Evolve Move Play Podcast

What does movement mean to you? Is it just a fun pastime? Maybe you use it as a tool to reach certain health markers or become more attractive? Is it a grueling obligation or some form of punishment you put yourself through to make up for unhealthy life choices? Whatever it may be, chances are you’ve been conditioned to view movement in some light that doesn’t capture the ways it can truly serve you, your community and your environment as a whole. At Evolve Move Play we’ve taken on the sizeable task of reawakening people to the power and purpose of a dedicated human movement practice. We’ve found that movement is not only a source of physical nourishment, but mental, social, and emotional nourishment as well. Through trial and error, extensive studies, experimenting and testing our theories, we’ve been able to build a sound framework around what we practice, how we practice, and most importantly, WHY we practice. In this piece, and the accompanying video, we’re going to give you a look at those three elements and the way we conceptualize the key components of our practice.

Greetings everybody and welcome back to the Evolve Move Play Podcast! We’ve taken a bit of time off to focus on running retreats and releasing our Natural Parkour Online Course. It will be a few weeks before we are ready to get the podcast running again full steam but we decided to offer this special episode the celebrate the release of our friend Mark Walsh's book Embodiment. Find that book here https://www.amazon.com/Embodiment-Moving-mindfulness-Mark-Walsh/dp/1916249221 For our 31st episode we have the one and only Mark Walsh of Embodied Yoga Principles joining us to talk about his new book “Embodiment: Moving Beyond Mindfulness”. This is his third time visiting us on the podcast, and if you didn’t catch his last two appearances, I highly recommend that you go listen to those first to get a real solid idea of just what embodiment is and why it is so important for those of us working towards our most heroic selves. This episode we will talk at length about how to conceptualize our practices and how to layer in elements of EYP to take our self development to the next level. We also talk about the dark side of peak experiences and address the problem of habitual state seeking in ourselves and our students. So give it a listen and let us know what you think in the comments below! SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Intro 00:58 - Recap & Marks Book 06:58 - Fitting the Pieces Together 13:08 - Optimizing Your Practice 18:53 - Putting EYP to Work 32:50 - Sacrifice 39:34 - The Shadow Side of Peak Experience 47:43 - Getting Free From State Seeking 53:06 - Fantasy, Sci-fi, and Ukranian Wife Deathmatches LEARN MORE www.theembodimentbook.com www.embodiedyogaprinciples.com SUPPORT US www.evolvemoveplay.com www.patreon.com/rafekelley Thanks everyone, and happy moving! -The EMP Team

Aaron Cantor, an incredible coach, interviews Rafe on the podcast. They discuss the origins and future of Evolve Move Play, determining value and finding inspiration in a chaotic world. The interview is filled with laughs and deeper insights from a recent event.

RETURN TO THE SOURCE AUTUMN RETREAT! Oct 3-6th https://www.evolvemoveplay.com/ev_event/autumn-retreat-2019/ TODAY'S EPISODE Motivation seems to be a big problem. The cost of being a member at your average gym is about $60 a month yet every year about 5.1 million Americans end up wasting a total of around $1.8 billion in unused gym memberships.  It’s a strange statistic if you think about it. We all know that movement is vital in maintaining a healthy body and brain. We know that positive lifestyle improvements are good for mitigating stress and anxiety, increasing brain function, reducing the risk of diseases, and can make us less susceptible to injuries.  Meanwhile, we are bombarded by marketing that idolizes those who are fit and healthy. Our movies, our television shows, the people we follow on social media... all make it clear that having a strong, fit-looking body brings great social reward and probably loads of self respect and confidence. To add to it, we even have state of the art facilities staffed with professional exercisers ready to measure us, build dietary plans and workout routines, taking all the thinking and studying out of the equation for us. With all of this help, being our most heroic and sexy selves should be pretty easy. Yet… we still don’t go to the gym. As it turns out, the human mind and body is an incomprehensibly complex thing. There’s a lot more going on than what can be adequately addressed through the reductionist method. Movement is much more than just an obligatory chore to meet society's expectations or to punish oneself for past poor decisions. Movement, in its truest sense, is a means of expression and connection that can actively imbue our lives with meaning and profound experiences. The motivations and methods described above generally ignore this fact, opting instead to create an environment that, shuns playing, stifles creative problem solving, poo poos self expression, and asserts that no pain equals no gain. While this is enough to get people to shell out money for a membership, it seems to be insufficient in keeping people engaged and motivated for very long. In today’s episode of the Evolve Move Play Podcast, our good friend Todd Hargrove is back to talk about his new book “Playing with Movement: How to Explore the Many Dimensions of Physical Health and Performance”. It turns out that if we really want to get the most out of our movement and become the best versions of ourselves, we would do well to step away from our habit of viewing the body as a machine, perceiving play as pointless, and seeing movement solely as a form of work.  When we begin playing more, we tap into inherent motivations and are far more likely to engage in the activities that nurture us. So buckle up and join us on this conversation. Along the way we’ll also talk with Todd about intention and attention, dynamic systems, and what differentiates work from play. So take a look and let us know what you think! SHOW NOTES 00:00 - intro 02:37 - The Importance of Play 06:49 - Complex and Complicated Problems 16:37 - Layers of Movement Interlude 20:42 - Direction of Attention 27:09 - Top Down, Bottom Up 30:13 - Attention and Intention 24:07 - What is Dynamical Systems? 39:39 - Work and Play 49:52 - Community 53:33 - Make Your Movement Meaningful LEARN MORE https://www.bettermovement.org SUPPORT US https://www.evolvemoveplay.com https://www.patreon.com/rafekelley

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle asserts that we are always operating in a state of limited understanding. No matter how many variables we take into consideration, no matter how long we worry and fret, we can never have all the data since the amount of data in any given situation is infinite. At the same time, however, humans have minds that are incredibly good at finding patterns, understanding cause and effect, and creating storylines that lead to places of deeper understanding and profound meaning. We tend to love solving puzzles and tracing our fingers along the lines of maps. We thirst for knowledge and understanding and truth. Every human finds themselves in an ancient dance between order and chaos and while many of us may have natural inclinations towards one end or the other, there is an undeniable power in being able to harness the strengths of both. Can we establish enough order and discipline to prepare ourselves for the rigors of survival while never losing the sense of awe and mystery that imbues our existence with moments of wonder and magic? Can we find room in our minds and hearts for science and spirit, freedom and fealty, machination and mystery? In today’s episode of the Evolve Move Play Podcast, we are talking with Jozef Frucek and much of our conversation will cover how this dance emerges not just in our movement practices, but also in our lives at large. Throughout the course of our unfolding stories, can we stand deliberately in the face of chaos, even if it means we might fall, make mistakes, or be proven wrong? Can we be steadfast in our discipline so that our efforts may benefit ourselves, our families, and our communities from now into the future? Is there a way to practice both sides of the coin in your daily life? Join us in our conversation and feel free to leave your thoughts and questions in the comments section. Thanks everyone, and happy moving! -The EMP Team SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Intro 02:04 - Meditations on Meditation 09:26 - A Sustainable Approach 21:54 - Borders: Maps vs Territory 28:00 - Selecting the Challenge 33:13 - Articulation and Mystery 38:43 - The Body is Poetry 46:40 - Thinking Critically 51:16 - Being and Becoming, Knowledge of an Egg 59:42 - Complex vs Complicated Problems 01:06:48 - Reciprocal Realization 01:11:35 - Finding Your Own Way LEARN MORE fightingmonkey.net SUPPORT US www.patreon.com/rafekelley www.evolvemoveplay.com

“To me, ultimately martial arts means honestly expressing yourself… Now it’s very difficult to do. It is easy for me to put on a show and be cocky... I can make all kinds of phony things and be blinded by it. Or I can show you some really fancy movement. But to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly, now that my friend is very hard to do. “ -Bruce Lee In this podcast we’ve talked a lot about the process of building an ecology of practices around becoming our most heroic selves. As I said in the last episode’s description: the things we choose to do require that we invest our time, money, and energy in order to absorb the lessons that are given. Often times the huge investment that we put into our practice of choice can bias us towards believing that there’s no need for other practices, that our one discipline has it all and is superior to all the rest. We can tie our egos into the practice to the point where we see ourselves as products of the school in which we train, we are “climbers” we are “karate-ka” we are “bodybuilders”, etc… This is a sneaky and often devastating trap that can not only cut us off from the myriad benefits of other disciplines, but can actually stifle and smother our individuality and our ability to honestly assess, express and obtain that which we need. In today’s episode of the Evolve Move Play Podcast, we have the wonderful Soisci Porchetta joining us to talk about her process of self discovery and transformation and how she’s taking lessons she has learned from her many disciplines and putting them together to help herself and her students find their path of continual growth. Along the way we’re going to discuss how to determine what students need for improvement, how to find intrinsic sources of motivation and reward, and the role that the ego plays in self transformation. So enjoy the show and as always, leave us a comment, share, like, and subscribe. You can also give us a rating and a review on iTunes. If you would like to personally support the show, head on over to www.patreon.com/rafekelley to become a patron, or hit up www.evolvemoveplay.com and see if we’re coming to your neck of the woods. Thanks everyone, and happy moving! -The EMP Team SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Intro 02:07 - Isolate, Integrate, Improvise 18:18 - Practice Prescription 28:39 - Soisci’s Class Structure 36:55 - Balance 50:18 - Digging Deeper 59:06 - Connectivity, Intrinsic v. Extrinsic Reward 01:09:46 - Movement and the Body Brain Connection 01:19:50 - Meaning and Relevance 01:31:17 - Tempering the Ego LEARN MORE www.humanpatterns.net

In this complex and chaotic world, there are an endless array of hobbies, past times, disciplines and studies that can be woven into the tapestry of our lives and choosing the ones that are capable of enriching our existence in the most broadly applicable ways can be an incredibly daunting task. The fact of the matter is that whatever we choose to do carries with it the weight of our time and commitment. Because we devote considerable portions of our lives to these practices it’s worth considering how they develop our character - which requires that we honestly consider how we want or need our character to be developed. Mark Walsh is an embodiment teacher who has made the structure of self transcendence a core focus of his work and he’s joining us today to provide some deep insight into how we can live more embodied lives and truly get the most out of the practices we pursue. In this episode we will detail the paths and pitfalls of both generalist and specialist training, how to determine the efficiency or redundancy of our efforts, how to analyze our strengths and weaknesses and fall in love with the process of self cultivation. Each person has their own story, rich with passions, fears, wins, losses, loves and lamentations. There will never be a one size fits all algorithm to becoming the best and truest versions of ourselves, but there are guidelines that one can apply to better direct themselves toward an ecology of practices that best fits their incredible journey. When we live and move with the passion that comes from intentionally creating a better story for ourselves, our families and our communities, we plant seeds that sprout a deeper sense of meaning and connection, and that will bear the fruit of a life well lived. Enjoy the discussion, and please remember to like, share, subscribe and leave us a comment below. You are a part of this amazing community and we love to hear your stories, so tell us how you like the episode and let us know how you are utilizing your practices to enrich your lives. Thanks everyone and happy moving! -The EMP Team SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Intro 01:53 - Sports and Character 05:47 - Practice vs. Applications 18:25 - The Two Traps 24:32 - A Guide to Choosing Your Journey 31:48 - Balancing the Methods 43:50 - Falling in Love 49:51 - Stacking Practices and Priorities 57:04 - The Elements of Character 01:00:08 - Analyzing Rafe 01:06:06 - Summing it Up LEARN MORE Making Yoga Meaningful E-Book - www.embodiedyogaprinciples.com/yoga-ebook The Embodiment Podcast - embodiedfacilitator.com/the-embodiment-podcast Mark’s YouTube - www.youtube.com/user/IntegrationTraining SUPPORT US evolvemoveplay.com patreon.com/rafekelley

John Vervaeke, a cognitive scientist from the University of Toronto, discusses the 'meaning crisis' and its societal implications. He explores strategies for effective problem-solving, emphasizing the need for wisdom over mere knowledge. The conversation sheds light on distinguishing between well-defined and ill-defined problems, the power of play in personal growth, and the integration of diverse health practices. Both Eastern and Western medicine's strengths are examined, promoting a holistic approach to personal development and well-being.

One of the biggest difficulties in progressing as an athlete is deciding on how to structure a training program to best meet the goals that they have set out for themselves. It requires an honest assessment of many different factors such as physical, mental, and emotional capabilities and a firm understanding of how the body and mind work to enhance and sustain performance. Many athletes deal with a lot of frustration around hitting plateaus while many of them struggle to incorporate training routines that are often too complicated or poorly designed to offer any real benefit. Today we are stepping away from the philosophical content and diving into the nuts and bolts of technical development for parkour and movement practitioners. If you’re interested in learning how to take your skill, strength, speed, and subsequent training practices to the next level, our guest Ryan Ford is one of the foremost thinkers on the subject. In our conversation we’re going to talk about practices that beginners should orient themselves towards and ways that they can scale more advanced movements down to their level to streamline their development. We will also dive into what sets athletes apart at the highest levels of skill and how to zero in on and strengthen the attributes that are lagging behind. In addition we will talk about how to figure out which movements will give you the most bang for your buck depending on your individual limitations. So you might want to grab a pad and a pen and jot down notes for this one. Like always, if you have any questions drop them in the comments section below and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe. We also would love to have you rate and review the show on iTunes! Also, as mentioned in the intro, we have a few open spots available for this year’s Return to the Source seminar. If you want to know more about that, follow this link here ---> https://www.evolvemoveplay.com/ev_event/return-to-the-source-2019/ 00:00 - Intro 02:12 - Ryan’s History & Practice 08:47 - Classes, Coaching, and Programming 13:11 - Scaling Movements and Progress Carryover 22:00 - Strength Training and Track & Field 27:52 - Load, Explode, & Drive 39:30 - Injury Resilience 45:41 - Prescribing Strength 54:47 - Examining Speed 01:01:25 - Flow Learn More https://parkouredu.org/ https://apexmovement.com/ IG: @ryanmford Support Us www.evolvemoveplay.com www.patreon.com/rafekelley

“...the sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head...” -an excerpt from 'Bear Meat' by Primo Levi. The sport of parkour has spent the last decade spreading like wildfire across the globe. We see it in television, movies, and video games. Training facilities are cropping up in nearly every major city and parkour's top athletes and teams usually have tens of thousands (or up to millions) of followers and subscribers on social media. Like anything else that experiences an explosive rise in popularity and public access, parkour has gone through some drastic changes since the days of it's humble conception. While the physicality and technical skill of the athletes have been improving exponentially, many of the most beneficial and crucial components of parkour have been largely neglected. Today we talk with Thomas Couetdic who began his parkour practice in the very early days alongside Stephane Vigroux and David Belle. Back then, the goal was total self cultivation, a dedicated pursuit of antifragility across all domains. Whether it was working on extreme endurance, cold tolerance, combative situations, or jumping from rooftop to rooftop, the chief aim was to become comfortable with facing the uncomfortable, and in doing so, create a deeper sense of self trust, meaning and purpose in their lives. This is the soul of parkour that is accessible to all people, you may never kong vault or hit a roof gap, but whether you're a world class athlete or dealing with a lifelong disability, the process of facing adversity and transcending limitations can be owned and practiced at every level. So enjoy the conversation and don't forget to like, subscribe, share, and shoot us a comment down below. Also please leave us a rating and a review! SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Intro 02:53 - The Strength in Honesty 09:33 - Be Strong to be Useful 15:31 - Philosophy of Challenge 21:56 - The Early Days 28:06 - Defining Strength 34:10 - Jutsu and Do 44:22 - Our Summary 59:20 - Applying the Lessons Outside of Parkour SUPPORT US www.patreon.com/rafekelley www.evolvemoveplay.com Thanks everyone and happy moving! -The EMP Team