---
title: 'Movement Practice to Strengthen Your Mind-Body Connection | Ido Portal'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zz8chJwh3S4'
video_id: 'Zz8chJwh3S4'
date: 2026-06-30
duration_sec: 10788
---

# Movement Practice to Strengthen Your Mind-Body Connection | Ido Portal

> Source: [Movement Practice to Strengthen Your Mind-Body Connection | Ido Portal](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zz8chJwh3S4)

## Summary



## Transcript

Discipline is very important, but it's
similar to the wall in learning to do a
handstand. If you use the wall one way
where you're all the time pushing
yourself off of the wall, try to catch
your handstand, you become reliant on
the wall. But there is a different
approach. We can use the wall but pull
off of it which comes from the other end
from our hands from the connection to
the ground. That does not necessitate
the wall. This is the correct way to use
discipline. You should use it as a
scaffolding as a way to get things going
like write that book. But inside the
process, you must make sure you don't
lean hard into it. You don't leave
everything for it to dictate and you
bring some playfulness, some relaxation,
some deep choice. I want to do this.
Welcome to the Hubberman Lab podcast,
where we discuss [music] science and
science-based tools for everyday life.
[music]
I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor
of neurobiology and opthalmology at
Stanford School of Medicine. My guest
today is Ido Portal. Ido Portal is a
world-renowned movement teacher and the
founder of movement culture, which is an
integrative practice for developing the
self that combines physical and mental
practice. Today we discuss how anyone
can practice movement, deliberate
awareness, and even language and other
forms of communication in ways that
explore and expand your capabilities and
your understanding and sense of self.
>> [snorts]
>> Now, Ido is not anti-ex exercise or
anti-fitness, but what sets him apart as
a movement teacher and why so many
professional athletes, dancers, and
people around the world continually seek
out his teachings is his ability to show
people unique ways for how to go about
their daily life in ways that truly
expand both their mind and their body as
well as their athletic performance in
the case of athletics. Today, we discuss
unique meditation practices, ways to
build discipline and access willpower.
And by the way, what the difference
between discipline and willpower is and
how to use play as an extremely potent
way to rewire your default operating
systems in everything you do. If you
like so many other people typically
think about movement practices as for
strength or endurance or mobility, well,
today you're in for a surprise because
Ido explains how the transitions between
brain states and physical states are
linked and are fertile ground for
extremely rapid neuroplasticity and that
they can help you truly understand how
your mind and body are organized and can
function better. Today's conversation is
a truly special one. I have to be clear.
It's not philosophical. It's not
theoretical. It's a practical
exploration of movement, awareness,
language, and cognition that is rooted
in science and has real world
implications for all of us. Edo is a
truly unique human being, teacher, and
friend. And it was an honor to host him
again. So, prepare to learn. Before we
begin, I'd like to emphasize that this
podcast is separate from my teaching and
research roles at Stanford. It is
however part of my desire and effort to
bring zero cost to consumer information
about science and science related tools
to the general public. In keeping with
that theme, today's episode does include
sponsors. And now for my discussion with
Ido Portal. Idor Portal, welcome back.
>> Thank you.
>> So happy to see you again, my friend.
>> Good to see you.
>> You've aged backwards, so doing
something right now. You haven't aged at
all. What have you been up to lately? I
have many questions but I want to know
what what what's been your first thought
on waking most consistently over the
last you know year or so
the same thing always the same thing the
most important thing that exists that
there is that that's how my system
operates but getting that that change
that deep transformation in people in
myself
Why? Why are we missing it? What is what
is required
that's always been there and changes its
face, but it's the same one.
When you wake up, do you open your eyes
right away or do you ever spend some
time in that liinal state between
[clears throat] asleep and awake?
>> I'm sometimes spend some time there. I
experienced also sleep paralysis before
and various inetweens
>> where you're wide awake but the body is
still paralyzed. Yeah.
>> Yeah. When you sit a lot when when you
meditate a lot and and other practices
and somatic practices again you get to
know the territory and you can stabilize
fragile states more easily. So crossing
into that boundary of the sleep it
becomes
a slow-mo journey that you can pause
that you can you know spend time at any
point in interesting I do yoga nidra
non-sleep deep rest and there are
moments where I can feel myself falling
asleep and it literally feels like
falling and then you can kind of catch
yourself in these liinal states. Rick
Rubin once said to me, he said, "If uh
if you wake up from a like a bad dream,
a nightmare, just move your body and
look around the room. If you wake up
from a dream you were really enjoying
and you want to go back in, keep your
eyes closed." And I think what he's
talking about is more or less what
you're talking about, the ability to
kind of forward and reverse out of these
transition states. Usually the the
common way that people live and the
common person has a very
simplified
perception of these states of this the
granularity.
>> Mhm.
>> So they're difficult to stabilize. So it
becomes very binary black white sleep
you know like you you relax someone they
fall asleep. That's what happens when
there is not a lot of experience.
Everything is immediately going there.
But there is a lot of benefit in heading
to sleep and taking a sharp left just
before.
>> Tell me about that and how one might um
practice that.
>> Well, the sleep there is a kind of a way
where we can inverse the relationship.
This is the sleeping state which is
discussed in various authors and the
waking sleep and then the sleep has a
benefit because there is an openness
towards something else. So heading
directly to sleep and then navigating
from there is very powerful to reset the
system to change the schemes these rigid
schemes that we sometimes have the rigid
schemas
the models that we're running when they
become too rigid when they're surrounded
by a hard membrane
when they oversimplify
and there is this bas basian reduction
um you got to pop out of it somehow. So
psychedelics is one way and there are
other ways but the sleep every day is
key because it's a a very different
status and way of being and way of
experiencing which we experience daily
and uh we can use that transition part
and the thing itself as well. Do you
ever intentionally get up in the middle
of the night to just experience being
mostly awake but somewhat asleep just to
experience what that what that's like?
>> Yeah, I did before. Various practices
use that kind of instruction. Uh people
uh some people might be familiar with
the lucid dreaming or the the dream yoga
or the sleep yoga what is called various
practices and waking up in the middle of
the night also allows you to
appreciate something else something
different. Sometimes it happens and you
can manipulate it into somewhere and
sometimes you can do it on purpose.
Nowadays with all the longevity talk and
all this direction we we sometimes don't
capitalize on such things but uh
sometimes there is more to be gained
with a bad night's sleep than with a
good night's sleep.
>> Uh in [clears throat] 2015 to 20 I would
say 2018 I was uh very busy but I was
mourning the death of my graduate
adviser. was very close with her um
unusually close for a graduate adviser
and student
>> [clears throat]
>> um very maternal
her to me relationship knew her kids I'm
friends with her husband and kids still
and um she died in 2014 and I was really
distraught about it and someone
recommended to me uh that I set an alarm
for the middle of the night somewhere
between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. and I just
get up and and try grieving then. And at
first I thought like that sounds like
the worst thing to do. I'm like no I
have no protection then you know my
forebrain is shut down. I'm that's when
I normally would be entering more REM
sleep. And I tried it. It was very
interesting. It definitely allowed for
more intense morning but it had a very
interesting effect where I no longer had
the challenge of like falling asleep and
waking up. I had this like designated
period in my sleep. did a lot of crying
between 3:00 am and 5:00 am and in many
ways I I feel like it worked. Who knows
in some cultures it's like the veil of
suppression is is pulled back. Our
defenses are way way down in those
hours.
>> That's the point.
>> Yeah. these membranes that are
surrounding various systems inside of us
and and models that we are running that
are protecting them. This uh marov
blankets
the this filters that can rigidify and
and don't allow a lot in to simplify
things for the model so we can survive
so we can do things. And then in when
you change when you go into those times
to those change the scenario radically,
you increase your chances of opening up
of recalculating of allowing the model
to recalibrate.
And again, people nowadays that they use
extreme means, it doesn't necessarily
mean that it works. Sometimes sometimes
you need the micro dosages
[clears throat]
>> and a practice around it. repetition,
not a huge event of intensity, but a a
repeating mellow event, gentle event. I
can relate to I started a prayer
practice before sleep over two and a
half years ago, and I'm haven't been
missed a single night. Um, and some
nights I fall asleep while I'm praying
and wake up and continue. And um I tell
myself that the consistency is like
worth something on those nights cuz I I
feel sort of badly like my mind's
drifting and then okay but I haven't
missed you know it's it's all in the if
I fall asleep get out of bed and and do
it and then get back in bed. With
respect to these microp practices micro
doing as it were uh I know you're a
proponent of med meditation
um people often will talk about how long
they meditate. Do you have a practice
where you will just stop for a moment or
two or a minute or or is it for you a
meditation practice a long extended
thing and how often are you doing that?
Oh, I think there are advantages to to
both ends of the spectrum
cuz the the long meditation thing, the
the retreats, the strong determination
seats, many hours or you know many days,
they definitely [sighs]
load the trampoline and and and create
an effect. But also you become dependent
on it and it's hard later to drag this
into other areas of life which is not
often discussed and mentioned in
relation to meditation.
I didn't start to meditate because I
wanted to sit. I wanted to take the
state and to apply it into my life. So
that is a moment where you can
integrate. You can take the depth and
you can take also very short periods of
practice and apply this micro dosages
and try to get a change in the defaults
of this your state and your way of
being.
Eventually people ask me why I practice
so much is because I'm aiming for 24
hours a day.
So if you're practicing 8 hours a day or
10 hours a day, this is the unofficial
side of the practice. And this micro
practices are very helpful for that. A
good practice to do is not to take your
mind off of something like a problem
that you have to solve.
to walk around and
try to remember that thing. Try to keep
it in front of you as much as you can.
Which means the only thing you can be
blamed for is if you caught yourself
>> not focusing on that and you didn't
bring yourself back to the problem at
hand. Then you are to be blamed.
Anything else is fine. [clears throat]
>> And that is a very powerful practice. We
we can solve incredibly difficult
problems, overcome obstacles, transform
ourselves.
And we've moved away from such ways of
doing and ways of being.
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Today's episode is also brought to us by
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at checkout. We've done a few episodes
in the last year on or that touched on
meditation. Uh we had Richie Davidson
who's one of the like real pioneers of
studying the neuroscience of meditation
and he said that when people start a
meditation practice traditional sitting
meditation close their eyes focus on
third eye center breathing etc redirect
attention that they see a statistically
significant increase in anxiety across
that early phase and in some ways he
said that's a real value of the
practice. It's really about stress
inoculation, the stress that comes from
forcing oneself to sit still. But
eventually it does seem to give way if
people practice regularly to some other
kind of uh channel of consciousness that
is very useful to apply in the rest of
one's life.
>> Sounds [clears throat] like that second
channel is the one that you're after.
>> Yeah. this anxiety, this under reduced
state in a way, the failure to adjust
the membrane, this protective membrane
around the model, whatever model it is,
if it's the body scheme, if it's the
emotional schema or or the conceptual
schema, you're in an underreduced state.
So everything bombers you and you're
bleeding resources metabolically, right?
And that's anxiety. That's why all
almost always anxiety over a long
duration will turn into depression.
You're bleeding resources.
So adjusting simplifying that's a
critical moment. Of course lowering the
bar of the task is a very important
tool. Microtasks
and I'm not just talking about the
classical sitting meditation. I'm using
everything. For me, it's all the same
tasks with tennis balls, with a with a
stick. I I'll use anything because my
intention is not to get the success in
the specifics, is to get the
transformation
much deeper. So, it's almost irrelevant.
I'll use whatever I need to use to get
that going.
And so I think meditation many ways
sometimes becomes too dogmatic in that
sense.
>> Yeah, we've already touched on sort of
liinal states transition from sleep to
waking or waking to sleep and trying to
just catch oneself and pause in those
like you said maybe reverse maybe pause
there hover there. I'm fascinated by
this peculiar place we are with science
where we know a lot more about sleeping
states can describe phase one phase two
phase three slow wave deep sleep REM
sleep the fraction that you get
depending on the night before vivid
dreams versus non vivid dreams
we know barely anything scientifically
about waking states in comparison to
sleeping states I mean we talk alpha
waves beta waves theta waves but It's
very rudimentary. Like right now,
I assure you there's no scientific paper
that could describe the state that we're
in. We could say, oh, the these alpha
waves or these, you know, percentage of
activity in one brain area or another. I
think that the definition of different
waking states is going to come into
science from outside of science. someone
will study it. But I've been waiting for
somebody to say like this is uh like are
we in stage one of focused attention
right now? Stage four. Nobody can ex um
point to this which is should bother
people. Like we're we're really far
behind even a descriptive understanding
of where we're at. Like I feel calm
right now despite drinking caf so much
caffeine. You're clearly externally
calm. I imagine you're internally calm.
But what would you describe like your
state? How should people start to peel
back the layers and get a better
understanding of the state they're in?
Because I think there's real value to
this in waking states. And I don't have
a language for it, but you've spent a
lot more time thinking about mindbody
states than I have. I think there is a a
a m a mistake or a direction that we
took asking who we are
instead of asking what we are which can
really serve this. There is a need of
almost a a rudimentary map of what is
what is needed what is here how do I map
this what am I observing even you can't
refine what you can't define but not in
the sense of this verbal definition but
some kind of an internal definition some
kind of a boundary drawn some kind of a
selection
the selected thing the selected state
the differentiation
without this
what am I seeing when I look inside
listen to your body
I don't believe in that
>> portal doesn't believe in listen to your
body right what do you listen to
>> what are you listening
>> your heartbeat your what does that mean
>> it's corrupted you're too corrupted to
listen to your body
>> those are the most corrupted people
usually
>> the people who are saying listen to your
body.
>> Yes. I think it that whole verbiage
comes from this notion and the quite
pioneering although I would say somewhat
outof-date book the body keeps the score
I think is it was an important book best
title of any book you could imagine in
the psychology space because it's so
catchy um and I want to give proper
respect to um Bessel [clears throat]
for doing that book and it was early but
I think that embedded in people's minds
that like experiences we have live as
pain, discomfort or blockages and that
the [clears throat] solutions come from
releasing that pain, discomfort and
blockage. Erggo, if I'm feeling good,
things are moving through. I'm making
progress. I'm moving away from that
historical bad thing. And if I'm feeling
it again, it's still alive in me and it
needs to be released. That's the kind of
premise.
>> Yeah. And there a lot of data to support
that chronic stress can harm the body
and so forth. So those things those
ideas sort of took off. But I also agree
they sort of they've kind of hit a wall
in um 2020 or so. We go well what like
what do you mean? Well it's in the
fascia really like is it in the fascia
or are we just like talking about
fascia? And and I love all of that stuff
as an exploration but I think we are at
a place where we really need to ask
better questions.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's it it sounds
very corrupted again. And we know so
much about
the framing of things, excitement
versus, you know, very negative states
that it's so similar. It's so close
that it cannot make sense. We cannot
work from that place. And and also
working from our likes and dislikes.
What do I want to do? We just watch this
thing. You just need to do what you want
to do. I believe that's the last thing
for you to do.
>> Right. Um, you know, I was referring to
before we came in here, we watched two
short films. The first one is a one that
was u put out in 2014 about this guy,
real life guy slow-mo. uh we'll put a
link to it who uh guy who essentially
gave up his life as a physician and say
rollerblades very slowly on one leg down
the boardwalk in Pacific Beach San Diego
to touch into
what he describes as a mild euphoria and
altered state he's totally sober clearly
very very smart and the other film we'll
talk about several times uh which
hopefully will be out in the not too
distant future so we can all see a
beautiful film that's being made about
IDO and movement culture called the
architecture of practice. Correct.
>> Internal architecture.
>> The internal architecture of practice.
Excuse me. Um trust me folks, you want
to see this when it comes out. It's it's
visually beautiful and content uh rich.
It's it's spectacular.
>> Thank you.
>> There's something really special there.
Uh for sure. But I wrote down actually
play versus discipline. I think for some
people it would be helpful
to try and uh operationalize a bit of
what we're going to go to today. And I
know you're not a fan of like morning
routine or this or that, but I can
imagine walking toward a practice of any
kind, a workout of any kind, making
scrambled eggs
as either I'm going to approach approach
this from a with a sense of play or I'm
going to approach this with a sense of
discipline. I'm going to try and find
some friction, some edges that force me
to rewire something. Now, play can help
rewire, discipline can help rewire, but
of your waking hours, what percentage of
time do you spend in kind of a playful
explorative state, like kind of keep it
light and loose versus, you know, I know
you're also a believer in like there's
really value to putting up mental or
physical or both corridors so that your
system, your whole system improves
because at those friction points is
where plasticity
can be triggered. I think both of these
things and also the relation to
motivation
in in both of them are
required scaffoldings
that we have to use at certain points in
time but are not the essential
will
that connection to what we we don't know
nothing about that we have researched
that deeply in v various spheres but
often we just replace pure will with
discipline
or with motivation but once I motivated
myself I don't need will anymore and if
I dis if I discipline myself into doing
something I also hijack the opportunity
playfulness it brings a direction and a
flavor of something else a different way
to interact with something. How do we
start to look at that? What is the basic
requirement? I don't want to do this.
Without this requirement, I can't
research will
now if I hijack it, if I take the
process and I distort it, I use
discipline,
then again, I'm out of the game. Or if I
motivate myself, same problem.
Playfulness try to walk a different path
a little bit.
Maybe it's not it quite. It's not the
will that search for a will that you
know many authors and and practitioners
have looked for because it's so elusive.
But it's definitely something to
cultivate and we've talked about it the
last time we met
and it brings about so many positive
things. I think people should first
develop discipline
and use motivation and also research
playfulness which is a lot more tricky
for people uh these days.
It brings with it
incredible benefits. The aesthetic
intensities that are missing from our
lives awe
curiosity, this deep sense of curiosity,
these things can allow us to totally
transform the emotional schema which is
stuck rigid.
This model of ourselves that is often
times
rigidifies all the way to depression.
The most tricky situation of all the
total bankruptcy of that budget of those
resources.
So something like awe
which happens also in psychedelics.
Isn't this a huge part of the
psychedelic thing? What about
experiencing all regularly in a directed
targeted and practiced way?
It can be cold showers and hot shower an
experience on the sensory level. It can
be something that is more related to the
environment like sky gazing. Incredible
practice. 10 minutes a day. Your eyes
cannot grab onto things. So and it can
be and very important conceptual
or reading poetry or certain types of
stories or literature touches that so
all of this comes along with playfulness
our interaction with things I treat this
as a playful thing
>> so if I think about it it's almost
always present because it allows me not
to rigidify myself in front of the
challenge. I'm working with athletes or
work in cinema or do some project or
work with a government body or or a
military organization. I bring
playfulness.
Playfulness allows me to go much
further, much deeper. My discipline
wouldn't get me there.
>> It got me certain places. Who got there
to that place? I discovered that it
wasn't me because I use discipline. So,
it's often leaving you kind of out the
totality of you.
>> I am very very intrigued by this play
versus discipline uh thing. So many
years spent I wouldn't say punching the
clock but you know there just things you
have to do because experiments have to
be done in this time in this way. one
can develop a a real sense of an ability
to push through and to do things and
beautiful stuff can come out of what I
call chop wood carry water. It's just
like phase is like okay we're just going
to chop wood carry water but this play
thing is really powerful. I had this
experience when I lived in San Diego. My
lab started there and I I used to
commute really far to work cuz I my home
was um in an area that I really liked
and that I could afford far from campus
and the traffic was just brutal. Anyone
that's ever driven in San Diego, these
big wide eight lane freeways and and I
like listening to music, so I would
drive and I remember one morning just
being so frustrated with the drive even
though traffic was moving. And I've only
had this experience once and I just
decided I'm gonna just [clears throat]
slalom the car to work. And I wasn't
speeding. I'm like slaloming the car.
I'm listening to music and I'm like this
is the way to go to work. I can remember
this one commute is a real standout
experience in my life of like and I
thought why don't I do this all the
time?
>> The old frog crosses the street video
game.
>> Right. Exactly. Exactly. So, I'm just,
you know, and I get to work and I do
thing and and this was one instance. I
don't think I've ever done it again. And
I like to drive, but I never
deliberately turn on like I'm going to
take an ordinary experience that I do
every single day that usually is kind of
like loathe or mildly irritated at
traffic. I'm just going to enjoy this
experience. I think now that it would be
so great to just be able to apply that
to all these different little
transitions. Oddly enough, I also have
flashbulb like memories of being in
Yusede where I've spent a lot of time.
I've hiked a lot of the peaks in Yusede.
I love it. I live lived and worked up
there when I was in college and I just
adore. You know what? I remember the
great vistas and great peas that I had
urinating in the woods. I like have like
flashb memories of like and there's
something there. I think it's just the
calm and relaxation like oh like I'm
just a creature peeing in the woods, you
know. And uh as one does, you know, when
you when you count just thinking like
this is awesome. I have these like my
life is great. It's so weird that these
micro experiences that occupy like 10 to
15 seconds or a minute depending on how
much water you drink, right? One commute
could grab like real mental real estate
in our brain. There's something there.
And I know people are probably like,
"This is crazy." But I think most people
would probably describe like kind of odd
flashbulb memories that they have of
things that are kind of trivial.
>> Did you notice that the the quality of
those memories
>> cuz you recall them and it they it has a
flavor and a texture and a resolution
which is different than other things
which sometimes are should have been a
lot more detailed. And it comes and
goes, but we can become a lot more
deliberate about it. And it represents a
certain presence
in that specific scenario of a
heightened it's a heightened presence
thing. Why? Those are questions. But
playfulness opens the door for that.
Some of my best seats, my best
meditations were using a playful
approach.
Similarly to how you navigate the
traffic [gasps]
you can use it writing your book.
>> I tried that. It was very diff I will
tell you it was very difficult because
there's aspects of the book that are
very technical. There are aspects that I
really want to get communicate things in
a certain way. I definitely tried to
relax myself. Um Cal Newport who's a
sort of a guy who's a big proponent of
of deep work uh staying away from
technology to you know writing by hand,
typewriter, this kind of thing. He said
uh and I tried this. He said to approach
work with um kind of a languid
intentionality kind of relaxed but with
a direction. I tried it. I have to
scruff myself and bring myself to it
even though I want to do it and I just
like have to like like I imagine I'm
like doing this
>> but that deep belief
>> Yeah.
>> is already a self-fulfilling prophecy
cuz you perceive yourself as that
person. This is the way for you to do
things.
>> Mhm. And I'm similar but I've glimpsed
something else.
Yes, I I also I'm the disciplinary
person. I'm a person of great work ethic
and
this is how I came about. But then I
discovered it doesn't matter because
how you write that book using that
approach it leaks into your words
and it's a different way of doing
things. you're not going to write
doniote in this way. So I appreciate
that and I also want to say come back to
that thing this scaffolding the the fact
that we have used discipline for such a
long time is very positive we need that
first thing is to get things done I'm
the practice person I'm the met person
you do it or you talk about it so
discipline is very important but it's
similar to the wall in learning to do a
handstand if you Use the wall one way
where you're all the time pushing
yourself off of the wall. Try to catch
your handstand.
You become reliant on the wall. Notice
what I said. You push yourself off of
the wall. But there is a different
approach. We can use the wall but pull
off of it. Not quite push oursel off of
it but pull off of it which comes from
the other end from our hands from the
connection to the ground. that does not
necessitate a wall. So I can pull myself
when I feel myself falling forward later
on. This is the correct way to use
discipline. You should use it as a
scaffolding as a way to get things going
like write that book. But inside the
process, you must make sure you don't
lean hard into it. You don't leave
everything for it to dictate. And you
bring some playfulness, some relaxation,
some deep choice. I want to do this.
It's so elusive.
It's so tiny. Our life didn't leave any
room for it anymore. We don't even
recognize when will come to visit us.
And here is the big shocker. It was for
me that I discovered one does not
develop the will.
The will never gets developed.
It's only get exposed.
Discipline gets developed. That's what
we mistaken will for. We call it will
will power etc.
But when a child is born with a problem,
when you're facing such a situation,
discipline might not be enough for you
to do what is necessary. or when a child
is born normal and you simply don't feel
love for that child that occurs a lot
what do I do now do I discipline myself
I need a different quality and I need to
research it and I need to open up space
for it in my life space to practice it
because it's not going to come from
somewhere else and the practice will not
develop it but it will expose an
invisible thread it's a sequentiality
I always do what I said I'm going to do,
but not by disciplinary action, but by
having a beautiful evasive sequence like
you moving around the traffic, finding
your way there. You never stopped
looking for the best route. It's a very
different approach than just pushing the
gas pedal forward.
>> Yeah. What's interesting is the traffic
example, while trivial, it hopefully
describes a process that people could
relate to. Not only did I not lose
energy from it, but I might have even
picked up some energy.
>> Beautiful.
>> And the commute was exactly the same. So
there's something in that experience and
I and you're explaining it beautifully.
This distinction between the will,
willpower, the expression of the will
and then discipline. Maybe we can define
the difference a little bit more so that
I can understand
when I'm in
discipline mode versus um exposing
willpower. You said you can build
discipline, you can't build the will.
The will is a is a fixed unit but a
hidden one, a very elusive one. [snorts]
uh we can discuss it more and we will
expose some things but we will not be
successful in a binary fashion. We won't
get it. The only way to get even a
critical mess with that concept is self
practice looking for that quality in
your life and I already mentioned that
the first requirement is to do things
you don't want to do which you're also a
big believer in from a variety of
reasons.
All of them are not as important as this
because they go to serve this layer,
this corrupted self, this success in
this area. This is not important. What
is important is you not all those
things. And will is actually that
representation of you. The totality, the
harmonious combination of all that you
are comes together and hence you can be
reliable. You have a sequence. You found
a way. You cannot push this forward. You
cannot force this. So you need first a
situation which you cannot you don't
want to do. So I tell people here is the
first requirement of this new practice
practice of will.
You have to wait for a moment. You don't
want to do the task. That's the first
thing. Not to go to the ice bath now.
This is a different process and will get
you somewhere else. Come up with a task
that only sometimes you don't want to
do. It's a crucial difference. And wait
for that moment. In that moment, catch
yourself. And there you have to
investigate. There there is a very fine
little game. It comes back to that
playfulness that we have to play. Do not
force into it. Don't jailbreak it. Don't
push hard into it. Second problem, do
not motivate yourself to do it. Don't
put any YouTube clips. Don't mention
slogans.
Relax yourself.
Essential component. Do not rigidify in
front of the task. If you do, lower the
bar. Find the task that has this right
dosage and build up gradually and
slowly. I like to use things like
difficult physical postures
like holding your arms out for 5
minutes. It's enough. Just straight arms
out. Some people can take it further
or 3 minutes or doing a horse stance and
then wait for a critical moment when I'm
tired. A lot of these things are very
useful. So I've grown to practice those
things before I at the end of the day
when I'm checking out that is the moment
where I bring it about. And then you
have to research and you have to find a
thread, a way to get this going again
and again and again with this gentle
quality, this playfulness, this softness
and slowly increase the bar. What will
you discover? Your will is sufficient is
like a mosquito's fart. That's the power
of our will. Even incredibly powerful
people because they only use discipline.
So their will is totally they don't know
how to identify it. They don't know how
to put it together. So you got to do
stuff that is so easy relatively easy
that you're not interested in doing it.
And that's why we don't develop will. So
these are some of the discoveries that I
I had with myself and trying to bring
about this quality because like you I
did a lot of stuff with powering
through. I think the value of a physical
practice um is probably obvious to
people or more intuitive like okay um
for some people ex exercise working out
movement practice perhaps there'll be
days when they want to do it there'll be
days when they don't want to do it if I
understand correctly
the idea is to get right up to that edge
and then instead of throwing oneself
across that threshold or getting enough
caffeine in yourself to get across cross
that threshold or doing hyper cyclic
hyperventilation breathing to get all
the things to kick up adrenaline talking
about getting right there relaxing and
almost letting yourself sort of drift
across but am I pushing a little bit am
I giving myself a nudge like to keep
going okay so I don't expect myself to
just default into it okay do you still
have to do that I mean you've been doing
movement practice many years are there
days when you feel that resistance And
you have to kind of nudge yourself
course if I don't feel the resistance I
don't have will. I don't develop will
and I don't have will. The whole point
of will is that it only comes to visit
and it's only necessary when there is a
resistance.
>> So you see those as opportunities
>> as well.
>> Mhm.
>> As well. But this is this is the trick.
But the to answer your question, my
answer might be a bit trickier than what
most people assume.
They want the remove of the the removal
of the problem and will that's the whole
point of will
>> right not to remove the problem and not
to also jailbreak it
and you've described it beautifully
and imagine even that clip that you saw
or over the last years things that you
saw me you see me do they're not
impressive anymore
I can still kick up here and do a one-
arm and stand in the center of the room.
My body looks different by choice and
how I move is different because I
discovered this is not going anywhere.
I've already been there. I've already
done that. I've used motivation,
discipline, this quality. I'm looking
for something much more powerful, but
much more gentle as well. So I had to go
back to baby steps and to play that game
that you you just mentioned beautifully,
the edge. Stand at the edge
and it has to be an edge. You're almost
not sure if you choose that task whether
it's difficult enough or not. It's not
the only practice. It's just another
flavor that is important for us to
practice. I still practice my
discipline. I still practice extremely
difficult things. But it's an important
flavor that I missed.
>> Mhm.
>> And I think most people are missing it.
They have no interest in doing it. It's
too easy. They don't understand the
point is not in the task at all. The
point is is in the quality that
develops, the attribute that develops
inside of us, which is one of the most
important basic attributes. I want to
know when I'm going to war with you,
whatever war that is, that you're
reliable to have a word.
And that cannot rely on caffeine or on
on discipline. And and you can play this
game. I'm right now extremely
jet-lagged. So I'm I'm very tired. So I
play this game with myself. I I have
this little internal smile here in my
jaw inside. I I I play I pay attention
to what is going on in the internal
realm, this interceptive thing and I
play a game. Before I used to kind of
push against it, harden against it and
push through whatever needs to be done
and so this way of practicing taught me
a lot.
>> I'd like to take a quick break and
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subscription. Yeah, I'm I'm very
intrigued by this this notion of of play
because I do think that it's energy
conserving if not energy building. And
it's kind of incredible, right? I mean,
we know that neuroplasticity is
triggered by friction points, you know,
some level of autonomic arousal. How why
else would the nervous system change if
it can do what it needs to do? You need
a change in the millu, the chemical
environment. But if one can get it from
play, that's awesome because the other
thing takes literally adrenaline,
norepinephrine. Yes, we love dopamine,
but that little cocktail of
catacolamines as we call them, that is
energy. That's chi. That's the It's
energetically costly to be in that
state. Play is a different cocktail. It
includes some of those, but it includes
some other stuff, too. We know this
neurochemically. So, I'm not just
speaking in metaphors. And it does seem
to open something up. And it's a sounds
so subtle. I'm going to be playful about
this really important thing, this
challenging thing versus I'm going to
just, you know, I'm going to just drill
into this. the rigidity that comes about
is is almost instantaneous
>> and it's more representative of you in
the way that I see this word you self I
because again that that the use of that
cocktail that the jailbreaking
is a very it removes something from
engaging it it numbs something. So here
this is the most crucial point. We get
to transform ourselves
by choosing to do something deeply
saying I want to do this in the moment
that you don't want to do this to find
that paradoxical thing. It's a
multistability. You have to be able to
glimpse these two things to feel this
emotional contradiction and to remain
functional without collapsing to remain
functional and moving forward leaning
forward into the direction. This is a
critical way of doing this is a a big
passion of mine in the last years cuz I
realized it's so crucial such a missing
component
and having listened to you and and and
various people that you brought along
really helped me helped me see it to
understand it to look at the scientific
side and the anatomy and the and the way
that we are constructing these models
and to see if that match matches my
experience and what exactly is missing
and where am I lying to myself in that
sense. So it turned out to be a valuable
insight.
>> It's come up before on a few podcasts
and you may have heard this but I'll
just briefly describe we have a finally
thanks to the work largely of my
colleague Joe Parveves at Stanford. We
have a neurological understanding of
tenacity and willpower and the
plasticity that is this anterior mids
singulate cortex that gets activated
when we don't want to do something and
we force ourselves to do it and that
structure enlarges and it becomes easier
to access and so we you know in that
sense the the discipline piece really
can be built up
>> definitely
>> the recognition that oh I don't want to
do this feels a lot like the I don't
want to do that and I was able to do
that that anterior midsulate cortex can
go to work on a number of things it's a
it's a real thing. We don't yet have the
coralate structure for the play piece.
>> Definitely
>> and it may be distributed, right? We
always want to think there's a
structure, the amygdala, fear, inter
midsulate cortex, tenacity, but these
are circuit phenomena. But but it would
be so nice to be able to find a neural
coralate because there does seem to be
something very special about people in
their 70s, 80s, 90s who
>> they're in the longevity game clearly
and they're taking great care of their
bodies and their minds, but there's a
playful spirit in there that
is never discussed in this whole
longevity thing, but it's clearly very
very crucial. hard to research that of
course from obvious reasons it's much
more easier to to research this
discipline right
>> to be playful
I I want to I want to give something
positive we all meet this quality even
many of us believe I never am in this
state investigate
>> investigate into your past like you
mentioned this moment of driving but I I
want to tell you something.
Investigate yesterday. It was also there
for moments. For brief moments, you can
always and by studying this, you would
help yourself because it is always
present. It's almost guaranteed to be
there even in extremely depressed
people. Part of the problem of
depression is this rigidity
to change to to recognize these positive
moments, right? and to to to transform
the model. So we don't end up harvesting
it but it's there. It's an important
thing because without
learning the flavor and the texture of
that we have no chance of approaching
that developing this playfulness this
will this softness about things that can
do a lot. There's a third bin which I
think people default to including myself
right I think about discipline will or
laziness sloth and wasting time. Right
now we're talking about using discipline
or a mode of play to do something. These
days it seems a lot of having a good
life is about not doing certain things.
mostly for most people not having your
consciousness and your body pulled into
algorithms. You know, I'm a fan of
social media. I learn there. I
[clears throat] see you there. I try and
teach there. But there is a way in which
our body shape, our mental shape can be
structured around this wheel of infinite
stimuli. That's how I think about it
now. Now when I go into uh social media,
I think about it as a wheel of infinite
stimula. Like a rat in an experiment. If
I want to keep that rat engaged, just
give it this, give it that. Doesn't like
this, give it that. I mean, that's the
algorithm. I try and see myself in it so
that I can navigate it with some
intentionality like, oh, this is
interesting. I'm actually quite
inspired. I'm not just saying this by
the content you've put up over the
years. I really think hard about the
I've gone and looked up authors. You
know, your philosophers and many things
I don't know. So I I follow up on those.
In the domain of strength training,
there's this guy Tom Havland. I think he
was used to be Australian special
forces. He only posts from the back. He
doesn't disclose his identity. Very
large guy. Um doing zer squats, you
know, where the bar is in the crook of
the elbow with, you know, 500 plus
pounds with pauses and it's very, you
know, if you really impressive feats of
strength. So I see and learn and
inspired by things I see in social
media. Sends me down the path of
learning. I didn't even know what a zer
squat was until recently. It's kind of
cool. Like I know the crooks of elbows
could hold that much. And the core
bracing is really interesting. But a lot
of my life these days is about no this
is not a stimulus space I want to spend
time in. I'm 50 now. I don't know how
long I'll live. Hopefully a long time.
But allocation of energy is like 90% of
the game of life, right? Maybe more. So
when you think about practices for
resisting
doing something, the no-go as we say in
neuroscience, not go tasks, but no go.
How do you think about pulling back in a
playful way? That's a little bit harder.
Beautiful question and very important
thing to to look at to examine and I I
can offer my my personal experiences
that's the only thing that I can but
again the pullback deleting the app
you know take something off throwing
your phone on the rooftop
>> done it done it
>> that's why I mentioned it cuz you told
me last time we met
>> yeah when I used to have to write grants
I would either give my phone to my
students early days and I'd say if I
asked for that back before 5:00 p.m.
today, everyone in lab gets a $100 bill.
I didn't have the money to do that. I
didn't ask for it back by 5 or throw it
on the roof and go get it later. And
this action, I'm not against it. May
maybe it sounds like it's jailbreaking
something, but it's a required moment.
One of the first thing with will
is the recognition that we're not in
contact with it that we don't possess
and we should verify it for ourselves by
trying to do things
which are definitely possible and we
can't we can't do them.
>> Mhm. [clears throat] How do I pull back
in this way? Isn't this good to delete
the app?
It's a way of
paying upfront.
It's painful and it's costly. It's
expensive. It's a required thing. Part
of me say
I'm not sure I'll be here in a few more
moments. I'm going to take this action.
It reminds me of I have great fear of
heights.
>> You?
>> Yeah. It reminds me when I went to
bungee jump the first time with friends
decades ago in Greece and I'm climbing
up there and I'm watching down this tiny
swimming pool from the crane and I
realized in that moment there is no way
I'm jumping down and the other part of
me realized there is no way I'm climbing
down
the girl screaming down there you know
and I I just stood there and I just I
just kind of threw myself forward. I
jailbreed it years after I've I redone
it with a different quality.
I softened into it.
>> Mhm. [clears throat]
>> And I found a way to
come down feeling this great
pain, physical pain, and at the same
time the multi-stability feel a
softness, a wave of softness passing
through me as tiny as it was. So when
I'm pulling back it's very important
that I interact with this action also in
that way that I don't force myself in a
sad mazoistic way that I don't do this
action from that place maybe it's the
beginning of the process maybe it's
something that is a required stepping
stone something that you have to do but
later you learn to soften into it and
eventually you can leave the app you
don't delete it and it's there and you
keep on softening as it jumps calling
you back again and again and again and
you've developed this feedback. You've
changed, you've transformed your model
and there is a new reaction
to that stimulus and you relax. When
when the stimulus calls your name, you
recognize it, note it, and the first
thing that you do, you soften yourself,
you relax, you put a little smile on,
and only then do you go back to the task
at hand. You change the way instead of
saying no, I don't want to go back into
social media now. I want to work on my
book and forcing yourself back. You take
another extra step.
Oh, it's calling my name again.
I note it. I recognized it. I soften
myself. And only then do I go back to
the test at hand. The outcome would be
totally different. Millions of times
forward. Done again and again. you would
be amazed by the difference.
>> I absolutely get what you're saying that
there's something about paying attention
to the subtle trans subtle ripples like
they're these ripples and that language
of the subtle ripples of consciousness
makes it sound like I'm trying to be
poetic, but I I really can't find a
better language than these like subtle
ripples. It's the same thing, I believe,
as noticing the transition between
asleep and awake. Just a little bit more
each day. Maybe some days you miss it.
You just pop up and go into the day and
then you I missed I missed the there
were these ripples in between. But
catching them, this is one of the most
important attributes
also in the physical body that I believe
is totally missing from our physical
modern movement, culture, physical
practice. Granularity. I call it bodily
resolution in the application to the
body. Notice I'm not talking about
mobility or definitely not about
flexibility. There is a certain
refinement and with it a certain
complexity
that if it's not challenged by novelty
and by certain qualities of attention,
there is a deterioration of the model.
There is a simplification. There is a
hardening of the body schema. It becomes
more black and whitish and living in
this physical form becomes hell.
[snorts] The same thing happens in the
emotional schema in the emotional model
of ourselves. And the same thing happens
on the conceptual or intellectual
abstraction model.
The same thing happen in the social
schema. The same thing happen on the
spatial schema. If you don't continue to
make it detailed and to appreciate the
details, you will have a deterioration.
You're moving up or down. There is no
status quo that it's never stable.
Hence, guess what? Most people going to
the gym, doing these runs,
they totally lost something and they
don't even know. They're not as they
were as children. They don't look like
that. Kung Fu master in Beijing, 5:00 am
at the park walking with the stout of a
a child. We like to mention blue zones,
but we don't you don't look like the
blue zones. We like to mention the
importance of muscle mass for longevity,
but which muscle mass are you talking
about? Not that muscle mass. It's a
different quantity.
So we kind of moved away from those fine
things and the refinement of them is
very very important emotionally the
emotional granularity
to recognize it's so important.
Depression puts everything into the
black and white thing. So it's the
extreme and then the other side is very
high resolution of emotional
appreciation and perception
that can turn against you but only when
the conceptual layer comes and
manipulates that information. But as
long as it stays within the
nondiscursive
the the raw Yeah. the raw thing coming
from this alostostatic
system. The the the the the
way that we define our state like
poetry. That's why also reading poetry
helps and and reading literature helps
in this way. It makes you a lot more
complex. And now you discover it's not a
good or bad thing anymore, but you're
playing a different game. And here is
the playfulness back. Mhm. Because I'm
even playing game with that.
Oh, I'm I feel bad. I feel good. I feel
neutral. That thing starts to open up. I
abandon this and I go back to the body.
And that's why I like to send people
back to the body. The eye is a lot more
this than what we think it is,
especially meditators, etc. is not up
here. And of course they're talking
about it the way of the heart and you
know the har the danten etc. But
you can see when somebody is
embodied
there are signs there are cues to it in
the way that people move in the way that
they are here. [snorts] And I I often
don't see those those those clues and
then there is a great deterioration. So
I I don't care so much about structures
these days about muscle mass about you
know the joint protective things the
connective tissue or whatever because I
believe the model deteriorates way
before and the consequences come after
once the model has degraded the
simulation now we are in trouble and now
the the the structural effects are just
following that years forward decades
forward and then we discover it it's too
late
words are dangerous
like the spinal column. Do you know how
many spines this destroyed?
Countless. It's not a column. And
treating it like a column destroys our
spine. It's the way that I model myself.
Even in my words, I can I can sense that
I can feel that different languages have
different words for those things and
clues are there. the lack of
appreciation of fine micro actions
inside the torso in between the ribs, we
don't appreciate it.
The way that we distribute
pressure in the body practices that I
engage with, that I teach, that I work
with, they're very powerful, but we
don't leave room for that. We want to
go, we want to do something quickly,
crudely, and we deteriorate.
And then we go to the protocols. We go
to the help help me and and yeah there
is some help the there is definitely
some help there but to lift it into a
meaningful healing is not often done. I
I believe because the practice is
missing the notion of high resolution
versus low resolution language
movement and awareness. Maybe we just
kind of grab those three and I know
there there are others. I think about
this a lot. Uh let's start with
language. Lisa Feldman Barrett, who's a
psychologist, I would also consider
somewhat of a neuroscientist because she
collaborates with neuroscientists and is
studies emotion. And she's been very
clear and it's absolutely true that in
cultures where there's many words to
describe different aspects of sadness,
aspects of happiness, even some
extremely specific circumstances. is
like there's a Japanese word, forgive
me, I don't remember, for the the
sadness one feels after a bad haircut.
The more nuance and specificity, the
less likely people are going to default
to I'm sad, I'm depressed, just kind of
like throw themselves in the broad bin.
And uh I refer to it as the
emojification
of
>> mental life. I'm happy. I'm sad. I'm
depressed. I do think that it's nice to
have a range of language ability so you
can talk to people of different
backgrounds. Some people are more
hyperverbal than others. a colleague of
mine at uh NYU um Tony Mauvshin who runs
the center for neuroscience. He's he
described an intellectual beautifully
and you certainly uh fit this
description which is an intellectual is
somebody who can talk about and work
with a concept or something at multiple
levels of granularity that are
appropriate for the conversation. like
we're going pretty deep today peeling
back layers looking you know if you have
three minutes you know it's a different
conversation but I think as you said
this is the advantage of reading more
challenging books at times or kids books
which are very simple in essence but
deliver the message in with in very
succinctly
>> generally right so I think there's real
value to working up and down the ladder
in language and having that at one's
disposal
>> and here is Another practice we go back
to being pragmatic,
ambiguity,
incompleteness.
Do you bring it about?
>> Not having to have everything resolved.
>> No.
>> And not only in the terms of problem
solving or or or or a physical what we
call kinetic coins. This is great. This
develops movement intelligence.
Something that I work with a lot.
reading puzzling symbolic texts,
parallels,
difficult to resolve things and maybe
never resolve things or movies, watch
Tarovski,
Hodorovski,
it's a very different experience than
Hollywood or watching contemporary dance
that is contemporary in the sense that I
can't define it. It's happening right
now and I'm not sure what I'm even
watching here. I've been taken to some
contemporary dance where I thought I
don't know what I'm watching.
>> Yeah. And the first time I went to wash,
I said, "I don't like it." Yes.
>> And I'm gonna come back. [laughter]
>> That was the distinguishing factor
between you and me. But I've since
developed a real appreciation uh for uh
there are some forms of dance that um
Eric Jarvis was a guest on the podcast
neuroscientist who was uh going to be
part of the Alvin
Dance Company took a hard left turn into
neuroscience and studies language and
will say this will a relevant tangent.
The species of birds that can talk are
also the ones that can dance. And he
thinks bodily movement
based on the genetics. He studies the
genetics of language and the same genes
that are in these speech areas are
strongly expressed in very similar
motifs
>> in the areas of movement. So he thinks
bodily movement is the fundamental
language. I'll just leave it at that. I
need to get you two in the same room at
some point and then I won't just want to
be there listening. If everything
depends on language, we also have to be
careful because then the granularity of
language will be the limiting factor and
it's huge pieces. So this like playing
with play the the not Lego, you know,
there was technical Lego, the small
little bits. I love this.
>> There was a normal Lego and then there
was a the the big one, the big chunks
that you started from. So, it's like
you're working with these
words are corrupted
and they're corrupting us and they're
supposed to be containers, but they
don't they're not containers. They're
more pointers,
but we've lost what they're pointing at.
The simulacum versus the sim simulation.
Simulation is something that creates a
model of something real. simulacum
is now disconnected. There is not
anymore that real thing. When I
investigated this deeply with myself, I
don't believe there is an inherent
difference between these two, but there
is definitely critical masses that can
be achieved. For example,
the sensory thing, sensor, sensory motor
thing is a lot less corrupted than the
conceptual schema. Even that is not
reality. The senses don't bring reality.
They model reality. They are simulation
machines.
>> Everything we experience is an
abstraction of what our senses are
pulling into our brain.
>> Which means
ignoring uniqueness,
erasing differences for the sake of
communicating it to the system even on
the level of sensation because it would
be overwhelming.
We would be crushed
by reality if the band wage is opened
fully.
>> Certainly if it was opened all at once.
I mean I'm um
>> this is also what happens with
psychedelics by the way. Sometimes
>> too much pours in. Yeah.
>> There there is a bandage expansion
>> too much cross talk. I mean we should
acknowledge this you know so in the
studies of psilocybin and it's um where
it has been shown to improve major
depression the typical outcome is you
know scan before
I should mention this is you know
therapy assisted psychedelic um
experience not just recreational therapy
therapy therapy therapy with
psychedelics therapy therapy therapy
therapy with psychedelic we're talking
about psilocybin here therapy Y therapy
therapy therapy therapy. Not just head
into the woods, eat a bunch of
mushrooms, talk to your friends. The
most consistent observation in the brain
is a lot more connectivity between areas
that weren't communicating prior to
that, which can offer new opportunities
for insight, new opportunities for um
it's literal integration and the
unmasking of connections that were there
but were more or less suppressed. This
can be a really good thing. It can also
be a really bad thing. One of the
hallmark definitions of psychosis is
clang associations where people with
schizophrenia or other forms of
psychosis will say, you know, this is a
really cool cup up. So everything's
moving up or stock market, you know, and
they they just follow the language in a
meaningless way that any non-sychotic
person says all they're doing is
following the rhyming of the words.
>> Those are not good connections to
follow. If you want to be functional in
the world, you might write an
interesting
book using that tool. consciously, but
these people live in that reality. So,
the pouring in and the cross
connectivity, the plasticity, it's it's
not always a good thing. I'd like to
take a quick break and acknowledge one
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to claim a free sample pack. In terms of
movement, I absolutely agree. I think
that um people who are not exercising
enough, not moving enough, not walking
enough are starting to approximate a
C-shape internally rotated. We see that
if people are taking on an exercise
program, which I think is generally
healthy, walking more, hopefully doing
some movement that gets their heart rate
up, hopefully list lifting some objects
that are outside their ability so then
they get stronger and so forth. Okay,
great. Should people do all of that and
then start to think about
the other syllables and vowels and and
uh language of movement and incorporate
that into their life or if given the
choice should people start with
many many forms of movement and the
reason I ask this is a very practical
one. Many people will say, "Well, this
all sounds great, but I got to get up in
the morning, make myself breakfast, take
my kids to school, do all my things. I
get 30 minutes. I need to get my heart
rate up. Got to get my zone 3, four. I
now have to lift things." You're telling
me now I have to pay attention to the
subtle ripples of movement, you know?
So, I could see either argument being
true that just like check off the boxes.
heart health, muscle health, ligaments,
fight deterioration,
add something on top of that versus no,
let's treat the whole system as having a
lot more opportunity there and start
there no matter where you are. That's
that's a practical question embedded in
a somewhat intellectual conversation.
>> I'll push back.
>> Mhm.
>> The question is already corrupted.
First, it's a exercise approach to
physicality.
I have 30 minutes a day and what do you
do with the rest of your time? That is
the push back.
>> Mhm.
>> What do we do that is so important that
we don't have time to pay attention to
the ripples of movement when we are
living our lives, cooking, doing?
When you're listening to me, are you
fully engaged and listening to me? Now
we are not using this time well.
Even highly productive people actually
those are often the case.
They are never
using the time well in the sense of that
presence.
So what I'm suggesting is a paradigm
shift
in the way that I view my physicality at
all. the way that I view my day today,
my being when I'm listening to you. I'm
not running after these words in my head
and
I'm also in the physical experience of
what is occurring right now and and I
developed this through my practice. We
need better education and we need better
tools
and this is the new limiting factor.
Even AI recognizes it more and more and
it will I predict become the crucial
component. The body the sensory
symbols
that are popping out
when a symbol comes to our mind that
that that that
impression those impressions that are
they are so important
without them there is nothing. And we've
tried to go down to the the root of it.
I've I've spent a lot of time reading
about this and figuring out what is the
raw currency of
cognition of that ab ob abstraction
schema. And I've heard many answers.
There is the the primal or primitive
semantics this point of view like
something that is under language. And
there is this um point of view from
phenomenology
and that this this area or or there is
the invariance something that does not
change no matter how you look at it
that's the most crucial basic element
but the best answer that I found is this
drawing a boundary
selecting which means when I look at you
I select you from the environment
I create a boundary inside my
simulation. This is the most as as
George Spencer Brown talks about this in
laws of form. This is the the act of
differentiation.
This creates the most basic thought
matter. It's a thing now. And the
unselected state which also represents
the the entropy second law of
thermodynamics the the soup that wants
to pull us back
is
the other side. So this selection and
the unselected state which are
codependent of course
they are the very root of of things. So
when we play this game of paying
attention and the quality of it we are
interacting
underneath the problems with the system.
We are going to the and I'm talking
about this open presence pre- language
thing that must inform the language
formation anyways it doesn't come from
anywhere so there must be something
underneath and and I'm sure you can
teach me a lot about that a lot more
than what I researched myself but the
experience of it myself is very
important to try to find that gentle
layer
and to try to interact with it. This
will transform the body schema and we
have to teach it to children when we
come about and some cultures maintain it
to a larger degree and of course it
depends on the language and on other
habits. This is below exercise. This is
and then I use exercise very efficiently
when you have that when the model is
addressed. I do this work with athletes.
I do this work with grandmas. I do this
work with Alzheimer patients, with
musicians.
This is very potent.
So stop trying to fit me into something
corrupted in that sense. I'm telling the
world in that physical sense of I got to
fit into this fitness practice. I got to
fit into this exercise idea because when
I'm looking deeper, I don't see a lot of
promise there. Those are positive
manipulations. They can be definitely,
but we need to go further. And we're not
because we stay with that 30 minutes a
day idea.
And this is everywhere. You don't need
to become like me, a practitioner of
movement all day. In the official side,
it becomes the unofficial practice. Your
way of being, your way of doing things.
I turn everything into this. the way
that I drink from the cup, the way that
I sit right now, the way that I'm
listening, and it's coming from the
official side of my practice. I had to
learn it in a structured way and then to
pull it back into my life. Much more
important than to learn to meditate.
Much more potent because it is
meditation in the deep sense of the
word.
>> You mentioned Alzheimer's. Um,
there are more and more scientific
findings all the time showing that loss
of vision, subtle or severe, loss of
hearing, subtle or severe, can either
accelerate or maybe even cause some of
the um deprivation
symptoms of Alzheimer's, memory
deprivation, uh, this kind of thing. And
it makes good sense, right? Right? It's
unfortunate, but it makes good sense.
Meaning,
if there are fewer inputs to the system,
the system is deprived by definition,
and then the system starts working with
deprived inputs and it degrades. And in
Alzheimer's, they like to mention that
the feedback is damaged.
>> But they threw the baby with the
bathwater. Even when the feedback is
damaged, it's not a monochromatic thing,
black and white. You got to continue to
challenge the system.
When I tear
a muscle, my rotator cuff, I rehab
myself by going back into motion. I
don't put a cast on. I treat Alzheimer's
in the same way. I practice. And this is
incredibly powerful. Like loading the
skeleton for osteoporosis.
Forget about the nutritional
side of things. Lift something heavy for
God's sake. pound the ground in in the
right dosages and ways. It it is a lot
more potent.
>> We have to change our way of looking at
things here. This thing here is called
practice. This is a school. Life is not
for living. Life is for practicing. It
is a place. It's a school we came to.
Maybe spiritually you can take it there
as well. But I'm talking even
neurologically.
That's who we are. That's what we are.
And viewing yourself in this way is very
very potent. And it will not take your
life away. You don't need more than 30
minutes a day. It will enrich the
current life that you have. But you have
to educate yourself and you have to go
deeper into these concepts in order to
apply it correctly. That's my belief in
in regards to this and I've seen it.
>> Beautifully put. I could not agree more.
uh we are in a curriculum of life and
our nervous system and all the rest of
us is being shaped by that and we have
agency about what we bring in. Thank
you. I see it on you. It's clear to me.
It's very clear who's practicing and
who's not. On some level when you meet
people, if you're practicing yourself,
if you're in this practice, if you're
under this load, in this conscious
interaction, choice, with suffering,
with friction, with difficulties, but
also with awe, with curiosity, with all
those things in a directed way, not in a
way that holds on to who I am. Doesn't
matter who I am currently. I'm not
interested in that. I am not my friend
in that sense. There is a place in me
that I recognize this is not my friend.
But it doesn't turn into a beatdown. It
doesn't turn into this. It's very
important that the the multistability is
held and then I can I can become I
practice myself into the next day. I
practice myself into the next moment.
And this is the crucial moment. So when
I'm doing podcasts or whatever, I use
it. I manipulate the situation for my
practice and for the practice of others
because I believe it's so important. Our
life depends on it. I could not agree
more. I
you know I brought back to this notion
of uh language, movement and awareness.
Um and maybe just for sake of of
understanding and this will be an
incomplete analogy but if people could
imagine that um there's levels of
coarseness with within each of those
let's call it you know neuroscientists
would call it like big spatial scale
like I can flap my elbows or I can move
my fingers more subtly like so subtle
motion versus big motion right um in
language I can I can [clears throat]
grunt I can me you know I can woo you
you know, or I can articulate using more
sophisticated language if if I have
knowledge and access to those and you
build that up through experience. Yeah,
you can go look things up and do that.
In the realm of awareness,
it's similar, right? You can grab big
pieces of the room all at once. You
there, the table, the cameras, producer
off to my left, all of it. Or I can home
in on a small space, right? But there's
also, and I'm obsessed with this,
there's also the time domain. How we
choose to segment our experience is
something that I find so incredible. Can
lie back, look at the clouds, and just
watch this big cloud move through my
visual field over the course of minutes,
an hour, or I can watch for every little
subtle ripple of a leaf if I choose. And
uh Dhacker Kelner who studies awe, he's
at UC Berkeley, said everyday awe
experiences are very accessible if we
allow ourselves to move from fine scale
to large scale or large scale to fine
scale and back again. It's in the
transition between the two in space.
>> Yeah, he said he nailed it. Space and in
time. I was like, you know, a lot of
things happen on this podcast and useful
tools come up and interesting
conversations come up, but in talking
with Derer and now talking to you, it's
like th this is the experience of life
that we're getting shaped on and we have
control.
And so as a last point, my audience is
thinking let your guest speak. I but I
just want to throw this out because when
I think about going online, which is
where people spend a significant amount
of their conscious awareness now, their
time, I ask myself, is this a
lowresolution or a highresolution
event?
>> And someone once asked me recently, uh,
do you have Tik Tok? And I said, I don't
like Tik Tok. He said, why not? And I
said, I don't like Tik Tok because I
don't like that sound at the end.
Why? It's low resolution.
It feels like a highly pixelated
auditory sound. Whereas like a not
trying to be poetic here, but like we
have these redwing blackbirds in
California and in the evening when they
get ready to settle down, they make this
incredible sound. It's very brief, but
it's rich and it's so beautiful. anyone
who ever has the chance to hear it is is
spectacular. Then I realize all the
information on Tik Tok is low
resolution.
It's kind of for idiots and if you only
look at that, you'll become an idiot.
And I realized I'm probably consuming
some other sensory input that is
disproportionate
to what I should be and it's going to
make me an idiot. So it doesn't mean one
has to spend time in the deep philosophy
of of you know the most intricate
philosophers. I mean I listen to punk
rock music. I like it because it's raw.
I like it. I like three chord Raone
songs. But I also love classical music.
I think it's important to step through
from coarse to fine. And I feel like
what you've been talking about for years
in terms of movement is has something
perhaps to do with this. Forgive me for
going long, but no, I'm happy to see you
again. And this is kind of what we do.
>> Yeah, this is beautiful. I I I take a
lot from it and I like this the the the
transition importance. Something makes
me think that we talked about the
schemas, the these models,
but another way to look at it is
a a stomach
digestive
systems. Why? In the sense that they
require nutrients.
You got to feed them.
And then
the quality of those nutrients, the
gross, the fine, the micronutrients, the
macronutrients.
Like for example, emotionally, I don't
feel well. Let's say what do I tell
people? What are you feeding yourself?
What is your emotional food?
emotional foods that are important that
I bring into the practice of my students
of myself. One, discomfort. We've
mentioned it. It's important. It's clear
why
emotional contradiction.
Two,
I love you and I hate you. For example,
when you work with boxing, when when you
let people have this physical and you
can point at it, look up. Watch what
happened now.
I love you and I hate you and I feel it.
I can the multistability.
Another one is the aesthetic intensity
that we talked about bringing moments of
awe of curiosity but also of melancholy
or or many other intensities that are
important.
We've removed this from our lives, from
our movies, from our books,
definitely online,
you know, as you pointed,
we took it away. So, of course, we're
not feeding ourselves those things.
Restraint,
stimulating, and requiring restraint,
very important quality.
All those are practices for me. Those
are nutrients that I want to feed my
emotional state. The same thing I have
for my intellectual faculty, schema,
the conceptual, the abstraction. How do
I become smarter? What is thought? Is
thought just this knee-jerk reactions,
these levers, this associative quality?
Is this thought? I refuse to accept it.
>> That's not thought. So, you're you're
lucky. Uh you're not lucky. you uh you
are right to refuse it. Uh we could talk
about thoughts and what they are. I
actually have a segment in my book. I'm
not trying to advertise my book that's
all about how to think about thinking so
that you can literally control your
thinking. Use thinking as a tool, not
just have it be this like wherever you
go some dynamic attractor states. The
neuroscientists say you just kind of
fall like a clang association in a
psychotic person. Yeah. is just they're
they drop into a groove of of thought
that is disjointed, makes no sense to
the rest of us. Many people, including
myself, sometimes we live in those modes
of thought that are equally psychotic.
We just don't express it, but they're
psychotic because we're taking something
as valuable as like a a beautiful
vehicle and we're just kind of using it
to like
>> prop something up at the side of the
house. My colleague Carl Dyeroth, one of
the best neuroscientists alive, maybe
ever, um when he told me that every
night after he put his five kids to
sleep, [laughter] you know, he would go
and sit and force himself to think in
complete sentences as a practice.
>> I remember you told me before I was
humbled and I thought,
>> "Oh, that is the that is hard. That is a
smart person.
>> He's a very smart person.
>> That's an intelligent person.
>> He's a very intelligent person.
>> That sounds like it. It comes from that
place of knowing like, you know, I never
I I almost never truly think. It's rare.
>> He taught himself to think.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Without realizing it, without realizing
that you're just playing a different
game in that sense that it's it's hard
to develop it. And again what are the
practices that we engage with you know
we need those things nutrients so it's
stomachs the emotional faculty is a
stomach it's digestion and it asks you
feed me
>> and you got to take care of it there is
metabolism involved there is a
protection layer there is immunity to it
right there is the marov boundary around
it the membrane there is a model to it
simulates things out but so it's also a
very important way to Look at it. And of
course the body movement nutrients. What
is the quality of that? If you look at
those gym practices, those
weightlifting, they're of very very low
quality in terms of movement. Every
dancer will tell you that. Every athlete
of a high level will tell you that.
Where did we move to a ridiculous
situation where our athletes are
learning and are inspired by the fitness
people instead of the fitness people be
learning and be inspired by the the
athletes the the movement people.
>> Uh tell me more because I I certainly
like if I love to watch track and field
during the Olympics um and it's amazing
to see these athletes move and their
different shapes and their different
personalities like the sprinters. This
is I still marvel at these races boil
down to sometimes hundredths of a second
and they'll wear flashy jewelry
[laughter]
without question slows them down. This
is the least aerodynamic thing you could
possibly do.
>> There are more important things than
that
>> and they're willing to do give up the
potential time advantage to show their
bravado. Now the distance runners where
typically it doesn't get down to
hundredths of a second. It can typically
the margins between first, second, and
third place are wider.
They're not wearing any jewelry. There's
no And their personalities are much more
subdued. Fascinating.
>> You're telling me that the athletes are
paying attention to the fitness people?
>> Yeah, of course.
>> That seems crazy. Why? That's Do you
don't you see it? Boxers training like
fitness people. They're fitness
athletes. They're not boxers these days.
Why social media? Why? What is there
approachable calls the attention?
I don't know why you brought me in
today,
but it might be one of the less times if
not the last time as it becomes less and
less
what the attention calls for.
>> I don't know. I think I believe that the
the system that is human curiosity
which drives a lot of social media, not
all of it. I do think that when you have
a lot of low resolution stuff, the
signal to noise becomes people
our senses I almost said this earlier
but our sensory apparatus whether or not
it's our skin or our smell or our vision
or our hearing as you know has levels of
granularity. The receptive fields as we
call them go from very fine to uh to
very coarse. We love the feeling of a
hug with somebody we love. We also love
the feeling of a light caress,
you know, or just a hand on ours. These
things matter and they're part of our
experience. And even without being aware
of that desire for it, we have it's it's
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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