#416 - "It Changes You" Controversial Trainer on Ancient Tool to Unlock Human Potential | Ido Portal

Perustin pyöräilyvää teitä valmistavan ornotin vuonna 2013. Mielestäni parasta Shopify saan se, että voimme harjoittaa liiketoimintaa ilman teknistä osaamista. Voimme hallinnoida yrityksen taustajaristeelle mien ja front-endia sekä myydä verkossa, vaivattaa. Jos Shopify olisi pyöräilyvaruste, sollisi mielestäni itse polkupyörä. Sillä asiat hoidetaan ja meidän liiketoiminta me hoituu Shopify'sssä. Aloita ilmainen kokeilu, Shopify piste.com sivustolla. Mielestäni parasta. Sivustolla. Kohti kiinnostaa. Mielestäni parasta.com sivustolla. Mielestäni parasta.com sivustolla.com sivustolla. Mielestäni parasta. Mielestäni parasta. Mielestäni parasta. Often times become immersi. which sounds like a good thing, but actually it has also some serious downside. How so? This immersive thing automizes something. It makes things automatic, mechanicallyized, and that's why they work. They're instinctive, they're reactionary. I train the body until the body cannot go wrong, not until the body goes right, until the body cannot go wrong. I've used this in the past. I want the body to be able to go wrong. I want to maintain the choice. I don't want to automate it completely. I don't want to remove myself from the equation. I don't want to become immersed in the movie until I forget that I am here watching the movie. I want to maintain a double arrow. One is that immersive arrow of flow, but another one on me. Watchful tower. That goes deeper into the effects and kind of fuses effects in deeper layers in me, not only in my body, not only on the performance side of things. Interesting. When I think about athletes, if I think about a football player or a basketball player, they want to be optimized for completing one very simple task. For a basketball player, it's getting the ball in the hoop. You hear stories about Michael Jordan going out and shooting a thousand different baskets from one spot on the court, trying to figure that out. Then doing it again from another spot on the court. They want to make that like an automatic flow type thing, where there's no thought that's put into it. It's just something that's baked into their mind and their body. Here, they threw a bunch of stuff inside, but as the more time passes, the more we can improve and watch and see, wait, this doesn't belong here. For example, everybody throws a thousand hoops on that level. But Steph is Steph. It's not anymore about hard work. Hard work is the entry point. Come on. Everybody works hard. Or you're not there. Yes, from time to time, you have someone so gifted that they even don't work hard and they somehow reach up there. But hard work is not enough. And that takes us back to that thing. You're not going to just optimize it. You're not just going to stand there and practice until the body cannot go wrong. You've got to change your presence, who you are. On the highest level, when you really want to transform something, you need to become a different person in order to do that. And that is a very interesting moment for me, especially when working with people, because I am kind of in the business of assassination. I am not there to support something. I am there first to kill something that something else can be born. Which is also the process that I try to apply with myself. And I think it is the most beautiful process. Because this current construct is also a glass ceiling. So in the practice, for example, of shooting those baskets, you can insert all kinds of elements to not just go through the motions, but to be there doing it in your watchful tower. Every rep. When you say in the watchful, you mean like a third person type of view of yourself doing it? That's one way to look at it. It's definitely, I don't mean the commentary. Danny is now going down the ramp. That is just a distraction. And hence, you mentioned, they shoot the hoops until they don't think the empty mind. But that empty mind is now a little bit more tricky, more complex. Sometimes the empty mind takes you off from that watchful tower, that listening mode. So even now when we're sitting together, you're fluctuating in and out of that watchful tower. It's not a continuous thing. It comes, it goes, and you have good skill there. But I've seen much worse. It's funny in the business of podcasts where this is a very important skill for you guys. But often, and I recorded podcasts all over the world, the person is not skillful. It's based on something else, how they build their cathedral. Their cathedral. You have good listening skills, but you can improve them. And there are, so this fluctuation, this presence is not a commentary. And you cannot pull yourself now to the current moment by telling yourself, be here. Or the shooting of the hoops will not be done in that way better. But there is a returning, a widening. Almost like you're opening up your presence beyond your little limited view into the body and beyond into the room and maybe beyond to contain the whole scenario, I am here going down the ramp. Not the words that I use, but the presence. And you've had these moments, everybody had these moments. And that is something that has to be cultivated with the practice of shooting hoops going down the ramps, playing football or whatever. And it's a quality that is not flow alone. It contains flow, but it's more than that. It contains flow. It's an awareness, you have to maintain the awareness of it. It's another state we shouldn't call it flow. And it has the flow component of being absorbed in the task, absorbing it to the task, but without losing yourself. So it's also, why is that better? Because that is actually you. And anything else is some kind of a robot who drove here today, Danny. Right. Was it you? Do you remember the shifting of the gear? I don't remember anything about the drive to be honest. There you go. So it was not you. And this is the critical thing that we have to realize. If you enjoy watching our show on Spotify or YouTube and you want to be more involved. I encourage you to please come check out our Patreon community. Not only does our Patreon community get every episode you see on YouTube early, fully uncensored, and ad free. But we're also doing Patreon exclusive episodes, as well as live Q&As. And you can get your personal questions answered by our guests every single week. For me, being able to collaborate and communicate back and forth with our Patreon community every week has been huge. Thank you for the cost of a cup of coffee a month. Now back to the show. I've stood behind world champions. And I tell you, nobody's home. Nobody's home. What do you mean nobody's home? It's a robot. Really? It's a robot. Doing those things, they cannot fail. They're so good that the robot have been trained not to fail. And then they can even report on it. They can talk about it. Now, there's everybody talks about AI. That's the AI. That's the reason why AI is AI. Because what created the AI is the AI already to begin with. And we don't need to look far away. It's in the way of being. It can be verified by examining your life, day in and day out. And hence, it brings me to what I do. Practice. Practice. This ancient word. Practicum is the most important thing we are here to do. There is nothing else. Life is not for living. I feel way more enthusiastic and excited when I try to get out of my comfort zone with anything. Not just workouts. For most of my young life, I didn't really do any sort of sophisticated training at all. I just did basic compound movements in the gym. Along with all of my physical activities that I constantly did. Like surfing and skateboarding and stuff like that. It had no benefit. I never really learned about proper technique, proper movements. Any sort of muscle balancing or stretching or any kind of stuff like that. And then, but as I got older and I started to learn new things, I would, at one point, I would quit doing that kind of stuff and I would start doing a whole nother routine or a whole nother series of workouts every single week on a whole different schedule, completely alien to what I used to do. And then recently, when I had enceema here, enceema showed me a whole bunch of new things that I had never seen nor practiced in my life. And when I abandoned everything else that I had been doing previously in my life, I started doing all these new tricks that enceema inyang for people that I don't know who I'm talking about. He's on the Mark Bell podcast. He showed me all this other, this new stuff that I've never done before. I started doing that and it was like the feeling of just being a complete rookie at something and not really understanding what you're doing but doing it in any way and pushing through it. There's something to that, like the novelty of it or the building of whatever neuroplasticity is happening in your brain, something about it is invigorating. I don't know what it is, but do you notice that? Is that something that you focus on and why you think that it's important to sort of be spread wide with everything you do? It's one reason, but it's still as corrupted as any other reason, because you're standing in a place trying to get something from it, right? So it's not my game, that's not my thing. That's the way we think about it here in America. I know. I know. I know. You need some dopamine. Well, we do, we do. And we're going to get all those things in the back pocket as a side effect, but it's not good to orient ourselves directly there, to go immediately to that, because some of those things are really side effects. They are really side effects and we should appreciate them as such. So all your report is great. And I'm not going to take it away with what I'm offering, what I'm talking about. But let me answer your question, because that wasn't. So first, I spent the majority of my life doing exactly what you described. Hence, I tell people, if you watch me practice in my day to day, you wouldn't be impressed. I've spent decades being the beginner and I've almost always abandoned things I'm good at. The moment I reached them, I didn't have any more interest to repeat. I'm not repeating my skateboard tricks from 16 years old. I went, I moved on. I can do one arm handstands, but I don't do them in the day to day, because I can do them. Because the pleasure, the likes, or the dislikes, that's a game that I've seen where it goes and it doesn't go to pleasure, as it is, you know, like it's so here's the dopamine game, right? You want dopamine. So the worst thing is to get an easy dopamine, right? Like you don't want that. So it's the same, but it goes deeper, deeper, deeper. And the other thing is specialists, these narrow scoops that society is pushing towards, if you can really become good at something, you'll be rewarded whether it's a successful podcast or a business or an athlete, but then as a person, you lose more and more, the more you go into that place. So that is the other reason, it's a deeper reason to do what you offered, to engage in new ways of examining things and go out of your comfort zone, et cetera. And that is not coming from the corrupted place of receiving these rewards for it. If I become more wide, then I shall receive these rewards. Practice should not have a reason behind it. No reason. No. It is the default, everything practices. It's also known by many other words, like the word evolution, by natural selection. The word evolution is practice. It is a way of becoming. It is everything, the planets become planets through practice, everything practices. It's a concept much deeper. Maybe you brought the. For no, for no, no end goal. Correct. It's part of. It is something to recognize that is happening through us as well. Our cells are practicing right now. We are at practice. You talk about neuroplasticity. What do you think is going on right now, neuroplasticity? We kind of mention it as if it's a unique phenomenon. Now it starts. Now it ends. Oh, it's all the time there. What about muscle fibers, connective tissue right now? You are adapting to sitting in that chair. I don't know how it's painful. Right, like trying to undo it all the time. Yeah. We all do. That's why Mark and Seema, they stand and they have. They put like all kinds of different like balls and stuff under their feet while they're doing their podcast and they're constantly stretching and. Yeah. That's ideal. So, in essence, it's more something to recognize and then to align with in your life to what we call to become a practitioner, to become a practitioner, to view yourself not as a finished product, as something in constant transformation and evolution in certain growth, not to corrupt it by pushing it in this direction, pushing it in that direction and apply the needed pressures and stress so you can grow and you've pointed that in your question, saying when I apply these pressures to myself, like novelty, unknown difficulty, then I get all these good effects and I said, "You're right, but the idea is not to get just these good effects. You will continue to get them and more, but there is something even more important than that. This is the only way, my way or the highway, it's not my way. It's someone else that says the absolute that says my way. Right. You're saying it's so counterintuitive to Western culture and how we do things, right, especially if any practitioner of any sport or any everyday person, they typically want to strive for something, right. And typically, in every single element of our society, something is trying to be sold and it's all based on consumerism, right, everything is a product, everyone is trying to, whether it just be a gym or whether it be some sort of supplement or whether it be some sort of special workout program to fix your lower back. Right. So what you're doing, it seems to be just a break away from everything that Western society is adapted to. We're Arnold Schwarzenegger, muscle cars, fast food, that kind of stuff. This is like a huge departure from that. So it's very interesting, I mean, also to throw in to that list, American football. And it's just very fascinating how some of these guys like Christian McCaffrey are trying to learn from you and learn from what you do. I want to be positive and to give you something very positive, to give a little space for this quality that is already present in our lives, and it is present. You're right. A lot of it has been corrupted in this way, but there are still places in our life and always were and always will be that are motivated by something else, or shall I say, not motivated by anything. Whether it's an expression, whether it's a certain kindness that is there, whether it is a remorse, even if there is no kindness at all, a sense of remorse, whether it is something like this or that. So even with NFL and with the demands, the highest of the highest level, when you reach, when you climb up there, you realize you need to de-ambition yourself in some way, to prevent this issue. And that has been my experience. The best of the best, the ones who are really free, they are above the game. They made the game, they grew up in the game, but now they are swallowed the game, right? And there is such examples, then they find a different quality, not always. Not always. Sometimes the grades are. You know, distorted and just played the game better than everyone else. But sometimes you got a, you got a messy, a Leo messy. That's a different character, huh? Doesn't look like that winner, that we know. But he's such a winner, that he eats all the winners, that even my biggest idol growing up in football in soccer was Diego Armando Maradona, the greatest, but one cannot argue with the greatness of messy. Because there is something else, a different component. And there, there's always been such figures. And that comes from a place beyond, because really, when you're really strong, in the deep essence of the world, do you need to ambition yourself? Do you need to push? No. It's easy, you open the window, the air comes in. You don't pump the air in. You have that freedom, you have that capacity. Some athletes that I've had the pleasure to work with because of the complexity of the ideas. For example, I'll take a Christian and we will read texts together. We have texts, difficult ancient texts, sometimes difficult texts, difficult. Like, for example, we've read this week, Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentine author. A text that will make you, after one page, your head hurts a bit or we did math. Two weeks ago, we did some math work. I thought you said you didn't math. No, not with any. That's one way to do it. Yeah, that's another practice, right? It can bring some things for sure, yeah. So we did some complex mathematics. Yeah, some mathematics to make a point coming across. Now, again, when the video is presenting it, it presents it as if this is what we do. Out of 12 hour days of practice, which nobody puts in. This is a small component, but it's popular, it's sexy, it's different. Some people, but we also do the power cleans, the strength and conditioning. We go to the field, but how much can you do that, right? Recovery is like, so we do a lot of other things. We do, we meditate every day, hardcore, sitting, still, no movement for long periods of time. And these, all of these things are coming together to transform something in a person who is already at the top, at entering the 10th season, come from a family of legends. He's perhaps one of the best, if not the best, to have done it, and that's the place where he's at. And he's searching, so it's a very interesting work. If I wish you would have come to visit and to draw by and to see a little bit of the work, then you would have a better idea, but people maybe have now some kind of idea. Well, I can imagine what the first conversation with you guys must have been like. I had to imagine it must have been similar to this conversation because most, I feel like, you know, bingo football players, they want to gain an edge, right? Like, what can I gain from consulting with you or working with you every day for months during the off season, right? Bingo, you got it exactly right. It's very similar to this conversation. I've had this conversation once or twice before. It's, it's, but what is unique is some people, there is a push away, there is almost like a sense of like, stay away from this guy. It's dangerous. And it's not personally me, Ido, but it is that assassination. And there is definitely a risk of being close to that thing. You're like a psychedelic drug. Maybe. Maybe in some way, it's not me. It is the practice. It is a genuine practice and I am not willing to sacrifice that. So I make sure it's there. So the conversation starts like that. And many times people will like come out one year, go to the other year or interesting things, not realizing what they have met, who they have met. Not me, not me, but I'm talking about something that is moving through that, that, that me thing. And with Christian, he has that special combination of intelligences and observation and honesty that he was almost immediately, that was very impressive. I was like, okay, I got you. We're dropping this. We're dropping this. I'm with, yeah, like, I'm going, let's go. Let's go. And the threat was like, that's why I saw real power in the guy. It's like a assassination. Sure. Go ahead. You know, like going to the dentist and it's like no anesthesia. Going right, right. That thing, like beyond, like, what if I start doing all this stuff with Ido and I decide I don't want to do football anymore? Part of it. You know, part of it. And you know what? I wouldn't speak by anyone's name. And it's not the point. I don't want anyone. You have kids. You don't need to get rid of your kids. You don't have kids. You don't need to make kids. I tell people, it's not, you don't need to live. It's an excellent platform to work on yourself. But definitely, there were days we were having so much discovery and fun that football took a distance. And then I made sure to bring it back, to not get too much distance from my side as well, not only from his side. And both of us cared about it because there is nothing wrong with it. Of course, there is freshness. There is something new. I'll take the skateboarder. I'll make them play football. I'll take the footballer. I'll put him on a skateboard. And that would be misunderstood. It's like, what will that help him? You don't get it. You still don't get it. You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. You need to reopen the system. You need to reinvigorate it. You're not going to lose an edge, a special edge. It's easy to maintain after so much time. So that is not at risk. What do you think in the tenth season in the NFL? You're going to improve your speed. It's possible to do something. But even if you do, what's that going to give you? When there is so much more that you can get in other ways. So sometimes the best thing to do is what you offered, what you've reported from your own experience to go to the Shoshin, the beginner mindset, the Japanese perspective, and to observe there's something. But it's not the only things that we will do. And we're not going to abandon good old tried methods, maintaining and boosting things, protecting the skeleton, bulletproofing it, working. We've done a lot of work on pressurization, pressure in the body, which is something that nobody practices in the NFL. Or at least I don't know anyone. We've worked on rhythmicality, which is a huge thing on the playing field. Christian is also like plays the piano and he has some background in music. So he was very quickly able to understand how important it is. You know, skateboarding it is important even there. This feeling of where you are on sounds are very important. Sounds are extremely important. You know, my boxing coach used to turn his head around while we're working on the heavy bags. And shout, I can't hear the music. You have the same with skateboarding. You can sit with your eyes closed and you will recognize when someone of a high level is there by the sounds. So these things can be trained and can be worked at. And sometimes people are kind of deaf. They're missing that skill. And you can enhance it. Because we know that that guy is talented in it. But what about developing it when it's not there? Right. Yeah. 100%. And you know, I would imagine that this stuff would be not only like incredible for his performance and his movement and his athletics, like on the football field during his career, but also brought in his horizons for when he does retire football. You know, because most people, the tragic thing about the NFL is that a lot of these guys, they're in there for so long, they get incredible damage to their body and to their brain. And then they leave football and they've kind of lost their meaning. They kind of like lose their way. You know what I mean? Beautiful. You bring some, you bring an insight from your place, which is beautiful and you're hitting it. Bingo, bingo, bingo. There were two occasions over the years that I remember that were special working with athletes, specifically. It's not the only thing that I do. I don't just work with athletes. One was when I came to work with a very known football soccer European football player, the top of the game, played in Barcelona. And I asked him, what do you want to do? First question. When we met and he said, I want to enjoy the game again. That was one occasion I remember, and I shook his ass and said, "Let's go." Second is with Christian, where he told me before hiring me, it's not about winning for me. It's a spiritual journey. It's not about the NFL, it's not about this. Maybe I get injured the first game, and he's been injured before and he knows, so it's exactly what you said. It's already touching things underneath the athlete, the mover, the person, and it's important for our lives. He's a parent. He's a person in this world and we are not addressing those things. We don't have license for parenthood. We're a product of people who didn't have license for parenthood, and this is a missing practice. All religions try to, all religions represents practice. This is what they offer. It's not just a belief in XYZ, but there is always practices involved, like fasting, like not speaking certain words, like not doing certain things, right? Those are representative practices, also spiritual traditions, also various systems, various martial arts, various yogic systems. They're all practical. The word practice encompasses all of this. It's a huge word. It's almost a word life. It's a huge word, it's a word bigger than religion, even, because it contains the world of religion. For me, that was why I do what I do. If I found something better, I would have done that. Yeah, it's like you're helping these guys unplug from the matrix, right? It's like a big perspective shift to not just want to optimize something simple, something too dimensional, but you're just really expanding it into something that's on a whole other level. You guys are reading hard texts, philosophical stuff, maybe doing hard math problems. When it comes down to physicality stuff, what types of things do you like to work on in regards to that, or are there any kind of, for example, is there one thing you do every single day, or is every day something different? Both. There are the components which are daily addressed because of the demands of the specific practice. For example, certain connective tissue work that we do, not so much muscular work directly, but how do you thicken connective tissue, joint capsules, tendon, fascia, all these stuff? How do you really build these guys up? This is a daily thing that we've been doing. Here are the practices that are not known so much in the West here, and we're trying to take strength and conditioning and bend it into that reality. But in reality, it's not that suitable for it. People try to do, for example, isometric holds mentioning the effect over tendons. Isometrics, statics, when you hold a position under load, you're not moving dynamically. Right. It's true that it has certain effect over the connective tissue, but this is also still sets and reps and time under tension. It's affected by the original state of mind of a strength and conditioning coach. I went a bit wider and so able to bring practices from raw climbing to the ballet dancers, to the fighters, from the fighters to the football players and move this stuff between somatics and so this is an example of a daily thing that is needed. Strength and conditioning needs to be programmed. That's part of what I do. We do power work, strength and conditioning. We use a variety of tools for that. You cannot build someone's explosiveness, for example, for football without weights. You need it. It's not going to happen by doing, you know, pistol squats or calisthenics. You need to load the posterior chain, you need to develop, you need to develop in high speed duration. You need to be able to deal with very fast ascentrics, very fast negatives. Also skate borders, by the way, which are horribly prepared for what they do by design. Yeah. They just do it because there are some, and that's why I love skate borders. Exactly. There are artists, but they also sacrifice a lot of their bodies because of the lack of professionality that is not there yet. It starts in such places. Yeah. It is. By the way, I kind of meet a lot of skateboarders, Hubermann is one. So we had on the latest podcast that I recorded a few weeks ago, we talked a lot about skateboarding. He asked me a question about a weird quality that I mention often. He's not so often mentioned here, called air sense, the ability to perceive where you are in space when you're flying through the air. And you know, like those elite skate borders, they have this keen sensation of where they are. Yeah. I don't know how far you went in your practice with skateboarding. Did you do high ramps and? I didn't do much ramp stuff, I mainly did like jumping off of huge, huge, loading dogs and downstairs cases and stuff like that. And now that I'm older, I'm doing more of just like that thing out there, that mini ramp. Yeah. I just, you know, what stopped me was injuries. I probably sprained my ankle a dozen times and that's so you know a thing or two about this air sense. Yeah. Or lack thereof. Yeah. Sometimes. I wasn't working as an acrobat, you know, a length of time. And so there is this quality, which you sometimes you cannot predict like a person is very coordinated, looks great as long as they touch the ground. Yeah. That the moment they're in the air, rolling down the windows, you know, like, whoa, where am I? Yeah. You can sit on trampoline work, you can sit in in big ramps and skateboarding. So this is a quality that how do you, how do we develop it? And you can develop it. There are practices to work on it, to enhance it. For example, nowadays, skateboarders work a lot with pits, with gymnastics pits, big ramps into gymnastics pits, foam pits and all kinds of tools that trampoline work is very useful. There is even spotted string work like from the world of circus where you have these strings like suspending you in certain harnesses, yeah, so there is a way in. There is always a way to develop and not just kind of saying, yeah, I don't have that. So I gravitated towards, you know, a different part of the practice because I couldn't do it. Yeah. There is a way to do it. Yeah. 100%. Man. And I think, I think probably vision has a lot to do with it as well. Huge. I mean, I've seen stuff that, you know, other like super high level athletes, like football players, specifically the receivers, the guys who catch the ball, like they do all kinds of crazy work with, you know, like bouncing balls off walls and catching them and like working with peripheral vision, trying to do things where they can like do simultaneous zones of awareness where they're trying to pay attention to what's happening out here while focusing on what's happening here and like doing like, we're doing a lot of this stuff as well. Oh, really? Also, these last weeks, and we've had also a Christian brother, Luke, who is a wide receiver for Washington. And so we did a lot of this stuff. And yeah, this is very important, huge part of it. The use of the eyes, the use of peripheral vision, dominant eye and also working on the non-dominant size. Closing an eye and trying to do something. Yeah. Having certain implements that are closing parts of your vision or field of view, there is all kinds of things. I feel like that's such a fundamental part of everything that you do when you move is your vision and how you, how you picture yourself in the world. You're very correct. Even when I'm moving my neck right and left and my eyes are secading, moving on the horizon, the quality of the smoothness of the eye movement will dictate the smoothness of my neck movement. Really? You can't be smooth if your eyes are not smooth. So it's not just training the eyes to see, it's training the eyes to be very smooth, not to be jumpy. Is that possible, of course? To move across and not, because I feel like your eyes stick on things the whole way. But and what happens if you, when you're staring out of a window of a car or a train, and you can shift your eyes to the details on the window. So if I'm watching my fingers and I'm opening them slightly to see the outside and you're moving it but you're watching the edge of your fingers, you'll be able to keep them smooth. So it's more the focused vision that keeps locking up. Yes. But when you open up, you can. You can gain a default. You know what I've always noticed about like incredible athletes, like for example, Michael Jordan or Tom Brady specifically, they have a very wide vision. Like their eyes are almost always pointed outwards. I don't know if you've ever looked at their faces, like find a photo of Michael Jordan. Like his like a picture of his face on the court or even Tom Brady, like when he's playing football, if you look at their eyes, they have like a crazy peripheral, peripheral vision. Like you, I mean, I would imagine how that would be super helpful, especially in basketball, to have like the full court vision to see wherever, be aware of like everything at one point. But I always found that very interesting about those guys in particular, also Kelly Slater, same thing with him. Interesting. The use of the peripheral is a lot about also to be able to trust it. What I encounter often is not a lack of peripheral vision. It is an inability to trust it. So you use your focus vision because you didn't trust that stain that you saw. Right. To react to it. Right. So I educate and create scenarios in which trust it. Go for it. That is a blur. That is a stain. Learn that it's enough. Don't focus on it because that will be too late. It's too slow. The peripheral vision is much quicker, much more sensitive to low light conditions. And even if you look in my eyes and don't move your eyes from my face, can you tell me what numbers do I have up there? I believe you have a for three, three on your right hand. Okay. And I think you have one on your other hand. Look at it. Two, you have two and three. And I tricked you here a little bit. You did trick there. But it's still so you can train to be able to pull that information even from the peripheral without moving your eyes. But you felt there was a limbic friction. You wanted to move your eyes and to find out. Yes. So it's about learning to trust it. It's so hard. It's a hard thing to train too. I feel like. We just trained it. And you were able to say it's three. So in reality, if you are in a military situation, hostage situation, or you're in a high speed football game, and you can trust that blur and say that's three and not move your eyes. You have an edge. Right. 100%. You found a photo of Michael Jordan, bro? Yeah. I mean, his eyes look normal to me, honestly. No, on the court, like playing. I don't know. I guess you I guess you just have to see a video. Like just like his eyes react. I don't necessarily think that you will see it from outside. Yes, there is. His eyes are not straight on. You can't. But it takes a certain photos. You really notice it. Yeah, but I don't think that it's necessarily connected to the peripheral vision, but it's interesting that that you look at Tom Brady. Look at the close up of Tom Brady. Just type in type in Tom Brady. Tom Brady eyes. Try that. Yeah. Okay, eyes. Try to find. I mean, look, go up. Go up. Look at that. No, the GQ one on the top. Up, up middle right there. No, not that one. Go back down to the left very far left underneath the one of him in the red shirt. No, no, no, to the left left, left, left, left, right there. Yes. Okay. Punch it on that. Yeah, I mean, you can. There is. Yeah. You can kind of see like he's got a wide. You see it more when he's playing football when he's like on when he has his helmet on and he's like on the field, but like, you know, if you have a guy running that way, a guy running that way, moving at different angles and they all have defenders on him, you kind of like have to be trained to be able to do what I just tried to do. See the three in the one and the two. Yeah. Or catching balls from, you know, or sticks or we do it with a variety of things. Or sometimes I do something else. I ask the person to map with a with a glimpse. One glimpse. You have to map the scenario. Then it's taken away from you. And now you have to do it. So for example, I did it a few weeks ago where I we were in a tennis court and I threw three tennis balls and they stopped in certain positions on the court. And I say, look, now blind folded him, go pick them up in a whole open tennis court. And by memory, yeah, it's not by memory. It's by mapping, spatial mapping. Like when I entered this room, for example, I was in the launch in the in the how you call it, the lounge, the lounge, the hanger. This hanger, it still exists inside of me now. It's mapped. Yeah. I know how to get out. I know where the door is. I know where the toilet is. Yeah. So this whole thing is actually constructed, simulated by us without us even noticing. And similarly, our body is also constructed inside of us. There is these scammers simulations of ourselves, the peripersonal space, which is even a bigger sphere, not just my body, and spatial scammers and even social scammers. So you kind of know where you are in society, right? Like culturally. And all these simulations are like coming together in our in us to create the us. Yeah, 100%. That's very interesting. So you can work. And you can. So by placing this, it's not just memory, but it's let's see how detailed your simulation is. I put the balls and then go pick them up. And it was amazing. There was like eight steps, bends down, picked the ball. Yeah. Four steps to the right. This was Christian. Yeah. Christian. And so it was it was very accurate compared to other people. Yeah. I don't remember exactly the scenario that we did, but that was something like that. How much do you think people like him, or people like Connor, or whoever the person might be, whoever the super athlete might be on their level? How much of that ability that you're describing is genetic versus trained, or how much of it is is trainable, or is there like a limit? Because with him, it just seems like a natural, a natural thing he was born with. It's a natural thing to be born with maybe. And what about growing, growing up as a McAfry? Right. Did you forget that? Yeah, I did forget that. So, so you know what? How can all these McAfries be in the NFL? What? All them want the genetic lottery? For example, he's the shortest of the family. Is it really? And he looks different than everyone else. He still made it work. It doesn't look like it's very different. Yeah, it looks different. Interesting. He's very different to his dad, or his brothers. And they're all a bit different. You know what I see there more? I told you. It's not so much in the genetics or in the body. It's in the cultivation. It's in the environment. It's in the practice which you grew up in playing baseball, basketball, playing football with a dad who was obsessed, right? Like with these things and he told me crazy stories about growing up there. And on top of it, of course, there is a good genetic pool there. Sure. You know, they're also gifted in that regard. I don't like the genetic question so much because I feel it moves us away from practice. Instead, I prefer to ask, how should I practice to improve? Not. Is this genetic or not genetic? That goes to the comparison. Can I make it as a professional skateboarder or not? Yeah. Here is my beef. And here is why I like skateboarding or parkour or brake dancing. Some kid is born somewhere with a polio disease. But he wants to be a gymnast. Can he be a gymnast? I guess he really tried hard and worked hard at it. No. They're wrong. It's impossible. Gymnastics he cannot do. Why is that? Because he has polio disease. He can cure polio, right? You cannot cure. I'm talking about the situation where his legs are paralyzed. Yeah, he has a certain paralysis. He cannot do gymnastics. What happens now? This kid becomes the greatest brake dancer in the world because his legs are lighter a little bit. And he does these crazy tricks. You've seen them and he makes millions more than any gymnast does. Is this the only thing? Yeah. You have fun. You have fun. You have fun in the sky. There is a million of them these days already. He used his YouTube paralyze. Yeah, just like you know, the legs are atrophied. They're with scratches. But then they're so light. He leans into his hands. His legs are floating. So why do I don't like the standardization of humans, which we've saw where it goes in our history, that is still happening in professional sports. Olympic sports. You got to be born to the right parents and in the right skin color to be in the the 100 million dollars. final endolympics. Yeah. It's just the reality. So, okay, what about if I wasn't? So then there is these new phenomenons like skateboarding where you can find a way. It's not one way. There is an art to it. There is an openness to it. And also limiting factors, I feel like motivate people to do things. Also, you know, and I love that. Instead of being blocked, you're never going to do gymnastics. Because your legs are, you know, or your elbow does not straighten. You cannot do gymnastics. Right. You can't, you know, you know, people that cannot fully lock the elbow, you cannot do gymnastics. You're not going to get anywhere. There's this guy I follow on Instagram. I can't remember his name right now. Steve, you're going to have to look him up. He's a blind skateboarder, completely blind. And he rips harder than anyone I know on a skateboard. He rides a half pipe, a huge half pipe. And he, he does things I couldn't fathom doing completely. Love it. It's incredible. And he even brings the stick with him on the ramp. I love it. It's good. This is what I'm saying. So for me, this is a lot more about movement and our humanity coming back. And now you can even make a fucking living from it. Yeah. And with Instagram and with YouTube. And that's the positive side of these things. And the Dan, the man. This guy skates a half pipe. Go to his page. That is also great. What did you do? Yeah, this is definitely cool. There's Anthony Ferraro Brett Devloo. Just type in, just type in blind skateboarder, half pipe. See what comes up. That might be him on the second, free out right there. With the help putting the helmet on. This might be him. Click on that. Yeah. I'm not sure if this is him or not. You saw how he felt that edge there? Yeah. Yeah. He uses it like a stick like a blind man's stick. That's a giant vert ramp too. That's like a 12-foot vert ramp. He's on. Well, man. Look at the confidence. The speed he moves through the edge. Incredible. This isn't the guy I was talking about. The guy I was talking about somebody different, but that's still super impressive to be able to do something like that. That's what I'm saying. You know, like maybe if this guy wasn't blind, he wouldn't be so motivated. You know, probably he probably would, but there's like, there's a good chance if he wasn't blind, he wouldn't be making videos of himself skating a vert ramp. You know, if he was naturally given, if he was born with this ability just to be good at doing this, he might not take it so seriously or he might not be that interested in it. Right. She's something else to examine. Do we need that or can we do our best without that? Yeah. Before I started this podcast, I had never talked in front of a camera or never done anything like this at all. I was just a cinematographer shooting videos and documentaries and trying to make things look cool visually, editing stuff and shooting stuff. Never once thought about completing a sentence on my own, you know, and having people like listen to me and like judge me for how smart or dumb I sound. And then like when we started doing this in 2016, 2017, I could barely form a sentence. You know, I had probably, I hadn't done much reading. I didn't, I was ignorant to so much about history to so many different subjects. And then like starting to learn stuff and starting to have more conversation with people and trying to actually connect with people and have a flowing conversation, it's been like a crazy learning experience. And I'm still terrible at it, but it's, you know, it's a lot like the whole nature of this conversation, like starting things that you have never tried and that you're awful at and trying to develop that stuff. And it's also things that you're naturally not good at. I love it. I think in essence, you're using the situation. You're using the podcast instead of being used by it, which I often is what I see. And it's not just about the success of the podcast. This is the core thing. What are you going to take on with you from here? You're not going to do this forever. So what are you going to take from this? And even if you do this forever, what do you take from here from that doing? That should be a practice. It should, it is a practice. Already. It's just about recognizing it. And the second thing is there is a lot more, don't find what you're good at and do that. That's cool. Everybody knows that. But my offering is find what you suck at because there you have a lot more for you, not for what society puts you in under that thing. It's like, oh, he's great. But what does he care? People, you know, people come and tell me like, oh, you're great. Oh, you did this. You affected me in this was I feel nothing. I feel nothing. This hasn't, this doesn't touch me. Really? Of course. Well, where am I in this? Where am I? You're great. You're great. You can do this. You can do that. You have no idea. Sometimes people, you know, present me in a podcast. The greatest experts about the greatest expert in human movement or whatever, and if I am, what do you know about it? You need to be an expert yourself to know if I'm an expert or not. So it's a it's this lie that we keep joining in as like you lift me. He's like, okay, you nasima introduced me. So I'm here. And now I'm lifted by you. And then the next person brings me in. Yeah. The people that try to do that kind of stuff are the ones that are trying to compensate for a lack of something that internally, you know, I agree. I agree. The the people that I always say like the people who brag about getting the most girls or the people that brag about being able to beat anybody up are the ones that are the opposite is probably true. Beautiful. And that's why I often see in fighters, the ones who end up in martial arts like me are weak. My father, he never went to martial art because he was strong. He was confident. He had fist fights. He had this and he didn't need to go to martial. I felt weak. So I found myself in martial art. Right. Most of these fighters are that way. They come from a place of being abused, being bullied. It's a common thing that keeps repeating. But then the other recognition is I don't have to pursue this anymore. To be able to understand it's okay. It was part of my journey. But I don't need to continue to pursue it. Or feeling dumb. So people pursue, you know, crazy careers in mathematics, in physics, whatever. From one experience in primary grade where they couldn't get it and everybody else got it. And now they're dumb for the rest of their life. Yeah. That's another thing that goes into, you know, that's baked into our culture too, is just the, like academia and science and, and, you know, all of these scientific pursuits, there is this built-in competitiveness to it where they all want to be smarter than the other one. And they all want to beat them on the hierarchy. And they're just like in this very, very shallow, like two-dimensional game that they're playing. It's all, it all boils down to the same thing. It's all ego. I feel like at some level for most of this stuff. Even for like jujitsu, like when I started doing jujitsu, I was, you know, I was heard this story is like, oh, you know, you kind of like lose your ego. You realize that you're helpless. And it's like, you know that anyone can take you out. Anyone can take you down. Even a kid who a 16-year-old can do this to you. And, and you're, you're helpless. And I'm like, oh, wow, interesting. I get in it. All those guys have the biggest ego. Oh, my God. I'm so happy, you say it. Because I often need to, I need to, I'm, I'm, look, I've never, I've never seen, well, not never. But I don't need to take my shoes off to count the number of times. Working with a fighter who actually uses fighting as a practice for themselves, a spiritual journey. It's often mentioned in all these beautiful clips, the Samura, and the one, it's like fucking bullshit. This is, this is the biggest crime. Because it's not, it's okay if you keep silent and you just do your thing and maybe you know you're corrupted in that way. And you fight to be a showman. You fight for the sense of strength over others. But then to claim it's a spiritual journey. Come on. It's not a spiritual journey for you. It's clear to everyone who you are, the persona, the ego, the pursuit, etc. And, you know, even the belt system, you know, the belt system is of course, of course. Yeah. And if you look back at the belt system, you know, work, you know, how it evolved and, you know, also the need to give you that to pull you in. You get this belt and then this belt and then this belt. There is, there's like Scientology, it's like a cult. Yeah. Yeah. And stay longer. You're going to get, you're going to get the black belt soon. Yeah. So it, like some people in BJJ, they stay for like three, four years beyond the point that they were. would have quit just to get the black belt. - Right. - It's a such a common thing. And then they get the black belt they quit. - Yeah. - So it's so strange. - You just sold four years of your life, it's like, for what? - Ridiculous. This happens everywhere. It's not BJJ, it's not just martial arts, it's everywhere. You're being pulled by these forces and it's not about you, it's not about us. - Yeah. - So for me, it was a big thing of like, wait, what is it for me here? - You're great, you're great, doesn't it? - Or working on stage and seeing the audience or you know, or being popular or making the money or whatever it was. I was like, there is nothing here for me. I'm left with nothing. I'm playing other people's games. You said before the matrix, but this is another matrix. It's not the matrix, you know, it's not the inner matrix, but it is an outer matrix, which is clear. So it's almost the job, the obligation of the practitioner to be a renegade. - I like it because it enhances other parts of my life. You know, if I do like a hard jujitsu session and it really kills me, the rest of my day feels so much better. And I'm uplifted. You know, this might be, you know, the wrong way of looking at it for about for me, it's useful because it puts me in a great mood. It makes me feel like I did something and it enhances different things like it enhances cardio. I feel better after I do my cardio. And I don't know, I feel like things like jujitsu with things like, not necessarily skating, but definitely podcasting different things like this. They spread out into other aspects of my life and they enhance all those, right? It's not just one specific lane that's mutually exclusive to that thing, which is what I really like about it. And I like, like when Enceema was here, he was explaining to me a bunch of things with jujitsu, like when it comes to breathing and all that stuff. And he's like, I like to compete against myself in this way where like, I go, when I roll with somebody, I try to go as long as I can without breathing through my mouth. I'm just like, see how long I can go. Don't worry about anything else, like do whatever you can do and then just focus on not breathing through your mouth and see if you can last longer than that guy. And it's just, it's like a competition against yourself, not necessarily like this strength or technique thing. Beautiful, very, very much in line with how I do things. When I was rolling and we're using a lot of counts, for example, so instead of doing that with the mouth, you can maintain a certain breath count that you cannot break. Like four seconds, inhale, four seconds, exhale. Oh, wow. And you're, oh my God. But you'll be able to do it with someone who is maybe lighter or maybe, you know, and that's a great practice. It's a great practice and you get something for you. Yeah. You know what? I'll tell you something else. Don't tell the other person. Right. Don't tell anyone. Don't do charity and then tell anyone. Right. Even more for yourself. Keep some things just for yourself. Yeah, and that's a cool way too to get your mind off like that vibration, like normal, like this could be true for football or martial arts or whatever. Like if you're doing what you're doing, say, let's say football, like my goal is to run the ball across that line and get seven points or six points, whatever it is. Instead, if you can think about it, like my goal is to do this many breaths between the 50 yard line and the one yard line or something like that and you're now kind of measuring your success based on something completely different. I wonder what kind of effect that would have. Beautiful overall picture. I love it. Great, great ideas. And this is exactly the state of mind of a practitioner or even within this conversation right now. I'm already using a similar theme. For example, there are certain expressions that I don't wish to come about or, for example, a certain expression of negativity that I don't wish it to be present or I don't want it to control me. Maybe I'm tired or my stomach is a bit noisy or something. I want to be in charge here. So in this sense, you can practice it. For example, don't frown. You do this a lot. But not in a frowning way, in an expression of wanting to understand that you can play with it. You can try all kinds of things. And these are practices, these are things. When I work with athletes here in the US, they have this thing, fucking dumbass, to themselves. You know that thing? When they fail, I'm like, one of the first things that I do here, when I start to work with someone, I don't want to see an expression of frustration. My job is to make you frustrated. Your job, don't show me any expression of frustration. - Yeah, that's a task. - That's a task. And doing that, it's exactly what you offered. These amount of breath until that you align and it's like you play a double game and what happens, growth inside, release, development. All kinds of things, not just directly in the corrupted way. I become a better athlete, but much deeper than that. That's very interesting and associating. It's interesting what you said about like frowning or anything like that. It's very interesting how different physiological things you can do with your face or with your body or with your posture can affect your mind and your mood. They are glued together. Yeah. Try to inflate your chest. - Try. - And inflate? Yeah, like me, like that position. No, no, no, keep breathing, but just hold this position. Try to locate humility inside. - Right. - It's hard. - It's not easy. - It's not easy to. Or if you're collapsing down the shoulders and you slurder, try to locate confidence. - They're attached. - Or if you look down. - Yeah. - They're fused together. - Yeah. Of course, we can separate them again. We can uncouple them, the posture from the emotion, from the state, but it's something that can be used, like when you get hit in fighting and boxing, you put on a smile, little smile for yourself, not for him, for yourself, to calm yourself down 'cause the moment you soften here and the corners of your eyes and the corners of your mouth stretch towards the ears, even the pre-smile immediately something changes inside. - It's very interesting how that works. - So this can be practiced. Those are great observations that you have. And I'm sure that your ability to glimpse those things and to make them intelligible for yourself are a big part of your life and the way that you do things, because it's not so often that I hear it from people. - How much do you guys focus on, because I know I've heard a lot from people how breathing through the nose is very important and you shouldn't breathe through your mouth, and especially when it comes to very taxing, physical activities that are cardio intensive. How much do you guys focus on that? I know also belly breathing I've heard is very important and when you're moving, how your breath should be synchronized with your movements. For example, exhaling on effort and things like that. - So there is a bunch of stuff in here. There is some good stuff, but there is a lot of bullshit as well, like put together there, oversimplified stuff in essence that it's easy to conceptualize, you know? Like, okay, here you go. 30 second clip on Instagram. Breeze through the nose or chest breathing is like creating panic, all this stuff. And of course, you're part of the BJJ community, so you've had that effect from Rickson and trickling down and all these mentions I know where they come from. But there is some truth there. There is also, the breath is extremely versatile for a good reason. We should be able to adapt the breathing to whatever situation we do, including this situation right now when I'm talking to you and my breath is in line with it. So I don't stop to all of a sudden, or if now we go into a sprint or into a fight or whatever it is. So guess what? If breathing through the mouth was bad, evolution wouldn't have allowed that to be. - There's a time for it. - There is a time for it and there is a time for everything. So it's oversimplified things that are, and then we can practice and you can notice you're breathing through the mouth all the time. And that is where it comes from. And then to breathe through the nose helps and one of the, of course, in the yogic breathing, there is a lot of practice of that alternate nostrils, bringing the air from different cavities from the mouth. And eventually, if you really look deeper, breath is not about the physical breath. breath is about a different process altogether. The word for breath work, the ancient word Pranayama, does not mention breath really, it is about Pranay, you know what Pranay is right? Chi, you know the word Chi, Chi, Chi, energy, Chi, yeah, it's the same, the same word. So there is so much adaptability and depth to breath work, I think it is still in early stages of understanding in the West. I didn't go to the Western sources so much to learn this, I went more to the Eastern sources where there is a whole world there that opens up. But it's useful for you to pay attention to nose breathing, mouth breathing, to pay attention to how you manage it. Belly breathing created for example, is it created more issues than helped? Really, yeah, extremely oversimplified thing where there is already a displacement, a breaking of the proper posture. The diaphragm is the primary breath apparatus, you know the diaphragm? Yeah, they make things that you can put in your mouth, that you can like adjust how hard it is to breathe through your mouth and you're like we're supposed to strengthen your diaphragm, like tools to do that. Not a fan of those as well, but yeah, there is a lot of methods to do this, by the way, Nassim, I gave him a practice of breathing less time we met, he asked me. And I told him, you don't need those implements by a watering hose and put the edge of the green hose in a bucket of water, take the other edge and make bubbles. It's all the methods, the bubbles in the bucket, do it for a period of time and then from that he started to go into digery, do and all kinds of esoteric sides of cyclical breath and there is a lot there to discover. Yeah, but anyway, so when everything works well and the diaphragm is in a natural scenario, the posture maintains a certain position, the rib cage, the pelvis, and then you don't push the abdominal wall out and in. And this belly breathing is an attempt to move the diaphragm, but it's actually creates a distortion often times. It has a place, but it has again over being oversimplified. Maybe what I'm saying will not be so quickly and easily understood by people, but maybe it will open a path to investigate further and I advise. Yeah, well, my general understanding of it was that maybe not so much to do with a diaphragm breathing, but like when you are like moving heavy loads that when you're to protect your spine, that if you breathe out when you are putting in the effort, it is safer or like. If you breathe out too much, you will deflate that support. So it's a breathe out to a certain extent and maintaining pressurization. Imagine now you need to lift the fridge. Right, right, right. It's not going to work. So to breathe out again, it's oversimplified. And sometimes it's not so easily understood and people make until even with a little level athletes, I see that they don't know how to breathe well as per the scenario. When I say breathe well, there is no right way. There is a right way per the scenario. If the scenario is to sit now in stillness and meditate, there is a certain breathing. If there is if I'm here in podcast, talking for two hours, there is a different type of breathing. If I'm lifting heavy loads, different type of breathing. If I if somebody is neon belly on me, different type of breathing. Yeah, for sure. So you were talking about how you just a minute ago, how you studied like Eastern sources to learn a lot of this stuff. Where specifically, so were you reading like like old yogi texts and stuff like this to try to learn and digest some of this stuff originally? Like, where did you have any kind of mentors that taught you this? Was it all self taught? How much of it? All of the above. Yeah, I've been reading a lot from a young age, different sources, the East, from the West, philosophy, and also teachers that I've met along the way. Big influence on me, my teacher, David, David Malcha, who is a yogi, and he sent me down the path of a lot of this, and I went to China, I went to India, I went in Europe, I was in Russia many times researching and getting little pieces and trying to understand more from a young age. And I've started also to teach very young, I'm celebrating, I've celebrated this year, 30 years of teaching. Wow. So I've started early on and that was also a big part because I didn't know what I was doing. So I had to bring some stuff and so I devoted a lot of time to study, not just to the practice. Did you study like how many different cultures have you looked into that are doing this kind of stuff? Like is it mainly like the Eastern cultures or have you looked into like different everything, everything that I could, including, you know, I spent many years in Brazil, I was, I, I, I did Kapoeira for many years, 17 years, I was Kapoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art. Okay. That is a whole cultural 600 year old, weird phenomenon. So I can speak Portuguese fluently, I spent many years in Brazil studying that, so that was one side, the South America, the Shamanism, this whole thing was always there, you know, Candomble, the religion there, the Afro-Brazilian religion. And then I spent a lot of time also in the East, I work closely, I do also movement design for movies. So I worked with Bollywood, the Bollywood industry, so I've had the, the opportunity to be taken around and to be shown and, and movement design, I've never heard that. Yeah, nowadays, you know, you got a character, like, you know, some superhero. So Superman, everybody knows Superman, but you know, how, if you got a new character, how, how does he fly, how does he manipulate or, for example, the movie I worked with, he is manipulating fire. So who's responsible for them? How do that character manipulate fire? The actor doesn't know shit about this nowadays. The originally actors came from physical theater. It was first grounded in the physicality, but it became much more about the face and expression and vocalization, and a lot less about the body. So movement design is designing the motion of the, so do you work with the actors of these movies to do this stuff to get that ingrained into their brains? Yes. First we design the concept, the movement concepts, and then we train the actors, take care of their bodies, et cetera, and, and also this also touches the stunt people, it touches the directors, I worked with some of the greatest names in India that are. You know, people who cannot walk on, walk on the street and was, was amazing experience. And that gave me also access to various things in the, in the East. Yeah. I went to China. I come from martial arts background. So I research a lot in the martial arts and have a look and have, have the fortune of having friends in a variety of places. So there is a lot of weird practices there in China, in China. I was in Russia multiple times studying the Soviet methods, and I spent a lot of time in Germany. In Germany, there is a whole host of things in Europe, the old methods out of France, Swedish gymnastics, esoteric systems from the West, hermatics, all kinds of things that over the years, just, I'm passionate about this. So I think you as well, from seeing your little library out there. Yeah. Out of all those cultures that you've, that you spent time with, which one was the most interesting to you, or which one kind of, maybe not the most interesting, maybe that's the wrong word. Which one kind of like shocked you the most, or like, change your perspective the most. Recently, in recent years, I've had the chance to go to Indonesia. And this is right now the most fascinating thing. And I believe it is the most fascinating place on the planet for me right now, which still contains so many unknowns. I, we did an expedition to these ancient people there and stayed with them. There is a lot of new life forms that are being discovered there still, weird practices. Even the religion, various religions and various dialects are very interesting, weird combinations. There is a lot of trans states, not a lot of psychedelics. Trans, yeah. Working with trans. How does that work? Yeah, it's, well, it can be facilitated in all kinds of ways, but the weird thing that it happens, they're very naturally without much needed. Wow. Yeah, it just kicks in. That's why there is no drugs and it's just a powerful place and a powerful people still connected to something. Even the common people, you still feel this flavor underneath the surface. Or kinds of things that also came out of these ancient kingdoms that still were together India, Thailand and there is a lot of stuff from the cultural revolution, from China that escaped. Certain practitioners escaped. So that has been the latest thing and I'm there every year. Do you think there's, do you think there's something different, like you've been to the Amazon rainforest? I have. What you just explained with Indonesia and the people there and the type of states they can achieve and even with people in the Amazon compared to people who live in society over here, like compare that to New York City, do you think there's something about being in those locations surrounded by nature that maybe opens up the human possibilities even more, like the senses or I feel like I've always felt like there's, what happens when you put people in this electrical grid surrounded by buildings and this Wi-Fi and Waymos and screens everywhere, I feel like there's a limit, it limits human potential in a way that's kind of hard to, it's kind of hard to articulate exactly how that happens. But I feel like there's something that happens like maybe it dulls our senses a little bit more because I've heard stories of people that go to play, like the way you just described it to me, I've had many people describe to me how when they go to places like this, it kind of like it broadens their senses where they can, they can sort of, they can pull more out of nature and they kind of like sense more, there's more of an like a native intuition that comes out of them. 100% and it's also very similar, you're right about the Amazon and Indonesia and these ancient cultures, if I'll show you afterwards some pictures and it looks very similar, it's, and I think what is often not understood about this process, first you go to, you go to a certain place, sometimes it's about being in the place. Forgive me for, you know, the weekend ayahuasca ceremony is in Miami, you know, but sometimes you go to a place, it's not only about the shaman, it's not about, it's about the place, there is vibration, there is emanation, there is a space, there is a smell and more importantly, it's not a jail breaking, a hard change, which we sometimes expect. I went there, nothing happened. You didn't go there, to go there, you have to go there and to go there means desensitizing. Yes. I can't taste a fucking tomato, I'm eating McDonald's, so the tomato is perceived plastic flavor, tomatoes are sweet, people cannot feel the taste of a tomato. So once you step away from all this stuff and you gain a bit of distance, you start to hear the whispers around. Yes. That is so powerful that by the, it starts with something very small, it's almost like a little touch that you don't notice is there, but it gains momentum. And then the real demons come out and it's a very powerful thing, so this is something that happens and that's why I take people into those places also to practice. So we do these events and we bring people into that because it's part of the experience, it's part of the change, I cannot reach a critical mess, transforming something without sometimes stepping out of this place. I do it also with athletes, I'll take an athlete, have serious issues, cannot change, cannot take him, fly somewhere, private jets, whatever is needed, put every resource you can behind it or coming back different, stripping away all these comforts, all these little things, arriving there, you fly on a private jet, but then arriving there into hell, you know? Yeah. But it's needed. Yeah. And there's something to be said about, you know, walking barefoot through the forest in South America, surrounded by millions of heartbeats of insects to the monkeys, to the jaguars, everything else, knowing that there's eyeballs on you, 360. And you know, just from like the patterns, the way the winds blowing, the patterns that the birds are chirping in, the way the insects sound, the way, you know, hearing the river. And you know, like something about that, I feel like it unlocks something deep inside us that is kind of like, it is degraded when you're in a city, you know what I mean? And you know, I imagine it's probably got to be, it's going to be way different and it's going to shape not just the way you think, or like the vibration that you're on, but it will like shape your physical body, trying to move through an area like that as well, you know, like trying to get a workout in in the forest. Like, what are you going to do? You're going to climb a tree, you're going to swim through the Amazon river, you know? Yeah. Yeah. The concept of a workout becomes ridiculous all of a sudden or, or, but you know, you mentioned all this environment, but at the same time, switch the scenario, desert. Oh, yeah. And you'll also get a crazy, really, crazy experience. What's the feeling in desert? You're drowning. That's weird. Like, it's the open spaces, lack of water, you feel like you're underwater, you're suffocating, it's claustrophobic, it's open, it's, and there is something there. The people of the desert, the bad winds, you know, that my grandfather, he, he is a Africa. He came from Africa, from North Africa and he was a Berber, the desert people, like the Freeman in Dune, you know? Oh, yeah. Different people, special people, different connection, the eyes cannot focus, dunes. So you go into this peripheral state. Wow. And yeah, we have built, constructed the cities and now there are prison. We are in this cement jungle that is imprisoning us and we're not supposed to see these straight lines, barely straight lines, imagine the forms. People talk about taking drugs and seeing all these shapes, but geometric stuff. But start, just change the geometry around you. In nature, you immediately change the state of mind. You immediately change the state of the use of the eyes. When you walk in the jungle, you don't use focused vision, 90% of the time. And 10% of the time use peripheral vision, like we do when we're driving or something. It's exactly the opposite. Most of the time, you're peripheral. And then something draws your attention, like a movement there. You watch, oh, it's a bird. Then you go back to peripheral. You don't study every leaf on the tree. Right. Exactly. So it's like touching it with your palms versus your fingertips. Beautiful. And what I have observed, this invaded our anatomy. Now our movement forms are these straight lines, yoga. How can this be an ancient practice? Look at the poses. Nothing looks like this in traditional cultures. Look at the dances in Africa, look at the shapes, look. That is a lie. That is a lie. That is not an ancient practice. And when you investigate deep, you discover that's not the real yoga, the ancient yoga. That was a yoga fabricated for the Westerner, who came in. It was affected a lot by Swedish gymnastics and the English being in India. And all of this. There are great works. There is a book called The Yoga Body that goes into this, breaks a lot of illusions for people about how ancient it is, that modern postural yoga that we often pursue. That's interesting. And this is in everything. This is in everything that we do. And the skateboard is a bit too linear. The board itself, it's not linear, right, but it is a bit too linear. And later in the recent years, there has been better attempts to not try to do that, why the skateboard is linear, because it got to communicate with straight ground, which doesn't exist in nature. You barely have a situation where there is a straight ground. Yeah, that's true. The same for the human food. Mm-hmm. Well, I mean. I mean, like, it seems so unnatural, but in the big picture, it's natural in the sense that this is human. This is evolution. This is, you know, the first technology was fire. And now we have space lasers. - Correct. - The problem is with the word natural, which means absolute shit. Everything is natural. - Everything is natural. This is natural. Viruses being genetically manipulated in labs. That's natural. - That's natural. The word I'm not using this word, I'm often confused with this word. Natural movement guy. No, that's not what I do. Because the word is meaningless and it's dangerous word. It's a word of snobs. In order to go beyond, you must go through. You're not gonna go back. So I'm not the guy going back to nature. I love skateboarding, but I just mentioned. Let's not forget also that side. It's supposed to create some kind of an interaction with a straight surface or relatively smooth surface. By the way, surfing is very different in that regard. Many people placed them very close to each other, but they're very different in many ways as you know. Also movement wise, they're very different. State of mind wise, they're very different. - Yes. - Surfers versus skaters, very different people. - Yes. Well, there is a lot of overlap in the people for sure, but the physical aspect of it is a completely different thing for sure. - And there is an overlap because it's kind of a way when there is no waves. - Yes. - But there is also a very different psychology. - Different psychology. - Yeah. - I just met a big, a big wave surfer working with Christian. He's a good friend, Luca. Luca Padua, I believe his name. He's a young kid. Leard Hamilton took him in. - Oh really? - Soymem surfing when he was, you know, young, 13 years old and took him in. He came to practice with us. - That's a whole big wave surfing. It's completely different from surfing, totally. - So that it was so beautiful to see how he works the state, the animal, the archetypical animal compared to like football player. Compared to another person, was there was a professional soccer player. - Yeah. And that's another thing about, you know, going back to what we were saying earlier in this conversation about skateboarders, compared to like NFL players, right? There's like, there's no professionalism in it. Some of the best professional surfers in the history of the sport, in their primes, were in their early 20s, getting hammered every night, staying up all night, partying on no sleep, getting up, still drunk, slamming a beer, going out and winning a contest. You know, in like, you know, they're not athletes. They're not jokes, they're not athletes. - No, it's a drug. It's like surfing a wave like like that and like getting barreled on like a wave where there's three feet of water between you and the razor sharp reef below you and like people in the crowd screaming when you get spit out of that thing is a drug. That's, I feel like they're using it. - You didn't talk about yet the danger. - Sacrifice, it's a lie for death thing. So it takes a totally different state of mind. The sports person is a person of control. That person is often a person who is able to let go of control. It's more often in sports where you find a person who can control the environment. But when you go to the ocean, you don't control. - There's no control over it now. - It's a different way to control by letting go of the control. You gain a certain control. - Yeah, it's definitely super different. When you have, when the environment is in control and you just have to work with it and do your best 'cause there's never, there's no two waves that are the same. I mean, there are actually, there are, I mean, there's obviously depending on where you go, you can get very similar waves but for the most part, like everything is different. Like there's never two waves that are exactly the same. So you kind of have to adapt to the environment. And speaking of adapting, there was, which is kind of like in line with what we've been talking about. I had this woman on the podcast a couple years ago who was studying a culture, I believe in Indonesia, of these sea people that they live on the sea and they-- - With these boats. - On these boats, pirates, they spear fish. All they do is they hunt fish with spears and they can hold their breath for like, I think it was 10 minutes. They can go down with like 10 plus minute breath holes to go down and catch fish. And she believes, she studied them and she thinks they're evolving like in real time. She found out that they have like incredibly huge splines and like there's different traits. Like their feet are very wide, big, like, which is a very different adaptation than the Sherpas of Tibet or climbing those mountains. And that's very, very interesting. They have this red blood cell adaptation and they have this spleen adaptation. - Right. - But both of them have a capacity with oxygen, which is abnormal. - Yeah. - So it's very interesting, yeah. - Yeah, it is interesting to see how there's different humans all over earth that are so much different than each other, like adapting and evolving in different directions. - And evolving by different practices. We touch everything that we talked before that oftentimes people confuse. They see from the outside a certain practice that we do. And they take it from the perspective of one practice. And so, for example, from the place of strength and conditioning, they said this will do nothing. But then they don't realize it's a practice for the skin or it's a practice for the neurology. So the adaptation goes somewhere totally different about the general public has went down to these narrow attention spans and narrow. There is not even an attempt to understand. So there is a split almost in the world of real seeking still of depth and understanding and the other side, which thinks that they do it, but actually approach it from the superficial side. - Yes, yeah, a hundred percent. Hold that thought. I gotta pee real quick. - Go ahead. - We'll be right back, folks. I was just explaining to you how my hamstrings are super tight, but you said it's bad to loosen them. - It can be. It can be, in the sense that there is a reason. When people say usually, like my hamstrings are very tight and I can't seem to loosen them, even though they're trying to stretch them, there's a can of worms there that you don't wanna open up by forcing, repeating, just stretching. Why, why the hamstrings are tight? That's an investigation. It's a big thing to look into, but usually it's related to some kind of a protective mechanism that is kicking in to keep you safe. - Right, so take some other part, maybe like the back or something like that. - Correct. So in the past, I've jail-breaked some things and regretted it. - Oh, really? - Yeah. - On yourself. - Yeah, on myself and also on others, making the mistake, making a mistake. Like especially with the motivation and the work ethic and the harder you are, harder, hard worker, this is dangerous. So I'm not saying not to stretch them, but if you notice that they don't react to your stretching so easily and they are very tight, we should go back, you should go to another path to look at it. - Instead of just attacking it head-on. - Correct. - Right, that makes sense. Yeah, I've tried different things forever. It's been years, but I've like tried with sitting on or like foam rollers. - Not just foam rollers, but sitting on like tennis balls like under my hamstring and like putting a lot of weight on it to where it's almost like there's a knife sticking into it and different things like that. Different stretches, yoke, I've tried it all. And it's, you know, it's also like glued all the way down the hamstring. It's just like, if I move too much, I feel like my hamstring is literally going to explode. - If you move too much, - What do you mean? - If I move it in a specific way too much, right? Like if I bend down a time I shoes, I feel it big time. And it's a huge limiting factor for me. I feel like in everything. But yeah, I do need to explore that, figure out what that is. I feel like, and I've been told this too that like everything from like the way you sit, to even the way you walk, like the way you just walk down the street has a huge effect on, you know, like the balance of your muscles or how tight certain muscles will be like in your legs or different things like that. - Yeah, of course, you are what you do often. This is part of it, but there is even more primary things, like breathing, like every breath might be responsible for your tight hamstrings, which means 20,000 plus times a day, even when you're sleeping here. So for example, the certain breathing mechanics or, you know, got issues, the digestive issues can create all kinds of weird stuff happening. And yes, of course, you know, certain emotional states, looping thoughts, repeating thoughts. There is all kinds of things we don't notice. They're constantly there and they build up a lot of tension and issues in the body. - You were saying on, I forget what pie. I heard it, I saw a clip of you. You were explaining how you were doing a practice where you just decided to get up and walk down at this, it was in Tokyo. You decided to walk down the street in Tokyo and not touch another person. - In Hong Kong. - Hong Kong? - Similar. - You were just like jiving through people, like, acrobatics trying to-- - No, not acrobatics. It's just like what you said before, like you give yourself a little task and nobody knows. So I was just like making my way to this place every day. I had to go down, but it's packed. Hong Kong is like, you know? So, and just try not to touch anyone, which is very difficult in Hong Kong. - I bet. - So, you end up, you know? - Contorting all the depends ways. - Yeah, and just to show people like practice, there is the official practice, that gym. You set up a gym for yourself and it's a room of practice. We enter the room, but there is an unofficial practice that can happen maybe now under the table or, you know, when we're eating lunch or, you know, just before a meeting or any kind of thing because eventually practice is 24/7. So, that understanding is potent. So you can put it into your life, climbing stairs in certain ways. So whenever you have an opportunity to climb stairs, you do it in a certain way. Like, for example, not putting your foot deeper than the seam of your toes on the edge of the stair. - Like climbing with just your toes? - Yeah. - So you have to create this kind of a platform, right? Like, you can press with your toes, you know. And then the rest of your foot is hovering. So it strengthens that connection. - I'm gonna have to show you my toes after this podcast. I got some fucked up toes that really limits my movement. (laughing) - Is it because of injuries? Because of? - No, I just have, I think I inherited bunions from my mom. So I have really bad bunions on my feet. So like, my don't have, like, I'm not able to like, sprawl my toes out like very well. So it inhibits the way. And I have to like constantly compensate and think about how I'm walking. Because I know people like to talk, like, some people like, we'll walk duck footed. And that makes it worse. I've ever seen LeBron James's feet. My feet kind of look like his. Except I don't play basketball. And so I like consciously have to work worry about like, I'm always trying to like point my feet more forward and trying to maintain the proper posture and gait like when I'm walking for the like the health of my feet. And so I can keep doing shit when I get older. - It's, there is a lot you can do about it. First, it's good that you have all this awareness and understanding. I notice also the structure of your thumbs is very unique. So all these things are good to realize, but there is also a lot of structure of your thumbs. - Of your thumbs. - Yeah, I got fucking crazy thumbs. - I know, I saw. That's my job to see those things. So I immediately, the analysis goes on, how you walk, how you, you know. So there is a lot you can do about it, but the awareness of trying to walk straight is not always going to be enough. In most cases, it's not, why is it not straight? And again, that goes back and I'm creating more questions and answers, but I want to also give something real. Yeah, a lot of, a lot of the things that are happening in the day to day to bring awareness to them is powerful, but immediately to try to change them, not as powerful. Funny. We are trying to change them is not as powerful. - Yes, immediately to try to change them. So for example, with your walk, try instead of straightening your feet forward, just try to pay attention to your walk. Don't change anything. You'd be surprised if you actually do that for a while, every time you walk, simply take the observer seat. Don't change anything and try to, would give you more, something that the world may be, most of the world is not ready to yet understand. For those who understand, it would be gold. - Interesting. So just not consciously trying to make any changes, just pay attention to what you're naturally doing. - Correct. And this is true for a lot of other things. How we talk, or how we treat others. - And you're saying you can gain some sort of unique insight from this? - The insight is of course clear because you are paying attention, but there is more than that. The attempt to change is another distortion. We think now we have, we've changed. We made a solution. You obviously see, you don't walk straight. Even though you've tried to straighten it, the hamstrings do not open up. You're form rolling and stretching. The harder you go into this, the worse it will become. - Interesting. So what's the answer? Is there no answer? Is that the answer? - No. There is an answer. We don't know it and in order to know it, we must first observe. We must first pay attention. It takes a maturity. It takes a place inside of you just to watch. Things will come to you, which these things are not coming yet when you're not in that state. You're trying to force a change. This is also part of what happens many times in the positive side of using psychedelics. There is a watching, not a change yet, right? There is just a moment of, hey, look what's going on here. Oh, shit. - It gives you a different perspective. - And that can be cultivated, don't need psychedelics. You can do it in any moment. But it's not something that we are promoted or educated. Sit up straight, chew with your mouth closed. This didn't help anyone's posture any time, anywhere in history, right? It only brought tension. It's not a good posture. You see, I slouch in the chair. This is a perfect posture. There is no issue with that. Posture is not an external position. Posture is a capacity, is an organizational capacity. It's like a candle flame. You're not gonna stop the candle flame and tell it, no, now you're in the right spot. My body is alive, so I can sit like this with no issue. Or, as I do, sometimes in retreats, sit upright for 12 hours a day in meditation, without moving, and there will be no issue as well. So the posture of the meditation is not necessarily better or worse, but how do you gain that? Well, first step is to start to watch, to keep the watchful tower, what we said before. Not just to become immersed in every activity, but to pay attention. So if you can do that, pay attention and put perspective on what you're naturally doing without trying to force a change, without trying to change the way you are perceived. Just that will naturally open up insights that will transform. Transform the way you do those things. Whether it be good, whether you think it's good or bad, it's ultimately the right thing. Correct. Here, let's make an experiment. Okay. You are seated right now, that you know, but you haven't observed it until now, right? Those are two different things. Knowing is a switch that we flipped in the past, and it stayed flipped. I know I'm in a chair, but it doesn't mean that I observe I'm in a chair. Even now, when I tell you you observe in a chair, pay attention, which seat bone receives more weight, the left or the right seat bone? It's equal. Is it equal? Pretty equal. Impassable. Investigate deeper. Just take a moment. Don't move. Don't do anything different. Okay. Try to see if there is a little bit more anywhere. I want to say, "Ah, man, it feels so equal." Okay, okay. I'm not, I don't want you to gratify me. The reason why I said it's impossible to be equal, physically you're a sack of liquid on a spinning rock around the sun. It's not going to be equal. Coriolos effect, centrifugal forces, centrifugal forces, gravity, everything is moving and the chair is soft. Right. So if you tell me equal, you tell me from knowing. And when I ask you to observe, I ask you, pay close attention. My left butt cheek is a bit lower than the right. Really? Yeah. That's what I observe right now. Yeah. When I paid attention. or which shoulder of yours is lower, without moving, without changing. - Am I right? - Okay. - I think. - Okay. That's the beginning. And when you observe this, when you did this little moment, something starts to change. It's a magic that you cannot do by. - Equal your shoulder. Equalize your shoulders. - Right. - But you haven't even observed which shoulder. So, if you learn to do this, and again, it's not sexy, it will be for the select few at the moment that are willing to. It's equal opportunities. Everyone is invited. But it's not easy to do. Our lives took us somewhere else. Tell me what to do. How shall I sit? - Yeah. - How shall I do? What shall I do for my hamstrings? How can I open up my hamstrings? - Right, right. - Okay, I help you to open up your hamstrings. I can open up your hamstrings easily today. - Give me $50,000. - Yeah. First, give me $50,000. Well, I'm more expensive than that, actually. But second, I will open them. But I will open a can of worms. - Right. - And in three months or three years after opening them, you will have a terrible injury in your lower back. And this is not connected in your brain. Oh, I met this amazing teacher. And he really helped me with my hamstrings. You don't even connect it. But what I'm offering in terms of observation and placing yourself in certain practices which are not trying to push you into a direction. It's not trying to put you in a position. It's not trying to make you do this. It's open scenario in which you have to handle yourself. You have to find yourself within those constraints. I feel like you need curve balls throughout you too. The first time I ever started to pay attention to any of this stuff was when I had my first baby and I would have to stay up for hours holding the baby at night 'cause he would cry. And I was starting to have extreme back pain in my lower back, like sciatic back pain, to where I was almost unbearable to get out of bed at one point. And I did not know what to do. I was probably, I was in my mid late 20s and I was like, I should not be dealing with this right now. I'm way too young for this. And I started paying attention very closely to how I was standing, how tight my glutes were flexed, like how my scapula was. And that's how I started to, I watched some videos on like scapula movements and stuff like that. I learned about the scapula pull ups where you just used your scapula. You don't flex any muscles except for your scapula. And like, I learned-- It probably came from me. It probably did. It probably did. It's like years ago I created this hanging challenge where I didn't invent hanging but it was not popular. And then it went viral. Joe Rog and everyone were starting to do it. And we started, it spread like wildfire. I received hundreds, thousands of thank you letters. Of people who were scheduled for surgery. So one of them was this active hangs. We called them scapular pull ups. And it wasn't popular. People were doing pull ups but they were not doing much hanging work. And that is very potent. Another example of a practice, the right practice. Yeah, I was focusing a lot on my scapula. And like the scapula pull ups with the hangs. And as well like scapula push ups. Great, that's the one. And you know, like things that are just so frustrating because you don't feel it. You don't feel any benefit from it. It's just like, this feels so weird but it's got to be good. And you know, a bunch of other little things like that I did. And then just like, you know, it's kind of like all making sense to me right now. Like what you're saying. Because when I was holding the baby for so long, that forced me to have to focus on beautiful, like different little parts of my body and like how they felt and where they were. Beautiful, beautiful thing. And I'm happy that you had the baby and that it gave you a practice. And especially long nights, the discs are a bit more dried up. You wake up in the middle of the night. And then you're, you're in all kinds of half asleep, you know, situations. And then people often get injured. And then the other side of all this, which is important to marry, is that observing something, sensing something, is almost the same as releasing something, releasing tension from that thing. There are two, two faces of the same thing. So when I ask you to pay attention to your sit bones and you tell me they're equal. And I know logically that they're not equal. It makes me think that there is a huge amount of tension around your pelvis, which you already reported. Which means you cannot even sense what's going on there. How do we soften up by sensing the reverse? Yeah. So as you will pay attention to your left shoulder, for example, if I will now force you to pay attention to the left shoulder for a period of 20 minutes, I'll guide you with eyes closed and you will be in a good state, viewed with all the drinks you have outside, nicotine, modaphine, whatever you need. And let's say you 20 minutes really go into it, you'll be shocked. Absolutely shocked to find out what will happen with your shoulder. Wow. What will you do to you? But because we don't have the power, the excess concentration, it feels weak to us. Like you said, I cannot even feel what this is doing to me. But it did. Interesting. All the best things in life are moving away from us. The delicate things that are powerful to transform our lives with these sensitized ourselves. So all the beautiful tools are moving away from us. These ideas are not going to be popular. What is popular has to be sexy, strong like this. And I've manipulated in the past. I can take my shirt off, show my six pack, do a handstand, lift a heavy weight, talk the talk. But the beautiful fine things are moving away from us. Yeah. Potent things. What are your thoughts on performance enhancing drugs? Because I know a lot of NFL players take it. They get exemptions. Oh, of course. I mean, any top level athlete in any sport, I'm sure is on some kind of performance enhancing drug. And there's so many different ones, right? Like, if you're. Did you see the enhanced games? I heard I didn't watch it, but I heard a lot about it. You heard about the results. No. They were poor. They were poor. Interesting. Yeah. They expected, you know, world records to be broken right and left. No, it didn't happen. Really? Was it broken? There was something. One record was broken in the swimming pool and even that was, you know, like, arguable. What does it tell you? Yeah, it doesn't do much. It does. But what does it tell you? Well, if, if now, in the enhanced games, everybody's enhanced. And they're not. They're more jacked. Seemingly, but what does it tell you about our records, our current records already? I don't know. What does it tell us? They were already enhanced. They were just better hiding it. Let's say, okay, we caught Ben Johnson right back in the day, Sprinter. That he was enhanced and he broke the record and they took away the record from him. Because he was enhanced, he was caught on Roy's. Many other athletes, right? What about those we didn't catch? What? We caught everyone. Right. So, do you agree that some of the records were enhanced? If the records are enhanced, how are you going to break the records? Yeah, exactly. How are you going to participate in the game? How are you going to do this? It's forced. I heard that with, like, how they did that with Lance Armstrong. Like, if they did that to him, they had what they had to do that for the next 20 people in line because they were all doing this stuff to some level as well. Yeah, this stuff is a trap that we are, and you know what? That's what we're talking about earlier, nature. Correct. People have been doing this manipulating their physiology with drugs since the beginning of a registry. It's connected to us. There is no separation. What is food? Food is not a manipulation. I don't want to be dependent on this. You're depending on air. You're depending on food. You're depending on a smile. You're depending on human context. It's ridiculous. We've lost sight of it. At the same time, don't use it as an excuse. Exactly. Take responsibility. But we are dependent. Here, in life, in this reality, we depend on shit. Everything. We depend on each other. We depend on. Yeah. So, I think it's an immature. It's a childish thing to say that. You condemn people for it. to condemn people and to say, "I'm not going to, you know, I don't want to be the. " Like, for example, caffeine. I went many times off of caffeine for this process, for that process. And I only drink twice a day, caffeine. But I drink it from a young age, relatively, let's say, 16 years old or something. Not something uncommon. And at a certain point in time, I thought, "I don't want to depend on this and this." What do you find out? You don't depend on this. You depend on that. You go to the next thing. Exactly. You go to the next and eventually, you see, it's just a childish thought. Mm-hmm. It's an interesting exercise, though, to think things that you think you depend on like coffee or things like that or whatever it might be. Maybe it's nicotine, maybe it's energy drinks or whatever. If you can try to stop doing that stuff for like any period of time, I mean, I'm sure it depends on person to person, I'm sure people react differently to that kind of stuff. But I feel like overall, that's probably a good thing. Like, take a week break. If you go on vacation, don't bring your nicotine pouches with you or your cigarettes with you or whatever that thing might be. My thing is to say great practice, but don't confuse it with now being a person that does not depend. Right. That's the illusion. Great practice, go off of nicotine, go off of caffeine, but don't think your shit doesn't stink. Yes. It's just a great practice for you as a human being, but you're still depending on something else. And you know what, going off of this, you depend more on something else, almost immediately, almost immediately. What happens to people who go off nicotine? They develop a million other addictions. Do they really? Of course. They're changing the tools on the board. You're just moving the tools on the board. First they try maybe with more caffeine, others, food, they gain weight, go off nicotine, they gain weight. It's a replacement. It's not a deep change, a real change. So it's a good practice to come off of things. I'm not condemning that, but I'm also not, I don't think that it is what it's often promoted to be. Well, some people like to be purists, you know, some people like to, you know, shun anyone who takes any kind of like performance enhancing drugs or any kind of, you know, I don't drink coffee all I drink is water purified distilled water. And you know, I only, you know, I only eat wild game and that's it. I don't ever sip any alcohol, I don't do any kind of that stuff. And they kind of like turn their nose up to people who do the, the wee versus us thing, which that's also have been my error many years, them versus we. Even when you are already employing the change that you want to see in the world, it's still, it was an error to do that and not to say we to take the deep responsibility. Even when employing, we're not different, we're all addicted. It's part of the human condition. We depend, we're all manipulators, we're all judging. All we do is judge and I place my hand on here, my, my nervous system is judging and trying to compare how will, will it feel to the actual thing that is incoming? It's all part of it. We're not better than that. So an awareness to that is the only thing that we can bring. So it's we. It's not them. Yes. Yeah. For sure. Is there any kind of like supplements or anything like that or any kind of things that you like that you love supplements? I love supplements. When they're supplementing, when they're supplementing, if you have like, for me, the practitioner deserves to supplement. If you are out there practicing, doing, working on yourself, use supplementation if it's assisting, but it's a slippery slope and can be tricky at times. We have to find out what is what and it's a, it's a deep investigation. There is no general recommendations to be made beyond a few very basic. Is there any, let me put it this way, are there any cheats you like to use to help yourself with all the time? All the time. Like the worst specific ones that you can talk about. Minerals. Mm-hmm. You know, it's simple. Not nothing sexy. Mm-hmm. I'll use nicotine. Mm-hmm. Sometimes I'll use it. It's a nice thing. I'm not, it's not a common thing for me, but I'll use it. But I, the other component which I always have is I'm going to practice now. I take never for just feeling good. Like even for example, now I don't use nicotine to do this podcast. But when I really go to my deep practice, when I'll go to my practice and if I feel like I will use this assistance to help me practice deeper, I'll use it. Not as an excuse to practice and not as a relying thing. And then it can be a great supplement. So for you, for example, it makes sense to use nicotine while doing this. If it helps you to get a better conversation, a deeper, more meaningful thing to support long form content like this, it's not easy to stay focused, to stay. So that makes sense. But for me, this is not so much my practice, this is easy for me. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I've experimented with so many different things, like so many different supplements, so many different like dyes, so many different routines and everything like to figure out like the optimal way for me to do stuff. And I just love experimenting with that kind of stuff to see how it affects my body, you see how it affects my energy levels and all that kind of thing. I'm the same. And I've been doing it for so long. I can almost tell when I wake up in the morning exactly what I'm going to need to get through the day. So depending on how much sleep depending on how I feel, I could literally wake up, drink some water, go for a walk and have a full cup of energy for the whole day. Some days, I'll need tons of espresso, tons of energy drinks, nicotine pouches, all that stuff. And it's like, like you said, we're not constant, we're always in this fluctuation, we're this chemical backs and there's never one static state that's always different. But it's just knowing where you are. But another question to ask is have you had days where you woke up and you didn't have that energy and you didn't use those assistance, those supplements and it turned out to be a good day. Yeah. So there is only when I didn't have access to them though. Oh, yeah. I never chose. Daddy. I'm going to, I'm going to raw dog today. I never did that. And that is in, that is honest and, and the eyes of you to say and also for the others to hear. But it's not important. Okay. The point is you have a foot in the door. There is a third possibility. Not one. I'm full of energy. I don't need much. Two. I'm not full of energy. I have to have assistance. I don't have energy and I'm not going to use assistance and I find a way, another way. So that's the investigation. That's the observation. Yeah. And when you explore your shitty, your shitty state that you're in, because, because that shitty state is not much different than the good state really. It is, it is not that different. When you really observe, when you really pay attention, you're not afraid of it anymore. The fear of the fear is larger than the fear itself. It's the anxiousness of like, I can't go through this day. I'm drained. It's possible to, it's a self-looking ice cream cone. Yeah. And there, I don't say, never use nicotine or give you, but also sometimes try to engage in this investigation, it will give you something, great insights. But don't suffer through it for nothing, suffer consciously. In essence, pay attention, observe. For example, what is this that you don't feel well now? What is that thing that you don't feel well? What is it? Pay attention, is it something in the stomach, is it in the chest, where is it? Where is the fatigue, is it a muscular tension? Take it down to the components, to the physical components. What can you tell me about it? Is it a contraction inside your stomach? Is it a pressure in the chest? Is it a taste in the mouth? When you do this game and you observe and you pay attention, you start to open it and what do you discover? It disappears many times. It's interesting. I've never tried that. Which is funny how we go through all these. It's funny how when you, because it is true for sure, if I wake up and, for example, I'm a little bit extra sleepy. I could feel like, oh man, I didn't get a lot of sleep. I'm probably going to be in a shitty mood today. And that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. - Yeah. - Instead of exploring like, what exactly is it? - What is that shitty mood? And when you go into it, even to go into it, you immediately distance yourself from it because you're watching it. You don't immerse, you want flow state. What does it mean? You want to flow state, but now you have the other problem. Flow state that you are immersed in shit. - Right. - Because we mechanicalize and optimize the good stuff. We also mechanicalize and optimize the bad stuff. So now we only know, we don't know how to observe. We don't know how to be present. So it's also drags us into those shitty moods and we become that shitty mood. It's so weird, you feel so horrible yet you don't even feel that. You don't observe that. So it's more the feeling of the feeling of the feeling. It's something that rolls away. The moment you go into it, as Sam Harris once said, I can't bear the pain, you're already bearing it. As you're screaming, I can't bear the pain. I mean a shitty mood, stop for a moment, pay attention. Take a moment of silence, take a walk. What is it here in my stomach right now that I feel? And as you practice this more and more, you will be, you will receive so much for it. - Is this something you gain from? Is this a skill that you get from doing a lot of meditation, like being able to focus on these things? Does it become easier the more you do it? - It comes with the practice. For me, it's all one thing, practice. Meditation is a flavor of the practice where, for example, seated meditation. Yeah, you can sit there and to observe, but what happens when you'll go to a restaurant with your partner or something? Then the skill will be different. So I prefer to practice in many ways, but the big part of my practice is meditation, the seated practice as well. - The seated practice. Like the word meditation is meaningless these days. It has been abused. - It's abused, I see. - There are many things inside. All kinds of practices, concentration practices, focus practices, embodiment practices. The word is meaningless. It's like the word movement. It's meaningless. Feetness, meaningless. Feet for what? Feet for skateboard? That means drinking hard liquor sometimes. And smoking, you know, sometimes that's what you need. For that artistically. So fitness is distorted. All these words are distorted. So meditation is similar in that way. I think it is a very potent practice for us these days, as it always was, but I think there are many bridges, bridging practices that are needed in many different flavors of being present, being in different presence. It's very interesting. It's very interesting 'cause it's like, it's connecting a lot of dots for me in different realms or different skills or if you notice different talents too. Like for example, there's a lot of people who, whether it be in music or art, a lot of the most successful or world-renowned artists or thinkers or writers or creative people in general. A lot of them at their peaks were heavily on drugs, whether it be alcohol, psychedelics, cocaine, you name it. All these people were blasting on drugs during the peak of their creativity or whatever it is they're creating. It's not really, I don't think it's a one-to-one to movement and athletics and those types of skills, but there's something to be said that what you're doing with athletes is similar to what drugs are doing to these people in the creative arts. It's sort of interesting. I've never heard this before. Interesting way to look at it. Because it's interesting. Well, it's getting them off like the, it's getting them off their normal pattern of thinking, right, these athletes. These athletes aren't gonna go to drugs. They're too worried about their body. They're too worried about being fit. Some go, but yeah. There was a price to it all day. But there's no, and it's regulated. Also, all the big sports NFL and NBA and all those things. But when you're talking about someone who's a fucking painter or a hip-hop artist or a rock and roll musician or guitarist, there's no, that's not regulated. These guys stay up all night doing drugs and just pulling stuff out of the air and putting it on paper or putting it into music. And there's something to be said about like maybe that different way of thinking about things and not putting it into this like rigidized framework that most people look at it in, you know? And you're, I feel like you're kind of like a psychedelic for athletes. Edo is like a psychedelic drug for athletes to take. (laughs) - Oh, it's a perspective I haven't looked through. Like in this way, not looked at myself. Yeah, there is something about the rigidity. Like you've pointed out that is like a killer, the mechanicality, the automatism, this thing that is a very, very important theme in our lives. Not just to do, not just to be successful. Who is doing? - Yeah, exactly. - How I'm doing is not in, it's not a means to an end. - Yes, yes. - You're just like this, like, that's why I said, practice should not have a reason. Now you understand. Picasso didn't do what he did for. - Exactly, exactly. - So it's pure and that represents choice. One of the things which are tricking us, you reap what you saw. No. That's a lie. Tell that to the three year old who got cancer. - Right. - How does that sit with our reality? Come on, oversimplified, childish, immature, damaging. You don't reap what you saw. Sometimes you reap what you saw. Other times you don't. For this, it is said in the Bible, evil men shall receive all the treasures of the world. And the saint shall receive the opposite sometimes. Why? - Right. - So you can actually choose. So your choice is pure. Because if you chose to receive x, y, z, you're distorted again. So the practice should not have a reason. If the side effects come to you, they come to you. For example, I've worked with the human body and also with health to a certain degree. I'm not the health guy. I'm not the longevity guy. I've damaged my health. I've, you can see my face. I've spent my life in the sun, in the wind, in the salt water. In the, I've, I've damaged myself in discovery and practice. I don't know. I didn't discover what is a moisturizer until I was 40 something. I couldn't care less. I didn't want to pursue this for x, y, z. So when I found myself, I'm practicing to have a beautiful body. I took it away for myself. Then I practiced to move beautifully. I took away that for myself. I stopped moving beautifully. People say, what a beautiful movement you have. What a beautiful body you have. Okay, what a beautiful movement you have. To get away. So I move for health. To get away. So it becomes for me. No reason. No reason. Not even that for me is not really a reason. It's something beyond. And I think this is important that we have this sacred thing in ourselves, in our lives, that is not damaged by the balls, desires. What are we, what are we gonna get? Yeah. You know, what can you do for me? Yeah. I think you're right. Very well said. You know, thank you for doing this man. That's a great way to wrap this up. This has been super fun. It was fun. Thank you so much. I'm happy I came. I appreciate your time very much. Thank you. Is there anything else we can tell folks about how to learn more about what you do, what you talk about, or where to find you? They can find me. It's easy. My name is. You can probably the only one on earth. Yeah. There are a few more. Perfect. All right, man. Well, I think you have like an Instagram. We'll link that below. And if you have a website, we'll link that below as well. But thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much.