Evolve Move Play Podcast

Podcast by Evolve Move Play

Latest episodes

Mar 10, 2020 • 18min

Applying Ecological Dynamics to Physical Education with Peter Verdin: EMP Podcast 38

In our last three podcast episodes, we’ve gone a long way towards explaining why it’s important for humans to approach motor learning and skill acquisition from a standpoint of ecological dynamics. The human organism is an incredibly complex system of systems and for millions of years we’ve learned skills primarily by means of environmental necessity. If a problem or an opportunity arises, our survival could hinge on our ability to adapt and overcome the situation. This adaptability is one of our greatest powers and it exists in us to this day. Compared to this, the advent of instructors, coaches and learning facilities is relatively new to us. While coaching and instruction are invaluable at certain times and certain places, it is a major mistake when we abandon task constrained learning and unstructured play. Unfortunately this isn’t how the vast majority of our modern physical education programs approach movement and motor learning. The emphasis on competitive team sports and reductionist fitness training has constricted the scope of what can be achieved and developed through movement practice. While everyone is affected by this, it is especially damaging to children. As young children, the vast majority of fundamental skills and abilities are learned through play. When kids are allowed to play on their own, they not only develop physical capacities like strength, balance, and coordination, they also are learning social skills like negotiation, communication, self inhibition, altruism, and empathy. This kind of play is also highly therapeutic and important for regulating anti-social behavior. Yet we are seeing more and more restrictions on both the amount and the types of play that kids are given access to. Schools are consistently cutting down on recess time, creating strict anti-risky play rules, and funneling more, younger kids into organized competitive team sports. As this problem persists, we’re seeing the damages more and more clearly as children grow into adults who are highly adverse to social situations, unable to take risks, unable to regulate aggression, and who are socially emotionally illiterate. At EMP we believe that one of the most important things we can work towards is a complete restructuring of the physical education system. That’s why we are so excited to have Peter Verdin as a guest on the Evolve Move Play Podcast today. Peter is a host at The Other Literacies Podcast, and he’s also a movement engineer at Future Public Schools where he is using principles from parkour, natural movement, and ecological dynamics to build a better physical education system for his elementary school aged students. His work is proving that with the right knowledge and experience, you can implement an effective program for instructing 30+ student classes in a manner that is engaging and congruent with the natural learning systems we have hardwired into our bodies and minds. SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Intro 04:07 - The Other Literacies 15:38 - Movement Nutrition 20:58 - Play Literacy 33:09 - Structured and Unstructured Play 48:13 - Social Emotional Learning 01:03:04 - The Task Constrained Curriculum 01:12:15 - The History of Physical Education

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Jan 27, 2020 • 1h 34min

Creating Movement Problem Solvers With Shawn Myszka: EMP Podcast 35

SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Intro 03:44 - Shawn’s Background 08:05 - Teaching Without Teaching 11:26 - What is Ecological Dynamics? 17:38 - Scaling Complexity, Manipulating Constraints 30:54 - The Zone of Optimal Challenge 35:24 - The Performance is the Screen 39:34 - Aliveness 46:57 - Task Constrained Learning 50:16 - Zooming In and Zooming Out 54:48 - Attention, Intention and Calibration 1:15:01 - Balancing Extrinsic and Intrinsic Attention 1:25:23 - Becoming Movement Problem Solvers How do humans learn to move? Be it in sports, fitness, trade skills, performance arts or just everyday life, the process of acquiring skill in movement is something that we all must go through. For decades now it seems like the most widely adopted method of motor learning has been to apply a reductionist mindset to skill acquisition. The idea is to improve our movement by practicing isolated component skills with the hopes of perfecting patterns that can then be integrated back into the bigger picture task. For instance, if you wanted to get better at playing basketball you might individually practice free throws, three pointers, lay ups, etc… with the goal of having perfect form on every repetition. If you want to learn parkour, you might have an instructor give you detailed explanations of each vault: how to angle your hands, where to jump from, what each foot is doing at the beginning, middle and end of the vault, where your eyes are trained, your breathing, etc… The problem is that this approach doesn’t address the variability of context and constraint. In a real game of basketball, no two shots will be under the same conditions, and the number of possible conditions to shoot from is far too vast to practice each individually. Even further, this method is directly at odds with how humans actually develop motor skill because it tends to rely on the prefrontal cortex which is great for organizing propositional knowledge but ineffective for performing skillful, adaptive movement. Perhaps you’ve experienced “paralysis by analysis”: freezing up or being unable to act as a result of trying to mentally organize and process too many individual component actions.. As it turns out, it is far more effective to gain movement skill by engaging in tasks built around complex problem solving. It's fairly obvious if you think about it. As babies, we don’t learn to locomote because of our parents detailed instruction of contralateral crawling patterns. We learn to crawl because we need to solve the problem of not being able to play with that interesting thing on the other side of the room. The process of solving that problem, and other problems like it, ingrains those movement solutions into us and before long we are solving new problems to reach things that are higher up which opens the doors to climbing and moving bipedally. So how do we apply this process of learning to our own movement practice, or even to the practice of elite level athletes? Well on today’s episode of the Evolve Move Play Podcast we’ve got Shawn Myszka joining us to talk about just that. His work has centered around using ecological dynamics to improve not just how top NFL players move, but how they utilize their capacities for attention and intention to become better problem solvers on the field. If you’ve been to one of our retreats, you’ve most likely heard us talk about how it’s not patterns that are important, but solutions. By training at the highest level of complexity possible to achieve our goals and implementing a task based constraint approach to learning, we can effectively tap into our innate motor learning systems and streamline the process of skill acquisition. We really enjoyed having Shawn on the show and hope to have him back soon. Let us know what you think in the comments below and don’t forget to like, share and subscribe! Learn more about Shawn at: Twitter: @movementmiyagi Online: emergentmvmt.com

Jan 20, 2020 • 1h 16min

Mapping The Evolve Move Play Method With John Vervaeke: EMP Podcast 36

We believe that the practice of movement is more than learning neat tricks and improving our physical aesthetics. While those things are great, what we are aimed at is a practice that goes beyond just the physical and improves as many aspects of our lives as possible. Movement is essentially an expression of the self— the body-mind organism that we are. It is how we interact with and experience literally everything going on within and around us. Our connections to the environment, to others, and to ourselves immediately affect the quality of our lives. If you are constantly unhappy with your own actions, scared of the world around you, and being alienated by your peers, cultivating a sense of purpose can be incredibly difficult to do. Building an ecology of practices that strengthen these relations gives us a better chance to create the life we want for ourselves. We can find affordances in our environment that nurture us and give us opportunities for learning and growth. We learn how to communicate and form bonds with people to expand our network of support. We begin to live according to our vision and, through continual work and incremental progress, gain a stronger sense of self respect and self trust. Johns work is tightly woven around this idea of creating a sense of meaning, but one of the biggest criticisms of his work is that it can be abstract. Sure, we should live more meaningful lives, but what are the real world, physical actions that bring about that result? John’s work has resonated deeply with us at EMP and we feel there is a way to make the ideas and principles concrete, and we’ve been working hard on mapping out how to put all of these concepts into actual practice. The purpose of today's episode is not so much to interview John, but rather to present our map of practices to him for the sake of getting some dialogue and feedback on how congruent they are to his teachings. We hope you enjoy this conversation and we’d be happy to hear what questions or comments you have. Keep an eye out in the future for more interviews and conversations with John, and don’t forget to go check out his lecture series “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” on YouTube. SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Intro 03:48 - Pillar Practices 09:08 - The Physical Philosopher 18:11 - The EMP Roadmap 33:32 - The Archetypes 47:22 - Embodied Sacredness 58:34 - Jitsu vs Do 1:04:13 - The Power of Dialogue

Jan 13, 2020 • 1h 2min

Learn Like a Human: EMP Podcast 35

It might seem obvious, but it’s incredibly important to understand that humans are complex. Not only are we physically complex, but we’re cognitively, emotionally, and socially complex as well. This is in big part because we must survive in a world that is just as mind numbingly complex as we are and, often times, directly hostile towards us. Existing amidst this complexity has required that we become a versatile and adaptive system of systems that is properly equipped to recognize, understand, and solve an incalculable number of emergent problems or tasks. Our capacity for self organization and skill acquisition is staggering, but as our technological strength grows our world becomes more reliant on computers and machines. As a result, we have made the mistake of adopting patterns of teaching and learning that, while they might make sense from an engineers standpoint, are actually at odds with how humans most effectively learn. I would wager that most of you reading this have experienced a time where an instructor has overwhelmed you with too much information, over-correction of mistakes, or improper cuing— resulting in you actually coming away from the lesson more frustrated and less skillful. Why does this happen? It might seem sensible that having a clear understanding of each individual step, or having a high frequency of technical correction would result in faster progress, but because of how our brains are structured that’s not the way we optimally learn, especially in terms of applicable motor skills. So if you are going to learn natural movement, or any other skill, it’s important to understand just how humans naturally learn. What are the principles that allow students to self organize and generate robust and reliable movement solutions? Today’s episode of the EMP Podcast will have you join in on a lecture from last year’s Autumn Retreat where Rafe broke down the science and structure behind Evolve Move Plays method of teaching. This is an insightful and fascinating talk for anyone, teacher or student, who wants to avoid the frustrations of improper instruction and gain a firmer understanding of how to tap into our natural super powers of learning and applying movement skills. So check it out and let us know below what your experiences have been with learning or teaching movement. How do you facilitate student growth, or what struggles regularly show up with your practice? We want to hear your stories! SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Intro 03:43 - Explicit and Implicit Knowledge 10:36 - The Ill Defined Problem of Human Movement 22:04 - Non Linear Learning 28:33 - Relevance and Affordances 34:05 - Constraints and Cuing 45:44 - Four Levels of Motor Control 54:42 - The EMP Pedagogy

Jan 6, 2020 • 45min

The Heroic Journey, Parkour and Jordan Peterson: EMP Podcast 34

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a story is worth countless lessons. Each person who listens to a tale can see it freshly from the frame of their own life experiences and glean from it a level of wisdom that may have never been otherwise captured. More so, because we continually grow and gain new insights throughout the course of our lives, as we return to these stories time and again we find that they offer us new wisdom that we hadn’t been ready to receive before. John Vervaeke speaks of this as being a kind of sacredness; a relationship between person and narrative that affords an inexhaustible fount of insight and discovery. Throughout history and across cultures, the most prevalent theme humans have been sharing with one another is the epic struggle between order and chaos. It is a universal truth that life begets conflict and that the most admirable trait a person can aspire to is the ability to face the challenges of their life head on. To us, movement practice is a path towards that aim. It is a lifelong road that leads us from the “unbearable present” to the “ideal future”. A daily commitment to becoming the self we most admire. Today Rafe is going to revisit the stories he told on our last podcast episode and tie them back into the frame of movement practice. He will explain how these concepts of order, chaos and the heroic journey can be powerful tools to aid us on our own path of self transformation. SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Intro and Forward 02:35 - Movement and the Heroic Journey 04:44 - Rafe’s History 11:54 - Congruent Principles 15:50 - Order, Chaos and the Heroic Practice 22:24 - The Dragon, The Slayer and The Tamer 33:17 - The Dark and Light of the Archetypes 37:04 - Parkour and the Parched Kingdom LINKS [2 Heroic Conflicts] https://www.evolvemoveplay.com/the-heroic-quest-emp-podcast-33/ [Roughhousing] https://www.evolvemoveplay.com/do-you-remember-roughhousing/ [The Self Worth Esteeming] https://www.evolvemoveplay.com/the-self-worth-esteeming/

Dec 17, 2019 • 18min

The Heroic Quest: EMP Podcast 33

Have you ever sat down by a campfire and listened with rapt attention to a well-told tale? Before we had books, video games and movies this was our most important form of entertainment. Stories are more than just a means of entertainment though, they are an ancient and integral part of the human experience. 44,000 years ago, early humans were etching figures of heroic hunters and mighty beasts onto cave walls in Indonesia. In 1800 BC the epic of Gilgamesh was being scribed onto clay tablets in ancient Mesopotamia. More recently the Harry Potter series has sold over 500 million copies worldwide and last year total box office revenue in North America amounted to $11.89 billion. It’s not hard to understand why the power of storytelling is held so close to our hearts. Stories make sense of the world. They allow us to see life through the eyes of another. They guide us to insight, deepen our understanding, and increase our chances of survival in a dangerous and hostile universe. Of all the tales told around the globe, the most familiar archetypal story is the heroic journey; a characters epic quest to confront the chaotic darkness of the world and restore order and security to their people. In today’s episode of the EMP Podcast, you will join Rafe by the campfire at this summers Return to the Source as he shares the stories of Saint George and the Dragon and King Martel of Odd. These stories, reflect ancient themes of heroism, but what do they signify to you? Let me know if these stories spoke to you and if so how do you feel they might give insight in to movement practice? Tell us in the comments below! SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Intro 01:00 - Announcements 02:49 - Saint George and the Dragon 10:09 - The King of Odd 17:00 - Outro SUPPORT US www.evolvemoveplay.com www.patreon.com/rafekelley

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Evolve Move Play Podcast

Latest episodes

A Primer on Coronavirus for the Movement Community: EMP Podcast 42

Aliveness and the Universal Athletic Human Blueprint: EMP Podcast 41

Constraint Lead Coaching With James Smith: EMP Podcast 40

Parkour As Therapy With Kasturi Torchia: EMP Podcast 39

Applying Ecological Dynamics to Physical Education with Peter Verdin: EMP Podcast 38

Creating Movement Problem Solvers With Shawn Myszka: EMP Podcast 35

Mapping The Evolve Move Play Method With John Vervaeke: EMP Podcast 36

Learn Like a Human: EMP Podcast 35

The Heroic Journey, Parkour and Jordan Peterson: EMP Podcast 34

The Heroic Quest: EMP Podcast 33

The AI-powered Podcast Player