[0:00] Discipline is very important, but it's
[0:02] similar to the wall in learning to do a
[0:04] handstand. If you use the wall one way
[0:08] where you're all the time pushing
[0:09] yourself off of the wall, try to catch
[0:11] your handstand, you become reliant on
[0:14] the wall. But there is a different
[0:15] approach. We can use the wall but pull
[0:19] off of it which comes from the other end
[0:22] from our hands from the connection to
[0:24] the ground. That does not necessitate
[0:26] the wall. This is the correct way to use
[0:29] discipline. You should use it as a
[0:31] scaffolding as a way to get things going
[0:34] like write that book. But inside the
[0:36] process, you must make sure you don't
[0:38] lean hard into it. You don't leave
[0:41] everything for it to dictate and you
[0:44] bring some playfulness, some relaxation,
[0:48] some deep choice. I want to do this.
[0:53] Welcome to the Hubberman Lab podcast,
[0:54] where we discuss [music] science and
[0:56] science-based tools for everyday life.
[1:00] [music]
[1:02] I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor
[1:04] of neurobiology and opthalmology at
[1:06] Stanford School of Medicine. My guest
[1:08] today is Ido Portal. Ido Portal is a
[1:11] world-renowned movement teacher and the
[1:13] founder of movement culture, which is an
[1:15] integrative practice for developing the
[1:17] self that combines physical and mental
[1:19] practice. Today we discuss how anyone
[1:22] can practice movement, deliberate
[1:24] awareness, and even language and other
[1:26] forms of communication in ways that
[1:28] explore and expand your capabilities and
[1:30] your understanding and sense of self.
[1:33] >> [snorts]
[1:33] >> Now, Ido is not anti-ex exercise or
[1:35] anti-fitness, but what sets him apart as
[1:37] a movement teacher and why so many
[1:39] professional athletes, dancers, and
[1:41] people around the world continually seek
[1:43] out his teachings is his ability to show
[1:45] people unique ways for how to go about
[1:48] their daily life in ways that truly
[1:50] expand both their mind and their body as
[1:52] well as their athletic performance in
[1:54] the case of athletics. Today, we discuss
[1:56] unique meditation practices, ways to
[1:59] build discipline and access willpower.
[2:01] And by the way, what the difference
[2:02] between discipline and willpower is and
[2:05] how to use play as an extremely potent
[2:07] way to rewire your default operating
[2:09] systems in everything you do. If you
[2:12] like so many other people typically
[2:14] think about movement practices as for
[2:16] strength or endurance or mobility, well,
[2:18] today you're in for a surprise because
[2:20] Ido explains how the transitions between
[2:22] brain states and physical states are
[2:24] linked and are fertile ground for
[2:26] extremely rapid neuroplasticity and that
[2:29] they can help you truly understand how
[2:30] your mind and body are organized and can
[2:32] function better. Today's conversation is
[2:35] a truly special one. I have to be clear.
[2:37] It's not philosophical. It's not
[2:39] theoretical. It's a practical
[2:41] exploration of movement, awareness,
[2:43] language, and cognition that is rooted
[2:46] in science and has real world
[2:47] implications for all of us. Edo is a
[2:50] truly unique human being, teacher, and
[2:52] friend. And it was an honor to host him
[2:54] again. So, prepare to learn. Before we
[2:57] begin, I'd like to emphasize that this
[2:58] podcast is separate from my teaching and
[3:00] research roles at Stanford. It is
[3:02] however part of my desire and effort to
[3:04] bring zero cost to consumer information
[3:05] about science and science related tools
[3:08] to the general public. In keeping with
[3:09] that theme, today's episode does include
[3:12] sponsors. And now for my discussion with
[3:14] Ido Portal. Idor Portal, welcome back.
[3:18] >> Thank you.
[3:19] >> So happy to see you again, my friend.
[3:20] >> Good to see you.
[3:21] >> You've aged backwards, so doing
[3:24] something right now. You haven't aged at
[3:26] all. What have you been up to lately? I
[3:28] have many questions but I want to know
[3:29] what what what's been your first thought
[3:32] on waking most consistently over the
[3:34] last you know year or so
[3:38] the same thing always the same thing the
[3:41] most important thing that exists that
[3:43] there is that that's how my system
[3:47] operates but getting that that change
[3:51] that deep transformation in people in
[3:54] myself
[3:57] Why? Why are we missing it? What is what
[4:00] is required
[4:02] that's always been there and changes its
[4:05] face, but it's the same one.
[4:09] When you wake up, do you open your eyes
[4:12] right away or do you ever spend some
[4:14] time in that liinal state between
[4:16] [clears throat] asleep and awake?
[4:18] >> I'm sometimes spend some time there. I
[4:21] experienced also sleep paralysis before
[4:24] and various inetweens
[4:27] >> where you're wide awake but the body is
[4:29] still paralyzed. Yeah.
[4:30] >> Yeah. When you sit a lot when when you
[4:32] meditate a lot and and other practices
[4:35] and somatic practices again you get to
[4:38] know the territory and you can stabilize
[4:42] fragile states more easily. So crossing
[4:45] into that boundary of the sleep it
[4:47] becomes
[4:49] a slow-mo journey that you can pause
[4:52] that you can you know spend time at any
[4:55] point in interesting I do yoga nidra
[5:00] non-sleep deep rest and there are
[5:01] moments where I can feel myself falling
[5:03] asleep and it literally feels like
[5:05] falling and then you can kind of catch
[5:07] yourself in these liinal states. Rick
[5:09] Rubin once said to me, he said, "If uh
[5:13] if you wake up from a like a bad dream,
[5:16] a nightmare, just move your body and
[5:20] look around the room. If you wake up
[5:22] from a dream you were really enjoying
[5:24] and you want to go back in, keep your
[5:26] eyes closed." And I think what he's
[5:29] talking about is more or less what
[5:30] you're talking about, the ability to
[5:32] kind of forward and reverse out of these
[5:35] transition states. Usually the the
[5:38] common way that people live and the
[5:39] common person has a very
[5:43] simplified
[5:45] perception of these states of this the
[5:49] granularity.
[5:50] >> Mhm.
[5:51] >> So they're difficult to stabilize. So it
[5:55] becomes very binary black white sleep
[5:58] you know like you you relax someone they
[6:01] fall asleep. That's what happens when
[6:04] there is not a lot of experience.
[6:06] Everything is immediately going there.
[6:08] But there is a lot of benefit in heading
[6:10] to sleep and taking a sharp left just
[6:14] before.
[6:15] >> Tell me about that and how one might um
[6:17] practice that.
[6:19] >> Well, the sleep there is a kind of a way
[6:22] where we can inverse the relationship.
[6:26] This is the sleeping state which is
[6:28] discussed in various authors and the
[6:31] waking sleep and then the sleep has a
[6:34] benefit because there is an openness
[6:38] towards something else. So heading
[6:40] directly to sleep and then navigating
[6:44] from there is very powerful to reset the
[6:47] system to change the schemes these rigid
[6:50] schemes that we sometimes have the rigid
[6:52] schemas
[6:54] the models that we're running when they
[6:56] become too rigid when they're surrounded
[6:58] by a hard membrane
[7:00] when they oversimplify
[7:02] and there is this bas basian reduction
[7:06] um you got to pop out of it somehow. So
[7:09] psychedelics is one way and there are
[7:12] other ways but the sleep every day is
[7:15] key because it's a a very different
[7:18] status and way of being and way of
[7:21] experiencing which we experience daily
[7:24] and uh we can use that transition part
[7:27] and the thing itself as well. Do you
[7:29] ever intentionally get up in the middle
[7:31] of the night to just experience being
[7:35] mostly awake but somewhat asleep just to
[7:39] experience what that what that's like?
[7:42] >> Yeah, I did before. Various practices
[7:45] use that kind of instruction. Uh people
[7:49] uh some people might be familiar with
[7:51] the lucid dreaming or the the dream yoga
[7:53] or the sleep yoga what is called various
[7:56] practices and waking up in the middle of
[7:58] the night also allows you to
[8:02] appreciate something else something
[8:04] different. Sometimes it happens and you
[8:07] can manipulate it into somewhere and
[8:10] sometimes you can do it on purpose.
[8:12] Nowadays with all the longevity talk and
[8:15] all this direction we we sometimes don't
[8:18] capitalize on such things but uh
[8:21] sometimes there is more to be gained
[8:22] with a bad night's sleep than with a
[8:24] good night's sleep.
[8:25] >> Uh in [clears throat] 2015 to 20 I would
[8:29] say 2018 I was uh very busy but I was
[8:34] mourning the death of my graduate
[8:36] adviser. was very close with her um
[8:39] unusually close for a graduate adviser
[8:41] and student
[8:42] >> [clears throat]
[8:42] >> um very maternal
[8:45] her to me relationship knew her kids I'm
[8:48] friends with her husband and kids still
[8:50] and um she died in 2014 and I was really
[8:53] distraught about it and someone
[8:56] recommended to me uh that I set an alarm
[9:00] for the middle of the night somewhere
[9:02] between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. and I just
[9:04] get up and and try grieving then. And at
[9:08] first I thought like that sounds like
[9:09] the worst thing to do. I'm like no I
[9:12] have no protection then you know my
[9:14] forebrain is shut down. I'm that's when
[9:16] I normally would be entering more REM
[9:18] sleep. And I tried it. It was very
[9:21] interesting. It definitely allowed for
[9:22] more intense morning but it had a very
[9:25] interesting effect where I no longer had
[9:27] the challenge of like falling asleep and
[9:29] waking up. I had this like designated
[9:31] period in my sleep. did a lot of crying
[9:33] between 3:00 am and 5:00 am and in many
[9:37] ways I I feel like it worked. Who knows
[9:40] in some cultures it's like the veil of
[9:43] suppression is is pulled back. Our
[9:46] defenses are way way down in those
[9:48] hours.
[9:49] >> That's the point.
[9:50] >> Yeah. these membranes that are
[9:53] surrounding various systems inside of us
[9:56] and and models that we are running that
[9:58] are protecting them. This uh marov
[10:01] blankets
[10:03] the this filters that can rigidify and
[10:07] and don't allow a lot in to simplify
[10:10] things for the model so we can survive
[10:12] so we can do things. And then in when
[10:15] you change when you go into those times
[10:18] to those change the scenario radically,
[10:22] you increase your chances of opening up
[10:24] of recalculating of allowing the model
[10:27] to recalibrate.
[10:30] And again, people nowadays that they use
[10:32] extreme means, it doesn't necessarily
[10:35] mean that it works. Sometimes sometimes
[10:38] you need the micro dosages
[10:40] [clears throat]
[10:40] >> and a practice around it. repetition,
[10:44] not a huge event of intensity, but a a
[10:48] repeating mellow event, gentle event. I
[10:52] can relate to I started a prayer
[10:53] practice before sleep over two and a
[10:56] half years ago, and I'm haven't been
[10:58] missed a single night. Um, and some
[11:00] nights I fall asleep while I'm praying
[11:02] and wake up and continue. And um I tell
[11:05] myself that the consistency is like
[11:09] worth something on those nights cuz I I
[11:11] feel sort of badly like my mind's
[11:12] drifting and then okay but I haven't
[11:14] missed you know it's it's all in the if
[11:16] I fall asleep get out of bed and and do
[11:18] it and then get back in bed. With
[11:20] respect to these microp practices micro
[11:22] doing as it were uh I know you're a
[11:26] proponent of med meditation
[11:28] um people often will talk about how long
[11:31] they meditate. Do you have a practice
[11:33] where you will just stop for a moment or
[11:36] two or a minute or or is it for you a
[11:39] meditation practice a long extended
[11:41] thing and how often are you doing that?
[11:43] Oh, I think there are advantages to to
[11:47] both ends of the spectrum
[11:49] cuz the the long meditation thing, the
[11:52] the retreats, the strong determination
[11:56] seats, many hours or you know many days,
[12:00] they definitely [sighs]
[12:03] load the trampoline and and and create
[12:05] an effect. But also you become dependent
[12:10] on it and it's hard later to drag this
[12:13] into other areas of life which is not
[12:15] often discussed and mentioned in
[12:17] relation to meditation.
[12:19] I didn't start to meditate because I
[12:21] wanted to sit. I wanted to take the
[12:24] state and to apply it into my life. So
[12:31] that is a moment where you can
[12:33] integrate. You can take the depth and
[12:35] you can take also very short periods of
[12:38] practice and apply this micro dosages
[12:42] and try to get a change in the defaults
[12:46] of this your state and your way of
[12:48] being.
[12:50] Eventually people ask me why I practice
[12:53] so much is because I'm aiming for 24
[12:55] hours a day.
[12:57] So if you're practicing 8 hours a day or
[12:59] 10 hours a day, this is the unofficial
[13:02] side of the practice. And this micro
[13:04] practices are very helpful for that. A
[13:07] good practice to do is not to take your
[13:11] mind off of something like a problem
[13:15] that you have to solve.
[13:17] to walk around and
[13:20] try to remember that thing. Try to keep
[13:24] it in front of you as much as you can.
[13:27] Which means the only thing you can be
[13:28] blamed for is if you caught yourself
[13:31] >> not focusing on that and you didn't
[13:34] bring yourself back to the problem at
[13:36] hand. Then you are to be blamed.
[13:38] Anything else is fine. [clears throat]
[13:41] >> And that is a very powerful practice. We
[13:43] we can solve incredibly difficult
[13:45] problems, overcome obstacles, transform
[13:48] ourselves.
[13:50] And we've moved away from such ways of
[13:52] doing and ways of being.
[13:55] It's an unfortunate reality, but tap
[13:57] water often contains contaminants that
[14:00] negatively impact our health. In fact, a
[14:02] 2020 study by the Environmental Working
[14:04] Group estimated that more than 200
[14:06] million Americans are exposed to PAS
[14:08] chemicals, also known as forever
[14:10] chemicals, through drinking of tap
[14:12] water. These forever chemicals are
[14:14] linked to serious health issues such as
[14:16] hormone disruption, gut microbiome
[14:18] disruption, fertility issues, and many
[14:20] other health problems. The Environmental
[14:22] Working Group has also shown that over
[14:25] 122 million Americans drink tap water
[14:27] with high levels of chemicals known to
[14:29] cause cancer. It's for all these reasons
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[15:08] Today's episode is also brought to us by
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[16:16] at checkout. We've done a few episodes
[16:20] in the last year on or that touched on
[16:23] meditation. Uh we had Richie Davidson
[16:25] who's one of the like real pioneers of
[16:27] studying the neuroscience of meditation
[16:29] and he said that when people start a
[16:31] meditation practice traditional sitting
[16:34] meditation close their eyes focus on
[16:36] third eye center breathing etc redirect
[16:39] attention that they see a statistically
[16:41] significant increase in anxiety across
[16:44] that early phase and in some ways he
[16:47] said that's a real value of the
[16:49] practice. It's really about stress
[16:50] inoculation, the stress that comes from
[16:52] forcing oneself to sit still. But
[16:55] eventually it does seem to give way if
[16:57] people practice regularly to some other
[16:59] kind of uh channel of consciousness that
[17:02] is very useful to apply in the rest of
[17:04] one's life.
[17:06] >> Sounds [clears throat] like that second
[17:08] channel is the one that you're after.
[17:10] >> Yeah. this anxiety, this under reduced
[17:13] state in a way, the failure to adjust
[17:18] the membrane, this protective membrane
[17:21] around the model, whatever model it is,
[17:23] if it's the body scheme, if it's the
[17:26] emotional schema or or the conceptual
[17:29] schema, you're in an underreduced state.
[17:32] So everything bombers you and you're
[17:34] bleeding resources metabolically, right?
[17:38] And that's anxiety. That's why all
[17:40] almost always anxiety over a long
[17:43] duration will turn into depression.
[17:45] You're bleeding resources.
[17:47] So adjusting simplifying that's a
[17:51] critical moment. Of course lowering the
[17:53] bar of the task is a very important
[17:58] tool. Microtasks
[18:00] and I'm not just talking about the
[18:02] classical sitting meditation. I'm using
[18:05] everything. For me, it's all the same
[18:09] tasks with tennis balls, with a with a
[18:11] stick. I I'll use anything because my
[18:15] intention is not to get the success in
[18:17] the specifics, is to get the
[18:21] transformation
[18:23] much deeper. So, it's almost irrelevant.
[18:26] I'll use whatever I need to use to get
[18:28] that going.
[18:30] And so I think meditation many ways
[18:33] sometimes becomes too dogmatic in that
[18:35] sense.
[18:36] >> Yeah, we've already touched on sort of
[18:38] liinal states transition from sleep to
[18:40] waking or waking to sleep and trying to
[18:44] just catch oneself and pause in those
[18:46] like you said maybe reverse maybe pause
[18:48] there hover there. I'm fascinated by
[18:51] this peculiar place we are with science
[18:55] where we know a lot more about sleeping
[18:58] states can describe phase one phase two
[19:00] phase three slow wave deep sleep REM
[19:02] sleep the fraction that you get
[19:03] depending on the night before vivid
[19:05] dreams versus non vivid dreams
[19:08] we know barely anything scientifically
[19:14] about waking states in comparison to
[19:16] sleeping states I mean we talk alpha
[19:18] waves beta waves theta waves but It's
[19:20] very rudimentary. Like right now,
[19:23] I assure you there's no scientific paper
[19:26] that could describe the state that we're
[19:28] in. We could say, oh, the these alpha
[19:30] waves or these, you know, percentage of
[19:33] activity in one brain area or another. I
[19:36] think that the definition of different
[19:39] waking states is going to come into
[19:42] science from outside of science. someone
[19:44] will study it. But I've been waiting for
[19:46] somebody to say like this is uh like are
[19:49] we in stage one of focused attention
[19:51] right now? Stage four. Nobody can ex um
[19:54] point to this which is should bother
[19:57] people. Like we're we're really far
[19:59] behind even a descriptive understanding
[20:02] of where we're at. Like I feel calm
[20:04] right now despite drinking caf so much
[20:06] caffeine. You're clearly externally
[20:09] calm. I imagine you're internally calm.
[20:11] But what would you describe like your
[20:13] state? How should people start to peel
[20:15] back the layers and get a better
[20:17] understanding of the state they're in?
[20:18] Because I think there's real value to
[20:19] this in waking states. And I don't have
[20:21] a language for it, but you've spent a
[20:24] lot more time thinking about mindbody
[20:26] states than I have. I think there is a a
[20:29] a m a mistake or a direction that we
[20:33] took asking who we are
[20:38] instead of asking what we are which can
[20:40] really serve this. There is a need of
[20:44] almost a a rudimentary map of what is
[20:50] what is needed what is here how do I map
[20:54] this what am I observing even you can't
[20:57] refine what you can't define but not in
[20:59] the sense of this verbal definition but
[21:01] some kind of an internal definition some
[21:04] kind of a boundary drawn some kind of a
[21:08] selection
[21:10] the selected thing the selected state
[21:13] the differentiation
[21:16] without this
[21:19] what am I seeing when I look inside
[21:21] listen to your body
[21:23] I don't believe in that
[21:26] >> portal doesn't believe in listen to your
[21:27] body right what do you listen to
[21:29] >> what are you listening
[21:30] >> your heartbeat your what does that mean
[21:33] >> it's corrupted you're too corrupted to
[21:36] listen to your body
[21:37] >> those are the most corrupted people
[21:39] usually
[21:40] >> the people who are saying listen to your
[21:41] body.
[21:42] >> Yes. I think it that whole verbiage
[21:45] comes from this notion and the quite
[21:49] pioneering although I would say somewhat
[21:52] outof-date book the body keeps the score
[21:54] I think is it was an important book best
[21:56] title of any book you could imagine in
[21:59] the psychology space because it's so
[22:00] catchy um and I want to give proper
[22:03] respect to um Bessel [clears throat]
[22:05] for doing that book and it was early but
[22:08] I think that embedded in people's minds
[22:11] that like experiences we have live as
[22:16] pain, discomfort or blockages and that
[22:20] the [clears throat] solutions come from
[22:21] releasing that pain, discomfort and
[22:23] blockage. Erggo, if I'm feeling good,
[22:28] things are moving through. I'm making
[22:29] progress. I'm moving away from that
[22:31] historical bad thing. And if I'm feeling
[22:34] it again, it's still alive in me and it
[22:37] needs to be released. That's the kind of
[22:39] premise.
[22:40] >> Yeah. And there a lot of data to support
[22:41] that chronic stress can harm the body
[22:43] and so forth. So those things those
[22:44] ideas sort of took off. But I also agree
[22:46] they sort of they've kind of hit a wall
[22:49] in um 2020 or so. We go well what like
[22:53] what do you mean? Well it's in the
[22:54] fascia really like is it in the fascia
[22:57] or are we just like talking about
[22:58] fascia? And and I love all of that stuff
[23:00] as an exploration but I think we are at
[23:03] a place where we really need to ask
[23:05] better questions.
[23:06] >> Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's it it sounds
[23:09] very corrupted again. And we know so
[23:12] much about
[23:14] the framing of things, excitement
[23:17] versus, you know, very negative states
[23:19] that it's so similar. It's so close
[23:23] that it cannot make sense. We cannot
[23:25] work from that place. And and also
[23:28] working from our likes and dislikes.
[23:30] What do I want to do? We just watch this
[23:33] thing. You just need to do what you want
[23:36] to do. I believe that's the last thing
[23:39] for you to do.
[23:40] >> Right. Um, you know, I was referring to
[23:42] before we came in here, we watched two
[23:44] short films. The first one is a one that
[23:46] was u put out in 2014 about this guy,
[23:50] real life guy slow-mo. uh we'll put a
[23:52] link to it who uh guy who essentially
[23:55] gave up his life as a physician and say
[23:57] rollerblades very slowly on one leg down
[24:00] the boardwalk in Pacific Beach San Diego
[24:03] to touch into
[24:05] what he describes as a mild euphoria and
[24:08] altered state he's totally sober clearly
[24:11] very very smart and the other film we'll
[24:15] talk about several times uh which
[24:17] hopefully will be out in the not too
[24:18] distant future so we can all see a
[24:20] beautiful film that's being made about
[24:23] IDO and movement culture called the
[24:25] architecture of practice. Correct.
[24:28] >> Internal architecture.
[24:28] >> The internal architecture of practice.
[24:30] Excuse me. Um trust me folks, you want
[24:33] to see this when it comes out. It's it's
[24:35] visually beautiful and content uh rich.
[24:39] It's it's spectacular.
[24:41] >> Thank you.
[24:41] >> There's something really special there.
[24:43] Uh for sure. But I wrote down actually
[24:46] play versus discipline. I think for some
[24:50] people it would be helpful
[24:52] to try and uh operationalize a bit of
[24:56] what we're going to go to today. And I
[24:59] know you're not a fan of like morning
[25:01] routine or this or that, but I can
[25:02] imagine walking toward a practice of any
[25:05] kind, a workout of any kind, making
[25:08] scrambled eggs
[25:10] as either I'm going to approach approach
[25:12] this from a with a sense of play or I'm
[25:15] going to approach this with a sense of
[25:17] discipline. I'm going to try and find
[25:19] some friction, some edges that force me
[25:22] to rewire something. Now, play can help
[25:25] rewire, discipline can help rewire, but
[25:27] of your waking hours, what percentage of
[25:30] time do you spend in kind of a playful
[25:33] explorative state, like kind of keep it
[25:35] light and loose versus, you know, I know
[25:37] you're also a believer in like there's
[25:39] really value to putting up mental or
[25:42] physical or both corridors so that your
[25:45] system, your whole system improves
[25:48] because at those friction points is
[25:50] where plasticity
[25:51] can be triggered. I think both of these
[25:54] things and also the relation to
[25:57] motivation
[25:58] in in both of them are
[26:03] required scaffoldings
[26:06] that we have to use at certain points in
[26:08] time but are not the essential
[26:12] will
[26:14] that connection to what we we don't know
[26:19] nothing about that we have researched
[26:22] that deeply in v various spheres but
[26:26] often we just replace pure will with
[26:30] discipline
[26:32] or with motivation but once I motivated
[26:35] myself I don't need will anymore and if
[26:38] I dis if I discipline myself into doing
[26:42] something I also hijack the opportunity
[26:46] playfulness it brings a direction and a
[26:50] flavor of something else a different way
[26:53] to interact with something. How do we
[26:56] start to look at that? What is the basic
[26:59] requirement? I don't want to do this.
[27:04] Without this requirement, I can't
[27:06] research will
[27:09] now if I hijack it, if I take the
[27:13] process and I distort it, I use
[27:14] discipline,
[27:16] then again, I'm out of the game. Or if I
[27:19] motivate myself, same problem.
[27:22] Playfulness try to walk a different path
[27:24] a little bit.
[27:28] Maybe it's not it quite. It's not the
[27:30] will that search for a will that you
[27:33] know many authors and and practitioners
[27:36] have looked for because it's so elusive.
[27:39] But it's definitely something to
[27:41] cultivate and we've talked about it the
[27:43] last time we met
[27:46] and it brings about so many positive
[27:48] things. I think people should first
[27:52] develop discipline
[27:55] and use motivation and also research
[27:59] playfulness which is a lot more tricky
[28:01] for people uh these days.
[28:04] It brings with it
[28:07] incredible benefits. The aesthetic
[28:10] intensities that are missing from our
[28:12] lives awe
[28:15] curiosity, this deep sense of curiosity,
[28:18] these things can allow us to totally
[28:21] transform the emotional schema which is
[28:24] stuck rigid.
[28:27] This model of ourselves that is often
[28:31] times
[28:32] rigidifies all the way to depression.
[28:35] The most tricky situation of all the
[28:38] total bankruptcy of that budget of those
[28:43] resources.
[28:46] So something like awe
[28:49] which happens also in psychedelics.
[28:51] Isn't this a huge part of the
[28:53] psychedelic thing? What about
[28:56] experiencing all regularly in a directed
[28:59] targeted and practiced way?
[29:03] It can be cold showers and hot shower an
[29:08] experience on the sensory level. It can
[29:10] be something that is more related to the
[29:12] environment like sky gazing. Incredible
[29:15] practice. 10 minutes a day. Your eyes
[29:17] cannot grab onto things. So and it can
[29:21] be and very important conceptual
[29:25] or reading poetry or certain types of
[29:30] stories or literature touches that so
[29:34] all of this comes along with playfulness
[29:37] our interaction with things I treat this
[29:41] as a playful thing
[29:42] >> so if I think about it it's almost
[29:44] always present because it allows me not
[29:48] to rigidify myself in front of the
[29:51] challenge. I'm working with athletes or
[29:53] work in cinema or do some project or
[29:55] work with a government body or or a
[29:57] military organization. I bring
[30:00] playfulness.
[30:01] Playfulness allows me to go much
[30:04] further, much deeper. My discipline
[30:09] wouldn't get me there.
[30:11] >> It got me certain places. Who got there
[30:15] to that place? I discovered that it
[30:17] wasn't me because I use discipline. So,
[30:20] it's often leaving you kind of out the
[30:23] totality of you.
[30:24] >> I am very very intrigued by this play
[30:28] versus discipline uh thing. So many
[30:32] years spent I wouldn't say punching the
[30:34] clock but you know there just things you
[30:36] have to do because experiments have to
[30:38] be done in this time in this way. one
[30:40] can develop a a real sense of an ability
[30:42] to push through and to do things and
[30:45] beautiful stuff can come out of what I
[30:46] call chop wood carry water. It's just
[30:48] like phase is like okay we're just going
[30:50] to chop wood carry water but this play
[30:53] thing is really powerful. I had this
[30:55] experience when I lived in San Diego. My
[30:58] lab started there and I I used to
[31:01] commute really far to work cuz I my home
[31:04] was um in an area that I really liked
[31:07] and that I could afford far from campus
[31:09] and the traffic was just brutal. Anyone
[31:12] that's ever driven in San Diego, these
[31:13] big wide eight lane freeways and and I
[31:16] like listening to music, so I would
[31:17] drive and I remember one morning just
[31:19] being so frustrated with the drive even
[31:21] though traffic was moving. And I've only
[31:23] had this experience once and I just
[31:25] decided I'm gonna just [clears throat]
[31:27] slalom the car to work. And I wasn't
[31:31] speeding. I'm like slaloming the car.
[31:33] I'm listening to music and I'm like this
[31:36] is the way to go to work. I can remember
[31:38] this one commute is a real standout
[31:40] experience in my life of like and I
[31:43] thought why don't I do this all the
[31:44] time?
[31:45] >> The old frog crosses the street video
[31:47] game.
[31:48] >> Right. Exactly. Exactly. So, I'm just,
[31:50] you know, and I get to work and I do
[31:52] thing and and this was one instance. I
[31:54] don't think I've ever done it again. And
[31:56] I like to drive, but I never
[31:58] deliberately turn on like I'm going to
[31:59] take an ordinary experience that I do
[32:01] every single day that usually is kind of
[32:04] like loathe or mildly irritated at
[32:08] traffic. I'm just going to enjoy this
[32:09] experience. I think now that it would be
[32:12] so great to just be able to apply that
[32:14] to all these different little
[32:15] transitions. Oddly enough, I also have
[32:18] flashbulb like memories of being in
[32:21] Yusede where I've spent a lot of time.
[32:22] I've hiked a lot of the peaks in Yusede.
[32:24] I love it. I live lived and worked up
[32:26] there when I was in college and I just
[32:28] adore. You know what? I remember the
[32:30] great vistas and great peas that I had
[32:34] urinating in the woods. I like have like
[32:36] flashb memories of like and there's
[32:38] something there. I think it's just the
[32:40] calm and relaxation like oh like I'm
[32:42] just a creature peeing in the woods, you
[32:44] know. And uh as one does, you know, when
[32:47] you when you count just thinking like
[32:49] this is awesome. I have these like my
[32:51] life is great. It's so weird that these
[32:53] micro experiences that occupy like 10 to
[32:56] 15 seconds or a minute depending on how
[32:58] much water you drink, right? One commute
[33:01] could grab like real mental real estate
[33:04] in our brain. There's something there.
[33:06] And I know people are probably like,
[33:07] "This is crazy." But I think most people
[33:10] would probably describe like kind of odd
[33:12] flashbulb memories that they have of
[33:13] things that are kind of trivial.
[33:15] >> Did you notice that the the quality of
[33:18] those memories
[33:20] >> cuz you recall them and it they it has a
[33:23] flavor and a texture and a resolution
[33:25] which is different than other things
[33:28] which sometimes are should have been a
[33:30] lot more detailed. And it comes and
[33:33] goes, but we can become a lot more
[33:36] deliberate about it. And it represents a
[33:39] certain presence
[33:41] in that specific scenario of a
[33:45] heightened it's a heightened presence
[33:47] thing. Why? Those are questions. But
[33:50] playfulness opens the door for that.
[33:53] Some of my best seats, my best
[33:55] meditations were using a playful
[33:58] approach.
[33:59] Similarly to how you navigate the
[34:02] traffic [gasps]
[34:03] you can use it writing your book.
[34:05] >> I tried that. It was very diff I will
[34:07] tell you it was very difficult because
[34:09] there's aspects of the book that are
[34:11] very technical. There are aspects that I
[34:12] really want to get communicate things in
[34:15] a certain way. I definitely tried to
[34:16] relax myself. Um Cal Newport who's a
[34:20] sort of a guy who's a big proponent of
[34:22] of deep work uh staying away from
[34:24] technology to you know writing by hand,
[34:27] typewriter, this kind of thing. He said
[34:29] uh and I tried this. He said to approach
[34:30] work with um kind of a languid
[34:33] intentionality kind of relaxed but with
[34:36] a direction. I tried it. I have to
[34:38] scruff myself and bring myself to it
[34:40] even though I want to do it and I just
[34:42] like have to like like I imagine I'm
[34:44] like doing this
[34:45] >> but that deep belief
[34:46] >> Yeah.
[34:47] >> is already a self-fulfilling prophecy
[34:50] cuz you perceive yourself as that
[34:52] person. This is the way for you to do
[34:55] things.
[34:55] >> Mhm. And I'm similar but I've glimpsed
[34:58] something else.
[35:00] Yes, I I also I'm the disciplinary
[35:04] person. I'm a person of great work ethic
[35:06] and
[35:08] this is how I came about. But then I
[35:10] discovered it doesn't matter because
[35:15] how you write that book using that
[35:17] approach it leaks into your words
[35:21] and it's a different way of doing
[35:24] things. you're not going to write
[35:27] doniote in this way. So I appreciate
[35:31] that and I also want to say come back to
[35:34] that thing this scaffolding the the fact
[35:38] that we have used discipline for such a
[35:40] long time is very positive we need that
[35:45] first thing is to get things done I'm
[35:48] the practice person I'm the met person
[35:50] you do it or you talk about it so
[35:53] discipline is very important but it's
[35:55] similar to the wall in learning to do a
[35:58] handstand if you Use the wall one way
[36:02] where you're all the time pushing
[36:03] yourself off of the wall. Try to catch
[36:05] your handstand.
[36:06] You become reliant on the wall. Notice
[36:09] what I said. You push yourself off of
[36:11] the wall. But there is a different
[36:13] approach. We can use the wall but pull
[36:17] off of it. Not quite push oursel off of
[36:20] it but pull off of it which comes from
[36:23] the other end from our hands from the
[36:25] connection to the ground. that does not
[36:28] necessitate a wall. So I can pull myself
[36:31] when I feel myself falling forward later
[36:33] on. This is the correct way to use
[36:36] discipline. You should use it as a
[36:39] scaffolding as a way to get things going
[36:41] like write that book. But inside the
[36:44] process, you must make sure you don't
[36:46] lean hard into it. You don't leave
[36:48] everything for it to dictate. And you
[36:52] bring some playfulness, some relaxation,
[36:56] some deep choice. I want to do this.
[37:00] It's so elusive.
[37:02] It's so tiny. Our life didn't leave any
[37:05] room for it anymore. We don't even
[37:07] recognize when will come to visit us.
[37:10] And here is the big shocker. It was for
[37:12] me that I discovered one does not
[37:15] develop the will.
[37:19] The will never gets developed.
[37:22] It's only get exposed.
[37:25] Discipline gets developed. That's what
[37:27] we mistaken will for. We call it will
[37:30] will power etc.
[37:33] But when a child is born with a problem,
[37:37] when you're facing such a situation,
[37:40] discipline might not be enough for you
[37:43] to do what is necessary. or when a child
[37:46] is born normal and you simply don't feel
[37:50] love for that child that occurs a lot
[37:54] what do I do now do I discipline myself
[37:57] I need a different quality and I need to
[38:01] research it and I need to open up space
[38:03] for it in my life space to practice it
[38:05] because it's not going to come from
[38:07] somewhere else and the practice will not
[38:09] develop it but it will expose an
[38:12] invisible thread it's a sequentiality
[38:15] I always do what I said I'm going to do,
[38:20] but not by disciplinary action, but by
[38:23] having a beautiful evasive sequence like
[38:26] you moving around the traffic, finding
[38:28] your way there. You never stopped
[38:31] looking for the best route. It's a very
[38:34] different approach than just pushing the
[38:37] gas pedal forward.
[38:38] >> Yeah. What's interesting is the traffic
[38:41] example, while trivial, it hopefully
[38:43] describes a process that people could
[38:45] relate to. Not only did I not lose
[38:47] energy from it, but I might have even
[38:50] picked up some energy.
[38:52] >> Beautiful.
[38:53] >> And the commute was exactly the same. So
[38:56] there's something in that experience and
[38:57] I and you're explaining it beautifully.
[39:00] This distinction between the will,
[39:03] willpower, the expression of the will
[39:06] and then discipline. Maybe we can define
[39:09] the difference a little bit more so that
[39:12] I can understand
[39:14] when I'm in
[39:17] discipline mode versus um exposing
[39:21] willpower. You said you can build
[39:22] discipline, you can't build the will.
[39:24] The will is a is a fixed unit but a
[39:27] hidden one, a very elusive one. [snorts]
[39:31] uh we can discuss it more and we will
[39:33] expose some things but we will not be
[39:35] successful in a binary fashion. We won't
[39:38] get it. The only way to get even a
[39:41] critical mess with that concept is self
[39:45] practice looking for that quality in
[39:48] your life and I already mentioned that
[39:51] the first requirement is to do things
[39:53] you don't want to do which you're also a
[39:56] big believer in from a variety of
[39:58] reasons.
[40:00] All of them are not as important as this
[40:04] because they go to serve this layer,
[40:07] this corrupted self, this success in
[40:10] this area. This is not important. What
[40:13] is important is you not all those
[40:16] things. And will is actually that
[40:19] representation of you. The totality, the
[40:24] harmonious combination of all that you
[40:27] are comes together and hence you can be
[40:30] reliable. You have a sequence. You found
[40:34] a way. You cannot push this forward. You
[40:38] cannot force this. So you need first a
[40:40] situation which you cannot you don't
[40:42] want to do. So I tell people here is the
[40:45] first requirement of this new practice
[40:48] practice of will.
[40:50] You have to wait for a moment. You don't
[40:52] want to do the task. That's the first
[40:54] thing. Not to go to the ice bath now.
[40:58] This is a different process and will get
[41:00] you somewhere else. Come up with a task
[41:05] that only sometimes you don't want to
[41:07] do. It's a crucial difference. And wait
[41:10] for that moment. In that moment, catch
[41:13] yourself. And there you have to
[41:16] investigate. There there is a very fine
[41:19] little game. It comes back to that
[41:22] playfulness that we have to play. Do not
[41:25] force into it. Don't jailbreak it. Don't
[41:30] push hard into it. Second problem, do
[41:33] not motivate yourself to do it. Don't
[41:35] put any YouTube clips. Don't mention
[41:37] slogans.
[41:40] Relax yourself.
[41:43] Essential component. Do not rigidify in
[41:46] front of the task. If you do, lower the
[41:49] bar. Find the task that has this right
[41:51] dosage and build up gradually and
[41:54] slowly. I like to use things like
[41:57] difficult physical postures
[42:00] like holding your arms out for 5
[42:03] minutes. It's enough. Just straight arms
[42:05] out. Some people can take it further
[42:09] or 3 minutes or doing a horse stance and
[42:13] then wait for a critical moment when I'm
[42:16] tired. A lot of these things are very
[42:18] useful. So I've grown to practice those
[42:20] things before I at the end of the day
[42:24] when I'm checking out that is the moment
[42:26] where I bring it about. And then you
[42:29] have to research and you have to find a
[42:32] thread, a way to get this going again
[42:36] and again and again with this gentle
[42:38] quality, this playfulness, this softness
[42:41] and slowly increase the bar. What will
[42:44] you discover? Your will is sufficient is
[42:47] like a mosquito's fart. That's the power
[42:50] of our will. Even incredibly powerful
[42:53] people because they only use discipline.
[42:56] So their will is totally they don't know
[42:58] how to identify it. They don't know how
[42:59] to put it together. So you got to do
[43:01] stuff that is so easy relatively easy
[43:06] that you're not interested in doing it.
[43:08] And that's why we don't develop will. So
[43:11] these are some of the discoveries that I
[43:13] I had with myself and trying to bring
[43:16] about this quality because like you I
[43:18] did a lot of stuff with powering
[43:21] through. I think the value of a physical
[43:23] practice um is probably obvious to
[43:26] people or more intuitive like okay um
[43:30] for some people ex exercise working out
[43:33] movement practice perhaps there'll be
[43:35] days when they want to do it there'll be
[43:37] days when they don't want to do it if I
[43:38] understand correctly
[43:41] the idea is to get right up to that edge
[43:44] and then instead of throwing oneself
[43:47] across that threshold or getting enough
[43:50] caffeine in yourself to get across cross
[43:51] that threshold or doing hyper cyclic
[43:53] hyperventilation breathing to get all
[43:55] the things to kick up adrenaline talking
[43:59] about getting right there relaxing and
[44:02] almost letting yourself sort of drift
[44:03] across but am I pushing a little bit am
[44:07] I giving myself a nudge like to keep
[44:09] going okay so I don't expect myself to
[44:11] just default into it okay do you still
[44:14] have to do that I mean you've been doing
[44:15] movement practice many years are there
[44:18] days when you feel that resistance And
[44:21] you have to kind of nudge yourself
[44:22] course if I don't feel the resistance I
[44:26] don't have will. I don't develop will
[44:27] and I don't have will. The whole point
[44:30] of will is that it only comes to visit
[44:32] and it's only necessary when there is a
[44:34] resistance.
[44:35] >> So you see those as opportunities
[44:37] >> as well.
[44:38] >> Mhm.
[44:39] >> As well. But this is this is the trick.
[44:41] But the to answer your question, my
[44:43] answer might be a bit trickier than what
[44:45] most people assume.
[44:47] They want the remove of the the removal
[44:51] of the problem and will that's the whole
[44:54] point of will
[44:55] >> right not to remove the problem and not
[44:57] to also jailbreak it
[45:00] and you've described it beautifully
[45:03] and imagine even that clip that you saw
[45:07] or over the last years things that you
[45:10] saw me you see me do they're not
[45:13] impressive anymore
[45:15] I can still kick up here and do a one-
[45:17] arm and stand in the center of the room.
[45:19] My body looks different by choice and
[45:23] how I move is different because I
[45:25] discovered this is not going anywhere.
[45:28] I've already been there. I've already
[45:31] done that. I've used motivation,
[45:34] discipline, this quality. I'm looking
[45:38] for something much more powerful, but
[45:40] much more gentle as well. So I had to go
[45:43] back to baby steps and to play that game
[45:47] that you you just mentioned beautifully,
[45:50] the edge. Stand at the edge
[45:54] and it has to be an edge. You're almost
[45:56] not sure if you choose that task whether
[45:59] it's difficult enough or not. It's not
[46:01] the only practice. It's just another
[46:03] flavor that is important for us to
[46:05] practice. I still practice my
[46:06] discipline. I still practice extremely
[46:08] difficult things. But it's an important
[46:11] flavor that I missed.
[46:13] >> Mhm.
[46:14] >> And I think most people are missing it.
[46:16] They have no interest in doing it. It's
[46:18] too easy. They don't understand the
[46:21] point is not in the task at all. The
[46:23] point is is in the quality that
[46:25] develops, the attribute that develops
[46:27] inside of us, which is one of the most
[46:29] important basic attributes. I want to
[46:32] know when I'm going to war with you,
[46:35] whatever war that is, that you're
[46:37] reliable to have a word.
[46:40] And that cannot rely on caffeine or on
[46:45] on discipline. And and you can play this
[46:47] game. I'm right now extremely
[46:48] jet-lagged. So I'm I'm very tired. So I
[46:52] play this game with myself. I I have
[46:54] this little internal smile here in my
[46:58] jaw inside. I I I play I pay attention
[47:02] to what is going on in the internal
[47:04] realm, this interceptive thing and I
[47:08] play a game. Before I used to kind of
[47:10] push against it, harden against it and
[47:13] push through whatever needs to be done
[47:16] and so this way of practicing taught me
[47:18] a lot.
[47:20] >> I'd like to take a quick break and
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[48:36] co-enzyme Q10 with your first AG1
[48:38] subscription. Yeah, I'm I'm very
[48:41] intrigued by this this notion of of play
[48:44] because I do think that it's energy
[48:47] conserving if not energy building. And
[48:50] it's kind of incredible, right? I mean,
[48:52] we know that neuroplasticity is
[48:54] triggered by friction points, you know,
[48:55] some level of autonomic arousal. How why
[48:58] else would the nervous system change if
[48:59] it can do what it needs to do? You need
[49:01] a change in the millu, the chemical
[49:03] environment. But if one can get it from
[49:05] play, that's awesome because the other
[49:09] thing takes literally adrenaline,
[49:11] norepinephrine. Yes, we love dopamine,
[49:13] but that little cocktail of
[49:15] catacolamines as we call them, that is
[49:18] energy. That's chi. That's the It's
[49:20] energetically costly to be in that
[49:22] state. Play is a different cocktail. It
[49:25] includes some of those, but it includes
[49:27] some other stuff, too. We know this
[49:28] neurochemically. So, I'm not just
[49:30] speaking in metaphors. And it does seem
[49:33] to open something up. And it's a sounds
[49:36] so subtle. I'm going to be playful about
[49:38] this really important thing, this
[49:40] challenging thing versus I'm going to
[49:42] just, you know, I'm going to just drill
[49:44] into this. the rigidity that comes about
[49:47] is is almost instantaneous
[49:49] >> and it's more representative of you in
[49:53] the way that I see this word you self I
[49:58] because again that that the use of that
[50:00] cocktail that the jailbreaking
[50:04] is a very it removes something from
[50:08] engaging it it numbs something. So here
[50:12] this is the most crucial point. We get
[50:14] to transform ourselves
[50:17] by choosing to do something deeply
[50:21] saying I want to do this in the moment
[50:25] that you don't want to do this to find
[50:28] that paradoxical thing. It's a
[50:30] multistability. You have to be able to
[50:33] glimpse these two things to feel this
[50:35] emotional contradiction and to remain
[50:38] functional without collapsing to remain
[50:40] functional and moving forward leaning
[50:43] forward into the direction. This is a
[50:46] critical way of doing this is a a big
[50:49] passion of mine in the last years cuz I
[50:52] realized it's so crucial such a missing
[50:55] component
[50:57] and having listened to you and and and
[51:00] various people that you brought along
[51:02] really helped me helped me see it to
[51:05] understand it to look at the scientific
[51:09] side and the anatomy and the and the way
[51:11] that we are constructing these models
[51:14] and to see if that match matches my
[51:16] experience and what exactly is missing
[51:18] and where am I lying to myself in that
[51:20] sense. So it turned out to be a valuable
[51:24] insight.
[51:25] >> It's come up before on a few podcasts
[51:27] and you may have heard this but I'll
[51:28] just briefly describe we have a finally
[51:31] thanks to the work largely of my
[51:33] colleague Joe Parveves at Stanford. We
[51:34] have a neurological understanding of
[51:37] tenacity and willpower and the
[51:39] plasticity that is this anterior mids
[51:41] singulate cortex that gets activated
[51:42] when we don't want to do something and
[51:44] we force ourselves to do it and that
[51:46] structure enlarges and it becomes easier
[51:48] to access and so we you know in that
[51:50] sense the the discipline piece really
[51:52] can be built up
[51:54] >> definitely
[51:54] >> the recognition that oh I don't want to
[51:56] do this feels a lot like the I don't
[51:57] want to do that and I was able to do
[51:59] that that anterior midsulate cortex can
[52:02] go to work on a number of things it's a
[52:04] it's a real thing. We don't yet have the
[52:09] coralate structure for the play piece.
[52:11] >> Definitely
[52:11] >> and it may be distributed, right? We
[52:13] always want to think there's a
[52:14] structure, the amygdala, fear, inter
[52:16] midsulate cortex, tenacity, but these
[52:18] are circuit phenomena. But but it would
[52:20] be so nice to be able to find a neural
[52:22] coralate because there does seem to be
[52:24] something very special about people in
[52:27] their 70s, 80s, 90s who
[52:30] >> they're in the longevity game clearly
[52:33] and they're taking great care of their
[52:35] bodies and their minds, but there's a
[52:37] playful spirit in there that
[52:40] is never discussed in this whole
[52:42] longevity thing, but it's clearly very
[52:45] very crucial. hard to research that of
[52:48] course from obvious reasons it's much
[52:50] more easier to to research this
[52:52] discipline right
[52:53] >> to be playful
[52:56] I I want to I want to give something
[53:00] positive we all meet this quality even
[53:03] many of us believe I never am in this
[53:07] state investigate
[53:10] >> investigate into your past like you
[53:13] mentioned this moment of driving but I I
[53:16] want to tell you something.
[53:19] Investigate yesterday. It was also there
[53:23] for moments. For brief moments, you can
[53:25] always and by studying this, you would
[53:27] help yourself because it is always
[53:30] present. It's almost guaranteed to be
[53:33] there even in extremely depressed
[53:36] people. Part of the problem of
[53:38] depression is this rigidity
[53:40] to change to to recognize these positive
[53:44] moments, right? and to to to transform
[53:46] the model. So we don't end up harvesting
[53:51] it but it's there. It's an important
[53:54] thing because without
[53:57] learning the flavor and the texture of
[53:59] that we have no chance of approaching
[54:03] that developing this playfulness this
[54:05] will this softness about things that can
[54:08] do a lot. There's a third bin which I
[54:12] think people default to including myself
[54:14] right I think about discipline will or
[54:18] laziness sloth and wasting time. Right
[54:21] now we're talking about using discipline
[54:24] or a mode of play to do something. These
[54:26] days it seems a lot of having a good
[54:29] life is about not doing certain things.
[54:32] mostly for most people not having your
[54:36] consciousness and your body pulled into
[54:39] algorithms. You know, I'm a fan of
[54:41] social media. I learn there. I
[54:44] [clears throat] see you there. I try and
[54:46] teach there. But there is a way in which
[54:49] our body shape, our mental shape can be
[54:52] structured around this wheel of infinite
[54:56] stimuli. That's how I think about it
[54:57] now. Now when I go into uh social media,
[55:01] I think about it as a wheel of infinite
[55:03] stimula. Like a rat in an experiment. If
[55:06] I want to keep that rat engaged, just
[55:08] give it this, give it that. Doesn't like
[55:09] this, give it that. I mean, that's the
[55:10] algorithm. I try and see myself in it so
[55:13] that I can navigate it with some
[55:14] intentionality like, oh, this is
[55:16] interesting. I'm actually quite
[55:17] inspired. I'm not just saying this by
[55:20] the content you've put up over the
[55:21] years. I really think hard about the
[55:23] I've gone and looked up authors. You
[55:24] know, your philosophers and many things
[55:26] I don't know. So I I follow up on those.
[55:29] In the domain of strength training,
[55:32] there's this guy Tom Havland. I think he
[55:34] was used to be Australian special
[55:35] forces. He only posts from the back. He
[55:37] doesn't disclose his identity. Very
[55:39] large guy. Um doing zer squats, you
[55:42] know, where the bar is in the crook of
[55:43] the elbow with, you know, 500 plus
[55:45] pounds with pauses and it's very, you
[55:48] know, if you really impressive feats of
[55:51] strength. So I see and learn and
[55:54] inspired by things I see in social
[55:55] media. Sends me down the path of
[55:58] learning. I didn't even know what a zer
[55:59] squat was until recently. It's kind of
[56:01] cool. Like I know the crooks of elbows
[56:03] could hold that much. And the core
[56:04] bracing is really interesting. But a lot
[56:07] of my life these days is about no this
[56:10] is not a stimulus space I want to spend
[56:13] time in. I'm 50 now. I don't know how
[56:16] long I'll live. Hopefully a long time.
[56:18] But allocation of energy is like 90% of
[56:23] the game of life, right? Maybe more. So
[56:27] when you think about practices for
[56:30] resisting
[56:31] doing something, the no-go as we say in
[56:34] neuroscience, not go tasks, but no go.
[56:37] How do you think about pulling back in a
[56:41] playful way? That's a little bit harder.
[56:43] Beautiful question and very important
[56:47] thing to to look at to examine and I I
[56:50] can offer my my personal experiences
[56:53] that's the only thing that I can but
[56:56] again the pullback deleting the app
[57:00] you know take something off throwing
[57:03] your phone on the rooftop
[57:04] >> done it done it
[57:05] >> that's why I mentioned it cuz you told
[57:07] me last time we met
[57:08] >> yeah when I used to have to write grants
[57:10] I would either give my phone to my
[57:12] students early days and I'd say if I
[57:13] asked for that back before 5:00 p.m.
[57:16] today, everyone in lab gets a $100 bill.
[57:19] I didn't have the money to do that. I
[57:22] didn't ask for it back by 5 or throw it
[57:25] on the roof and go get it later. And
[57:27] this action, I'm not against it. May
[57:30] maybe it sounds like it's jailbreaking
[57:33] something, but it's a required moment.
[57:38] One of the first thing with will
[57:41] is the recognition that we're not in
[57:43] contact with it that we don't possess
[57:45] and we should verify it for ourselves by
[57:48] trying to do things
[57:50] which are definitely possible and we
[57:54] can't we can't do them.
[57:56] >> Mhm. [clears throat] How do I pull back
[58:00] in this way? Isn't this good to delete
[58:04] the app?
[58:06] It's a way of
[58:08] paying upfront.
[58:11] It's painful and it's costly. It's
[58:14] expensive. It's a required thing. Part
[58:18] of me say
[58:20] I'm not sure I'll be here in a few more
[58:23] moments. I'm going to take this action.
[58:26] It reminds me of I have great fear of
[58:28] heights.
[58:29] >> You?
[58:29] >> Yeah. It reminds me when I went to
[58:33] bungee jump the first time with friends
[58:36] decades ago in Greece and I'm climbing
[58:38] up there and I'm watching down this tiny
[58:40] swimming pool from the crane and I
[58:43] realized in that moment there is no way
[58:46] I'm jumping down and the other part of
[58:49] me realized there is no way I'm climbing
[58:52] down
[58:53] the girl screaming down there you know
[58:56] and I I just stood there and I just I
[58:58] just kind of threw myself forward. I
[59:00] jailbreed it years after I've I redone
[59:04] it with a different quality.
[59:07] I softened into it.
[59:09] >> Mhm. [clears throat]
[59:10] >> And I found a way to
[59:13] come down feeling this great
[59:17] pain, physical pain, and at the same
[59:20] time the multi-stability feel a
[59:23] softness, a wave of softness passing
[59:25] through me as tiny as it was. So when
[59:27] I'm pulling back it's very important
[59:30] that I interact with this action also in
[59:33] that way that I don't force myself in a
[59:36] sad mazoistic way that I don't do this
[59:39] action from that place maybe it's the
[59:42] beginning of the process maybe it's
[59:43] something that is a required stepping
[59:45] stone something that you have to do but
[59:47] later you learn to soften into it and
[59:51] eventually you can leave the app you
[59:53] don't delete it and it's there and you
[59:56] keep on softening as it jumps calling
[60:00] you back again and again and again and
[60:01] you've developed this feedback. You've
[60:03] changed, you've transformed your model
[60:06] and there is a new reaction
[60:09] to that stimulus and you relax. When
[60:12] when the stimulus calls your name, you
[60:15] recognize it, note it, and the first
[60:18] thing that you do, you soften yourself,
[60:20] you relax, you put a little smile on,
[60:23] and only then do you go back to the task
[60:25] at hand. You change the way instead of
[60:28] saying no, I don't want to go back into
[60:31] social media now. I want to work on my
[60:33] book and forcing yourself back. You take
[60:35] another extra step.
[60:38] Oh, it's calling my name again.
[60:42] I note it. I recognized it. I soften
[60:45] myself. And only then do I go back to
[60:47] the test at hand. The outcome would be
[60:49] totally different. Millions of times
[60:51] forward. Done again and again. you would
[60:54] be amazed by the difference.
[60:57] >> I absolutely get what you're saying that
[60:59] there's something about paying attention
[61:02] to the subtle trans subtle ripples like
[61:06] they're these ripples and that language
[61:08] of the subtle ripples of consciousness
[61:10] makes it sound like I'm trying to be
[61:11] poetic, but I I really can't find a
[61:14] better language than these like subtle
[61:16] ripples. It's the same thing, I believe,
[61:20] as noticing the transition between
[61:23] asleep and awake. Just a little bit more
[61:25] each day. Maybe some days you miss it.
[61:27] You just pop up and go into the day and
[61:28] then you I missed I missed the there
[61:30] were these ripples in between. But
[61:32] catching them, this is one of the most
[61:35] important attributes
[61:37] also in the physical body that I believe
[61:39] is totally missing from our physical
[61:41] modern movement, culture, physical
[61:44] practice. Granularity. I call it bodily
[61:48] resolution in the application to the
[61:50] body. Notice I'm not talking about
[61:53] mobility or definitely not about
[61:56] flexibility. There is a certain
[61:59] refinement and with it a certain
[62:02] complexity
[62:04] that if it's not challenged by novelty
[62:07] and by certain qualities of attention,
[62:09] there is a deterioration of the model.
[62:11] There is a simplification. There is a
[62:14] hardening of the body schema. It becomes
[62:17] more black and whitish and living in
[62:20] this physical form becomes hell.
[62:23] [snorts] The same thing happens in the
[62:25] emotional schema in the emotional model
[62:27] of ourselves. And the same thing happens
[62:29] on the conceptual or intellectual
[62:32] abstraction model.
[62:34] The same thing happen in the social
[62:36] schema. The same thing happen on the
[62:38] spatial schema. If you don't continue to
[62:42] make it detailed and to appreciate the
[62:45] details, you will have a deterioration.
[62:48] You're moving up or down. There is no
[62:51] status quo that it's never stable.
[62:53] Hence, guess what? Most people going to
[62:56] the gym, doing these runs,
[63:00] they totally lost something and they
[63:02] don't even know. They're not as they
[63:05] were as children. They don't look like
[63:08] that. Kung Fu master in Beijing, 5:00 am
[63:11] at the park walking with the stout of a
[63:15] a child. We like to mention blue zones,
[63:19] but we don't you don't look like the
[63:22] blue zones. We like to mention the
[63:24] importance of muscle mass for longevity,
[63:26] but which muscle mass are you talking
[63:28] about? Not that muscle mass. It's a
[63:31] different quantity.
[63:34] So we kind of moved away from those fine
[63:39] things and the refinement of them is
[63:42] very very important emotionally the
[63:45] emotional granularity
[63:47] to recognize it's so important.
[63:51] Depression puts everything into the
[63:53] black and white thing. So it's the
[63:56] extreme and then the other side is very
[63:59] high resolution of emotional
[64:02] appreciation and perception
[64:05] that can turn against you but only when
[64:08] the conceptual layer comes and
[64:10] manipulates that information. But as
[64:12] long as it stays within the
[64:14] nondiscursive
[64:17] the the raw Yeah. the raw thing coming
[64:21] from this alostostatic
[64:24] system. The the the the the
[64:27] way that we define our state like
[64:31] poetry. That's why also reading poetry
[64:34] helps and and reading literature helps
[64:36] in this way. It makes you a lot more
[64:38] complex. And now you discover it's not a
[64:42] good or bad thing anymore, but you're
[64:46] playing a different game. And here is
[64:47] the playfulness back. Mhm. Because I'm
[64:50] even playing game with that.
[64:53] Oh, I'm I feel bad. I feel good. I feel
[64:58] neutral. That thing starts to open up. I
[65:02] abandon this and I go back to the body.
[65:06] And that's why I like to send people
[65:09] back to the body. The eye is a lot more
[65:13] this than what we think it is,
[65:15] especially meditators, etc. is not up
[65:19] here. And of course they're talking
[65:22] about it the way of the heart and you
[65:24] know the har the danten etc. But
[65:29] you can see when somebody is
[65:32] embodied
[65:33] there are signs there are cues to it in
[65:36] the way that people move in the way that
[65:38] they are here. [snorts] And I I often
[65:41] don't see those those those clues and
[65:45] then there is a great deterioration. So
[65:48] I I don't care so much about structures
[65:50] these days about muscle mass about you
[65:53] know the joint protective things the
[65:56] connective tissue or whatever because I
[65:57] believe the model deteriorates way
[66:00] before and the consequences come after
[66:02] once the model has degraded the
[66:05] simulation now we are in trouble and now
[66:08] the the the structural effects are just
[66:10] following that years forward decades
[66:12] forward and then we discover it it's too
[66:14] late
[66:15] words are dangerous
[66:17] like the spinal column. Do you know how
[66:20] many spines this destroyed?
[66:23] Countless. It's not a column. And
[66:26] treating it like a column destroys our
[66:29] spine. It's the way that I model myself.
[66:31] Even in my words, I can I can sense that
[66:35] I can feel that different languages have
[66:37] different words for those things and
[66:39] clues are there. the lack of
[66:41] appreciation of fine micro actions
[66:44] inside the torso in between the ribs, we
[66:47] don't appreciate it.
[66:49] The way that we distribute
[66:52] pressure in the body practices that I
[66:55] engage with, that I teach, that I work
[66:57] with, they're very powerful, but we
[66:59] don't leave room for that. We want to
[67:01] go, we want to do something quickly,
[67:03] crudely, and we deteriorate.
[67:06] And then we go to the protocols. We go
[67:09] to the help help me and and yeah there
[67:13] is some help the there is definitely
[67:16] some help there but to lift it into a
[67:19] meaningful healing is not often done. I
[67:24] I believe because the practice is
[67:26] missing the notion of high resolution
[67:29] versus low resolution language
[67:33] movement and awareness. Maybe we just
[67:35] kind of grab those three and I know
[67:37] there there are others. I think about
[67:38] this a lot. Uh let's start with
[67:40] language. Lisa Feldman Barrett, who's a
[67:43] psychologist, I would also consider
[67:45] somewhat of a neuroscientist because she
[67:47] collaborates with neuroscientists and is
[67:49] studies emotion. And she's been very
[67:51] clear and it's absolutely true that in
[67:54] cultures where there's many words to
[67:57] describe different aspects of sadness,
[67:59] aspects of happiness, even some
[68:02] extremely specific circumstances. is
[68:04] like there's a Japanese word, forgive
[68:05] me, I don't remember, for the the
[68:07] sadness one feels after a bad haircut.
[68:10] The more nuance and specificity, the
[68:14] less likely people are going to default
[68:17] to I'm sad, I'm depressed, just kind of
[68:20] like throw themselves in the broad bin.
[68:22] And uh I refer to it as the
[68:25] emojification
[68:26] of
[68:28] >> mental life. I'm happy. I'm sad. I'm
[68:30] depressed. I do think that it's nice to
[68:32] have a range of language ability so you
[68:36] can talk to people of different
[68:38] backgrounds. Some people are more
[68:40] hyperverbal than others. a colleague of
[68:42] mine at uh NYU um Tony Mauvshin who runs
[68:45] the center for neuroscience. He's he
[68:47] described an intellectual beautifully
[68:49] and you certainly uh fit this
[68:51] description which is an intellectual is
[68:54] somebody who can talk about and work
[68:56] with a concept or something at multiple
[68:59] levels of granularity that are
[69:01] appropriate for the conversation. like
[69:03] we're going pretty deep today peeling
[69:05] back layers looking you know if you have
[69:07] three minutes you know it's a different
[69:09] conversation but I think as you said
[69:12] this is the advantage of reading more
[69:14] challenging books at times or kids books
[69:17] which are very simple in essence but
[69:20] deliver the message in with in very
[69:22] succinctly
[69:23] >> generally right so I think there's real
[69:25] value to working up and down the ladder
[69:28] in language and having that at one's
[69:30] disposal
[69:31] >> and here is Another practice we go back
[69:34] to being pragmatic,
[69:36] ambiguity,
[69:39] incompleteness.
[69:42] Do you bring it about?
[69:45] >> Not having to have everything resolved.
[69:47] >> No.
[69:47] >> And not only in the terms of problem
[69:50] solving or or or or a physical what we
[69:53] call kinetic coins. This is great. This
[69:57] develops movement intelligence.
[69:58] Something that I work with a lot.
[70:00] reading puzzling symbolic texts,
[70:04] parallels,
[70:06] difficult to resolve things and maybe
[70:09] never resolve things or movies, watch
[70:11] Tarovski,
[70:13] Hodorovski,
[70:14] it's a very different experience than
[70:16] Hollywood or watching contemporary dance
[70:20] that is contemporary in the sense that I
[70:22] can't define it. It's happening right
[70:24] now and I'm not sure what I'm even
[70:26] watching here. I've been taken to some
[70:29] contemporary dance where I thought I
[70:31] don't know what I'm watching.
[70:32] >> Yeah. And the first time I went to wash,
[70:34] I said, "I don't like it." Yes.
[70:36] >> And I'm gonna come back. [laughter]
[70:38] >> That was the distinguishing factor
[70:39] between you and me. But I've since
[70:40] developed a real appreciation uh for uh
[70:44] there are some forms of dance that um
[70:47] Eric Jarvis was a guest on the podcast
[70:49] neuroscientist who was uh going to be
[70:51] part of the Alvin
[70:53] Dance Company took a hard left turn into
[70:56] neuroscience and studies language and
[70:58] will say this will a relevant tangent.
[71:02] The species of birds that can talk are
[71:05] also the ones that can dance. And he
[71:08] thinks bodily movement
[71:10] based on the genetics. He studies the
[71:12] genetics of language and the same genes
[71:15] that are in these speech areas are
[71:18] strongly expressed in very similar
[71:21] motifs
[71:22] >> in the areas of movement. So he thinks
[71:24] bodily movement is the fundamental
[71:26] language. I'll just leave it at that. I
[71:28] need to get you two in the same room at
[71:30] some point and then I won't just want to
[71:32] be there listening. If everything
[71:34] depends on language, we also have to be
[71:36] careful because then the granularity of
[71:39] language will be the limiting factor and
[71:42] it's huge pieces. So this like playing
[71:45] with play the the not Lego, you know,
[71:49] there was technical Lego, the small
[71:50] little bits. I love this.
[71:52] >> There was a normal Lego and then there
[71:54] was a the the big one, the big chunks
[71:57] that you started from. So, it's like
[71:59] you're working with these
[72:01] words are corrupted
[72:04] and they're corrupting us and they're
[72:07] supposed to be containers, but they
[72:09] don't they're not containers. They're
[72:11] more pointers,
[72:13] but we've lost what they're pointing at.
[72:15] The simulacum versus the sim simulation.
[72:20] Simulation is something that creates a
[72:24] model of something real. simulacum
[72:28] is now disconnected. There is not
[72:31] anymore that real thing. When I
[72:33] investigated this deeply with myself, I
[72:35] don't believe there is an inherent
[72:37] difference between these two, but there
[72:39] is definitely critical masses that can
[72:42] be achieved. For example,
[72:45] the sensory thing, sensor, sensory motor
[72:48] thing is a lot less corrupted than the
[72:51] conceptual schema. Even that is not
[72:55] reality. The senses don't bring reality.
[72:58] They model reality. They are simulation
[73:02] machines.
[73:02] >> Everything we experience is an
[73:04] abstraction of what our senses are
[73:07] pulling into our brain.
[73:09] >> Which means
[73:10] ignoring uniqueness,
[73:13] erasing differences for the sake of
[73:16] communicating it to the system even on
[73:19] the level of sensation because it would
[73:21] be overwhelming.
[73:24] We would be crushed
[73:26] by reality if the band wage is opened
[73:29] fully.
[73:30] >> Certainly if it was opened all at once.
[73:32] I mean I'm um
[73:33] >> this is also what happens with
[73:34] psychedelics by the way. Sometimes
[73:36] >> too much pours in. Yeah.
[73:38] >> There there is a bandage expansion
[73:40] >> too much cross talk. I mean we should
[73:42] acknowledge this you know so in the
[73:44] studies of psilocybin and it's um where
[73:47] it has been shown to improve major
[73:50] depression the typical outcome is you
[73:53] know scan before
[73:57] I should mention this is you know
[73:58] therapy assisted psychedelic um
[74:00] experience not just recreational therapy
[74:03] therapy therapy therapy with
[74:05] psychedelics therapy therapy therapy
[74:08] therapy with psychedelic we're talking
[74:10] about psilocybin here therapy Y therapy
[74:11] therapy therapy therapy. Not just head
[74:14] into the woods, eat a bunch of
[74:15] mushrooms, talk to your friends. The
[74:17] most consistent observation in the brain
[74:20] is a lot more connectivity between areas
[74:22] that weren't communicating prior to
[74:24] that, which can offer new opportunities
[74:26] for insight, new opportunities for um
[74:30] it's literal integration and the
[74:32] unmasking of connections that were there
[74:34] but were more or less suppressed. This
[74:36] can be a really good thing. It can also
[74:38] be a really bad thing. One of the
[74:41] hallmark definitions of psychosis is
[74:43] clang associations where people with
[74:45] schizophrenia or other forms of
[74:46] psychosis will say, you know, this is a
[74:48] really cool cup up. So everything's
[74:51] moving up or stock market, you know, and
[74:53] they they just follow the language in a
[74:55] meaningless way that any non-sychotic
[74:58] person says all they're doing is
[75:00] following the rhyming of the words.
[75:02] >> Those are not good connections to
[75:03] follow. If you want to be functional in
[75:04] the world, you might write an
[75:06] interesting
[75:07] book using that tool. consciously, but
[75:10] these people live in that reality. So,
[75:13] the pouring in and the cross
[75:15] connectivity, the plasticity, it's it's
[75:17] not always a good thing. I'd like to
[75:20] take a quick break and acknowledge one
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[75:59] really fast, meaning I have to jump
[76:00] right into work or right into exercise.
[76:03] So, to make sure that I'm hydrated and I
[76:04] have sufficient electrolytes, when I
[76:06] first wake up in the morning, I drink 16
[76:08] to 32 ounces of water with an element
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[76:12] Element dissolved in water during any
[76:14] kind of physical exercise that I'm
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[76:41] movement, I absolutely agree. I think
[76:43] that um people who are not exercising
[76:45] enough, not moving enough, not walking
[76:47] enough are starting to approximate a
[76:49] C-shape internally rotated. We see that
[76:52] if people are taking on an exercise
[76:54] program, which I think is generally
[76:56] healthy, walking more, hopefully doing
[76:59] some movement that gets their heart rate
[77:00] up, hopefully list lifting some objects
[77:03] that are outside their ability so then
[77:04] they get stronger and so forth. Okay,
[77:06] great. Should people do all of that and
[77:10] then start to think about
[77:13] the other syllables and vowels and and
[77:17] uh language of movement and incorporate
[77:19] that into their life or if given the
[77:22] choice should people start with
[77:26] many many forms of movement and the
[77:28] reason I ask this is a very practical
[77:30] one. Many people will say, "Well, this
[77:32] all sounds great, but I got to get up in
[77:34] the morning, make myself breakfast, take
[77:36] my kids to school, do all my things. I
[77:38] get 30 minutes. I need to get my heart
[77:40] rate up. Got to get my zone 3, four. I
[77:42] now have to lift things." You're telling
[77:44] me now I have to pay attention to the
[77:46] subtle ripples of movement, you know?
[77:48] So, I could see either argument being
[77:51] true that just like check off the boxes.
[77:55] heart health, muscle health, ligaments,
[77:57] fight deterioration,
[77:59] add something on top of that versus no,
[78:01] let's treat the whole system as having a
[78:04] lot more opportunity there and start
[78:06] there no matter where you are. That's
[78:09] that's a practical question embedded in
[78:11] a somewhat intellectual conversation.
[78:13] >> I'll push back.
[78:15] >> Mhm.
[78:16] >> The question is already corrupted.
[78:18] First, it's a exercise approach to
[78:21] physicality.
[78:23] I have 30 minutes a day and what do you
[78:26] do with the rest of your time? That is
[78:29] the push back.
[78:30] >> Mhm.
[78:32] >> What do we do that is so important that
[78:36] we don't have time to pay attention to
[78:39] the ripples of movement when we are
[78:41] living our lives, cooking, doing?
[78:45] When you're listening to me, are you
[78:47] fully engaged and listening to me? Now
[78:51] we are not using this time well.
[78:56] Even highly productive people actually
[78:58] those are often the case.
[79:02] They are never
[79:04] using the time well in the sense of that
[79:07] presence.
[79:09] So what I'm suggesting is a paradigm
[79:12] shift
[79:13] in the way that I view my physicality at
[79:16] all. the way that I view my day today,
[79:18] my being when I'm listening to you. I'm
[79:22] not running after these words in my head
[79:25] and
[79:27] I'm also in the physical experience of
[79:30] what is occurring right now and and I
[79:32] developed this through my practice. We
[79:34] need better education and we need better
[79:36] tools
[79:38] and this is the new limiting factor.
[79:42] Even AI recognizes it more and more and
[79:45] it will I predict become the crucial
[79:48] component. The body the sensory
[79:53] symbols
[79:55] that are popping out
[79:57] when a symbol comes to our mind that
[80:01] that that that
[80:03] impression those impressions that are
[80:05] they are so important
[80:08] without them there is nothing. And we've
[80:11] tried to go down to the the root of it.
[80:14] I've I've spent a lot of time reading
[80:16] about this and figuring out what is the
[80:18] raw currency of
[80:22] cognition of that ab ob abstraction
[80:25] schema. And I've heard many answers.
[80:28] There is the the primal or primitive
[80:30] semantics this point of view like
[80:33] something that is under language. And
[80:36] there is this um point of view from
[80:39] phenomenology
[80:40] and that this this area or or there is
[80:43] the invariance something that does not
[80:46] change no matter how you look at it
[80:47] that's the most crucial basic element
[80:50] but the best answer that I found is this
[80:53] drawing a boundary
[80:55] selecting which means when I look at you
[80:59] I select you from the environment
[81:03] I create a boundary inside my
[81:05] simulation. This is the most as as
[81:07] George Spencer Brown talks about this in
[81:10] laws of form. This is the the act of
[81:13] differentiation.
[81:15] This creates the most basic thought
[81:18] matter. It's a thing now. And the
[81:21] unselected state which also represents
[81:23] the the entropy second law of
[81:26] thermodynamics the the soup that wants
[81:28] to pull us back
[81:30] is
[81:32] the other side. So this selection and
[81:35] the unselected state which are
[81:37] codependent of course
[81:40] they are the very root of of things. So
[81:45] when we play this game of paying
[81:48] attention and the quality of it we are
[81:52] interacting
[81:54] underneath the problems with the system.
[81:58] We are going to the and I'm talking
[82:01] about this open presence pre- language
[82:05] thing that must inform the language
[82:07] formation anyways it doesn't come from
[82:09] anywhere so there must be something
[82:11] underneath and and I'm sure you can
[82:15] teach me a lot about that a lot more
[82:17] than what I researched myself but the
[82:20] experience of it myself is very
[82:22] important to try to find that gentle
[82:27] layer
[82:29] and to try to interact with it. This
[82:31] will transform the body schema and we
[82:34] have to teach it to children when we
[82:37] come about and some cultures maintain it
[82:39] to a larger degree and of course it
[82:41] depends on the language and on other
[82:42] habits. This is below exercise. This is
[82:46] and then I use exercise very efficiently
[82:49] when you have that when the model is
[82:52] addressed. I do this work with athletes.
[82:55] I do this work with grandmas. I do this
[82:57] work with Alzheimer patients, with
[83:00] musicians.
[83:01] This is very potent.
[83:04] So stop trying to fit me into something
[83:08] corrupted in that sense. I'm telling the
[83:10] world in that physical sense of I got to
[83:13] fit into this fitness practice. I got to
[83:16] fit into this exercise idea because when
[83:19] I'm looking deeper, I don't see a lot of
[83:22] promise there. Those are positive
[83:24] manipulations. They can be definitely,
[83:26] but we need to go further. And we're not
[83:29] because we stay with that 30 minutes a
[83:32] day idea.
[83:35] And this is everywhere. You don't need
[83:36] to become like me, a practitioner of
[83:38] movement all day. In the official side,
[83:40] it becomes the unofficial practice. Your
[83:43] way of being, your way of doing things.
[83:46] I turn everything into this. the way
[83:48] that I drink from the cup, the way that
[83:51] I sit right now, the way that I'm
[83:53] listening, and it's coming from the
[83:55] official side of my practice. I had to
[83:57] learn it in a structured way and then to
[84:00] pull it back into my life. Much more
[84:03] important than to learn to meditate.
[84:05] Much more potent because it is
[84:07] meditation in the deep sense of the
[84:09] word.
[84:10] >> You mentioned Alzheimer's. Um,
[84:13] there are more and more scientific
[84:15] findings all the time showing that loss
[84:18] of vision, subtle or severe, loss of
[84:22] hearing, subtle or severe, can either
[84:27] accelerate or maybe even cause some of
[84:31] the um deprivation
[84:34] symptoms of Alzheimer's, memory
[84:36] deprivation, uh, this kind of thing. And
[84:38] it makes good sense, right? Right? It's
[84:41] unfortunate, but it makes good sense.
[84:43] Meaning,
[84:44] if there are fewer inputs to the system,
[84:46] the system is deprived by definition,
[84:49] and then the system starts working with
[84:50] deprived inputs and it degrades. And in
[84:53] Alzheimer's, they like to mention that
[84:55] the feedback is damaged.
[84:57] >> But they threw the baby with the
[84:59] bathwater. Even when the feedback is
[85:02] damaged, it's not a monochromatic thing,
[85:05] black and white. You got to continue to
[85:07] challenge the system.
[85:09] When I tear
[85:11] a muscle, my rotator cuff, I rehab
[85:15] myself by going back into motion. I
[85:17] don't put a cast on. I treat Alzheimer's
[85:20] in the same way. I practice. And this is
[85:24] incredibly powerful. Like loading the
[85:27] skeleton for osteoporosis.
[85:30] Forget about the nutritional
[85:32] side of things. Lift something heavy for
[85:35] God's sake. pound the ground in in the
[85:39] right dosages and ways. It it is a lot
[85:42] more potent.
[85:45] >> We have to change our way of looking at
[85:48] things here. This thing here is called
[85:51] practice. This is a school. Life is not
[85:54] for living. Life is for practicing. It
[85:58] is a place. It's a school we came to.
[86:01] Maybe spiritually you can take it there
[86:03] as well. But I'm talking even
[86:05] neurologically.
[86:06] That's who we are. That's what we are.
[86:09] And viewing yourself in this way is very
[86:12] very potent. And it will not take your
[86:14] life away. You don't need more than 30
[86:17] minutes a day. It will enrich the
[86:19] current life that you have. But you have
[86:22] to educate yourself and you have to go
[86:24] deeper into these concepts in order to
[86:26] apply it correctly. That's my belief in
[86:28] in regards to this and I've seen it.
[86:31] >> Beautifully put. I could not agree more.
[86:34] uh we are in a curriculum of life and
[86:36] our nervous system and all the rest of
[86:38] us is being shaped by that and we have
[86:40] agency about what we bring in. Thank
[86:43] you. I see it on you. It's clear to me.
[86:46] It's very clear who's practicing and
[86:49] who's not. On some level when you meet
[86:52] people, if you're practicing yourself,
[86:54] if you're in this practice, if you're
[86:56] under this load, in this conscious
[87:00] interaction, choice, with suffering,
[87:02] with friction, with difficulties, but
[87:04] also with awe, with curiosity, with all
[87:07] those things in a directed way, not in a
[87:10] way that holds on to who I am. Doesn't
[87:13] matter who I am currently. I'm not
[87:16] interested in that. I am not my friend
[87:20] in that sense. There is a place in me
[87:22] that I recognize this is not my friend.
[87:26] But it doesn't turn into a beatdown. It
[87:28] doesn't turn into this. It's very
[87:30] important that the the multistability is
[87:33] held and then I can I can become I
[87:39] practice myself into the next day. I
[87:42] practice myself into the next moment.
[87:44] And this is the crucial moment. So when
[87:47] I'm doing podcasts or whatever, I use
[87:50] it. I manipulate the situation for my
[87:53] practice and for the practice of others
[87:55] because I believe it's so important. Our
[87:58] life depends on it. I could not agree
[88:02] more. I
[88:04] you know I brought back to this notion
[88:06] of uh language, movement and awareness.
[88:09] Um and maybe just for sake of of
[88:11] understanding and this will be an
[88:13] incomplete analogy but if people could
[88:14] imagine that um there's levels of
[88:17] coarseness with within each of those
[88:19] let's call it you know neuroscientists
[88:22] would call it like big spatial scale
[88:23] like I can flap my elbows or I can move
[88:26] my fingers more subtly like so subtle
[88:28] motion versus big motion right um in
[88:32] language I can I can [clears throat]
[88:34] grunt I can me you know I can woo you
[88:38] you know, or I can articulate using more
[88:42] sophisticated language if if I have
[88:45] knowledge and access to those and you
[88:47] build that up through experience. Yeah,
[88:49] you can go look things up and do that.
[88:51] In the realm of awareness,
[88:54] it's similar, right? You can grab big
[88:57] pieces of the room all at once. You
[89:00] there, the table, the cameras, producer
[89:02] off to my left, all of it. Or I can home
[89:05] in on a small space, right? But there's
[89:07] also, and I'm obsessed with this,
[89:08] there's also the time domain. How we
[89:11] choose to segment our experience is
[89:15] something that I find so incredible. Can
[89:18] lie back, look at the clouds, and just
[89:20] watch this big cloud move through my
[89:22] visual field over the course of minutes,
[89:25] an hour, or I can watch for every little
[89:29] subtle ripple of a leaf if I choose. And
[89:33] uh Dhacker Kelner who studies awe, he's
[89:35] at UC Berkeley, said everyday awe
[89:38] experiences are very accessible if we
[89:41] allow ourselves to move from fine scale
[89:43] to large scale or large scale to fine
[89:46] scale and back again. It's in the
[89:48] transition between the two in space.
[89:51] >> Yeah, he said he nailed it. Space and in
[89:54] time. I was like, you know, a lot of
[89:56] things happen on this podcast and useful
[89:59] tools come up and interesting
[90:00] conversations come up, but in talking
[90:02] with Derer and now talking to you, it's
[90:04] like th this is the experience of life
[90:08] that we're getting shaped on and we have
[90:10] control.
[90:12] And so as a last point, my audience is
[90:14] thinking let your guest speak. I but I
[90:16] just want to throw this out because when
[90:18] I think about going online, which is
[90:20] where people spend a significant amount
[90:22] of their conscious awareness now, their
[90:24] time, I ask myself, is this a
[90:28] lowresolution or a highresolution
[90:31] event?
[90:32] >> And someone once asked me recently, uh,
[90:35] do you have Tik Tok? And I said, I don't
[90:37] like Tik Tok. He said, why not? And I
[90:39] said, I don't like Tik Tok because I
[90:40] don't like that sound at the end.
[90:44] Why? It's low resolution.
[90:47] It feels like a highly pixelated
[90:50] auditory sound. Whereas like a not
[90:53] trying to be poetic here, but like we
[90:55] have these redwing blackbirds in
[90:57] California and in the evening when they
[90:58] get ready to settle down, they make this
[91:01] incredible sound. It's very brief, but
[91:03] it's rich and it's so beautiful. anyone
[91:06] who ever has the chance to hear it is is
[91:08] spectacular. Then I realize all the
[91:10] information on Tik Tok is low
[91:12] resolution.
[91:14] It's kind of for idiots and if you only
[91:18] look at that, you'll become an idiot.
[91:21] And I realized I'm probably consuming
[91:23] some other sensory input that is
[91:27] disproportionate
[91:28] to what I should be and it's going to
[91:31] make me an idiot. So it doesn't mean one
[91:33] has to spend time in the deep philosophy
[91:36] of of you know the most intricate
[91:38] philosophers. I mean I listen to punk
[91:40] rock music. I like it because it's raw.
[91:42] I like it. I like three chord Raone
[91:44] songs. But I also love classical music.
[91:48] I think it's important to step through
[91:50] from coarse to fine. And I feel like
[91:53] what you've been talking about for years
[91:54] in terms of movement is has something
[91:58] perhaps to do with this. Forgive me for
[92:00] going long, but no, I'm happy to see you
[92:02] again. And this is kind of what we do.
[92:04] >> Yeah, this is beautiful. I I I take a
[92:07] lot from it and I like this the the the
[92:10] transition importance. Something makes
[92:13] me think that we talked about the
[92:16] schemas, the these models,
[92:18] but another way to look at it is
[92:23] a a stomach
[92:25] digestive
[92:27] systems. Why? In the sense that they
[92:30] require nutrients.
[92:32] You got to feed them.
[92:35] And then
[92:37] the quality of those nutrients, the
[92:40] gross, the fine, the micronutrients, the
[92:43] macronutrients.
[92:45] Like for example, emotionally, I don't
[92:48] feel well. Let's say what do I tell
[92:50] people? What are you feeding yourself?
[92:52] What is your emotional food?
[92:56] emotional foods that are important that
[92:58] I bring into the practice of my students
[93:00] of myself. One, discomfort. We've
[93:03] mentioned it. It's important. It's clear
[93:04] why
[93:07] emotional contradiction.
[93:09] Two,
[93:11] I love you and I hate you. For example,
[93:14] when you work with boxing, when when you
[93:16] let people have this physical and you
[93:18] can point at it, look up. Watch what
[93:21] happened now.
[93:23] I love you and I hate you and I feel it.
[93:26] I can the multistability.
[93:30] Another one is the aesthetic intensity
[93:32] that we talked about bringing moments of
[93:35] awe of curiosity but also of melancholy
[93:39] or or many other intensities that are
[93:42] important.
[93:43] We've removed this from our lives, from
[93:45] our movies, from our books,
[93:49] definitely online,
[93:51] you know, as you pointed,
[93:54] we took it away. So, of course, we're
[93:56] not feeding ourselves those things.
[93:59] Restraint,
[94:01] stimulating, and requiring restraint,
[94:05] very important quality.
[94:07] All those are practices for me. Those
[94:11] are nutrients that I want to feed my
[94:13] emotional state. The same thing I have
[94:15] for my intellectual faculty, schema,
[94:19] the conceptual, the abstraction. How do
[94:22] I become smarter? What is thought? Is
[94:25] thought just this knee-jerk reactions,
[94:28] these levers, this associative quality?
[94:31] Is this thought? I refuse to accept it.
[94:34] >> That's not thought. So, you're you're
[94:36] lucky. Uh you're not lucky. you uh you
[94:38] are right to refuse it. Uh we could talk
[94:41] about thoughts and what they are. I
[94:42] actually have a segment in my book. I'm
[94:44] not trying to advertise my book that's
[94:45] all about how to think about thinking so
[94:48] that you can literally control your
[94:50] thinking. Use thinking as a tool, not
[94:54] just have it be this like wherever you
[94:56] go some dynamic attractor states. The
[94:59] neuroscientists say you just kind of
[95:00] fall like a clang association in a
[95:02] psychotic person. Yeah. is just they're
[95:04] they drop into a groove of of thought
[95:07] that is disjointed, makes no sense to
[95:10] the rest of us. Many people, including
[95:12] myself, sometimes we live in those modes
[95:14] of thought that are equally psychotic.
[95:17] We just don't express it, but they're
[95:19] psychotic because we're taking something
[95:21] as valuable as like a a beautiful
[95:24] vehicle and we're just kind of using it
[95:26] to like
[95:27] >> prop something up at the side of the
[95:29] house. My colleague Carl Dyeroth, one of
[95:32] the best neuroscientists alive, maybe
[95:35] ever, um when he told me that every
[95:38] night after he put his five kids to
[95:41] sleep, [laughter] you know, he would go
[95:43] and sit and force himself to think in
[95:48] complete sentences as a practice.
[95:51] >> I remember you told me before I was
[95:53] humbled and I thought,
[95:55] >> "Oh, that is the that is hard. That is a
[96:00] smart person.
[96:00] >> He's a very smart person.
[96:01] >> That's an intelligent person.
[96:02] >> He's a very intelligent person.
[96:04] >> That sounds like it. It comes from that
[96:07] place of knowing like, you know, I never
[96:10] I I almost never truly think. It's rare.
[96:15] >> He taught himself to think.
[96:17] >> Yeah.
[96:17] >> Yeah.
[96:18] >> Without realizing it, without realizing
[96:20] that you're just playing a different
[96:22] game in that sense that it's it's hard
[96:25] to develop it. And again what are the
[96:27] practices that we engage with you know
[96:29] we need those things nutrients so it's
[96:32] stomachs the emotional faculty is a
[96:35] stomach it's digestion and it asks you
[96:38] feed me
[96:39] >> and you got to take care of it there is
[96:40] metabolism involved there is a
[96:42] protection layer there is immunity to it
[96:45] right there is the marov boundary around
[96:48] it the membrane there is a model to it
[96:51] simulates things out but so it's also a
[96:54] very important way to Look at it. And of
[96:56] course the body movement nutrients. What
[97:00] is the quality of that? If you look at
[97:02] those gym practices, those
[97:04] weightlifting, they're of very very low
[97:07] quality in terms of movement. Every
[97:09] dancer will tell you that. Every athlete
[97:12] of a high level will tell you that.
[97:14] Where did we move to a ridiculous
[97:16] situation where our athletes are
[97:19] learning and are inspired by the fitness
[97:23] people instead of the fitness people be
[97:26] learning and be inspired by the the
[97:29] athletes the the movement people.
[97:30] >> Uh tell me more because I I certainly
[97:33] like if I love to watch track and field
[97:35] during the Olympics um and it's amazing
[97:38] to see these athletes move and their
[97:40] different shapes and their different
[97:42] personalities like the sprinters. This
[97:44] is I still marvel at these races boil
[97:47] down to sometimes hundredths of a second
[97:50] and they'll wear flashy jewelry
[97:54] [laughter]
[97:54] without question slows them down. This
[97:57] is the least aerodynamic thing you could
[97:58] possibly do.
[97:59] >> There are more important things than
[98:01] that
[98:01] >> and they're willing to do give up the
[98:03] potential time advantage to show their
[98:07] bravado. Now the distance runners where
[98:10] typically it doesn't get down to
[98:12] hundredths of a second. It can typically
[98:16] the margins between first, second, and
[98:18] third place are wider.
[98:22] They're not wearing any jewelry. There's
[98:25] no And their personalities are much more
[98:27] subdued. Fascinating.
[98:30] >> You're telling me that the athletes are
[98:32] paying attention to the fitness people?
[98:34] >> Yeah, of course.
[98:35] >> That seems crazy. Why? That's Do you
[98:37] don't you see it? Boxers training like
[98:39] fitness people. They're fitness
[98:42] athletes. They're not boxers these days.
[98:44] Why social media? Why? What is there
[98:48] approachable calls the attention?
[98:52] I don't know why you brought me in
[98:54] today,
[98:56] but it might be one of the less times if
[98:58] not the last time as it becomes less and
[99:01] less
[99:04] what the attention calls for.
[99:06] >> I don't know. I think I believe that the
[99:10] the system that is human curiosity
[99:14] which drives a lot of social media, not
[99:17] all of it. I do think that when you have
[99:20] a lot of low resolution stuff, the
[99:23] signal to noise becomes people
[99:28] our senses I almost said this earlier
[99:30] but our sensory apparatus whether or not
[99:32] it's our skin or our smell or our vision
[99:33] or our hearing as you know has levels of
[99:36] granularity. The receptive fields as we
[99:38] call them go from very fine to uh to
[99:42] very coarse. We love the feeling of a
[99:43] hug with somebody we love. We also love
[99:45] the feeling of a light caress,
[99:48] you know, or just a hand on ours. These
[99:50] things matter and they're part of our
[99:52] experience. And even without being aware
[99:54] of that desire for it, we have it's it's
[99:56] it's a drive. I think I do think people
[100:00] like to learn and they like to think.
[100:02] Some people perhaps not. They're lazy.
[100:04] But I believe that the sorts of things
[100:06] that you talk about and do, the real
[100:08] effort, like the movie that you showed
[100:10] earlier of you, this incredible movie,
[100:13] like the amount of care that went into
[100:15] that right now relatively brief. It
[100:18] might be longer going forward. The
[100:20] amount of care is what makes that high
[100:23] signal to noise.
[100:25] >> Thank you for that calming and and and
[100:29] positive words. They are important and
[100:31] they they touch my heart as well. And I
[100:33] know personally with you I feel this.
[100:36] I'm talking about this exposure. This is
[100:41] great exposure.
[100:43] It's not not possible anymore to talk
[100:46] about certain things and certain sizes.
[100:50] And I know you are a person who is
[100:53] challenged by that tremendously because
[100:55] you went huge and at the same time your
[100:58] original search
[101:02] is not going to serve that. This is not
[101:05] the motive. This is not the deep thing
[101:07] that drives you. So
[101:11] I'll always be available and and and
[101:15] free to come for a wonderful
[101:16] conversation with you. But I I I lament
[101:20] sometimes the situation with the masses
[101:24] and the public and where a lot of
[101:26] attention that the big viral things are
[101:28] going to in the sense that
[101:32] it's it's sad. It's it's very very
[101:36] pricey. It's very expensive. despite
[101:39] your and my attempts to enrichen the the
[101:42] conversations out there and um uh the
[101:46] younger generation whose brains were
[101:48] more plastic in this phase of of
[101:51] lowresolution
[101:53] overload. But I trust that there there's
[101:57] the hunger's there and they'll they'll
[101:59] rescue themselves. They're going to
[102:01] realize it. They're they're starting to
[102:02] realize it. Maybe this isn't the best
[102:04] analogy, but pornography is is
[102:07] quite available online. And I think
[102:09] there's still a hunger for movies and
[102:12] about real romance and relationships.
[102:15] >> I think, you know, interesting romances
[102:17] and relationships
[102:18] >> of their [clears throat] own and and to
[102:20] know that that still exists in the
[102:22] world. I think there's a crudeness to
[102:23] things, but I hear you. And there's a
[102:26] new generation coming up who hopefully
[102:27] are
[102:29] >> listening in like, hey, and have their
[102:31] own, you know, desire for for multiple
[102:34] layers of granularity.
[102:36] >> Good. Yeah, we we just need to invest in
[102:39] that. I'm I'm I'm trying my best to to
[102:42] invest in that. But I've moved away from
[102:46] doing certain things and exposing
[102:48] certain things cuz I believe there is no
[102:52] no way there, no path there into the
[102:54] real I want to help. I want to really
[102:57] help
[102:58] people myself.
[103:01] But it takes a certain
[103:04] process to get to that critical moment
[103:06] of being able to actually help and
[103:08] transform. It's not as easy as just
[103:11] offering the help, putting it out there,
[103:14] not as it was. It used to be, but the
[103:16] game is different. We had a guest on,
[103:19] he's a psychiatrist, uh Dr. K, Indian
[103:21] guy. We were talking about um meditation
[103:24] and he described a meditation that is
[103:26] super interesting that I'm sure you've
[103:28] done many times and but for me was
[103:30] novel. He said try meditating for just 5
[103:33] minutes but instead of paying attention
[103:36] to the inhale and the exhale pay
[103:38] attention to the pause in between the
[103:41] two
[103:42] >> as a way to start to notice transition
[103:44] points and it's a way of kind of dialing
[103:46] in the spotlight of attention. Boom.
[103:48] Boom. and you can kind of release in
[103:50] between as opposed to just trying to
[103:52] constantly focus on the breath. What are
[103:54] your thoughts on on these kinds of like
[103:56] noticing transitions
[103:59] between setting down the phone, getting
[104:00] up, getting on the phone, maybe even
[104:03] between swipes if people have to do it
[104:05] that way, but ideally this would be done
[104:06] in terms of a movement practice as well,
[104:09] an emotional practice.
[104:10] >> Before I even talk about it, you know
[104:12] what? What is the discovery of that
[104:14] practice?
[104:17] There is no point where the pendulum
[104:20] changes direction.
[104:23] >> No transitional moment
[104:25] where the this reaches this zero point
[104:28] and and
[104:30] that's what you discover as you're
[104:33] following this more and more and more
[104:34] and more. It opens up. It opens up and
[104:37] this pulls you in. And that's why it's
[104:40] such a powerful practice.
[104:42] [snorts]
[104:44] And this is available in many places.
[104:46] It's the multi-stability again.
[104:50] For example, right now I really have to
[104:52] pee.
[104:55] And inside this sensation,
[104:58] which funny enough I didn't know, but I
[105:03] kind of loved to practice as a child. I
[105:07] didn't realize that I'm the that it's
[105:09] unique.
[105:12] And I believe it's also related to my
[105:14] willpower in a way. No, I don't need to
[105:17] go to the toilet yet. I would hold and
[105:20] [snorts] I would recognize inside of it
[105:22] a certain pleasure. Maybe maybe a
[105:25] pleasure of the release that will come.
[105:28] It's [clears throat] similar to the
[105:29] orgasm. It has something similar to this
[105:32] burning. The first time you have an
[105:34] orgasm, you're not sure it's painful.
[105:36] It's it's pleasurable. You're still in
[105:38] that multi-stability.
[105:40] So in that sense the kumbaka is very
[105:43] similar. So it's a type of practice not
[105:46] the only type you can do it with a lot
[105:47] of things goosebumps feeling cold inside
[105:51] the sensation of coldness. There is a
[105:53] heat
[105:54] >> underneath that's why the body creates
[105:57] this thing and I've I've seen it. I
[105:59] remember a time I was doing a standing
[106:02] meditation in
[106:05] in yelling up in Australia standing
[106:07] inside shallow water and the sun was
[106:10] coming down became very cold and I
[106:12] remember I was there for an hour
[106:13] standing and just this realization the
[106:16] beginning it's like oh it's cold
[106:19] and then I start no I'm going to stay
[106:22] and by staying and by investigating
[106:25] closer and closer I discovered this heat
[106:27] inside and when
[106:29] grab a glimpse of it. Boop, the cold was
[106:33] gone.
[106:34] And now I locked, you know, the old
[106:37] woman and the young woman, the
[106:38] multi-stability, the visual thing. I
[106:40] locked into the other side.
[106:42] >> And I was able to see it
[106:44] >> and then I was [clears throat] able to
[106:46] bring back the cold and to see both.
[106:51] This is a practice that I engage with
[106:53] with rhythms, poly rhythms,
[106:57] with movements,
[106:59] with reading certain conceptual
[107:01] materials that are requiring this with
[107:03] meditation with and and it requires keen
[107:06] observation and it's very very powerful
[107:08] practice.
[107:10] Even a push-up, I practice it doing
[107:13] push-ups.
[107:15] You can think of a push-up. You can you
[107:17] can experience it as a push but you can
[107:20] also experience it as a pull which is by
[107:23] the way closer to reality. One thing is
[107:26] for certain you're describing
[107:28] beautifully
[107:30] the
[107:32] antagonistic nature of every neural
[107:35] circuit that we are aware of. Flexor
[107:37] extensor being the most obvious. Right?
[107:39] When we flex our bicep or whatever
[107:41] hamstring, the opposite muscle, the
[107:44] extensor relaxes and vice versa.
[107:47] But they're intricately related in their
[107:49] in their function. Like it's not they're
[107:51] totally independent, right? The ability
[107:54] to see dark edges is contingent on your
[107:57] ability to see light edges.
[107:59] >> Super imposition. Everything is
[108:01] superimposed.
[108:02] >> Everything's pushpull. this uh
[108:04] ventromedial hypothalamus right Dulin's
[108:07] work with uh David Anderson showed if
[108:10] you people for years had stimulated this
[108:13] brain area and in cats and rats and
[108:15] monkeys and bats and they would see that
[108:18] sometimes they would get rage and
[108:20] sometimes they would get mounting in
[108:22] sexual behavior even of inanimate
[108:24] objects. Dulin comes in, develops
[108:27] genetic tools to separate out the salt
[108:30] and pepper of these different neurons
[108:32] and shows that these are two
[108:34] antagonistic sets of neurons in the same
[108:36] structure that drive either mating or
[108:39] attack. And then she gets the
[108:41] opportunity to put them into competition
[108:43] with one another. And what she discovers
[108:45] and other people discover by monitoring
[108:47] the activity of these neurons is when
[108:49] you drive the mating activity, the the
[108:52] potential for firing in these other
[108:54] neurons is suppressed but then it comes
[108:56] back higher. The firing of these neurons
[108:59] that drive aggression suppressed then
[109:02] the main after some period of time
[109:05] mating it subsides then the aggression
[109:06] comes back and we don't like these are
[109:09] uncomfortable notions for people to
[109:10] think about. That's just one example,
[109:12] but also eating versus the desire to
[109:15] naughty. Everything's a push pull in the
[109:17] circuitry of the brain, even in
[109:18] cognition. So, I I totally uh love, very
[109:24] crude way to put it, but I totally love
[109:27] the idea that
[109:30] exploring what feels like an extreme
[109:33] sensory experience is actually an
[109:36] exploration of of the opposite side of
[109:38] the seessaw. It's awesome that you could
[109:40] touch into that
[109:41] >> and you can directly connect to it by
[109:44] taking a multistable entity and
[109:47] observing it.
[109:49] Any entity is multistable entity but
[109:52] there are ones that are clearly that
[109:54] like listening to a poly rhythm to two
[109:56] rhythms at the same time and spending
[109:59] time watching it from one perspective
[110:02] and then from another perspective and
[110:04] switching back and forth that switching
[110:06] again. It's extremely powerful. This is
[110:08] stuff I use with fighters because if you
[110:12] can't hear the various rhythms,
[110:15] you're not the DJ and the DJ controls
[110:17] the party, you're going to get knocked
[110:20] out. But if you can view all these
[110:24] complex rhythms that are there present
[110:27] in the footwork and in the breath and in
[110:29] the body and in the blinking of the
[110:31] eyes. And if you're sensitive to it, you
[110:34] can [clears throat] be a lot more
[110:37] aligned with that and manipulate it for
[110:40] your needs.
[110:41] So this is extremely powerful practice.
[110:44] Certain texts, they don't allow you to
[110:46] grab a hold.
[110:47] >> Mhm.
[110:48] >> My favorite is Horge Luis Bores,
[110:51] >> the Argentine.
[110:52] >> Yes.
[110:52] >> My father would be very happy that you
[110:54] said that. Yeah. the absolute master,
[110:56] the man who was
[110:59] the big priest of the cult of books, the
[111:02] ultimate, the blind librarian. What can
[111:05] be more than that? The man who read
[111:07] everything when it was still possible to
[111:09] read everything, who knew everything.
[111:13] And what did he leave us? These
[111:15] incredible practices, short stories, but
[111:19] they are challenging. And they changed
[111:22] my body when I read them. They changed
[111:25] me again and again and again. And they
[111:27] transform you. And they're multi-stable.
[111:31] And they're examining things in a way
[111:33] that makes you transform.
[111:36] I used to fill my hot tub with extremely
[111:40] hot water,
[111:43] unbearable, and read the short story
[111:46] while being in there. In the worst times
[111:49] of my life, I use this and and the the
[111:53] physical discomfort and it's short
[111:56] stories. You can do it. It's a certain
[111:58] length of time. Somehow together I I
[112:01] like to relax into that combination and
[112:03] it was awe. It was I always came out
[112:06] different from that experiences.
[112:09] I also used it just normally. I use it
[112:13] with students in events and there are
[112:15] other authors but it's just an example
[112:18] to feel real remorse in order to change
[112:22] change my ways to to to truly not to
[112:26] beat myself up not to make this yeah
[112:29] this this Jewish thing that the Catholic
[112:31] perfected
[112:33] hatch
[112:34] >> or flagagulate yourself yeah
[112:36] >> not this but true remorse it's like
[112:40] that was bad
[112:43] bad on me that shouldn't have done that.
[112:46] That's that's not who I want to be and
[112:49] and from that place
[112:52] hitting this rock bottom and immediately
[112:54] climbing up from that. So it doesn't
[112:57] stay within that to so we we don't I
[113:00] don't think people tell me thank you in
[113:02] the end of teachings events but how
[113:06] often do I feel real gratitude
[113:08] we don't interact we don't feel they
[113:10] don't sense it no one can blame them but
[113:13] they've desensitized themselves from
[113:16] this whole granularity of emotions and
[113:20] so we need to bring it back we need to
[113:22] bring it back we need to go to train it
[113:25] back like losing your sense of smell
[113:28] because of COVID or something.
[113:32] People ask me what shall I do? I said
[113:33] train it back. And that's you know I I I
[113:38] don't I don't know the neurology of it
[113:39] but it's clear to me. It's like what's
[113:41] the answer to any question? Practice. So
[113:43] I just send them to practice and it
[113:45] works. gradual, progressive,
[113:50] pleasantly visual, pleasing enough, etc.
[113:56] I'd like to take a quick break and
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[115:34] the ability to um really acknowledge
[115:38] real remorse, guilt, regret. Uh that's
[115:44] hard. I totally agree. Um there's
[115:47] enormous power in it. Um and yet one
[115:51] can't do it in order to extract the
[115:53] power like that get keeps you away from
[115:55] the feeling. I had to spend, as we were
[115:57] talking about earlier, some time in my
[116:00] life just thinking about the times I
[116:05] genuinely failed,
[116:07] that I was a coward, that I made the
[116:11] wrong choice. I don't feel a lot of
[116:14] power from saying it. It just is what it
[116:16] is.
[116:18] And that's like where the uh the benefit
[116:21] is just like sitting in there and then
[116:23] somehow one is able to move on from it.
[116:26] >> I'm with you. I don't know many people
[116:30] who talk about it. I'm the same. I'm
[116:32] saying to people I'm a coward. I'm a I'm
[116:34] a coward. That's who I am. Like that's
[116:37] who I was many times in my life. I I've
[116:40] made the wrong choices. Again, I'm not
[116:43] beating myself up over it. I I've made
[116:46] my peace with it
[116:48] >> but I've had to glimpse it to change
[116:51] something and maybe it won't be enough
[116:54] maybe I'll need this process again but
[116:57] so remorse is crucial have to be part of
[117:00] the practice practice of remorse remorse
[117:03] of conscious
[117:05] that is also not available not there we
[117:09] can cultivate the process of it we can
[117:11] devote time to it we can um we can
[117:15] design practices for it. Grieving is
[117:18] also another one right it's so
[117:22] difficult. One time somebody told me a
[117:25] meditation teacher he told me I griefed
[117:28] my father's death for 20 minutes
[117:32] and that's it. I was done. But those 20
[117:37] minutes people push away for a lifetime.
[117:41] and and even if the you know not it's
[117:43] not exactly the truth I like to use that
[117:46] that story still
[117:48] so to interact with it and to be capable
[117:51] and to invite these things into our life
[117:54] also takes
[117:56] practice lately I've been I wouldn't say
[117:59] forcing myself I would say nudging
[118:01] myself into
[118:03] um allowing some grief over the passage
[118:07] of time not regrets about certain
[118:10] decisions That's a separate line of
[118:12] exploration. But just acknowledging I
[118:15] think with all this stuff about health
[118:17] and longevity and I certainly feel
[118:19] vigorous. I feel great. But time has
[118:22] passed. And that doesn't mean thinking
[118:25] about the past. Just really
[118:27] acknowledging that I I and the reason I
[118:29] got to it is I felt like I was
[118:31] suppressing something like there was
[118:34] some lie in my head about my
[118:37] representation of time.
[118:40] And when I spend some tough moments
[118:44] really like it does, as great as I feel
[118:47] at 50, I truly feel better than I did in
[118:49] my 30s if I think in terms of vigor and
[118:51] understanding of life and all that. But
[118:54] the fact that there's no doover
[118:57] and that I actually don't want to live
[118:59] in the delusion that I have forever. I
[119:02] think that's a huge mistake. That was a
[119:04] heavy moment and I'm probably still
[119:06] grieving it. I can kind of sense it a
[119:08] little bit. It comes up as a kind of odd
[119:10] constellation of feelings. But by
[119:12] acknowledging that I was a coward in
[119:14] certain perhaps many circumstances, it's
[119:17] actually allowed me to be much braver in
[119:19] leaning into the stuff that sucks.
[119:22] It's such a weird thing and it almost
[119:24] sounds like we're, you know, like you're
[119:27] constructing this. It's a real thing.
[119:30] And I think the real key if anyone wants
[119:31] to try it is to not go do the
[119:35] acknowledge where you were wrong so that
[119:37] you can not feel it anymore. You have to
[119:39] go into it with the almost acceptance
[119:42] that you might stay there forever, but
[119:43] of course you won't, right? It's like
[119:45] this it's like this bullshitting of self
[119:48] that is useful. You know, earlier you
[119:52] were talking about sensory
[119:54] desensitization.
[119:56] And it's so funny you said that because
[119:58] we took a brief break uh to relieve our
[120:01] bladders. Um and I was walking back and
[120:05] I thought I got to tell the Charlie
[120:07] Gilbert story. The Charlie Gilbert story
[120:10] is the following. Charlie Gilbert was is
[120:13] a very renowned neuroscientist.
[120:16] Uh he was at the Rockefeller University
[120:18] in New York. And I'll never forget as a
[120:21] graduate student, he came and you do
[120:23] these lunches with the visiting speaker
[120:26] and they bring lunch out and the lunch
[120:28] isn't great, but it wasn't terrible and
[120:30] it was fairly nutritious. And typically
[120:33] the speaker eats, but they mostly talk.
[120:35] And I'll never forget,
[120:37] he said, "No, I'm not eating lunch. I'm
[120:40] going to my favorite restaurant tonight
[120:42] in Napa." I said, "Is it going to be a
[120:45] big meal?" He said, "No, not at all, but
[120:47] I want my senses to be tuned to the
[120:51] subtlety of every bit of it." And I
[120:53] said, "Is the food rich?" I'd never
[120:56] really been at that point in my life to
[120:57] a really nice restaurant, and I assumed
[120:59] I still haven't been to the one he's
[121:00] referring to, but I assumed that the
[121:02] food would be really rich. And he said,
[121:04] "No, that's the point. The food is just
[121:06] delicious, but it's not overcome with
[121:09] flavor, like the food you're eating
[121:11] right now." And I looked and it was like
[121:13] turkey sandwiches and some chips or
[121:14] something, you know, graduate student
[121:16] fair, some salads. And I asked him, I
[121:20] was like, "What do you mean?" He said,
[121:21] "When you're hungry, you are able to
[121:23] pick up on all sorts of subtleties and
[121:26] pleasures and aversions to what you
[121:28] don't like. You're allowed to not like
[121:30] food, even when you're paying a lot of
[121:31] money for it. In fact, you're in those
[121:34] circumstances, you're particularly
[121:35] allowed to send things back. People
[121:37] don't realize this." And he said, "I'll
[121:40] never forget." He said, "This pertains
[121:43] to most all experiences in life." And I
[121:46] was like, "Whoa,
[121:48] wow." Well, he's from New York City and
[121:51] very sophisticated clearly, but what he
[121:53] was describing is exactly what we're
[121:56] talking about, what you're talking
[121:57] about, that if we dull our senses, we
[122:01] miss all of it. We miss the the
[122:04] difference between crude and refined.
[122:07] It's not just like this ability to get
[122:09] into this like ultra refined state.
[122:12] This was before intermittent fasting
[122:14] became a thing. So, beautiful story,
[122:16] >> man. He nailed it. I can't take any
[122:18] credit for. He just nailed it. I just
[122:20] have a good memory for things that like
[122:22] stand out. So, now I want to talk about
[122:27] relationships.
[122:29] something I didn't anticipate we were
[122:31] going to talk about. But before we came
[122:32] in here today, we were sort of
[122:34] reflecting on what our
[122:37] happy lives currently are. And
[122:40] you said something and I'm going to get
[122:42] the language wrong, so forgive me, but
[122:44] it's sort of like the exploration of
[122:47] relationship also involves this
[122:49] opportunity to explore all these
[122:50] different dimensions and the transitions
[122:53] between them. And it's a like a vast
[122:56] probably infinite landscape between two
[122:59] people. I think I'm starting to get my
[123:01] head around that one.
[123:03] >> Tell me more and how you think about it.
[123:05] You don't have to reveal any details of
[123:07] your personal life. I just it's such a
[123:10] great framework.
[123:12] Can an argument that you didn't want to
[123:15] have become the point of enrichment?
[123:18] Let's start by
[123:20] we are robbing against things
[123:24] to be not to rub against things.
[123:29] Being is that is this rubbing mapping
[123:32] yourself by rubbing against things.
[123:35] Relationships are very powerful for
[123:37] that.
[123:40] Alone you're also rubbing against things
[123:42] but just different things. It's also a
[123:45] practice to be alone and both of them
[123:47] are very important. But when you relate
[123:52] you become
[123:54] this is being it's a relationship thing.
[123:57] Everything exists only as a form of a
[124:00] relationship.
[124:01] Now this is the big picture. Of course
[124:04] now we can take it into the the human
[124:06] relationships and some of these things
[124:08] are not going to be so easy to digest. I
[124:11] believe the make or break element is we
[124:16] are together in this game.
[124:19] Not one against the other. It's not a
[124:22] pingpong
[124:24] but it is a game an infinite game in
[124:28] that sense that we want to sustain the
[124:30] play. It's not a finite scenario where
[124:32] we want to finish, we want to win, we
[124:34] want to we want to continue
[124:36] and we have to create this practice
[124:39] shared practice. How to be in this game
[124:43] of evolution, of transformation, of
[124:45] insight
[124:48] together. It's not a fixed point. I
[124:51] cannot come from the place of I am XY Z.
[124:56] I'm already a finished product in that
[124:58] sense. If the other side is a finished
[125:01] product in their mind, it can't work.
[125:05] That's why it's the make or break. Not
[125:08] sexual attraction,
[125:11] not love in that sense of that chemical
[125:13] concoction,
[125:15] romantic love, but this element. And
[125:19] it's true for every meaningful
[125:22] relationship and I believe also for
[125:24] romantic relationships. And then around
[125:26] them you got to wrap the other sides.
[125:29] The physical love which is the sexual
[125:31] attraction the romantic emotional one
[125:35] and a higher concept of love. Not one
[125:38] that we speak through lawyers if you say
[125:41] the wrong thing after you know 30 years
[125:44] of marriage. What kind of love is that?
[125:48] That trans that breaks like this that
[125:50] switches that is this is no love.
[125:53] But really this meta concept of love
[125:58] meta as well. So relationships are a
[126:02] form of a practice together
[126:06] and they must be cultivated as such.
[126:09] We're using each other but we're helping
[126:12] each other as well. And we're together
[126:14] in this game going through life's
[126:17] experiences,
[126:19] crisis,
[126:21] helping each other,
[126:23] bringing kids or not bringing kids.
[126:27] This is a core piece and I don't often
[126:31] hear it
[126:33] pointed as a central element
[126:37] that seems to be a good partner for
[126:40] that. Usually it's a good partner for
[126:42] something else which is all good
[126:44] respect. Should respect it. But this is
[126:46] the make or break for long-term
[126:49] relationship.
[126:50] I love the one who loves to practice. It
[126:56] can rob people really the wrong way. But
[126:58] now you understand why it is said in
[127:01] this way. This is the love that that
[127:03] choice that deep choice in you. Okay,
[127:05] you're a partner. Now we can go. We are
[127:09] here at this practice. We are not
[127:11] against each other. We are supportive of
[127:14] each other. And we play this game. I
[127:17] need your attention.
[127:19] I need your presence.
[127:21] I can't have you check out. And there is
[127:24] this infinite game that we play that
[127:27] might finish at a certain moment, but it
[127:29] just actually changes its face. It never
[127:31] finishes.
[127:32] >> I love it. And I feel obligated to raise
[127:36] a an example of relational
[127:41] dynamics that's outside of romance,
[127:43] which is of all things uh The Grateful
[127:46] Dead. Um a good friend who's an amazing
[127:50] uh punk rock musician uh encouraged me
[127:53] to listen to The Grateful Dead. I didn't
[127:55] have an aversion to it, but um I didn't
[127:59] have a tendency to want to play it. Now
[128:02] I'm I really like it. I don't know if
[128:03] I'm like into it, but I really like it.
[128:05] So, I watched a few documentaries about
[128:07] the Grateful Dead. I They come from my
[128:09] hometown. They used to hang out at a
[128:12] music store near where I grew up. They
[128:13] were around until they weren't. Even
[128:16] went to some shows. In this documentary
[128:18] about the Grateful Dead, they talk about
[128:20] the amazing chemistry that this band
[128:22] had. Just the amazing chemistry and why
[128:25] people literally followed them around
[128:27] the world.
[128:29] And then they talk about why it
[128:31] suffered, why the chemistry fell apart
[128:34] at a certain point and then maybe it was
[128:36] restored. And it was one word. They
[128:39] asked what happened. They said cocaine.
[128:43] But then what they said next was cocaine
[128:46] made people very focused on their own
[128:49] goal directed behavior. And even though
[128:52] everyone was playing together and they
[128:54] all knew the songs and they were paying
[128:56] attention,
[128:58] someone or several people were kind of
[129:01] vying for something that was more about
[129:03] them as opposed to the chemistry and
[129:06] dynamics
[129:07] because cocaine is mainly a dopamine
[129:10] related thing. just kind of speaks to
[129:12] the fact that like if we lean too hard
[129:14] into it's not just about like me
[129:16] thinking but in terms of like
[129:18] advancement like got to get to this
[129:20] place the group doesn't necessarily move
[129:24] forward and so we need leaders but it's
[129:27] more like this dynamic subordination
[129:29] where there's like a like a flock flock
[129:31] of birds moving forward and then one
[129:32] replaces and I feel like in any kind of
[129:35] relationship whether or not it's two or
[129:37] more in a work situation um or maybe
[129:41] even romantic relationship between two
[129:43] people that there's some some sense of
[129:46] of this kind of subordinating the the
[129:49] the eye
[129:50] >> in the deep sense of it in the neurology
[129:52] part of it we are sharing kind of a the
[129:56] alostostasis the the body budget we are
[129:59] sharing it right so it's like it's a way
[130:01] for us to metab to be metabolically
[130:04] bringing in more resources
[130:06] >> so that's even the neurological reality
[130:09] of it
[130:10] >> that's Why also grief is so devastating
[130:13] because it removes in a moment huge
[130:16] amount of resources right all of a
[130:18] sudden it's pulled out of you
[130:21] as if it's not really the the the
[130:25] hoftter talks about this this the loop
[130:27] is still there it's it's part it's part
[130:30] of your loop already it's integrated but
[130:32] there is the resource part
[130:36] and how am I going to face these
[130:39] challenges without that person. It's
[130:42] highly related to the grieving thing.
[130:44] It's not removed from it. It's it's
[130:47] maybe the core of it. Not often
[130:49] mentioned again in relation to grief,
[130:52] but it's it's a very
[130:54] egotistical thing has [snorts] to
[130:57] operate in such a way along the lines of
[131:00] music. Um, for the longest time I've had
[131:03] this question and I'm hoping you can
[131:05] help me shed some light on the the
[131:07] answer which is there are some forms of
[131:11] music I think of like Bob Dylan certain
[131:14] um songs that Joe Strummer from the
[131:16] Clash sang there going to be other
[131:18] examples that I'm not aware of but
[131:19] everyone will know what I'm talking
[131:21] about in a moment where the words if
[131:23] read literally make no sense but somehow
[131:27] they seem to reveal like a fundamental
[131:30] truth that people can relate to. And
[131:33] when I say fundamental, I mean people
[131:34] seem to agree that there's something
[131:36] important there. It sounds important.
[131:39] And it's not just because it sounds
[131:40] beautiful or melodic. Like there's
[131:42] something important there. And that
[131:44] maybe, just maybe, these songs are
[131:46] tapping into some
[131:49] language of the nervous system or of
[131:52] whatever human experience that that we
[131:53] don't have a word for, we don't have a
[131:55] concept to pin to. And my question is,
[131:59] is there an analogous phenomenon in
[132:02] movement?
[132:03] >> Most definitely. There is an aesthetic
[132:06] value to it beyond the the symbolic
[132:10] significance.
[132:12] That's why we are hitting constantly
[132:15] this this glass ceiling. We cannot break
[132:18] through because we're approaching
[132:20] everything from the intellect from this
[132:23] this this place and and it does not
[132:25] carry certain pieces with it. I can't do
[132:29] it in this way. This is not
[132:30] understanding. I cannot reach
[132:32] understanding in this way. I only reach
[132:34] knowing
[132:36] understanding is much bigger. It's much
[132:39] more visceral. It's much more bodily and
[132:42] emotional and musical and rhythmical.
[132:45] And there is an aesthetic value to the
[132:47] word
[132:49] when I say slippery. And in a song even
[132:52] more there is rhythmicality. There is
[132:54] moments there is silences that are
[132:56] placed correctly. And that's why good
[132:59] music. Tom Waits is Tom Waits. He brings
[133:04] that thing always present in all these
[133:07] different ways. It's so diverse and it's
[133:09] so powerful. It affected so many genres
[133:12] and people and it's the mastery of that
[133:16] instead of the AI strip down give me the
[133:21] recipe I make it and the cake doesn't
[133:24] taste good and I follow the recipe to a
[133:27] tea there is missing components and some
[133:30] of them we know about and we can talk
[133:32] about but most of them we will never
[133:35] find
[133:37] so the magic that's why the magic is in
[133:40] The doing, the magic is in the
[133:42] practicing.
[133:43] And that's why sitting here is very
[133:45] different than doing this on screen.
[133:48] >> And [clears throat] we share something.
[133:49] Our bodies are communicating in all
[133:51] these ways that you know about. And all
[133:54] our senses are engaged and we're sharing
[133:57] this space and we're tuning forks are
[134:00] aligning in all these rhythms. And so
[134:03] it's different. We can't
[134:06] keep coming back to this illusion that
[134:12] we can put it together if we take all
[134:14] the ingredients that we know of because
[134:17] there are more ingredients that we don't
[134:19] know of and the good news we can
[134:22] interact with it directly by engaging
[134:24] with the practice with the motion with
[134:27] the body. So body movement,
[134:30] human movement carries huge amount of
[134:34] that. It's not the same
[134:37] for me to do a movement like this. And
[134:40] now I do it with a different focus point
[134:43] of awareness of attention. I totally
[134:45] transformed the neurology of it and the
[134:47] effects of it on myself and on the
[134:51] environment as well. To watch a dance
[134:53] performance live is extremely different
[134:55] than to it actually doesn't make any
[134:57] sense to watch a music video in that
[135:01] sense of movement because it's there is
[135:04] a critical mess in relation to human
[135:06] movement which is not reached there
[135:08] other things okay you can do something
[135:12] music is arguable right like to listen
[135:16] to Tom weights live is maybe that's a
[135:19] totally different thing I never did I
[135:21] never had the chance but I I would love
[135:23] to maybe that will transform
[135:26] my experience of it totally we have to
[135:30] give attention to these and a place for
[135:33] these x quantities like sister Korita
[135:37] Kenchi mentioned this always leave a
[135:39] room for x quantities the unknown
[135:41] quantities because you can not leave
[135:45] room for them it's not like they're
[135:48] always there no in some ways in some
[135:50] stratas of how we approach things. We
[135:54] don't leave room for it.
[135:57] It's important.
[135:58] >> I'm struck by the um the artists, the
[136:02] practitioners, whether it's movement,
[136:04] dance, or visual art, or music that tap
[136:08] into this to something that
[136:11] language alone can't tap into, that um
[136:15] film alone can't tap into. And the the
[136:17] example that I often go to because I
[136:20] think well because I like the work so
[136:22] much is like a Rothco you know which
[136:25] most people would say is just you know
[136:27] couple blobs of color couple squares or
[136:29] rectangles but um the vision scientist
[136:32] in me and I'm not the one that that
[136:34] unpacked this but a guy named Beville
[136:36] Conway who's uh at NIH explained this
[136:39] best that what Rothkco was able to do
[136:43] was because he eliminated the frame
[136:47] And there's no white that he combined
[136:52] colors in ways that when you look at it,
[136:55] any Rothkco, you're seeing colors that
[136:57] you've never seen before because of the
[136:59] way color space interacts. But here's
[137:02] the interesting thing. It's not clear to
[137:03] me that Rothkco understood that as he
[137:05] was doing it. So, it does seem like some
[137:08] people are they're able to kind of
[137:11] scratch and dig and create around
[137:13] something that they feel I don't know
[137:15] what they're feeling, but they get to
[137:16] some fundamental truth that becomes the
[137:19] signature of what they're doing. Maybe
[137:21] Andy Warhol did it with his kind of like
[137:23] play on marketing and branding and and
[137:26] it's in the end it becomes very simple
[137:28] like what pops out is very simple but it
[137:31] feels like a like a macronutrient
[137:35] >> of experience and you go I can't get
[137:37] that anywhere else. I can't just look at
[137:40] a Campbell soup can. But seeing them
[137:42] like arranged that way, I can appreciate
[137:43] something completely different about
[137:45] marketing more generally or brand or
[137:47] visual art or color in the case of
[137:49] Rothkco. I'm going to draw you into
[137:52] something that you really know a lot
[137:54] about. Actually, it's related to art.
[137:58] What are these great artists?
[138:01] Well, the practitioners, and I'm a
[138:03] broken record with it, they realize
[138:05] things much earlier because they're in
[138:08] the experience. What did they realize?
[138:11] The eyes don't operate like a camera.
[138:15] That's the wrong model. When I look at
[138:17] your face, all the pixels are not equal.
[138:22] And I move my eyes in a certain way that
[138:26] constructs you. So what do these great
[138:28] artists did?
[138:31] They did deformed
[138:33] wrong paintings,
[138:36] but they move in front of your eyes.
[138:40] The perspective is wrong. The the hand
[138:44] is placed incorrectly, but it respects
[138:46] the way that our brain looks at it. And
[138:50] this only came much later in terms of
[138:53] understanding why. Because we have all
[138:55] these distortions from great artists. If
[138:57] they wanted to do it right, they would
[138:59] have done it right, hyper realistic,
[139:01] etc.
[139:03] This is a crucial thing. Our models, the
[139:07] neuromuscular model is another one. The
[139:10] skeletal neuromuscular model, the fascia
[139:14] skeletal neuromuscular model. And you
[139:16] can expand it more and more. And they're
[139:19] all the time replaced. And it's
[139:20] important that we replace them. But
[139:23] there is something even more important.
[139:26] the realization that all models are
[139:28] wrong but some are useful. that that
[139:32] quote I use it a lot in the sense that I
[139:36] need to switch up my models to useful
[139:40] models at this current moment
[139:43] and understand that this model will also
[139:45] be wrong in essence but it doesn't mean
[139:47] that I have a choice I have to use
[139:50] models there is no choice about it so
[139:53] when we are creating this art and we are
[139:56] respecting this it's a representation of
[139:59] these deeper models
[140:01] For me as an example in the physical
[140:04] body there is something about
[140:07] fluid mechanics and pressure changes and
[140:10] liquidity of the body that is was a huge
[140:14] leap in how I moved compared to the old
[140:19] balls and levers thing and it started up
[140:24] here in in this understand
[140:28] that's not how things work.
[140:31] From there my whole body changed
[140:34] for the better.
[140:36] >> When did that occur?
[140:38] >> That shift
[140:38] >> in the recent decade a bit more looking
[140:42] for these models of like how is the body
[140:45] constructed? What is the right way of
[140:48] running? What is the don't tell me how
[140:51] the body is constructed? I'm not
[140:53] interested. These people are not
[140:55] actually even moving eventually. And
[140:57] again, you don't need to test it there.
[140:59] You're not wet tested often. So, it's
[141:01] not representative of a high level of
[141:03] movement. Somebody who engages with it
[141:07] will tell you.
[141:10] So, I slowly realized
[141:13] the fault is not in the way that we are
[141:17] structured or in the practice, the way
[141:20] that we are practicing. It is in the
[141:22] model. It is in the way that we think of
[141:25] movement to begin with
[141:28] that makes everything
[141:30] your back pain can go away from from a
[141:34] change of the model. It's the most
[141:35] powerful thing that I can give
[141:38] physically to someone. So to work with
[141:41] models,
[141:43] to refine them, to change them, to
[141:46] switch them around is important for the
[141:48] artist, for the health, longevity, for
[141:52] cognition, for problem solving, for
[141:56] everything. It it keeps coming back to
[141:59] this most important thing. So rather
[142:02] than think about fascia or muscle or
[142:07] connective tissue,
[142:09] sounds to me like you're thinking about
[142:12] certainly how all the pieces fit
[142:13] together. And I've I've heard you say
[142:15] this before. It's it's more about the
[142:17] organization of all these pieces,
[142:20] >> the relationships,
[142:21] >> the relationships,
[142:23] >> how they relate. This realization that
[142:26] especially in the body schema, it's
[142:29] immediately changeable.
[142:32] In the emotional schema, in the abstract
[142:35] one, it's a lot slower of a process. But
[142:37] if I hold this cup, I immediately
[142:39] change. It's so quick to change the
[142:41] body. This is something that Moshe Feld
[142:44] and Christ realized a long time ago.
[142:46] People still don't appreciate, don't
[142:48] understand the power of that work. We've
[142:50] desensitized ourselves.
[142:52] >> What do you think is the crux of that
[142:54] work that hopefully this conversation
[142:56] can get people reading and looking at
[142:58] that more deeply? Uh I confess I haven't
[143:00] spent a lot of time with it. Very
[143:02] little. In fact,
[143:02] >> awareness through movement in that sense
[143:06] the same thing that I'm practicing. I
[143:08] I've learned a lot from him. Not
[143:11] personally, of course. He died when I
[143:14] was four years old. But in in the sense
[143:16] of don't tell me how I'm built,
[143:20] let me build myself. Let me model
[143:23] myself. I can refreshen how my shoulder
[143:28] is with the right approach and it's
[143:31] extremely powerful when you can interact
[143:33] with it. The problem is again many times
[143:36] people don't want to interact with it.
[143:39] You bring them to the water but they
[143:41] don't want to drink. That's why I keep
[143:44] coming back to this crucial component.
[143:48] First realize that you don't want first
[143:51] that realization is already precious and
[143:53] then from there you know the the old
[143:58] Pinocchio illusion
[144:01] stimulation of the bicep tendon when
[144:03] touching your nose. You don't know this
[144:05] one.
[144:06] >> There are a few versions of it. It's a a
[144:09] pretty common one. You touch your nose
[144:11] and somebody stimulates with a vibration
[144:14] gun the tendon and your nose become
[144:17] longer. You feel as if your nose become
[144:20] longer. Or there is this version.
[144:22] You know this one. Put your finger
[144:25] against mine
[144:28] and do this.
[144:32] >> Oh yeah. It's very bizarre. It's hard to
[144:35] know what what where my finger stops and
[144:37] yours begins. And another version of the
[144:39] Pinocchio illusion is we sit in front of
[144:41] each other. I rub my nose and I rub your
[144:45] nose at the same time or I tap my nose
[144:48] and I and I tap your nose and again this
[144:50] distortions. What does it show you? The
[144:53] change that you're after is immediately
[144:56] available.
[144:57] >> Mhm.
[144:58] >> We can It's so potent. It's it's now
[145:01] you're in depression. You're in a bad
[145:03] state. I can flip you now. chemically
[145:06] you know that you can do that
[145:09] but we can do this not chemically and we
[145:11] can do this in a longlasting way and we
[145:13] can transform how we experience but it
[145:16] takes a certain quality of the how we
[145:20] practice that has to be built through
[145:22] education through connection
[145:25] and then applied correctly.
[145:27] This is the most powerful thing I know
[145:31] this interaction with the models and the
[145:33] transformation of the models more than
[145:35] any structural approach more than
[145:37] anything else. We have to invest in it.
[145:40] We have to work on our models like for
[145:43] example your bodily model, your
[145:44] emotional model, the schema and your
[145:48] abstraction model, social model etc. We
[145:52] have a point a a point of leverage as
[145:55] our committee asked for and we can lift
[145:57] the world. We can change our reality.
[146:00] This is the promise of being a
[146:03] practitioner being in [clears throat]
[146:04] practice and learning that everything is
[146:07] possible that everything is malleable,
[146:09] everything is adaptable.
[146:11] I love that you mentioned that the
[146:14] movement and sensory maps are very
[146:17] dynamic because the plasticity is so
[146:20] fast in part because it's revealing what
[146:22] are ordinarily cloaked connections. You
[146:26] know, it's it's not the growth of a new
[146:27] connection yet. The connections are
[146:29] there, we just don't know how to access
[146:30] them. So certain forms of movement and
[146:33] sensation like you said like the hot
[146:35] bath and and reading a short story or
[146:38] poem it sitting at that transition point
[146:42] and and having to deal with those two
[146:44] what previously were incompatible
[146:46] experiences
[146:48] unmasks a a a capacity that somebody has
[146:52] right then.
[146:53] >> Beautiful. And there's no question that
[146:55] doing it repeatedly will lead to
[146:57] strengthening of that unmasking like
[146:59] make it more robust. Let me tell you
[147:01] something about that that I want to
[147:03] share to help people. In my past ways, I
[147:07] would have looked at it and said, "Ah,
[147:09] it's not potent. It's a cool moment, but
[147:12] it's not potent. It's not going." Now, I
[147:15] learned there is another category,
[147:18] another way of looking at it. I don't
[147:20] need high
[147:24] volume, high intensity only to
[147:27] transform. There is another important
[147:30] more important maybe freshness.
[147:33] >> A moment of freshness can transform you
[147:36] irrevocably.
[147:38] And that is something that I was blind
[147:40] to cuz I was a hard worker. So I didn't
[147:43] realize that I just need a fresh moment.
[147:45] Just a moment where things look
[147:46] different, feel different. I experience
[147:49] my body differently. And I've had these
[147:51] experiences in the past and I've lost
[147:53] them. They've
[147:55] leaked between my fingers.
[147:58] And the reason is I didn't note them. I
[148:01] didn't stop to give them the power by
[148:05] noting it to myself, by paying attention
[148:08] to it. What we pay attention to grows.
[148:12] So we don't necessarily need a thousand
[148:14] reps
[148:16] as we think like in order for it to
[148:18] lift. Maybe you have a pain in your
[148:20] shoulder and you experience it as a form
[148:23] of hardness that you cannot penetrate,
[148:26] you cannot sense well into it. And maybe
[148:28] through a certain practice of attention,
[148:30] I bring a moment of freshness and then
[148:32] the pain is back again. The past self, I
[148:36] would say that was nice, but it's not
[148:38] going to solve my problem. Now I know,
[148:40] no, this can really solve my problem.
[148:44] This is how people with incredible
[148:47] challenges can work through things. This
[148:50] can take you above and beyond any kind
[148:52] of discipline, volume, intensity
[148:55] approach can. And I started to respect
[148:58] this and look for these moments of
[149:00] freshness.
[149:02] One reason that I'm so reassured by
[149:04] everything you're saying and and
[149:06] reassured by the idea that there's going
[149:09] to be a return to a deep interest in uh
[149:13] complexity and and really parsing things
[149:16] as well as the realization that what
[149:17] sounds really complex is actually it's
[149:19] it's simple, but it's in the gaps
[149:21] between everything else that's been
[149:23] described. Right? People are like, I can
[149:25] see why people like sets and reps
[149:27] because there's no ambiguity
[149:29] and the ambiguity is hard to embrace and
[149:32] it almost starts to sound like be like
[149:33] water, you know, well like okay that
[149:36] sounds great but you know be like water
[149:38] Bruce Lee like but that he did a lot of
[149:40] sets and reps too I have to imagine.
[149:43] Yeah,
[149:43] >> I think that it's a basic human drive to
[149:45] want to understand at least oneself. And
[149:47] by [clears throat]
[149:49] trying to do that, we immediately become
[149:51] neuroscientists psychologists
[149:53] philosophers. It kind of stems out from
[149:55] there. There's no way to understand
[149:56] one's own life and self and people
[149:58] around you without having some interest
[149:59] in in these things. And
[150:02] the idea that what seems like subtle
[150:07] is actually so potent is such an
[150:10] important idea. I'm so glad you raised
[150:12] it. I I haven't ever had that thought
[150:14] specifically, but now that you say it,
[150:16] I'm like this. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I
[150:18] start thinking about it. So, I'm
[150:19] learning from you right now. And And I
[150:22] think I'm not alone in that. I know I'm
[150:24] not alone in that because we think of
[150:27] peak experiences as like the thing, but
[150:30] by definition, those peak experiences
[150:32] can't come very often. And I think a lot
[150:34] of the uh depression, the the sense of a
[150:37] lack of meaning comes from like just
[150:40] waiting for like the next big thing that
[150:44] if you have enough of those, you
[150:45] eventually realize that they have some
[150:47] potency, but they're not like life, you
[150:50] know?
[150:51] >> So, as a daily practice with movement, I
[150:53] mean, you talked over the years and we
[150:54] talked last time and you know, like
[150:56] there's this great video of you online.
[150:57] And I love the one where you put on a
[150:58] backpack and you move through a crowded
[151:00] city trying not to uh make contact with
[151:02] anybody as a way to just move your body
[151:04] differently. And some people might look
[151:06] at that and say, "Okay, well, okay, he
[151:08] could do that. I'm not going to do
[151:08] that." But the commute example I gave
[151:11] earlier, it's just a different version
[151:14] of it. I think that if people could
[151:17] start to see their body as this vehicle
[151:19] that they have so much agency over,
[151:23] I think people would still exercise.
[151:26] They want those health benefits. But if
[151:28] they were to start incorporating small
[151:30] amounts of movement practice, even just
[151:33] with their hands or their toes or
[151:35] whatever, you know,
[151:36] >> and if you can do it while exercising,
[151:39] >> it's it's it's about a transformation of
[151:42] the whole perspective. I I also
[151:44] exercise.
[151:46] It's about
[151:48] changing the paradigm. Everything is an
[151:50] opportunity. And again, like I told you,
[151:53] like you can do push-ups or bench
[151:54] presses. And by putting attention into
[151:57] the fact that you're pulling the bar
[152:00] close, not just pushing it away. While
[152:03] you're pushing it away, you can you
[152:05] transform something. And I know it
[152:07] sounds as if ah what's that going to do
[152:10] because the corrupted self jumps again
[152:12] and wants this immediate result this or
[152:15] that. But anyways, you're doing those
[152:17] bench presses.
[152:19] So you don't need to change that. You
[152:21] don't need to start to do some weird toe
[152:23] and finger exercises.
[152:25] >> It's about educating oursel how to
[152:27] approach almost every scenario just like
[152:29] you did with the traffic jam.
[152:32] Playfulness is one thing that we
[152:33] mentioned. Observation and presence are
[152:37] key. What starts to clear its space is
[152:42] this quality of scatteredness.
[152:47] multiple things that are switching, you
[152:51] know, all this starts to become and
[152:54] again remorse hyper expensive.
[152:57] >> They are much more evil than what we
[153:00] think is evil.
[153:03] We put evil still in this category far
[153:07] away. Evil is the indifference to those
[153:10] things, those little moments that they
[153:14] steal our lives.
[153:16] And it's very hard to get rid of it.
[153:18] It's very hard to to let go of it. But
[153:20] there is a promise in every moment. I
[153:23] start now in the way that I'm talking to
[153:26] you, in the way that I'm listening in
[153:29] and I remind myself. And this brings me
[153:32] to that quality
[153:34] remembering what is important,
[153:37] cultivating that.
[153:40] How much did you invest in certain
[153:42] concepts? tremendously and that's why
[153:45] they're present in your life. If you
[153:48] don't invest in these concepts, don't
[153:50] expect things to change. Start there.
[153:53] Wake up, think about it, watch this
[153:56] episode or others or go down the and do
[153:59] it attentively.
[154:01] Make notes for yourself. Keep coming
[154:03] back to it again and again. Start this
[154:06] will start a process. Without this,
[154:09] there is no promise. Without this, yeah,
[154:11] it's true. The corrupted self is right.
[154:13] It's not going to work. It's too far
[154:16] away. I don't know what to do. I'm
[154:18] freezing altogether. And I can give you
[154:20] some protocol and we've talked about it
[154:22] before.
[154:23] You can hang and you can do spinal waves
[154:26] and you can spend some time in the squat
[154:29] essentially stretching the body open
[154:32] compressing the body fully. Those are
[154:34] the hang and the squat and the spinal
[154:36] waves which is the connecting bit. This
[154:37] is great and great practices that I
[154:39] share with people. And there is more
[154:41] certain games, certain playfulness, but
[154:44] those are the specifics. That's not
[154:46] where the heart of things is. The
[154:48] approach is what produce those things
[154:50] and what will produce many others. And
[154:53] we have to invest in that
[154:56] remembering in making it important for
[154:58] ourselves.
[155:00] That's the the make or break for me.
[155:03] Would you be willing to indulge us with
[155:06] um some reflections on different
[155:09] athletes and sports or maybe sports? We
[155:12] don't have to get into specific athletes
[155:14] unless you want. Um before we came in to
[155:17] record, you were talking about air
[155:19] sense.
[155:20] I've never heard of air sense. Um we're
[155:23] talking about
[155:24] >> skaters word a different word for it
[155:26] maybe.
[155:27] >> Well, I don't even know that they're
[155:29] aware that they do it, you know. Uh, we
[155:32] were, it was just a brief conversation
[155:33] to give people context. It was a brief
[155:35] conversation about how some
[155:36] skateboarders look particularly
[155:38] impressive like this kid, he's a grown
[155:41] man now, Antoine Dixon, who was it
[155:44] amazing when he was a young kid, still
[155:46] is. He did a bit of a comeback recently.
[155:48] He's phenomenal skateboarder. But if you
[155:52] watch him, he's doing things that other
[155:54] people do, some things other people
[155:56] don't do, but his arms never like really
[156:00] fly up. his hands don't go up. So, he's
[156:02] doing his knees sometimes are up near
[156:04] his ears as he's doing things. He's
[156:06] catching everything. A lot of people can
[156:07] do that, but he has this amazing ability
[156:09] to keep his hands and arms down
[156:12] throughout
[156:14] the the entire um trick.
[156:16] >> But you're amazed by this because he
[156:20] doesn't
[156:21] recalibrates rebalances.
[156:23] >> He doesn't look like he has to use his
[156:25] arms in order to pop really high. he
[156:27] doesn't have to kind of explode out of
[156:28] that squatted position. He somehow
[156:30] managed to put it into his uh the rest
[156:33] of his body and it looks awesome. We'll
[156:36] put a clip to something. There's
[156:37] actually a really terrific bio about his
[156:39] personal comeback against addiction and
[156:42] what he's done with himself. It's just a
[156:44] an amazing story and just but his
[156:46] ability is just it's kind of like if you
[156:48] look at like you know Jordan you know
[156:51] dunking in his prime is like something's
[156:54] different. Yes, he's jumping high. Yes,
[156:55] he's jumping far. Yes, he's got his
[156:57] tongue out and he's like signature
[156:59] Jordan and but there's it's the way the
[157:01] whole thing is put together. So, it's a
[157:03] little bit harder to describe. I should
[157:04] just send people to a clip. And you were
[157:06] talking about across sports this notion
[157:08] of air sense that some athletes just
[157:12] have this ability to orient and move
[157:16] through the air. Can you tell me more
[157:17] about that and some examples that um
[157:20] resonate with you
[157:22] >> and you because you have this
[157:23] >> to a certain extent. Mhm.
[157:25] >> There are others who have it much better
[157:27] than me, but
[157:29] I I grew up doing acrobatics in Capoa
[157:32] and flipping and doing these things. And
[157:35] very early on, you get to I got the
[157:38] realization of, oh, there is these
[157:41] people that are very coordinated,
[157:43] they're very organized, they're very
[157:45] well oriented as long as that they're in
[157:48] this normal vertical situation touching
[157:52] the ground. But once they're in the air,
[157:54] they have no idea where they are.
[157:56] [laughter]
[157:57] And then others can navigate this
[157:59] scenario
[158:00] which is clearly unique.
[158:03] >> So we started to call it air sense.
[158:07] Trampolinists are the most extreme
[158:10] example of it. And nowadays high level
[158:13] extreme athlete skateboarders they use
[158:16] trampoline a lot. [snorts] And those in
[158:19] the know, they know because this is one
[158:21] of the most basic tools.
[158:23] Uh, and different pits, landing pits
[158:27] made of foam pieces where you can fly
[158:29] with your bike or your skateboard off of
[158:31] a ramp and you don't need to land and
[158:35] you get to develop this sensation in the
[158:38] air. When is it time to open up? When is
[158:41] it time to change your shape? So since
[158:44] the propriception is available all the
[158:48] time,
[158:51] is it the vestibular side of things that
[158:53] makes it a unique scenario? Is it a
[158:56] certain gift or or or a a a capacity
[159:01] with the vestibular system? I wanted to
[159:03] ask you,
[159:04] >> what would you think it is? If we're
[159:07] really thinking about time in the air,
[159:10] we have to talk about Tom Char, who's
[159:12] this phenom of a skateboarder who, you
[159:16] know, I'm sure some people, most
[159:17] everyone's heard of Tony Hawk. If you
[159:19] took Tony and you combined him with like
[159:21] Danny Wei, who's probably easily one of
[159:23] the best skate vertical skateboarders
[159:26] ever, built the mega first mega ramps
[159:28] and did that or Bob Burnquist, like
[159:30] these guys that like go just huge uh
[159:33] innovators do it. Tom um and a kid named
[159:36] Jimmy Wilkins I represent the
[159:40] the latest generation of but in my
[159:44] opinion anyway
[159:46] the greatest vertical skateboarders that
[159:48] have ever lived because
[159:50] >> of their ability to have so much
[159:52] control, speed, technical ability
[159:58] to do things that typically were only
[159:59] done on the street like kick flips, heel
[160:01] flips to board slide, smacking the board
[160:04] on the way back into the ramp. No hand.
[160:06] So, ollieing, not grabbing, doing all of
[160:09] these things bigger,
[160:12] faster,
[160:14] cleaner,
[160:16] but also
[160:18] an order of magnitude in every one of
[160:20] those dimensions. And so, if I think
[160:23] about like Tom, I've seen Tom and Jimmy
[160:25] firsthand doing these things. I think
[160:28] the
[160:30] they go faster than everybody else. They
[160:33] pump harder and they go faster into
[160:35] this. So clearly they're willing to
[160:37] spend more time in the air. Danny was
[160:38] like this. Like Danny and Bob Burns were
[160:40] willing to spend more time in the air
[160:44] even if it was a simple trick. So it's
[160:45] not necessarily they're spinning around
[160:47] a lot. Like people tend to over uh like
[160:51] overemphasize like how many spins. It's
[160:53] a 900, a 1200. Like there's something
[160:55] impressive to that. But um what's far
[160:59] more impressive to me anyway would be
[161:01] like Jimmy Wilkins, his mom's a
[161:03] ballerina.
[161:05] I think his father's an orchestra
[161:06] conductor
[161:07] >> and when Jimmy does a handless, so we
[161:11] call an oi on vert where you don't smack
[161:12] the tail like a handless air. His back
[161:15] knee touches the board and he's guiding
[161:17] the board with his back knee. He has the
[161:19] hip mobility to be able to do that. He
[161:22] didn't train it. It's just how he's
[161:23] built. So, I think it's a combination of
[161:25] things, but what makes it look so
[161:28] amazing
[161:29] is how fast he's going. And you don't
[161:32] realize it. You just think how high he's
[161:34] going. But the height comes from the
[161:35] speed.
[161:36] >> Here there are a few things inside
[161:38] hiding.
[161:39] >> Mhm.
[161:39] >> Which which I would love to unpack
[161:41] further. First is the speed and power
[161:46] when it's mentioned in those fields must
[161:49] be differentiated from the physiological
[161:52] speed and power. I remember the first
[161:54] time I read the the book of Leonid aray,
[161:59] professor archive, the legendary Soviet
[162:02] gymnastics trainer and in his book he
[162:05] mentions the vertical jumps of the
[162:07] Olympic Soviet male team. I think the
[162:11] best was something that I did at the age
[162:13] of 13.
[162:15] But people are still under the
[162:16] impression that gymnasts have good
[162:19] jumps. They're rebounders.
[162:22] >> They use the floor springs very well.
[162:27] Skateboard similar.
[162:28] >> Mhm.
[162:29] >> Power-wise, strengthwise, nothing. There
[162:32] is nothing there. It's the willingness
[162:35] to go into that speed and to exit from
[162:38] the ramp. And the willingness comes from
[162:40] a confidence which comes from a certain
[162:43] capacity to orient in space. That's my
[162:46] suspicion.
[162:46] >> No, you're absolutely right. You nailed
[162:48] it. And uh Jimmy and Tom will hear this
[162:50] and appreciate. There's only
[162:52] historically I left out one legend that
[162:54] isn't mentioned as often as you know
[162:57] Tony Hawk or or Danny or Bob Burnquist
[163:00] um who is truly amazing that they both
[163:03] sort of capture some of the essence of
[163:05] and that's Chris Miller who it's the
[163:08] same thing. And none of these guys are
[163:09] are physically very very large. They're
[163:11] very slight. Um so they don't have a lot
[163:13] of body weight to throw around. Um but
[163:17] although Danny got strong, he broke his
[163:20] neck surfing when we were younger and um
[163:22] came back with a with a thick neck and
[163:25] and doing strength training. He worked
[163:26] with Paul Paul Czech
[163:28] >> um and built himself back up to be
[163:30] really resilient because he was
[163:33] >> jumping the Great Wall of China doing
[163:34] these kinds of things on broken ankles.
[163:36] It's like you need some resilience.
[163:37] Multiple knee replacements. He's a
[163:39] gladiator. He's like evil conval
[163:40] combined with the gladiator. But if you
[163:43] watch Tom Char or Jimmy, they don't look
[163:47] like they're throwing themselves into
[163:49] it. But that's why it looks so graceful
[163:52] and fast is that there but there is no
[163:54] hesitation.
[163:55] >> And the other part to explore in this is
[163:58] comes from the father of biomechanics
[164:02] Bernstein.
[164:03] you know the Soviet government there is
[164:05] this legendary urban legend. Maybe it's
[164:08] true, maybe not. But there is I I
[164:10] believe it it it might be true. The
[164:12] Soviet government brought him in to
[164:15] improve productivity in workers and he
[164:19] was the father of motion capture. He's
[164:22] the man who came up with it. He put
[164:24] these globes and used an old school
[164:28] camera to capture
[164:31] the motion and study the biomechanics.
[164:35] And they brought him to this factory and
[164:38] one employee,
[164:41] let's say, was producing
[164:43] 200 perfect pieces in an hour. And then
[164:47] the average was 150 pieces. And they
[164:51] asked him, why? What's so special? He
[164:54] put these sensors on the arm. He let's
[164:57] say it's with a hammer working with a
[164:59] sledgehammer. What did he discover?
[165:02] There is more variety
[165:05] in the trajectories
[165:07] for the worker that gets more pieces
[165:10] perfectly done.
[165:11] >> More variety.
[165:12] >> Correct. Notice what is the variety
[165:14] where it is in the trajectory
[165:18] of the various joints.
[165:20] But the end result has less variety.
[165:24] [clears throat]
[165:24] >> It is more perfect.
[165:25] >> Mhm.
[165:26] >> That brings me back to the
[165:27] skateboarders. I believe from my
[165:30] experience there is something like a
[165:32] meta movement. A movement
[165:35] that when it's developed correctly, it's
[165:38] capable of achieving the task in any
[165:41] condition. This is the difference
[165:43] between a boxer's jab
[165:46] and a kung fu punch.
[165:49] How do you develop a boxer's jab? From
[165:51] the first day, somebody interrupts it.
[165:53] You're not throwing punches in the air
[165:55] or on the makiwara.
[165:57] >> Someone parries it or
[165:58] >> someone parries it, moves it, you know,
[166:00] you miss you. From the first day, you
[166:02] use it as a tool under these chaotic
[166:04] conditions.
[166:06] >> So, you develop it. When you look at a
[166:08] boxer's punch, most people will be more
[166:10] impressed with the karate guy, with the
[166:13] kung fu guy because on the air it looks
[166:16] much crisper. We don't people don't
[166:19] appreciate boxing. They appreciate
[166:21] Jackie Chan movies. That is much easier
[166:24] the the the the visual side of this
[166:27] fighting. But it's not the real thing in
[166:30] this sense. It's not adaptable. It's not
[166:33] alive.
[166:35] This is the Instagram reality. Another
[166:37] problem. It has destroyed the real deal.
[166:43] Now I can put a camera on and I can
[166:46] practice here for two hours until I get
[166:48] one good rep. I capture it and I put it
[166:50] online. But when I meet these people and
[166:52] it's time to move,
[166:55] no it's not happening.
[166:58] So in this sense the skateboarder faces
[167:02] every time a fresh [laughter]
[167:04] scenario altogether different and must
[167:06] be present and adapted the meta
[167:10] technique to the situation. It's not to
[167:13] be perfect in the way that you are like
[167:16] the discipline push hard and perfect it.
[167:19] There is an aspect of it. The
[167:22] stabilization of performance must resist
[167:25] certain interruptions but must not
[167:27] ignore other interruptions.
[167:29] >> It brings to mind a couple of important
[167:31] things. Um right now there are a lot of
[167:34] very very impressive skateboarders,
[167:35] young and old, male and female. um
[167:38] [clears throat] some like just to
[167:40] mention like this young girl Reese
[167:42] Nelson is just a phenom and her style is
[167:46] great and she's different than a lot of
[167:49] the young kids that are like really
[167:51] flippity and go big. She's a vert
[167:52] skateboarder. And there are a lot of
[167:54] skateboarders now that can do things
[167:56] big, fast, flip, twist, lip tricks. Like
[168:01] they can do all of that on on the street
[168:04] tr also. But there's some that just look
[168:07] like robots. They're just technicians.
[168:09] They And cuz I was going to say that
[168:12] when in a line where there's no break in
[168:14] the editing, that's where the
[168:15] [clears throat] real magic comes through
[168:16] cuz they have to line things up properly
[168:19] trick to trick. It's not just like one
[168:21] hit.
[168:22] >> Totally different athletes.
[168:23] >> Totally different athletes. But there
[168:25] are some vert skateboarders and some
[168:26] street skateboarders that they still
[168:28] just look robotic and they just and it
[168:30] it's almost like it's too perfect. And
[168:33] it's real. It's too perfect, but that's
[168:35] not what
[168:38] real like the the cool thing about
[168:39] skateboarding is that it rewards a bit
[168:41] of that like you said, approaching
[168:44] things from different angles, but the
[168:45] end point still sticks. And that's the
[168:48] real magic. And there's one other person
[168:49] I have to throw into the mix because
[168:51] growing up this guy he he was like the
[168:53] real evil conval and he's still a
[168:56] legend. He hasn't hit a bad injury and
[168:59] so he he actually brought himself back
[169:00] from paralysis. He can bike now and
[169:02] skateboard a bit. Great artist. Amazing.
[169:05] Super nice guy. His name is John
[169:07] Cardiel. I was fortunate enough to know
[169:09] John a bit and uh we're still friendly.
[169:11] although I haven't seen him in years
[169:13] sort of online we're we're friendly but
[169:15] I got to see him firsthand years ago and
[169:17] he was one of these people that it
[169:19] looked like everything was chaos around
[169:23] him but he could go bigger and further
[169:26] and he's the opposite of Antoine's like
[169:28] hands flailing and like the amazing
[169:30] thing was
[169:32] the the speed the energy and the I don't
[169:35] want to say imperfection cuz it was
[169:37] perfect in its variety of like entry
[169:40] points But he's he's still revered many
[169:44] many years later and probably always
[169:46] will be. And so there are certain things
[169:48] like skateboarding
[169:49] >> beautiful where it's still celebrated to
[169:52] not just be perfect never miss and and
[169:55] these guys that I'm I'm referring to and
[169:56] Reese um and there are others of course
[169:59] um it's like real poetry
[170:03] uh but sometimes it's heavy metal
[170:04] poetry.
[170:05] >> Yeah.
[170:05] >> Yeah. It's beautiful and also it breaks
[170:10] the aesthetic. [clears throat] The
[170:12] aesthetics and the performance they walk
[170:15] hand in hand to a certain degree but not
[170:18] beyond that. And it's a slippery slope.
[170:21] I warn people don't try to beautify your
[170:25] movements. You will destroy them. The
[170:28] beauty is a side effect.
[170:30] >> Mhm.
[170:30] >> It's an effect. It shouldn't be a cause.
[170:33] This is what happened to our asses.
[170:37] [laughter]
[170:38] Where does it come from? It comes from a
[170:40] person who can jump high, who can
[170:42] sprint, who is productive, and it it's
[170:46] attractive. Now, it's just the end
[170:49] result.
[170:50] >> It's like uh the exercise equivalent of
[170:53] plastic surgery.
[170:54] >> Yeah. And we found a way, a better way.
[170:57] We always find a better way to get what
[170:59] we want. We want the aesthetics. So we
[171:02] found a way training way how to boost
[171:04] this to create the shelf the I don't
[171:06] know what all this yeah the
[171:09] but this is a terrible mistake in many
[171:13] ways when you look forward
[171:17] you can develop the glutes
[171:20] but don't disconnect them functionality
[171:22] without function is in this case very
[171:25] costly
[171:28] and you start to get a pirated product
[171:32] that is eventually too good to be true.
[171:36] In that sense, what you mentioned is
[171:39] very interesting and we start to
[171:41] separate. Also, you see it in tricks,
[171:44] tricking phenomenons, sports that
[171:47] started to develop. Have you seen those
[171:49] kids who can do the juggle like football
[171:52] players, like soccer players? They can
[171:55] do things that no soccer player can do.
[171:58] But I cannot play in the World Cup. Now
[172:02] this shows you the difference. One, I
[172:04] transform myself
[172:07] to the challenges that I'm presented.
[172:10] Two, I transform the environment or the
[172:12] field to fit myself.
[172:16] So in this case, I control all the
[172:18] parameters of my skateboarding and it
[172:21] becomes perfect yet robotic. Diego
[172:24] Armando Maradona used to warm up with
[172:28] the shoelaces open. I used to love it.
[172:31] Showing you the whole scenario is open.
[172:34] I can still function.
[172:37] Fighting is a very important field in
[172:40] that sense for movement perspective. I'm
[172:42] not a fighter but my interaction with
[172:44] fighting I used to think it was so ugly,
[172:49] so ungraceful that the movement quality
[172:51] was so low.
[172:53] They cannot do nothing well. These real
[172:56] fighters, MMA fighters, they don't punch
[173:00] well. They don't kick well. Nothing that
[173:03] they do is of high movement quality. And
[173:06] yet,
[173:08] they'll kill you. They solve the
[173:11] problem.
[173:14] They're not about perfecting. They're
[173:16] not car mechanics. They're drivers. and
[173:20] they will drive a Toyota and will defeat
[173:22] you with a Lamborghini.
[173:24] This is what they do. And there are
[173:26] certain fields like that. And
[173:27] skateboarding comes from that because
[173:29] it's the street. Everything always
[173:32] changes. The sidewalks, the heights,
[173:34] your mood, your state of being, the
[173:36] shoes.
[173:38] And there was grace in being able to
[173:40] navigate that chaos and become chaos.
[173:43] Not to control it, to make an order off
[173:45] of it. So this is what you feel. Ah it's
[173:50] not it. And I feel it a lot with many
[173:52] movement fields. Look, look, it's so
[173:54] beautiful. And we even became
[173:56] desensitized for this beauty which is
[173:58] good because in the future this will
[174:00] open the door again for real movement,
[174:04] real performance, real presence and then
[174:07] beauty is part of this equation but not
[174:10] the it's not the everything. It's not
[174:13] all about it. It's almost like it
[174:15] becomes an emergent property of all the
[174:17] I don't want to call them imperfections
[174:19] because they're not there. It's it's
[174:20] it's there's something that's real about
[174:24] what you're describing and what I'm
[174:25] attempting to describe, but I I
[174:27] stumbled. I tried to provide examples.
[174:29] I'll provide some links, but uh if you
[174:31] ever want to get a little bit scared,
[174:33] you want your amygdala activated a
[174:35] little bit vicariously
[174:37] um and see what real chaos upon chaos
[174:41] harnessed into something beautiful is.
[174:43] although I don't re recommend actually
[174:44] doing it is go on to YouTube and put
[174:47] GX1000 and watch these kids bomb hills
[174:49] in San Francisco. Um
[174:52] >> I've seen some
[174:52] >> they're like yelling get out of the way.
[174:55] Like they're not setting it up so that
[174:56] the streets clear. I mean it's super
[174:58] crazy hazardous and one of those kids
[175:00] ended up dying years ago skitching
[175:03] holding on to the back of a a vehicle.
[175:05] But nonetheless, I mean they're maniacs
[175:07] of a certain kind. Um, and
[175:11] there's something about embracing the
[175:14] uncertainty.
[175:16] You know, I I have to say, uh, Edido,
[175:18] uh, I did not expect we were going to go
[175:20] where we went today, [laughter] but I
[175:22] would be remiss if I didn't say, and I
[175:25] take no credit for this, I really want
[175:26] to give you due credit, is that
[175:30] everything you just described about
[175:33] allowing for different entry points and
[175:35] coming to a a place that nails it, like
[175:39] that's you. And that's in some sense
[175:43] the best of podcasting. It's we don't
[175:46] have a script. We didn't come in here. I
[175:49] didn't even show you what was on this
[175:50] sheet of paper. I looked at it a few
[175:51] times, made some adjustments. It's
[175:53] improv to some extent. But it takes a
[175:56] special kind of person to be able to do
[175:59] what you do in the physical space to be
[176:02] able to articulate about that but also
[176:04] to pull in from so many areas of
[176:07] philosophy psychology physiology
[176:10] neuroscience. By the way, your
[176:11] description of the eyes not as cameras.
[176:14] Like the reason I didn't yap about that
[176:16] is cuz you nailed it. I couldn't have
[176:18] given a lecture [laughter] like that
[176:19] truly. And um you're one of these people
[176:22] that when you speak, people learn. And
[176:26] it's transformed my experience. I go up
[176:28] and down the stairs a couple times a
[176:30] night lately to check on my puppy. And I
[176:33] still can't go up or downstairs without
[176:35] thinking about the way I go up and
[176:37] downstairs ever since we recorded in my
[176:39] house. Gosh, probably three maybe four
[176:43] years ago, five years ago. In any case,
[176:46] >> it's not an invasion into my
[176:47] consciousness. It's it's a real gift.
[176:50] And I I know people will come away with
[176:53] these gifts. And I really want to
[176:54] encourage people to think about leaning
[176:56] into these subtle ripples, the spaces.
[176:58] This isn't just language. It's the magic
[177:01] that really makes life so much better.
[177:04] So I'm very grateful to you. I really,
[177:06] really am. And please come back again.
[177:09] >> Thank you. Thank you. Truly enjoyed
[177:11] that.
[177:12] >> Thank you for joining me for today's
[177:13] discussion with Ido Portal. To learn
[177:15] more about his work and to find links to
[177:18] the various things we discussed, please
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