |
people never think about it,
link |
that it can be trained, that it can be improved, et cetera.
link |
And the effects of it are far reaching.
link |
The eyes lead to the inner eye.
link |
You can think of it in a beautiful metaphorical way.
link |
And it's a representation of the way
link |
that we use various cognitive and mind processes.
link |
And also of course affect the body.
link |
The eyes lead in many ways and the head is also a very,
link |
because all of these inputs are coming in here.
link |
So it's very easy to lead the body
link |
if you look at the centered weight from the head.
link |
It's a very powerful and easy thing.
link |
For example, when you teach boxers how to bob,
link |
usually it's not done in the way
link |
that I believe it should be done.
link |
You teach it with the periphery.
link |
They teach it from the feet.
link |
Because they have the idea, which is correct,
link |
that you need to do it in spatial conditions,
link |
in movement, in space.
link |
But in reality, the head will organize the feet for you.
link |
Instead, you are now putting two elements together
link |
and then with years of practice,
link |
you hope of tying them together well.
link |
I prefer to do something else
link |
because if I'll pull your head now to the side,
link |
you will immediately start to organize your feet under you.
link |
So I give you just one element to manipulate the system from.
link |
That's how I would teach someone something like this.
link |
Many animals hunt with the head.
link |
So you can see the body running forward
link |
while the head is turning to the side.
link |
The whole thing follows afterwards.
link |
So it's a very powerful way to address movement.
link |
There are many modes, thankfully,
link |
and we're very adaptable in that,
link |
but definitely a primary one.
link |
And then the use of the eyes is, of course,
link |
maybe the most important element with that, usually.
link |
Yeah, what else can I say about the eyes?
link |
How do you come in?
link |
Well, it depends on the practice.
link |
You need to start to have some kind of a checklist
link |
of what you're looking to do.
link |
And then by this, you can start to tailor
link |
the way that you use your eyes.
link |
The same thing I do for posture,
link |
the same thing I do for stance,
link |
the same thing, eventually, I do for state.
link |
And there is different flavors.
link |
There is no correct way to use the eyes.
link |
Sometimes it's very peripheral,
link |
soft, open, awareness orientation.
link |
Sometimes it's very focused.
link |
Notice that I'm pulling these two opposites,
link |
awareness and focus,
link |
which is often put together and confused.
link |
And then the eyes are the immediate
link |
and the easiest entry point into that.
link |
Another thing is the placement of the head and the eyes.
link |
Like, for example, when we lower our chin,
link |
we seem to see better.
link |
When we raise the eyebrows,
link |
there is too much exposure of top light sources.
link |
And so people would usually,
link |
when looking into the distance,
link |
will tilt their chin in.
link |
And in many scenarios, tilting of the chin to the side
link |
or placing, just like listening with the ear,
link |
placing a certain eye or dominant eye,
link |
depending on various scenarios.
link |
And this is all information that I can come in cerebrally
link |
and think about and jump my practice forward.
link |
Instead of just letting the experience teach me that,
link |
I'm using some kind of a thinking process
link |
to improve and this is not cheating.
link |
Those are some thoughts to start to play with.
link |
I love that you mentioned chin down
link |
because we all have a natural reflex.
link |
When chin goes down, eyes goes up.
link |
And the opposite is true when head goes up, eyes go down.
link |
And there are two separate clusters of neurons
link |
in these cranial nerve nuclei that, as we call them,
link |
when eyes are up, it increases our level
link |
of alertness overall.
link |
This is not, you know, this is not woo science.
link |
This is the function of these cranial nerve nuclei.
link |
When our eyes are down, we go into states
link |
of more calm and quiescence.
link |
And this makes perfect sense.
link |
You know, and then the eyelids usually go down
link |
and then people fall asleep.
link |
Eyes up does not mean head up,
link |
because as you said, there's a very dynamic control
link |
over the amount of luminance, depending on the environment.
link |
So that, and then as you mentioned,
link |
this difference between focus and awareness,
link |
I think is a really important one.
link |
When we are in this more panoramic soft gaze
link |
and broad awareness, big swaths of visual field, as we say,
link |
the neurons that control that come through a pathway
link |
called magnocellular pathway.
link |
In any event, those neurons are much thicker,
link |
They transmit much faster, just like thick pipes
link |
can carry more water more quickly.
link |
And your reaction time is at least four times
link |
what it is in this awareness mode
link |
than it is when you're narrowly focused on something.
link |
And this is counterintuitive, I think, to a lot of people.
link |
But the person who is running to catch the ball
link |
is not tracking the ball in a smooth movement.
link |
Most of their vision is in peripheral vision.
link |
When we drive, we're in this peripheral vision
link |
and our reaction times are much, much faster.
link |
So I don't know if, I'm reluctant to encourage people
link |
to shift toward a particular type of practice
link |
or to a particular type of vision.
link |
I think what you and I, I hope, agree on,
link |
correct me if I'm wrong,
link |
is that exploring these different extremes
link |
and everything in between is where the real value is.
link |
Panoramic focused, eyes, head up, eyes down,
link |
head down, eyes up, playing with it and exploring it
link |
as opposed to, for the first 10 minutes of practice,
link |
being panoramic vision.
link |
You know, the sort of, earlier today we were joking about
link |
and kind of lamenting the fact
link |
that this word biohacking exists
link |
or that the optimal performance.
link |
They're unfortunate terms because they suggest
link |
that if you just plug it in,
link |
it's going to be like two plus two equals four
link |
and you're going to get it right every time.
link |
Another pragmatic bit here, if I can offer, is
link |
since our culture has been more geared
link |
in pushing us towards focus,
link |
the focus use of the eyes and primary language reading
link |
and other things, we have less opportunities
link |
to work with the more open panoramic one.
link |
So, it would be smart to start
link |
to balance things out a bit more.
link |
When you're in nature, you don't look at each leaf.
link |
Everything is moving and you are kind of immersed in that
link |
and then something attracts your attention.
link |
Oh, it's a bird and you focus
link |
and you go back into the general state,
link |
the basic state, which is open awareness.
link |
Here, we switch things around in our modern culture.
link |
We are mostly focused and then we sanitize daydream,
link |
which is maybe some kind of a,
link |
some kind of a balancing act that comes from deep within.
link |
I don't know, maybe you can share some information
link |
about that, but I see that many times people need to,
link |
the focus is overly done by far in our lives.
link |
I couldn't agree more.
link |
And I think a lot of, I'll even venture so far as to say
link |
that a lot of the visual deficits
link |
that we now see in young people,
link |
myopia, literally nearsightedness occurs
link |
because if we look at things that are too close to us,
link |
as children or as adults, the eyeball actually gets longer.
link |
The lens focuses the visual image in front
link |
of nearer to the lens, nearsighted,
link |
then in front of where it should land.
link |
And basically it's a lack of panoramic vision
link |
that is, or open awareness that's driving these changes.
link |
And nowadays we are essentially,
link |
most people are 90% of the time in this narrow focus mode.
link |
Right before recording, we took a break
link |
and went up to look at a vista
link |
and to look off to the distance.
link |
Incredibly useful, easy practice at some level,
link |
but I think most people are not doing this sort of thing.
link |
And the way that it shapes the mind
link |
and the perception of time, of course,
link |
is a whole other kingdom of ideas.
link |
But one thing I'd like to relate this element of vision to
link |
and open awareness is earlier you mentioned
link |
the cone of auditory attention,
link |
the other sense that we can play with
link |
in as in our practice and throughout the day.
link |
Do you see any value to both paying attention to things
link |
in a very narrow cone of auditory attention,
link |
but also just walking and listening to all the sounds
link |
I could imagine that could be useful.
link |
And in terms of physical movement practices,
link |
I was going to say, where are your ears?
link |
Your ears are always more or less in the same place,
link |
but where is your hearing when you approach your practice?
link |
Another set of parameters to think about
link |
and to play with and to be aware of.
link |
Also, I have the experience that some people are
link |
better at using this system or that system.
link |
And you would be amazed how differently
link |
the same results, seemingly outside results,
link |
are done by different practitioners
link |
and in different scenarios.
link |
This goes into this mutation and change ideas.
link |
What really jumps us forward eventually
link |
is some kind of a mutation.
link |
So it's like all of our culture and practices and success
link |
puts us closer and closer to each other.
link |
So we have the same opinions everywhere around the world
link |
becoming more and more the same, less and less different.
link |
But the real hope comes from the different.
link |
So we have a difficulty in promoting that.
link |
So this is another thing that can be promoted
link |
with the right practices, the right,
link |
for example, I work with corporates
link |
or even worked with governments before
link |
to bring in some of that freshness
link |
with simple habits in the workday
link |
or in the education of children or in companies,
link |
increasing productivity.
link |
I don't really give a fuck,
link |
but I am there to give what I view is important.
link |
And what is important maybe increases productivity,
link |
but it's more important to me
link |
that it improves people's lives who are involved
link |
and improves being and becoming,
link |
being and becoming these two entities.
link |
I'm not there, I'm on my way, I'm a process.
link |
So thinking about hearing,
link |
the way that people use their ears,
link |
the way that people use listening.
link |
Again, we can talk about placement of the head
link |
and posture, sometimes angling as well,
link |
sharper angle, chin down.
link |
Some people tend to use the shape of the ear,
link |
people with different ears closer or further out.
link |
This is, if you're very sensitive
link |
and you're looking around,
link |
you would see this is affecting people's motion,
link |
even the shape of our face,
link |
like the development of the vocal cords and speaking
link |
will totally change how we look,
link |
but how we listen also will do the same.
link |
I don't have any proof of it,
link |
but it is something I believe in.
link |
Well, people will even make their ears bigger, right?
link |
We try and become like little fennec foxes or something.
link |
I mean, a lot of people don't realize
link |
that's actually why we do this,
link |
is to capture more sound waves, right?
link |
And the leaning is that the localization of sound
link |
is based on a simple brainstem calculation
link |
of interaural time differences,
link |
the time in which something,
link |
the brain intuitively, it just knows,
link |
because it's a pretty hardwired circuit,
link |
that if a sound arrives first to this ear, then that ear,
link |
that it's likely coming from over here.
link |
Whereas if it's dead center,
link |
it arrives at the two at the same time.
link |
It's almost ridiculously simple when one hears it,
link |
but it is an incredibly valuable way of thinking
link |
about how the architecture of the body
link |
changes our experience.
link |
I went along those lines.
link |
Earlier, you mentioned something
link |
and it flagged an important question for me.
link |
When I see people walking,
link |
I sometimes, you know, sometimes I think, wow,
link |
they really move in a strange way.
link |
Occasionally, you see somebody, they walk really,
link |
it's impressive for whatever reason, you know,
link |
and you just think, wow, they sort of glide along.
link |
People come in different shapes and sizes,
link |
short torsos, long arms, et cetera.
link |
Do you think that if people have a body type
link |
that facilitates certain kinds of movement and not others,
link |
that they should intentionally try and move in the way
link |
that is right at the edge of the kind of friction
link |
and challenge in order to shape new possibilities?
link |
Or do you think that they should lean
link |
into the smooth execution
link |
of what comes most naturally to them?
link |
Yeah, I think a good practice is to have many walks
link |
because they're required.
link |
Of course, there is a very efficient
link |
and endurance stamina-oriented thing
link |
that if you have the experience,
link |
it will naturally develop and unravel.
link |
And if not, you can get some collective knowledge
link |
And then there is a lot of emotional things,
link |
related to walk, like how I'm walking
link |
into a business meeting,
link |
or how I'm walking out of a bad situation.
link |
And there is a lot of beautiful things to research there,
link |
practically with yourself,
link |
trying to approach someone with the chin slightly down,
link |
very linear, very efficient, in the straightest line,
link |
or trying to approach someone a little bit more rounded
link |
And tilting your head,
link |
and you will see totally different results,
link |
totally different communication
link |
that happens over people's heads.
link |
But if you're sensitive, you realize that,
link |
wow, this opened the door.
link |
Many people, you start on the minus.
link |
My sister, my big sister, Tali, she always says,
link |
I started on the minus.
link |
Why don't I start on the zero with them?
link |
But it's part of the approach.
link |
You can affect that.
link |
And you can start even on the plus,
link |
if you are the sly man, as the practitioner needs to be.
link |
So this is something to play with and to work with.
link |
And then you have, of course, body proportions and ways.
link |
And we have all these like technical invasions,
link |
mathematics and trigonometry and architecture.
link |
They invaded our bodies.
link |
They invaded our nervous system.
link |
And now our walk and our physical practices,
link |
they look linear and efficient.
link |
The path between two points is a straight line.
link |
It's not, this is biomechanics.
link |
It's not mechanics.
link |
Nothing there is given.
link |
There's no gospel.
link |
So the walk is sometimes have to go around
link |
or sway from side to side.
link |
And there is coiling, uncoiling, and there are moving bits.
link |
And what about the coordination of my breathing
link |
Because if I walk too linearly,
link |
there is less pumping of the air naturally in and out.
link |
So now I have to forcefully bring it in and out.
link |
And that's why you see in last years,
link |
these incredible runners, especially in long distance,
link |
doing things we never thought were possible
link |
in the most, in the worst possible way
link |
that we used to think.
link |
Pronation and all kinds of things.
link |
Like our technical thoughts were totally misguided and wrong.
link |
And then somebody comes in and does it in some way
link |
that is totally wrong.
link |
And he gets results we could never get.
link |
That's the beauty of playfulness, experimentation,
link |
change, being different.
link |
As you're describing this, I'm smiling
link |
because one of my favorite neuroscientists,
link |
he's out of the University of Chicago, was in a meeting.
link |
There was an argument about evolution of the nervous system.
link |
And he said at the end, and people were arguing about
link |
whether or not this gene in one animal was homologous
link |
to this gene in humans, et cetera, it can get very dicey.
link |
And he said, very appropriately,
link |
that one of the major jobs of evolution
link |
is to take existing cell types and circuits
link |
and give them new functions.
link |
But that can only be done through the playful exploration
link |
of new possibilities.
link |
Which I think maps very well to what you're saying.
link |
That at the extreme thresholds of technical execution,
link |
mastery, mastery, mastery,
link |
your obviously performance is very high,
link |
but the opportunity for evolution of the sport
link |
or the music or the dance or the intellectual endeavor
link |
is limited because you're not introducing variability.
link |
In the attempt to get proper execution,
link |
you're limiting oneself.
link |
Hence, I want to offer something that is relating to you.
link |
We should be wary of defining the mechanisms
link |
and putting certain meaning with certain processes and ways
link |
because just history and experience shows
link |
it doesn't work well for us most times.
link |
Or it becomes like this much more elaborate thing,
link |
even if we were somewhat in the right direction.
link |
Because even thinking this way can offer a lot.
link |
Like for example, your advice about heat, dopamine, light,
link |
offers a lot of benefit but also can create problems.
link |
And it can enclose something
link |
which the improviser will find, the MacGyvers, right?
link |
Like take some paperclip
link |
and you make it into something great.
link |
And this is really our,
link |
we are the biggest improvisers around.
link |
Like that's what made us who we are.
link |
I think this is incredible what we can do with it.
link |
You know, the Russian-American space exploration story
link |
with the space pen, famous story
link |
about the development of the space pen.
link |
No, the space pen?
link |
No, I don't know about this.
link |
I think it's an urban myth.
link |
I don't know if it's true, but I like it, so I use it.
link |
So there was this, of course, space competition
link |
and the Russians put the first animal in space.
link |
I think it was a macaque monkey or something like that.
link |
And then Leica and they put the first Sputnik,
link |
the satellite and man in space,
link |
but Americans took the man on the moon.
link |
And on the way, a lot of technologies got developed
link |
and the Americans, because of lack of gravity out there,
link |
developed the space pen with a huge investment.
link |
The Russians used the pencil.
link |
So I don't know if it's true.
link |
I don't think it is,
link |
but it represents something in the state of mind.
link |
Like you look at, for example,
link |
the military equipment in Soviet equipment,
link |
it all can do multiple things.
link |
And it means that it's heavier, it's less efficient.
link |
It's not as light.
link |
But even the Navy SEALs will still carry an AK
link |
with certain conditions.
link |
Because you can pour a whole bucket of sand
link |
into the mechanism and it will keep running.
link |
While the most advanced German heckler and kuchen,
link |
accurate and light weapons,
link |
for every grain can get stuck and overly specialized.
link |
And there is something about this openness
link |
that we humans need to keep.
link |
And also maybe something for our leaders
link |
to be more of less specialist and more in this openness,
link |
less capable in this or that way,
link |
but more capable of doing the whole thing.
link |
Whether or not it's a legend or not,
link |
it's legendary because it's fantastic.
link |
As you say, in the laboratory,
link |
whenever someone takes on a project in my lab,
link |
I always say, you have to ask yourself
link |
how much technical detail and challenge you want to take on
link |
because with more technology, advanced technology,
link |
yes, there's the opportunity for more discovery,
link |
but more downtime.
link |
Your PhD will literally take longer
link |
if you're going to use a microscope
link |
that's out of commission 30% of the time.
link |
And you just have to understand that.
link |
So there's a dynamic interplay there.
link |
By the way, I think that scientists get it right.
link |
It's where you transmit the knowledge
link |
out of the scientific field
link |
because science have debate and everything.
link |
You're not so connected.
link |
Of course, this can happen as well,
link |
but then when it goes out and the simple person
link |
without the experience takes it more as a gospel,
link |
as a fixed thing, and then it was just a report.
link |
It was just reporting some functions here and play with it.
link |
See what it does for you.
link |
Because with all the greatest information that I can give,
link |
the person will examine it
link |
and it might be not useful at all for him.
link |
This is the practitioner.
link |
Go practice, try heat, cold, light,
link |
movement, awareness to this, awareness to this.
link |
And this is up to you to make it yours.
link |
But we don't like to have this responsibility.
link |
No, people prefer to have the,
link |
this will work the first time every time
link |
and will serve you best compared to everything else.
link |
And while there are more reliable tools than others,
link |
in my mind, the more reliable tools tend to be ones
link |
that are grounded in our innate physiology
link |
as opposed to some, I don't like the word hack.
link |
In fact, I loathe the word biohack
link |
as we were talking about again earlier,
link |
because the hack in my mind is something
link |
that is designed for one purpose that's used for another.
link |
It's not the most efficient use of that tool
link |
nor is it naturally the best solution.
link |
Whereas biology has some very good solutions,
link |
but they don't always work, not every time.
link |
I, earlier today, we did a practice in which,
link |
which involved invasion, shall we say,
link |
of peripersonal space.
link |
We weren't standing super close for any particular reason,
link |
But we, but there was, we were close enough together
link |
that we could touch one's torsos
link |
and we were doing that as part of this practice.
link |
And you encouraged me to pay attention to, you know,
link |
how does it feel to have someone
link |
in your peripersonal space?
link |
And then this notion of reactivity.
link |
I find this an immensely interesting
link |
and potentially powerful practice
link |
because I think a lot of people,
link |
I know a lot of people suffer from anxiety
link |
just being in a face-to-face conversation.
link |
Some people have a lot of anxiety
link |
about being physically close to people,
link |
whether or not they know them or not.
link |
And many people are reactive.
link |
They are in that anticipatory state
link |
of something is going to happen.
link |
And sometimes this relates to trauma
link |
and negative experience, but sometimes no.
link |
Sometimes they're just not used to being in dynamic,
link |
dynamic, excuse me, exchange with other beings.
link |
And so one thing that I love about the movement practice
link |
and how dynamic is that one can explore that space.
link |
Maybe you could talk about that a little bit more.
link |
Touch, proximity, all these things also taking very,
link |
it takes a very, I think, limited place in our lives.
link |
People are not touched and they don't touch enough.
link |
There is certain bubbles of peripersonal space
link |
according to culture, according to environment,
link |
what is right, what is wrong.
link |
And then came all the, of course,
link |
politically correctness and harassment and all kinds.
link |
And this is a problem.
link |
It's a problem to navigate all this scenario.
link |
And I think there is definitely this side
link |
which is suffering.
link |
People go to BJJ classes to touch, not to learn BJJ.
link |
Most of it, they're not even aware of it.
link |
Before they would go to a prostitute, maybe.
link |
It would not be honest to say that,
link |
yeah, this is not required or necessary more in our lives.
link |
Children who are not touched,
link |
there is a lot of information about that and the problems.
link |
But adults who are not touched,
link |
there is not a lot of information.
link |
And I think it's no less of a problem
link |
because it's something that has to be constantly present.
link |
And then proximity, being able to, as you said,
link |
remove certain reactivity and to learn to control
link |
that volume control over how reactive I am
link |
and in other scenarios,
link |
how do I remove this reactivity altogether
link |
is very important for performance and also for our lives.
link |
For clear thinking, et cetera.
link |
Because everything is moving through us
link |
and is being monitored by us.
link |
So everything has the potential to detract us
link |
from a certain direction of exploration.
link |
And if you're reactive, you're a slave.
link |
It becomes worse and worse and worse.
link |
Or for example, a fighter or a football player, et cetera,
link |
has to know what to take, what not to take.
link |
The fact that you can sense more
link |
doesn't mean you should react to it.
link |
And the practice helps that
link |
by bringing people into these scenarios,
link |
but oftentimes disarming them.
link |
Like when we were working closely today
link |
and because you have a certain background
link |
with boxing or fighting,
link |
I can tell you you are missing some kind of a way
link |
to be in that space that is not martial.
link |
So you carry a certain tone,
link |
although you're a very kind person,
link |
but oftentimes you help me without realizing
link |
you're holding me with a lot of strength, for example.
link |
And it just, it was clear to me
link |
you're not fully aware of what is unfolding
link |
and it's just, of course, a question of experience.
link |
So to be able to be in this scenario,
link |
but do something else,
link |
which is not geared towards winning, losing competition
link |
or just being able to play with another person.
link |
Like for example, contact improvisation
link |
took that and played with that
link |
and the work of Steve Paxton
link |
for the ones who are not familiar.
link |
So this is where I call it the hybrids become very useful.
link |
Like we don't, when you are practicing in this open way,
link |
you are not bound by specific rule set
link |
or ways of doing things.
link |
It can be a fight, but it can be a dance a moment after.
link |
Another thing that I learned from Capoeira,
link |
the situation is very tricky there
link |
because I've seen kids doing cartwheels in Brazil
link |
and scissors fall from their pockets.
link |
Why would you go with a scissor in your pocket?
link |
Obviously there is certain intentions.
link |
And then at other times you see backflips
link |
and beautiful things, but people die in Capoeira every year.
link |
Neck breaks or something.
link |
Kicks to the face.
link |
Kicks to the face from various violence.
link |
It's, I've explored other martial arts and boxing.
link |
I was involved with MMA and BJJ,
link |
but I tell you the most violent arena is that.
link |
Why? Because it's unknown.
link |
One moment it's smiles,
link |
another moment it's something else and it's uncontrolled.
link |
There is no categories, no weights,
link |
and it's a street phenomenon.
link |
So you have musical instruments.
link |
Sometimes they break it on your head.
link |
People don't see that,
link |
but you can look online on YouTube
link |
and see some of that side of Capoeira,
link |
which is actually the day-to-day in Brazil
link |
and the reality and how things unfolded.
link |
So it's very important to explore many ways of being
link |
within different distances and spaces from other people
link |
and touched in different ways
link |
and not contextualizing it always in the same way.
link |
I can touch your chest in one way.
link |
I can touch it with the exact same pressure and speed,
link |
but it will feel very different.
link |
The parameters, I'm not sure.
link |
Certain intentions, certain combination of postures or ways,
link |
and this is beautiful exploration.
link |
Again, I would encourage you and others
link |
to explore the discomfort.
link |
For example, certain discomfort to be with a man
link |
in a certain scenario or with a woman
link |
and trying to see what is that,
link |
because if we are truly strong,
link |
we are not afraid of anything.
link |
If we truly know who we are and we are in that exploration,
link |
we don't know the end result, but we are in a research
link |
and then we are not afraid of being in that order
link |
and we don't come out of boundaries
link |
and this will improve our culture tremendously.
link |
Of course, there must be agreement.
link |
You never force yourself,
link |
but you meet someone who is also interested
link |
in that exploration and then you do it.
link |
And there are many scenarios to do that
link |
with traditional practices like learning to grapple
link |
or going to contact improvisation and studying there
link |
or going to dance, to Latin dance class.
link |
And there is, of course, my favorite is to create
link |
and to come up with your own hybrids of that and scenarios.
link |
Communicating with your loved one through movement,
link |
not sitting around food and talking,
link |
moving together in all kinds of ways.
link |
Sometimes it's walking together,
link |
but sometimes it's all kinds of, it can be game, playful,
link |
it can be romantic and there are many shades.
link |
Sex doesn't start here and here, right?
link |
It's like, it's continuum
link |
and we don't even need to define it in that way.
link |
So with time, I think it unlocks a lot of things.
link |
People become much stronger in a good sense,
link |
in sense of becoming, being, and we abuse less
link |
and we can approach, yeah, other aspects to us.
link |
I love the idea that through the exploration
link |
of a range of physical contacts,
link |
provided one knows they can always return to their center,
link |
so to speak, then there's a lot of opportunity
link |
I wish there was more of that encouraged in children's play,
link |
but also, as you mentioned, in adult environments,
link |
because yeah, nowadays, for all sorts of reasons
link |
that you've touched on,
link |
the idea of keeping at least an arm's length distance
link |
has become critical.
link |
There are a lot of environments
link |
actually where hugging is not allowed.
link |
I don't know what it's like in Israel,
link |
but in the States, many institutions here,
link |
you're not allowed to touch anyone else's body.
link |
There's actually a wonderful study that comes to mind
link |
from an Israeli laboratory,
link |
a guy named Noam Sobol is over there,
link |
who has shown that by recording people's first interactions,
link |
that when people meet, if they shake hands,
link |
they almost always,
link |
I think it's greater than 85% of the time,
link |
they will then wipe the chemicals from the other person
link |
onto their own eyes, typically their eyes or their face.
link |
This changed a little bit during the whole pandemic thing,
link |
but this is thought to be a carryover
link |
from what other animals do
link |
in terms of exchanging microbiome elements,
link |
exchanging chemicals,
link |
that we're constantly feeding our subconscious
link |
with the chemical, knowledge of the chemical constituents
link |
of other people, right?
link |
So it goes way beyond how people smell,
link |
how they look, et cetera.
link |
More touch seems to me just, as you said,
link |
provided it's consensual,
link |
it seems like it's just a really good thing overall.
link |
And I think maybe also important for discharging,
link |
discharging certain experiences,
link |
remodeling, reframing.
link |
So it's like touch is very powerful in that.
link |
If you're touched and you're touching a lot,
link |
you're unpacking and you experience that touch
link |
that maybe has been traumatic and you're reframing it,
link |
you have the opportunity,
link |
which is something interesting.
link |
I've heard some story about some traditional culture
link |
in which when you were burned by mistake,
link |
they would immediately burn you again.
link |
And it made me think,
link |
and then there would not be any burn marks
link |
and there would not be the same side effects.
link |
It made me think, it's like, what's the source of this?
link |
And I realized that maybe it allows
link |
a certain completion to happen.
link |
That in the traumatic moment is not there.
link |
So the re-exposure, while you're still open,
link |
the pores are still open,
link |
allows you to reframe the experience.
link |
And then the unfolding of the rest of the event
link |
is very different.
link |
This is if you're touching and you're practicing
link |
the day-to-day and you're working with people
link |
and you're being touched and people come closer
link |
or further away, it happens naturally.
link |
Yeah, and if you pass a certain limit
link |
and it becomes too much,
link |
there is always, of course, communication
link |
that has to be present.
link |
Certain cultures make this communication pre.
link |
Certain cultures post.
link |
The Israeli, for example, post, here, pre.
link |
Ah, so in Israel, they'll say,
link |
that didn't feel good to me or that felt good
link |
Yeah, it would be more common.
link |
Here in the airport, the guy's telling me,
link |
I'm gonna slide my hands up towards your crotch
link |
until I meet a hard stop.
link |
And then he does this in a way
link |
that is supposed to show me I have no enjoyment in that.
link |
And for me, it just feels aggressive.
link |
But his intention is good, showing me.
link |
But if it was a loving touch,
link |
it would be nicer for me, actually.
link |
Personally, it would be gentle,
link |
but he goes up there and he shows me,
link |
I have no enjoyment in this.
link |
But, oh, that's my testicle right there.
link |
So it's different choices.
link |
I don't think it's like worse,
link |
but this description can be a bit dissociated
link |
and what does it make me think?
link |
Is it truly what he feels or not?
link |
Because it feels robotic, so it's not,
link |
so sometimes I'd rather not say it
link |
and I'm going to touch your chest
link |
and just place my hand on the chest
link |
and of course, we can't avoid the problem.
link |
I'm not suggesting that there is,
link |
but there is an examination
link |
and because I moved around the world,
link |
I've seen many things and I've seen benefits here,
link |
benefits there and in the practice,
link |
I think it's important to discuss this, to examine this.
link |
I don't have a solution, but it's something to talk about.
link |
It is something to talk about
link |
and I'm glad you raised it because I think that
link |
it's so clear to me that much of the value
link |
of a movement practice involves this dynamic interaction
link |
with somebody else, where as you pointed out,
link |
it can be performed on one's own
link |
and practiced throughout one's day,
link |
but the unpredictability is a key element to all of it
link |
and bringing out all the potential that you've described.
link |
In reference to this notion of trauma and burn and re-burn,
link |
my colleague at Stanford, David Spiegel,
link |
he works on trauma and he's a,
link |
actually on this podcast,
link |
he voiced that he's against things like trigger warnings
link |
because of the way that it puts the nervous system
link |
into this state of readiness and reactivity
link |
that can exacerbate problems,
link |
whereas it's very clear from the literature on trauma
link |
and trauma relief that the way to deal with that
link |
is through a controlled,
link |
but clearly a controlled re-exposure to the trauma
link |
in order to diminish the emotional response over time.
link |
I mean, it's very clear.
link |
If we avoid the thing,
link |
obviously we don't want to re-injure ourselves
link |
but if one avoids the thing that makes them upset
link |
all it does is serve to create
link |
a heightened state of readiness.
link |
It primes more trauma.
link |
So I think it makes good sense.
link |
I think impressions are very useful here also
link |
when stepping into an area in which trauma can occur.
link |
And then by going through the impression
link |
that it already occurred,
link |
you create some kind of a thermal layer of protection.
link |
So I've already been hit when I'm entering that space.
link |
It's so beneficial.
link |
Or I've already been touched in a way that I didn't like
link |
if I go to a contact improvisation class.
link |
And just running this scenario in your head
link |
I'm glad you mentioned running scenarios in your head.
link |
I've been curious all day as to whether or not
link |
you do visualization or mental rehearsal
link |
of physical movement.
link |
This seems to be a popular idea in the States.
link |
People are always asking me,
link |
can you just imagine a movement and learn it better
link |
than were you to actually perform it?
link |
My hunch based on,
link |
and my understanding of the scientific literature
link |
is that visualization can be useful to some extent
link |
for people that are very good at visualization,
link |
but for many people, it doesn't help.
link |
And that there's nothing like real physical practice
link |
to improve physical practice.
link |
Yeah, the word visualization is not good, obviously.
link |
It has to be experientialization
link |
in a very complete way, not just visually, of course.
link |
And unless you already developed certain experience,
link |
tangible experience that has benefited from feedback,
link |
from outside feedback,
link |
it is not a very useful thing to do.
link |
And it ends up being fabrications.
link |
But if you're very experienced
link |
and you already gained the benefit of being burnt here
link |
or overextended here,
link |
then you have a certain experience
link |
and then you can strengthen certain aspects of it,
link |
but you gotta be careful because you do not have feedback.
link |
And because of the missing feedback,
link |
you might develop delusions.
link |
It might be that you develop a stronger patterning,
link |
but ultimately, this would lead you away
link |
from the aliveness of the movement itself.
link |
Drilling, for example.
link |
Very useful to learn a general infrastructure
link |
of the movement sleeve or the technique.
link |
But then to dress it up, you need feedback.
link |
You need it to be alive.
link |
You need to receive something corrective.
link |
For many people, they approach movement
link |
in the form of weight training or yoga or running.
link |
Yoga's a bit more dynamic,
link |
but fairly linear types of exercise and movement.
link |
Peloton, rowing, those kinds of things.
link |
I think most people will probably not depart
link |
from those practices entirely
link |
because they like them.
link |
I'm speaking about myself.
link |
I like some of those very much.
link |
But in terms of thinking about adding a movement practice
link |
to one's already existing exercise regime,
link |
I can imagine threading it throughout the day.
link |
I can imagine having a dedicated movement practice.
link |
One thing that I have started doing
link |
on the basis of some of your teachings,
link |
and I just sort of created this idea,
link |
is rather than statically standing there and lifting weights,
link |
actually walking as I alternate repetitions,
link |
it occurred to me that I'd never done a bicep curl
link |
with one foot in front of the other,
link |
and then I'd never actually switched that up.
link |
And it's kind of an odd stance
link |
to be standing in parallel and curling one's arm.
link |
It's kind of a ridiculous movement
link |
when one thinks about it.
link |
So I started incorporating some of that.
link |
You get some strange looks in the gym,
link |
but I just give them strange looks back.
link |
So what are your thoughts
link |
about these very linear forms of exercise?
link |
And do you encourage people to expand the play space,
link |
as it were, for these kinds of exercise?
link |
Or do you think that movement practice
link |
is just best explored through three-dimensionality,
link |
gravity, and maybe a stick or a ball?
link |
It's definitely a problem, and it's approachable.
link |
People want a quick, people want a hack.
link |
People want the icing, there is no cake, there is no cake.
link |
And it's just like industries of icing, icing.
link |
What are you putting it on?
link |
So for me, that's why I'm going towards this side.
link |
It's like, I have my life.
link |
Now tell me what movement practices I should pursue.
link |
In essence, you are not thinking of yourself
link |
in any serious way through my eyes.
link |
There is a dynamic entity to you.
link |
The body is a huge part of it, communicating.
link |
You have genetic layers.
link |
There is personalities that got developed
link |
and built around various influences,
link |
but then there is also some kind of an essence,
link |
something that reeks from within the cells.
link |
And if you grew up in my family
link |
and I grew up in your family,
link |
and it would still be the same.
link |
And it's something that I always try to think about.
link |
What is that inside of me?
link |
So I think these practices, they're very good,
link |
but they're not designed for the goal
link |
that we think they were designed to.
link |
It orients towards something else.
link |
For example, yoga.
link |
There is a good book called The Yoga Body,
link |
which will destroy a lot of people's yoga practice.
link |
And it goes into, how did we get to this yoga?
link |
The influence of Swedish gymnastics
link |
and Mongolian contortionists
link |
and the Western, the West, affecting it.
link |
And then the ancient practice,
link |
which was barely asana-related posture, position.
link |
So actually, you said yoga is less linear.
link |
Yoga is very linear, very linear these days, these lines.
link |
Look at all the traditional dances.
link |
They look like nothing like yoga.
link |
Look at Thai dance.
link |
Look at Chinese dances, martial arts.
link |
It's all rounded, it's all curled.
link |
It's like out nature, what you see in nature
link |
and the movement of the animals.
link |
So where does it come from?
link |
These are things to understand
link |
because it designs you now, it shapes you.
link |
You're placing yourself in these forces of change
link |
and these streams of change.
link |
And you have a good intention.
link |
You just want this or that, but the joke is on us.
link |
And this is the movement practice for me is first education.
link |
Let's start to think about this.
link |
I have nothing that I can just sprinkle now,
link |
some magic powder that will help resolve this
link |
because it's a start of a deep investigation.
link |
And then some of the things, let's talk pragmatically
link |
because what you described is not about you placing
link |
the foot in front when you're curling.
link |
It's about the examination.
link |
This is why it is a very good direction.
link |
And then you will need another one, another one.
link |
Don't get stuck on that foot in front
link |
and try to do with the eyes closed
link |
or with a different head posture
link |
and you will see things arrive, unrelated things
link |
because the associative mind, the thinking,
link |
this relates to this doesn't get to the heart of it, never.
link |
So just infusing these elements like in a cup
link |
will create endless combinations, possibilities
link |
and a lot of discovery.
link |
And this for me is humility of the practitioner.
link |
I don't know, I try, like today with you,
link |
I tried various combinations and oh, I discover something.
link |
Oh, this is a playful approach
link |
and this is a researcher approach.
link |
I don't try to fit my truth into something.
link |
I'm there to examine.
link |
I don't have a motive yet.
link |
I don't depend on that to define myself.
link |
I'm a human being, but if I don't have that sense of worth,
link |
I'm already like geared towards I need to do this.
link |
I need to prove this.
link |
I have this agenda.
link |
And this is how we get all the lies in the world
link |
and all the problems and difficulties.
link |
So these practices, they are related to it,
link |
to prove this, that, this way,
link |
why we need muscles for X, Y, Z.
link |
And a lot of the reported outcomes
link |
are often from my places like funny.
link |
I hear about something like,
link |
I heard you say about gratitude practice,
link |
that actually experiencing from outside
link |
as if somebody else or you are receiving gratitude
link |
is actually more powerful.
link |
It's true, but I see why it's true.
link |
I'm not sure everybody sees.
link |
If somebody tries to feel gratitude,
link |
just sit with the eyes closed or watch a movie
link |
and sense the gratitude there, it would be clear to you.
link |
One is very difficult to do and the other is very easy.
link |
Hence, if gratitude is achieved easier this way,
link |
that's why it works like that.
link |
Although all the traditional practices are about you,
link |
and by challenging yourself to sense that gratitude yourself
link |
they achieve much more powerful thing.
link |
But this is not the research people,
link |
the people in the research.
link |
We don't have a lot of those people.
link |
So a lot of the things that can arrive to us,
link |
weight training, the benefits,
link |
or the way that the hormonal effects,
link |
the effect over cognition, et cetera.
link |
When you open a bit and you go far out,
link |
you see certain things, not the truth,
link |
but maybe less delusion.
link |
There is nothing definite,
link |
but there is something maybe more wholesome that appears.
link |
Yeah, I think this is a state of exploration.
link |
Exploration, I don't want to have the same thought
link |
if I already had it.
link |
Why would I want to have the same thought?
link |
I don't want to have the same practice.
link |
I don't want it, I curled already in this way.
link |
I want to experience something else.
link |
I want to, there is a benefit to gain.
link |
No, but that was better.
link |
The better is better, is not more, is not faster.
link |
Better is better, and better isn't,
link |
we don't know what better is, right?
link |
So it's like, it's open.
link |
Oh, this is better, I don't know.
link |
It's just more weight, it's one more kilo.
link |
But maybe if I remove one kilo,
link |
I discover something like, for example,
link |
our development that has been shown
link |
to gain certain benefits when you lighten the load
link |
and you accelerate it more in certain conditions.
link |
But who discovered it?
link |
A practitioner, a math person.
link |
Not Verkhoshensky, Zatsyorsky.
link |
They reported something, but it was already
link |
within the grasp of the practitioners.
link |
And I think, and as a researcher, this is very powerful
link |
to remind yourself this and to work with that.
link |
And as a practitioner, as a living human being,
link |
for everyone, I think something very useful.
link |
And then those plays that you're doing,
link |
people give you the weird looks, and it's like,
link |
yeah, I tell people, you don't want to be normal.
link |
If you don't get the weird looks,
link |
you're not moving in the right direction.
link |
You're moving in a very fixed and,
link |
you already know the result of that direction,
link |
let's say at least that.
link |
So continue to play with that, continue to play,
link |
look elsewhere, look at places you didn't look at,
link |
because this is still like within the same layer,
link |
one foot in front, one foot behind.
link |
What happens when you do it with a smile?
link |
The same workout, and when you do it with a frown.
link |
Or what happens, breath-holding or blood restrictions?
link |
All this is great play and I think very beneficial
link |
to do, to go through.
link |
I think it's a wonderful message.
link |
What I keep hearing from you over and over again is too,
link |
that people should explore, explore, explore.
link |
And listen, I want to thank you for your time today,
link |
first of all, for the incredible teachings
link |
here at this table, but also the introduction
link |
to a movement practice.
link |
Although now I'm tempted to say
link |
that I've been moving my whole life.
link |
I've just didn't know I was,
link |
that it was such a vast landscape.
link |
Also that your willingness to tread out in this journey
link |
that is truly unique, the greatest compliment
link |
that one can give in science is the one
link |
that I'm going to tell you now,
link |
because it's entirely appropriate,
link |
which is we say you're an N of one, right?
link |
That, and you truly are.
link |
I don't think there's anyone that has been as willing
link |
to embrace existing practices, evolve them,
link |
create new practices, and to share so broadly
link |
to really be willing to give and teach so much knowledge.
link |
You know, earlier you made the mention of your goals
link |
of in part of being wild and wise,
link |
and I'm here to tell you that you are both wild and wise.
link |
And so thank you so much.
link |
Thank you very much.
link |
Thank you for joining me today for my discussion
link |
about the science and practice of movement
link |
and movement culture with Ido Portal.
link |
If you'd like to learn more about Ido and his workshops
link |
and other aspects of what he does,
link |
please go to his social media.
link |
His Instagram handle is portal, P-O-R-T-A-L dot Ido, I-D-O.
link |
You can also go to idoportal.com,
link |
and there are a tremendous number of resources
link |
that will lead you to more information about what he does.
link |
If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast,
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please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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That's a terrific zero cost way to support us.
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As well, please subscribe to our podcast
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on Spotify and Apple.
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And on both Spotify and Apple,
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you have the opportunity to leave us
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up to a five-star review.
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On Apple, you can also leave us comments and feedback.
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And if you have suggestions about topics or podcast guests
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if you have criticism or questions,
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please put those in the comment section on YouTube.
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We do read all those comments.
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Please also check out the sponsors mentioned
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at the beginning of today's podcast.
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That's the best way to support this podcast.
link |
Not on today's episode,
link |
but on many previous episodes of the Huberman Lab Podcast,
link |
we discuss supplements.
link |
While supplements aren't necessary for everybody,
link |
many people derive tremendous benefit from them
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or could derive tremendous benefit from them.
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For that reason, the Huberman Lab Podcast
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has decided to partner with Momentus.
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We decided to partner with Momentus because first of all,
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they are of the absolute highest quality.
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Second of all, they ship anywhere in the world.
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And third, we wanted to have one site
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the supplements that are discussed on this podcast
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in the various dosages and single ingredient forms
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So if you'd like to see the supplements that I take
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or that have been mentioned on the podcast,
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please go to livemomentus.com slash Huberman
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and they're listed there as well as available there.
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If you're not already following us on social media,
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we are Huberman Lab on both Instagram and Twitter.
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Both places I do short posts about science
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some of which overlap with the content
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and other of which is distinct from the information
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So again, that's Huberman Lab on Twitter
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and Huberman Lab on Instagram.
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We also have a newsletter that many people find useful.
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This is a completely zero cost newsletter.
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You can find it by going to HubermanLab.com,
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click on the menu and go to newsletter
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and you sign up with your email.
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We do not share your email with anybody
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and we have a very clear privacy policy listed there.
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You can also get access at the very same site
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to newsletters from the past
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to see if those newsletters are indeed of interest to you.
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We have newsletters about a toolkit for sleep, for instance,
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or a neuroplasticity super protocol
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that incorporates a lot of different podcast episodes
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Again, that's HubermanLab.com and go to the menu
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and click on newsletter and sign up.
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And last, but certainly not least,
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thank you for your interest in science.
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I'll see you in the next one.