Speaker A
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance.
Andrew Huberman and Ido Portal explore the science and practice of movement, emphasizing awareness, playfulness, and holistic body-mind integration.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- Movement practice is holistic, involving body, mind, emotions, and environment.
- Awareness and non-verbal experience are essential starting points for movement.
- Playfulness enhances engagement and benefits of movement practice.
- Habitual postures in thought and emotion can limit freedom; movement can help transcend them.
- Movement practice supports mental health, physical health, and performance.
What the video covers
- Movement practice is an open, decentralized system that can be approached from multiple entry points such as the body or playfulness.
- Movement involves self-inquiry and awareness of the body, mind, emotions, and the dynamic flux of life.
- Non-verbal experiences and awareness of motion serve as foundational tools for movement practice.
- Ido Portal highlights Moshe Feldenkrais’ model of the body as nervous system, mechanical system, and environment.
- Movement practice can be integrated into daily life through simple, pragmatic methods like walking or rocking on chairs.
- Movement keeps the mind fresh, humble, and honest by engaging the body and attention simultaneously.
- Movement domains include ballistic, smooth, and various postural forms, which relate also to emotional and cognitive postures.
- There is a challenge in overcoming habitual postures of thought and emotion to achieve a more fluid, postureless state.
- Movement practice offers potential for mental and physical health, performance, and emotional regulation.
- Playfulness and dynamic engagement are key to sustaining and enriching movement practice.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. And now for my discussion with Ido Portal.
Speaker A
Ido, thank you for coming here today. Over the years, we've been in communication and I've come to realize that you're a true intellectual of the topic of movement.
Speaker A
And I define an intellectual as somebody who can understand a topic at multiple levels of granularity.
Speaker A
To start off, could you inform us how people should think about approaching a movement practice? What is the first layer of any good movement practice?
Speaker B
It's an open system, it has no center, it's decentralized, and it can be approached from anywhere, and that's its magic and that's that's the benefit of it.
Speaker B
Some people find the body a good entry point.
Speaker B
And then playfulness can be an entry point, an attribute or
Speaker B
And this is so open. So I I don't want to limit people and limit their minds in the way that they engage with a practice, but I also want to encourage the self-inquiry. So when people enter movement practice, it is about education, bringing some awareness to the fact that they are living in a body, that they are living in motion, that their mind is a type of movement, that their life is a type of movement, bringing attention to the movement of the emotions as well, bringing just attention to the fact that things are in motion.
Speaker B
And this for me is the movement practice.
Speaker B
Is is this examination and bringing this awareness into things.
Speaker B
As we sit now here, I'm also aware of my body.
Speaker B
I'm also aware of the way that things make me feel, the way that your face is communicating to me.
Speaker B
And I'm not just in some limited overly verbal state because it misses a lot of the beautiful flux.
Speaker A
Actually, in anticipation of you arriving here today, I noticed that as I was going up and down the stairs in this
Speaker A
in this house, um that I was injecting a little bit of playfulness in the way that I might have many, many decades ago, but haven't for a very long time.
Speaker A
And I asked myself whether or not that's what Ido is referring to.
Speaker A
As opposed to, but of course, not exclusive from just saying, I have 45 minutes, I'm going to do movement practice before I shower and have some dinner.
Speaker A
Could you share with us just some ideas to get people thinking about or maybe even incorporating movement practice into their day?
Speaker A
And maybe even touch on the the potential role of play or playfulness.
Speaker B
One thing is this what you call wordlessness.
Speaker B
I I have been recommending to people non-verbal experiences.
Speaker B
The awareness of motion is very good way to start.
Speaker B
To to bring awareness to that layer, and that layer will start to get clarified.
Speaker B
More and more and more, the more you practice.
Speaker B
And then it will enable for most people a safe haven away from many states and difficulties.
Speaker B
And will unlock a lot of potential attributes and strengths and freshness and a lot of beautiful things.
Speaker B
Really, one of the pretty perspectives about who we are comes from a person who influenced my thinking a lot, Moshe Feldenkrais.
Speaker B
The late Moshe Feldenkrais, and he talks about the body as the core, three elements.
Speaker B
The core nervous system.
Speaker B
Two is the mechanical system of muscle, skeleton, etcetera.
Speaker B
And the third is the environment.
Speaker B
Which is a unique way to look at it.
Speaker B
And he talks about how the nervous system is both get receiving information from the outside and from the inside.
Speaker B
And in the first years of life, you work a lot on differentiating those.
Speaker B
What is me and what is not me.
Speaker B
And I think when you feel movement, you feel the movement of the outside.
Speaker B
That is, of course, arriving to you and receiving this, and also your own internal movement.
Speaker B
And the same can be said for stillness.
Speaker B
So bringing the attention into those layers, it's a tricky thing.
Speaker B
It's one of those elusive things to look at.
Speaker B
But it's definitely of huge benefit to start to train it, start to practice it.
Speaker B
To feel not our thoughts, not necessarily our body.
Speaker B
But to start to recognize the dynamic nature, the flux, the motion.
Speaker B
And it occurs in all these layers.
Speaker B
You will need to find it in multiple locations before you start to more and more make it your own.
Speaker B
Make it really yours.
Speaker B
For example, simple pragmatic things.
Speaker B
I used to do this.
Speaker B
I spent some time in Hong Kong.
Speaker B
I would need to get my practice in, but I'm really turned off from commercial gyms.
Speaker B
And there is not a lot of nature accessible there.
Speaker B
So I would just strap on my bag and I would walk the streets of Hong Kong, which are very crowded.
Speaker B
And then I would try to avoid touching anyone.
Speaker B
And it would be like two hours of of just like moving, involved, fully involved, fully in my body.
Speaker B
And experiencing beautiful things and enjoying and developing myself as well.
Speaker B
So this is an example of a way to to practice.
Speaker B
And then the way that we're sitting, like these chairs, for example.
Speaker B
Our chairs are not very dynamic, but there is rocking chairs, right?
Speaker B
And this is something I recommend for a lot of kids.
Speaker B
Like in schools, I used to rock on the chair.
Speaker B
Which is very common.
Speaker B
And I would make the chairs even more mobile.
Speaker B
And I would support more motion.
Speaker B
And then I would be able to bring attention there, but I would also be able to bring attention away from it into other things.
Speaker B
And it keeps refreshing me.
Speaker B
So I don't become stale, the water doesn't stand.
Speaker B
This is the beauty of of movement.
Speaker B
So you can focus for long periods of time and do incredible things with the mind, with focus, with awareness, attention.
Speaker B
And it's like with skin in the game.
Speaker B
So
Speaker B
that's how movement keeps me very honest and humble in the way that I view humility.
Speaker B
And and in a way that protects me and and keeps me.
Speaker B
Yeah, keeps me fresh.
Speaker A
What are the different domains of movement practice? And as I ask this, I realize I I am in
Speaker A
serious danger of fractionating movement into a list of words like strength and speed and explosiveness and uh suppleness.
Speaker A
A word that I've heard you use before.
Speaker A
And yet I think for most people because we think in words often.
Speaker A
Some of those categories can be useful.
Speaker A
So let's say I was going to embark on a movement practice or a child was going to embark on a movement practice.
Speaker A
And either throughout the day or for a dedicated period of time.
Speaker A
What are the sorts of categories of movement that I might want to think about? Ballistic movement, smooth movement.
Speaker A
Maybe you could just enrich us with some of the uh some of the landscape around that.
Speaker B
One thing that does seem to to to appear for me when I look around.
Speaker B
Is these the concepts of unique postures.
Speaker B
And I think this is true for postures of thought, emotional postures.
Speaker B
And movement postures.
Speaker B
You take someone who moves in a certain way and you teach him all these new sports or techniques.
Speaker B
But essentially, if you look deeply and you're sensitive, you see it's the same postures.
Speaker B
That he will have to work with till the end of his life.
Speaker B
The same thinking postures.
Speaker B
And these this is really problematic.
Speaker B
Where we are we are not freeing the mind beyond this scaffolding of thinking.
Speaker B
And we are actually letting go of the content.
Speaker B
We we get more and more focused on the the way of thinking versus the thinking itself.
Speaker B
Or or habitual ways and forms of thinking.
Speaker B
Associative thinking, etcetera.
Speaker B
And emotionally, the same.
Speaker B
We are constructing this emotional postures, and then we have to go through the rest of our lives working with that.
Speaker B
So this is the dark side.
Speaker B
But of course, there are always possibilities.
Speaker B
Both, I think, invading this early system to some extent.
Speaker B
Even if it's 5% or 7% or whatever percent.
Speaker B
And and also on the freeing yourself of going beyond all postures, period.
Speaker B
Working with the postures you have, but towards a postureless way of doing things.
Speaker B
So this is something interesting to work.
Speaker B
When when people work with movements, but finally are able to go into movement.
Speaker B
And this magic starts to happen.
Speaker B
And then the techniques fall apart and something appears.
Speaker B
And and it's a phase change.
Speaker B
It's it's a binary moment.
Speaker B
There is a jump there for sure and it's it's very rare to see both in thinking and emotionally.
Speaker B
And in other ways.
Speaker B
We have many names for it.
Speaker B
And some talk about enlightenment.
Speaker B
And some talk about all kind of processes related to it.
Speaker B
And I think most of them are shadows of the sun.
Speaker B
But it's not the sun itself.
Speaker A
Yeah, those that exploration of degrees of freedom is where the opportunity for um
Speaker A
uh real advancement and expansion of skill shows up as I think the way it's been described to me is that we go from unskilled to skilled.
Speaker A
And then there's mastery and then there's this top tier, which is this beautiful thin layer that so few people occupy.
Speaker A
Which is virtuosity.
Speaker A
In which the practitioner invites variability and chance back in as an opportunity to to truly new things.
Speaker B
As long as you're not out of this sleeve, you're still within the boundaries.
Speaker B
Of achieving the result that you're after.
Speaker B
And then there are there is all this adaptation of all these elements inside to keep you in the sleeve.
Speaker B
The sleeve is not constricted as we once thought.
Speaker B
Oh, beautiful technique.
Speaker B
There are many ways to skin a cat.
Speaker B
And and that experience and that variety, that diversity goes into virtuosity.
Speaker B
It's true true freedom.
Speaker B
Because your focus is on the right thing.
Speaker B
You don't point at the moon, look at your finger.
Speaker B
And and and that's really in essence being a virtuoso for for me.
Speaker B
Like mastery.
Speaker B
Let's say if there is such a thing.
Speaker A
I'd like to talk about vision and the eyes.
Speaker A
We have this incredible ability to adjust the aperture of our visual window.
Speaker A
We can focus very narrowly.
Speaker A
And we can focus very broadly.
Speaker A
When you begin a practice or as you move through a practice.
Speaker A
Do you apply a regimented way of focusing your vision?
Speaker A
Are you in panoramic vision, are you in in a very narrow field of view?
Speaker A
Or does it entirely depend?
Speaker A
And for the person who's a true beginner, a true novice like myself.
Speaker A
How should I show up to the practice with my eyes?
Speaker B
We do not move the eyes as well as we think we do.
Speaker B
Because as long as you can see and move the eyes.
Speaker B
People never think about it that it can be trained.
Speaker B
That it can be improved, etcetera.
Speaker B
And their effects of it are far reaching.
Speaker B
The eyes lead to the inner eye.
Speaker B
You can think of it in a beautiful metaphorical way.
Speaker B
And it's a representation of the way that we use various cognitive and mind processes.
Speaker B
And also, of course, affect the body.
Speaker B
For example, you when when you teach boxers how to bob.
Speaker B
Usually it's not done in the way that I I believe it should be done.
Speaker B
They teach it from the feet.
Speaker B
Because they have the idea, which is correct, that you'll need to do it in spatial conditions in movement.
Speaker B
But in reality, the head will organize the feet for you.
Speaker B
Because if I'll pull your head now to the side, you will immediately start to organize your feet under you.
Speaker B
That's how I would teach someone.
Speaker B
Something like this.
Speaker B
So it's a very powerful way to address movement, not the only one.
Speaker B
You need to start to have some kind of a checklist.
Speaker B
Of what you're looking to do.
Speaker B
And then by this, you can start to tailor the way that you use your eyes.
Speaker B
The same thing I do for posture.
Speaker B
The same thing I do for stance.
Speaker B
The same thing eventually I do for state.
Speaker B
And there is different flavors.
Speaker B
There is no correct way to use the eye.
Speaker B
Sometimes it's very peripheral, soft, open, awareness orientation.
Speaker B
Sometimes it's very focused.
Speaker B
Notice I'm pulling these two opposites, awareness and focus.
Speaker B
Which is often put together and confused.
Speaker B
And then the eyes are the immediate and the easiest entry point into that.
Speaker B
Another thing is the placement of the head and the eyes.
Speaker B
Like, for example, when we lower our chin, we seem to to see better.
Speaker B
When we raise the eyebrows, there is too much exposure of top light sources.
Speaker B
And so people would usually when looking into the distance, will tilt their their chin in.
Speaker B
And in many scenarios, tilting of the the chin to the side or placing just like listening with the ear.
Speaker B
Placing a certain eye or dominant eye, depending on various scenarios.
Speaker B
And this is all like information that I can come in cerebrally and think about.
Speaker B
And jump my practice forward.
Speaker B
Instead of just letting the experience teach me that, I'm using some kind of a thinking process to improve.
Speaker B
And and this is not cheating.
Speaker B
This is great.
Speaker A
There are two separate clusters of neurons in the these cranial nerve nuclei that when eyes are up, it increases our level of alertness.
Speaker A
When our eyes are down, we go into states of more calm and quiescence.
Speaker A
When we are in this more panoramic soft gaze as um and broad awareness, big big swaths of visual field as we say.
Speaker A
The neurons that control that come through a pathway called magnocellular pathway.
Speaker A
And in any event, those neurons are much thicker, thicker cables.
Speaker A
They transmit much faster, just like thick pipes can carry more water more quickly.
Speaker A
And your reaction time is four at least four times what it is in this awareness mode than it is when you're narrowly focused on something.
Speaker A
And I think what you and I I hope agree on.
Speaker A
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker A
Is that exploring these different extremes and everything in between is where the real value is.
Speaker B
Another pragmatic bit here, if I can offer, is um
Speaker B
Um since our culture has been more geared and pushing us towards focus.
Speaker B
The the focus use of the eyes and primary language, reading.
Speaker B
And and other things.
Speaker B
We have less opportunities to work with the more open panoramic one.
Speaker B
So it would be smart to start to balance things out a bit more.
Speaker B
When you're in nature, you don't look at each leaf.
Speaker B
Everything is moving and you are kind of immersed in that.
Speaker B
And then something attracts your attention.
Speaker B
Oh, it's a bird.
Speaker B
And you focus and you go back into the general state, the basic state, which is open awareness.
Speaker B
Here, we switch things around in our modern culture.
Speaker B
We are mostly focused and then we sometimes daydream.
Speaker B
Which is maybe some kind of a some kind of a balancing act that comes from deep within.
Speaker B
I don't know.
Speaker B
Maybe you can you can share some information about that.
Speaker B
But I see that many times people need to.
Speaker B
The focus is overly done by far in our in our lives.
Speaker A
Earlier you mentioned the cone of auditory attention.
Speaker A
The other sense that we can play with in our practice.
Speaker A
Where is your hearing when you approach your practice?
Speaker B
Another set of parameters to to think about.
Speaker B
And to play with and to be aware of.
Speaker B
I have the experience that some people are better at using this system or that system.
Speaker B
And you would be amazed how differently the same result, seemingly outside results are done by different practitioners and in different scenarios.
Speaker B
This goes into this mutation and change idea.
Speaker B
All of our culture and practices and success puts us closer and closer to each other.
Speaker B
So we have the same opinions everywhere around the world.
Speaker B
Becoming more and more the same.
Speaker B
Less and less different.
Speaker B
But the real hope comes from the different.
Speaker B
We have a difficulty promoting that.
Speaker B
Um and and so this is another thing that can be promoted with the right practices.
Speaker B
The right.
Speaker B
For example, I I I work with corporates or even worked with governments before.
Speaker B
To bring in some of that freshness.
Speaker B
With simple habits in the work day.
Speaker B
Or in the education of children.
Speaker B
Or in in in companies.
Speaker B
Increasing productivity.
Speaker B
I don't really give a fuck.
Speaker B
But I am there to give what I view is important.
Speaker B
And what is important, maybe increases productivity.
Speaker B
Um but it's more important to me that it improves people's lives who are involved.
Speaker B
Thinking about here, the way that people use their ears.
Speaker B
The way that people use listening.
Speaker B
Again, we can talk about placement of the head and posture.
Speaker B
Sometimes angling as well, sharper angle, chin down.
Speaker B
Some people tend to use the the shape of the ear, people with different ears.
Speaker B
Closer or further out.
Speaker B
This is it's if you're very sensitive and you're looking around.
Speaker B
You would see this is affecting people's motion.
Speaker B
Even the shape of our face, like the development of the vocal cords and speaking.
Speaker B
Will totally change how we are, how we look.
Speaker B
But how we listen also.
Speaker B
Will do the same.
Speaker A
People will even make their ears bigger.
Speaker A
I mean, a lot of people don't realize that's actually why we do this.
Speaker A
It's to capture more sound waves, right?
Speaker A
The the localization of sound is based on a simple brainstem calculation of interaural time differences, the time in which something.
Speaker A
The brain intuitively, it just knows because it's a pretty hardwired circuit.
Speaker A
That if a sound arrives first to this ear than that ear, that it's likely coming from over here.
Speaker A
Whereas if it's dead center, it arrives at the two at the same time.
Speaker A
That's um it's almost, you know, ridiculously simple when one hears it, no pun intended.
Speaker A
But um it's uh an incredibly valuable way of thinking about how the architecture of the body changes our experience.
Speaker A
When I see people walking.
Speaker A
I sometimes, you know, sometimes I think, wow, they really move in a strange way.
Speaker A
People come in different shapes and sizes, short torsos, long arms, etcetera.
Speaker A
Um do you think that if people have a a body type that facilitates certain kinds of movement and not others.
Speaker A
That they should intentionally try and move in the way that is right at the edge of the kind of friction and challenge.
Speaker A
In order to um shape new possibilities or do you think that they should lean into the smooth execution of what comes most naturally to them?
Speaker B
Yeah, I think a good practice is to have many walks.
Speaker B
There is a lot of emotional things related to walk.
Speaker B
Like how I'm walking into a business meeting.
Speaker B
Or how I'm walking out of a bad situation.
Speaker B
There is a lot of beautiful things to to research there.
Speaker B
Practically with yourself.
Speaker B
Trying to approach someone with the chin slightly down, very linear, very efficient.
Speaker B
In the straightest line.
Speaker B
Or trying to approach someone a little bit more rounded from the side.
Speaker B
And and tilting your head.
Speaker B
And you will see totally different results.
Speaker B
Totally different communication that happens over people's heads.
Speaker B
But if you're sensitive, you realize that, wow, this opened the door.
Speaker B
But it's it's part of the approach.
Speaker B
You can affect that.
Speaker B
So this is something to play with and to work with.
Speaker B
And then you have, of course, body proportions and ways.
Speaker B
And we have all these like technical invasions, mathematics and trigonometry and architecture.
Speaker B
They invaded our bodies.
Speaker B
They invaded our nervous system.
Speaker B
And now our walk and our physical practices, they look linear and efficient.
Speaker B
The path between two points is a straight line.
Speaker B
It's not.
Speaker B
This is biomechanics.
Speaker B
It's not mechanics.
Speaker B
Nothing there is a given.
Speaker B
This no gospel.
Speaker B
So the walk is sometimes have to go around.
Speaker B
Or sway from side to side.
Speaker B
And there is coiling, uncoiling.
Speaker B
And there are moving bits.
Speaker B
And what about the the coordination of my breathing with my walk?
Speaker B
Because if I walk too linearly, there is less pumping of the air naturally in and out.
Speaker B
So now I have to forcefully bring it in and out.
Speaker B
I'm wasteful.
Speaker B
And that's why you see in last years, these incredible runners.
Speaker B
Especially in long distance, doing things we never thought were possible.
Speaker B
Pronation and and all kinds of things.
Speaker B
Like our technical thoughts were totally misguided and wrong.
Speaker B
And and somebody comes in and does it in some way that is totally wrong and he he gets results.
Speaker B
We could never get.
Speaker B
And that's that's the beauty of playfulness.
Speaker B
Experimentation, change.
Speaker B
Be different.
Speaker A
One of my favorite neuroscientists, he's out of the University of Chicago.
Speaker A
He said, one of the major jobs of evolution is to take existing cell types and circuits and give them new functions.
Speaker A
But that can only be done through the playful exploration of new possibilities.
Speaker A
Which I think maps very well to what you're saying.
Speaker A
That at the extreme thresholds of technical execution, you know, mastery, mastery, mastery.
Speaker A
You you're obviously performance is very high, but the opportunity for evolution of the sport or the music or the dance or the intellectual endeavor is is limited.
Speaker A
Because you're not introducing variability in the attempt to get proper execution.
Speaker A
You're limiting oneself.
Speaker B
We are the biggest improvisers around.
Speaker B
Like that's that's what made us who we are.
Speaker B
I think and this is incredible what what we can do with it.
Speaker B
And there is something about this openness that we humans need to keep.
Speaker B
And also maybe something for our leaders to be more of.
Speaker B
Less specialist and more in this openness.
Speaker B
Less capable in this or that way, but more capable of doing the whole thing.
Speaker B
By the way, I think that scientists get it right.
Speaker B
It's where you transmit the knowledge out of the scientific field.
Speaker B
Because science have debate and everything.
Speaker B
You're not so connected, of course, this can happen as well.
Speaker B
But then when it goes out and the the simple person without the experience.
Speaker B
Takes it more as a gospel, as a fixed thing.
Speaker B
And then it was just a report.
Speaker B
It was just reporting some functions here and play with it.
Speaker B
See what it does for you.
Speaker B
Because with all the greatest information that I can give.
Speaker B
The person will examine it and it might be not useful at all for him.
Speaker B
This is the practitioner.
Speaker B
Make it your own.
Speaker B
Go practice, try.
Speaker B
Heat, cold, light, movement.
Speaker B
Awareness to this, awareness to that.
Speaker B
And this is up to you to make it yours.
Speaker B
But we don't like to have this responsibility.
Speaker A
Now people prefer to have this will work the first time every time.
Speaker A
And uh will serve you best compared to everything else.
Speaker A
And and while there are more reliable tools than others, in my mind, the more reliable tools tend to be ones that are grounded in our innate physiology.
Speaker A
Um as opposed to some, I don't like the word hack, in fact, I loathe the word biohack as I we were talking about again earlier.
Speaker A
Um because it a hack in my mind is is something that is designed for one purpose that's used for another.
Speaker A
It's not the most efficient use of that tool, nor is it naturally the best solution.
Speaker A
Whereas biology has some very good solutions, but they don't always work, not every time.
Speaker A
Earlier today we did a practice in which um which involved uh invasion, uh shall we say, of peripersonal space.
Speaker A
We were close enough together, we could touch one torsos and we were doing that as part of this practice.
Speaker A
And uh you encouraged me to pay attention to, you know, how does it feel to have someone in your peripersonal space?
Speaker A
And then this notion of reactivity, I know a lot of people suffer from anxiety just being in a face-to-face conversation.
Speaker A
Some people have a lot of anxiety about being physically close to people, whether or not they know them or not.
Speaker A
And many people are reactive, they are in that anticipatory state of something that's going to happen.
Speaker A
And if you could um talk about that a little bit more.
Speaker B
Touch, proximity.
Speaker B
All these things.
Speaker B
Also taking very it it takes a very, I think, limited place in our lives.
Speaker B
People are not touched and they don't touch enough.
Speaker B
There is certain bubbles of peripersonal space, according to culture, according to environment.
Speaker B
What is right, what is wrong?
Speaker B
And then came all the, of course, politically correctness and harassments.
Speaker B
And all kinds.
Speaker B
And this is a problem, it's a problem to navigate all this scenario.
Speaker B
And I think we are there is definitely this side which is suffering.
Speaker B
Proximity, being able to, as you said, remove certain reactivity.
Speaker B
And to learn to control that that volume volume control over how reactive I am.
Speaker B
And in other scenarios, how do I remove this reactivity altogether?
Speaker B
Is very important for performance and also for our lives.
Speaker B
For clear thinking, etcetera.
Speaker B
Because everything is moving through us and is being monitored by us.
Speaker B
So everything has the potential to detract us from a certain direction of exploration.
Speaker B
Or.
Speaker B
And and if you're reactive, you're a slave.
Speaker B
It it becomes worse and worse and worse.
Speaker B
Or as for example, a fighter or a football player, etcetera, has to know what to take, what not to take.
Speaker B
The fact that you can sense more doesn't mean you should react to it.
Speaker B
And the practice helps that.
Speaker B
By bringing people into these scenarios.
Speaker B
But often times disarming them.
Speaker B
Like when we were working closely today and because you have a certain background with boxing or fighting.
Speaker B
I can tell you, you are missing some kind of a way to be in that space that is not martial.
Speaker B
So you carry a certain tone.
Speaker B
Although you're a very kind person, but often times you held me without realizing you're holding me with a lot of strength.
Speaker B
For example.
Speaker B
And and it just it was clear to me, you're not fully aware of what is unfolding.
Speaker B
And it's just, of course, a question of experience.
Speaker B
So to be able to be in this scenario, but do something else.
Speaker B
Which is not geared towards winning, losing, competition.
Speaker B
Or just being able to play with another person.
Speaker B
Like, for example, contact improvisation took that and played with that.
Speaker B
And the work of Steve Paxton.
Speaker B
For the ones who are not familiar.
Speaker B
It's very important to explore many ways of being within different distances.
Speaker B
And spaces from other people.
Speaker B
And touched in different ways.
Speaker B
And not contextualizing it always in the same way.
Speaker B
I can touch your chest in one way.
Speaker B
I can touch it with the exact same pressure and speed, but it will feel very different.
Speaker B
The parameters, I'm not sure.
Speaker B
Certain intentions, certain combination of postures or ways.
Speaker B
And this is beautiful exploration.
Speaker B
And again, I would encourage you and others.
Speaker B
To explore the discomfort, for example, certain discomfort.
Speaker B
To be with a man in certain scenario or with a woman.
Speaker B
And trying to see what is that.
Speaker B
Because if we're truly strong, we're not afraid of anything.
Speaker B
And this will improve our culture tremendously.
Speaker B
Of course, there must be agreement.
Speaker B
You never force yourself, but you meet someone who is also interested in that exploration.
Speaker B
And then you do it.
Speaker B
Moving together.
Speaker B
In all kinds of ways.
Speaker B
Sometimes it's walking together.
Speaker B
Sometimes it's all kinds of it can be game, playful.
Speaker B
It can be romantic.
Speaker B
And there are many shades.
Speaker B
Sex doesn't start here and end here.
Speaker B
Right?
Speaker B
It's like continuum.
Speaker B
We don't even need to define it in that way.
Speaker B
So with time, I think it unlocks a lot of things.
Speaker B
People become much stronger in a good sense, in sense of becoming, being.
Speaker B
And we abuse less.
Speaker B
And we can approach, yeah, other aspects to us.
Speaker A
For many people, they approach movement in the form of weight training.
Speaker A
Or yoga or running.
Speaker A
Yoga is a bit more dynamic, but very linear types of exercise.
Speaker A
And movement.
Speaker A
Peloton, rowing.
Speaker A
One thing that I have started doing on the basis of some of your teachings, um and I just sort of created this idea is rather than statically standing there and lifting weights.
Speaker A
Actually walking from as I alternate repetitions, it occurred to me that I'd never done
Speaker A
uh a curl, a bicep curl with one foot in front of the other, and then I'd never actually switched that up.
Speaker A
And it's kind of an odd stance to be standing in parallel and curling one's arm.
Speaker A
It's kind of a ridiculous movement when one thinks about it.
Speaker A
So I started incorporating some of that, you get some strange looks in the gym.
Speaker A
But I just give them strange looks back.
Speaker A
So what are your thoughts about these very linear forms of exercise?
Speaker A
And um and do you encourage people to expand the play space?
Speaker A
Um as it were for these kinds of exercise.
Speaker B
Yeah, it's definitely a problem.
Speaker B
And it's it's approachable.
Speaker B
People want a quick, people want a hack.
Speaker B
People want the the icing.
Speaker B
There is no cake.
Speaker B
There is no cake.
Speaker B
And it's just like industries of icing, icing, icing.
Speaker B
On what?
Speaker B
What are you putting it on?
Speaker B
You are movement.
Speaker B
There is a dynamic entity to you.
Speaker B
The body is a huge part is a huge part of it.
Speaker B
Communicating.
Speaker B
And you have genetic layers.
Speaker B
There is personalities that got developed and built around various influences.
Speaker B
But then there is also some kind of an essence.
Speaker B
So I think these practices, they're very good.
Speaker B
But they're not designed for the goal that we think they were designed to.
Speaker B
It it orients towards something else.
Speaker B
For example, yoga, there is a good book called the Yoga Body.
Speaker B
Which will destroy a lot of people's yoga practice.
Speaker B
And it goes into, how did we get to this yoga?
Speaker B
The influence of Swedish gymnastics and Mongolian contortionists.
Speaker B
Western, the West.
Speaker B
Affecting it.
Speaker B
And then the ancient practice, which was barely Asana related.
Speaker B
Posture, position.
Speaker B
So actually, you said yoga is less linear.
Speaker B
Yoga is very linear these days.
Speaker B
These lines.
Speaker B
Look at all the traditional dances, they look like nothing like yoga.
Speaker B
Look at Thai dance.
Speaker B
Look at Chinese dances, martial arts, it's all rounded.
Speaker B
It's all curly.
Speaker B
It's like nature.
Speaker B
What you see in nature.
Speaker B
And the movement of the animals.
Speaker B
So where does it come from?
Speaker B
These are things to understand.
Speaker B
Because it designs you now.
Speaker B
It it shapes you.
Speaker B
You're placing yourself in these forces of change and the streams of change.
Speaker B
And you have a good intention and you just want this or that.
Speaker B
But the joke is on us.
Speaker B
And this is the movement practice for me.
Speaker B
Is first education.
Speaker B
Start to think about this.
Speaker B
I have nothing that I can just sprinkle now.
Speaker B
Some magic powder that will help resolve this.
Speaker B
Because it's a start of a deep investigation.
Speaker B
Let's talk pragmatically.
Speaker B
Because what you described is not about you placing the foot in front when you're curling.
Speaker B
It's about the examination.
Speaker B
This is why it is a very good direction.
Speaker B
And then you will need another one and another one.
Speaker B
Don't get stuck on that foot in front.
Speaker B
But and try to do with the eyes closed.
Speaker B
Or with a different head posture.
Speaker B
And you will see things arrive.
Speaker B
Unrelated things because the associative mind.
Speaker B
The thinking, this relates to this, doesn't get to the heart of it.
Speaker B
Never.
Speaker B
This is a playful approach.
Speaker B
And this is a researcher approach.
Speaker B
Um I don't try to fit my truth into something.
Speaker B
I'm there to examine.
Speaker B
I don't have a motive yet.
Speaker B
Why?
Speaker B
Because I'm fine.
Speaker B
I don't depend on that to define myself.
Speaker B
I'm a human being.
Speaker B
But if I don't have that sense of worth, I I'm already like geared towards.
Speaker B
I need to do this, I need to prove this.
Speaker B
I have this agenda.
Speaker B
And this is how we get all the lies in the world and all the the problems and difficulties.
Speaker B
So these practices, they are related to it.
Speaker B
To prove this, that, this way.
Speaker B
Why we need muscles?
Speaker B
For XYZ and a lot of the reported outcomes are often from my place.
Speaker B
It's like funny.
Speaker B
I hear about something like I I heard you say about gratitude practice.
Speaker B
If somebody tries to feel gratitude, just sit with the eyes closed.
Speaker B
Or.
Speaker B
Watch a movie and sense the gratitude there.
Speaker B
It would be clear to you.
Speaker B
One is very difficult to do.
Speaker B
And the other is very easy.
Speaker B
Hence, if gratitude is achieved easier this way, that's why it works like that.
Speaker B
Although all the traditional practices are about you.
Speaker B
And by challenging yourself to sense that gratitude yourself.
Speaker B
Weight training, the benefits.
Speaker B
Or the way that the hormonal effects, the effect over cognition, etcetera.
Speaker B
When you open a bit and you go far out, you see certain things.
Speaker B
Not the truth, but maybe less delusion.
Speaker B
If you don't get the weird looks.
Speaker B
You're not moving in the right direction.
Speaker B
You already know the result of that direction.
Speaker B
Let's say at least that.
Speaker B
What happens when you do it with a smile?
Speaker B
The same workout.
Speaker B
And when you do it with a frown.
Speaker A
I love it.
Speaker A
I think it's a wonderful message.
Speaker A
What I keep hearing from you over and over again is that people should explore.
Speaker A
Explore, explore.
Speaker A
You know, the the greatest compliment that one can give in science.
Speaker A
Is the one that I'm going to tell you now because it's entirely appropriate.
Speaker A
Which is we say you're an N of one.
Speaker A
Right?
Speaker A
And you truly are, I don't think there's anyone that has been as willing to embrace existing practices.
Speaker A
Evolve them, create new practices and and um and to share so broadly.
Speaker A
To really be willing to give and teach so much knowledge.
Speaker A
You know, earlier you made the mention of your your goals of uh
Speaker A
in part of being wild and wise.
Speaker A
And I'm here to tell you that you are both wild and wise.
Speaker A
And so thank you so much.
Speaker B
Thank you very much.
Speaker B
Thank you.
Topics:movement practiceIdo PortalAndrew Hubermanbody awarenessplayfulnessFeldenkraismental healthphysical healthneurobiologymovement science
