Ido Portal interview (Subtítulos en Español)

Today I had an amazing opportunity to sit down with my teacher of 10 years in do portal to talk a little bit about the practice he is here to work with some athletes and to do an event for my students and also people from the outside so I really appreciated the time that he gave me to share with you a little bit of insights about what we're doing about what is the movement practice and we are going deeper into Some questions we're covering some a little bit more Prismatic details of the thing and I hope

you enjoy it going in the interview with the doer [Music] to he thank you so much it's a pleasure to have you here in Barcelona and I really appreciate that we can sit down and talk about some things so the first thing I would like you to address and this is the question that we always dis discuss with all the people Who are doing this movement thing that it's really hard to explain to someone from the outside when they are really curious what is that exactly that we do so I have my way of explaining

it other people have their way of explaining it but I think you're the most adequate person to ask this question um I think it's something that we have to do regularly like I've been asked this question before p in in person of course many Times and also in interviews and I think it's also important to keep asking yourself this question and keep answer attempting to answer it Etc so here's another opportunity to to look at it um really the there is a meeting point of two very important Concepts that appear in the form of the

words movement and practice these two perspectives are meeting together to create that thing which ER we are attempting to do and to work with movement is the quality that Arises is the entity that is there is the medium often times it is the content and the practice is the container it is the procedures it is the process and uh we are working on ourselves we are working on this experience of the self and on the investigation of the self on the evolution of the self through this medium of movement it can be physical movement but

not only it can be movement Of anything really and the of course this doesn't mean much when when when a word means almost everything like movement it also means that it means almost nothing so we are also working with Stillness just as much as we're working with movement and the two inform each other and Collide and form so when a person comes in this is a framework this is a way to be this is a Way to to become this is a way to develop this is a way to evolve this is a way to

examine this is a way to be present um that is informed that is process based that is practice based and that's what we are doing um it's not very different from many other practices that are working through different mediums because eventually we are going into some kind of an unknown we're going into some kind of an openness which is already exists in the Word of in the word Evolution um and hence the the the procedures and the containers and the constraints are less important you can bake bread and you can do it and you can

have a practice and you can do it through physical movements and you can do it through other types of mediums and my inclination and not only it's not just my inclination but my choice was to work with physical movement in the beginning and later with a bigger kind Of concept of movement also through the body because I believed it was a very good medium to examine the self which is a lot less bribed a lot a lot less corrupted a lot less walking in circles and there is something about this earthy experience this being that

is um allows me to have wet tests and allows me to examine what I'm working with and to have feedback H in a way that felt to me tangible Intelligent intelligent but kind of not not in the cerebral kind of way so it pulls things down to the ground it it creates something very pragmatic you can do it you can do it it's like something very tangible and that's where it comes really originally that's how it came about for me okay um you mentioned intelligence and through all the years that I've been studying with you

for me the way that I perceive intelligence Intelligence have changed completely so there is this data Gathering and making sense of the theoretical knowledge which people usually perceive as intelligence but through working with the body and with the concepts that you offer working with movement I have realized that intelligence or intelligent Behavior maybe that will be a different way of putting it into words is much more than just this cerebral digging into information picking up the data maybe Even relating the data to each other but still it misses a lot of other components and this

is pretty obvious for me through the point of practice to see that our ideas a society of intelligence is missing a few elements so could you elaborate on that what is intelligent or intelligence or intelligent behavior and how would you define this in your words I have no idea what intelligence is really we we have no idea what Intelligence is it's important to acknowledge that um and definitely I refuse to accept that kind of very you know sh shaky and unreliable definition of intelligence which is either related to a power of calculus or memorization or

a combination of both which makes intelligence somehow for me very stupid and I think looking at intelligence through This associative quality is sad is something something sad something limiting that it's just Association it's it's it based in experience and it's like a game of you know chicken egg you know this associative game and then the power of calculus is another kind of play with data as well and somehow in the back of my mind since childhood intelligence was Something more and I think nowadays for me intelligence is more some kind of an interplay between various

capacities that we have Beyond those cere and and intellectual capacities um that are often presented and promoted it's it relates to the emotional layer whatever that is which is another thing that we don't really understand well it's related to Sensation and it's related to some kind of a wholesome quality of perceiving but not in the sense of perception alone but perceiving as in understanding understanding almost to the level of being that thing it swallowing and digesting what is being swallowed into the full capacity of understanding versus The Knowing of something another element that ties me

Back into the body ties me back into movement ties me back into physicality we've separated this well we we like to blame the C for it and the the the state of mind that comes from this separation but it was before already existing and and it also continued to evolve after and we're still falling into that trap often just because we can know something we prevent ourselves sometimes From understanding it [Music] so you've you've heard terms like emotional intelligence bodily intelligence movement intelligence Etc we we kept on using this word in combination in various combinations

because we realized that intelligence alone this intelligence the intelligence of the intellect of the discursive mind of the calculus even um is very limited Without the heart without the guts without the grounding of the body and this touches a lot of different subjects and areas like you look nowadays at Ai and that direction and you know their limitations of how they perceive and Define and do and what they are really developing versus what the what they sought to develop to begin with OR you look at the our society you look at Who We Are are

we really intelligence is mankind really developed much really Moving the the fact that we can produce these Technologies is it really intelligence is this really what we are capable of being of doing and uh tying it back into the practice how do we go beyond we have to go through go through a practice so we can become we can be sometimes it's something very simple like it's it's some some little task that you know like I give someone some athlete or or Or an actor or a person or or a housewife take a tennis ball

and you do something or or you you you do an exercise with the floor but the way that you are observing it and doing it and the way that you are constructing yourself through that experience is actually very powerful and I have a lot of respect towards it and I uh try to work with it and with my with my honesty towards developing intelligence this Unknown um in this Universal way yeah in this Wholesome Way in this balanced way I want to see a person that is emotionally stable and available and able to address and

enter all kinds of layers of emotions and sense what is happening in the room which happens many times in a social Gathering but not only and I want to see the person capable of working with huge amounts of information and Data and calculus and memorization and I want to see that the body can express and sense and perceive and all this together for me comes together to say what an intelligent human it's like a renaissance man I think there was a moment in time when people did pursue this kind of development but it kind of

was Lost in Translation probably with the development of Technology at least I attributed to that and the way that we Construct knowledge and the way that we pass knowledge especially knowledge of different kinds through recur generating instead of actually swallowing as you say I think it's damaging a lot this capacity of people to create this intelligence that is multi-dimensional so do you think what do you think are the reasons that this is happening to us and what you can attribute it to the fact that people have lost the ability to be this All-rounded Renaissance men

a lot of these things are connected to the path of Le resistance and this this survival efficiency that actually offers you the possibility to survive but when the situation contains a relatively easy opportunity to survive and many different options then it can become our downfall and and and that path of this Resistance started to move us into the direction of how to do things in an easier and easier way so instead of going through the practice now we can just get you know meat delivered to our house you know we can get the air conditioning

to adjust the temperature we can instead of developing the proper way to strike the foot on the ground we put shoes that absorb it for us and the endless endless ER examples of that so Practice kind of got eliminated as the primary vehicle of survival and now survival means nothing it's part of the meaninglessness there is no real effort that you really have to do so you're not forced to do the the efforts that are supposed to develop you and make you more capable of surviving so you end up doing meaningless efforts accumulating information and

passing it on and you know memorization Became more relevant than really being capable of problem solving so education became about that and on and on and on um yeah and this is something that have been going on for a long time and and you can say really accelerated in the Neolithic time yeah 10,000 years ago more or less and we started to eliminate Many practices practices that were keeping us in evolution keeping us in the game but the the game of evolution doesn't care you're you're not going to damage the universe or the planet or

the evolution per se we think we are damaging the planet but if we really pose any risk for the planet the planet is going to remove us very easily and uh in the same way these concepts are loftier they're bigger than us and hence what we are damaging is Ourselves when we take ourselves from that game we are damaging ourselves we have good intentions but we we we didn't think this through it's not all the way through thinking it's just a little bit of depth and a little bit of depth is a dangerous thing um

and I think that we will be slowly there will be always movement towards that and there has always been movement towards that a more holistic reality Seeing things in a in a more deeper way um but the majority is not there yet I I believe or maybe you know a lot of big phenomenal are not there yet so how do you pull people back into the practice into the idea of practice into wanted to do these things and challenge themselves on a daily basis when they have this option to just you know spend their time

on the sofa with everything being delivered and most go To this option but but there was a bit of a disconnect and I wish people would have a better understanding of how much it can transform their lives and this is the question that I have myself every day yeah it's there are many entry points one of the entry points is the negative entry point one is the positive entry point and one is a more of a neutral entry point the negative entry point is you have nothing more to Lose you realize the meaninglessness of things

you realize you've you've caught a glimpse of that self of yourself um on the lack of a depth on the lack of unity the lack of honesty the lack of intelligence whatever it is you caught a glimpse of the associative quality the mechanical the automatism your inability to do anything or to truly decide anything to be the Person that you're supposed to be that you wish to be and then it creates a big power source for practicing because you're not going to be the uded with another Hollywood movie you're not going to be saved by

eating another tasty meal you're not going to be helped by cocaine you've seen that these things don't really scratch the depth that these things don't really transform they actually put More and more of a distance between you and that but you've also seen that bringing a child into the world is not going to do much different you've also seen that being in a relationship is not going to save you from yourself from from the lack of depth this is the negative entry point the positive entry point is you thrive you succeed and succeed and succeed

you become Freer and Freer but you start to see The end of that as well and some people don't need to hit the depth and crash from that in order to look for something deeper but they will use this positive moment of realizing world champion you stand on that stage and you see wow this is meaningless and from that you can create a potential for practice as well and the neutral point which which is most people are somewhere in Between they have they have some idea of the the the problems of the lack of understanding

the the lack of the capacity to do their their multiplication of personality of of wills and they also have some success in the world and from these two things they construct some kind of again some power to practice um some of these potentials for practice don't last long enough or don't Go deep enough they can ignite a practice but as the practice will be demanding more and more and more from you they're just going to last you a certain amount of time a certain amount of intensity can be sustained with this and others can go

deeper the more you suffered the more you've seen the the futility of those you know tools that we are offered be successful okay I make the money be Beautiful be young okay I'm pursuing that longevity is a common one have Rel build a family the more you see that these things are not going to really reach that deep itch that we have the more you are equipped for a longer time practice because the practice is going to demand more from you what do I mean more more and more and more and more everything everything that

you believe you have but you don't truly have every illusion of Having all these material things they are clear but also an illusion of you yourself that you have yourself that you don't really have um and it will demand all of this gradually what what does this talk have to do with this physical practice you know that is visually presented many places people don't understand you're doing you know boxing or you're juggling balls or you're doing a handstand how is that related to it well it's in the How it's not like juggling those balls is

going to demand everything from me it's these practices make me aware of how much I don't have as I'm trying to apply myself and problem solve they demand more and more and more from me and more honesty comes to light and more humility comes to light and this slowly starts to transform the individual this is just a playground don't confuse the playground for the true meaning of it this is just A construction again you can achieve it by baking bread or being a lawyer or anything else um you can be a monk and pursue it

and you can be a lawyer and pursue it as well it's just um not commonly thought of in that way or not commonly pursued in that way but it is possible to do it and I for myself and for people who gathered around offered this kind of Investigation through the body and physicality in the beginning but then Going deeper into the emotional aspects and into the mental aspect and into the self into presence into attention into awareness so I have noticed this change in me because I'm studying with you for over a decade and to

go on a more pragmatic level let's say how do you create create a process for a person because it always has to address an individual behind it but is there some commonalities that apply to everyone or is it always going only in the narrow Direction of the person that it addressed to so how do you create a process for yourself and how do you create a process for other as a teacher when you're involved with this uh kind of practices I think this question often comes from a misguided place where people believe that creating a

process is having some kind of a grand plan that I stand on top of the mountain and from here I create the process of bringing You up on this mountain in reality I'm also climbing myself and the pathway that I took to come to the place where I am is not going to be the same pathway that you're going to take to come not even to that place but to a different place as well so how do you create a process well you throw challenges and difficulties on people and you teach them to observe discuss

Decipher problem solve and repeat ad nauseum you don't need a plan you're not going to walk them this path you're not in that regard you're not some kind of a tour guide memorizing Barcelona and explaining to them this building is that and this is here is that this is not how we do things it's a different type of guidance it's teaching you to guide Yourself but you're taking tasks tasks that are have to have certain qualities in relation to the individual they must be difficult but possible that's the first attribute paradoxical attribute the first one

but there are many others and you start to see how the person deals with it first on the level of pragmatism are we able to create a process to solve the physical problem or The the the procedural problem let's say I need to juggle three balls so okay I need to keep three balls in the air we have to find a way and we educate a person bringing tools systematic approach to it but then comes other layers like the emotional layer frustration arrives for example anger inability to focus people report headaches people report nausea by

doing juggling what's going on the self is starting this self fake self Counterfeit self starting to be attacked because somebody is observing the practitioner is observing herself or himself going through this process and then mental things come out focus for example I already gave as an example and this we start to pull it apart and we start to discuss and we start to work with it and this is the beauty of the practice so I don't need to walk you to some location and I don't even need to reach that location I just need to

teach You what I've learned also myself how to work with difficulties with challenges with tasks with the conscious choice of engaging with it and how to problem solve and move every time one step further and take it into yourself as the self transformative tool that it is and this teaches you how to go through your life later on with the things that you don't get to choose you lose a leg your mother dies or you hit your little toe on the Table it can be many things now you're also in a practice maybe you didn't

choose it but by choosing the other official practice you already have some tools and You observe and you see oh I hit my toe there and look what's happening inside of me because of a little pain came in I'm starting to feel all these layers being touched or you know something much more you know grief that can happen and if we're not equipped and we and since we don't learn This this is not education unfortunately we don't get to learn how to work in that way not regularly not across the board in all of our

life we're not equipped to deal with these difficulties when they arrive and we are held back so this is for me how you take a person through this and this is a process of trust and of many years of going back and forth like I've been doing with you and uh respecting you as who you are as the Individual that you are and with your uniqueness and your difficulties because I've seen the difficulties inside me having the compassion and the realization that this is what we're dealing with with a limited System since we are that

system and then also having you know the pleasure and the honor to support someone in her or his efforts in that way there is nothing I'd rather do that's why I do what I do I could do other things but this is the best way to Pass time here for me and we are grateful for that well I am at least so at the end of the day it comes to Integrity of a person who is actually engaged with the practice and another question that if raises in me is that do you expect certain coherence

across the students in the way how things are done on in the way what is pursued through the practice H coherence no we're not going to get much coherence here Coherence fights against disorder against entropy the the Greeks the they use this word for order a word Cosmos this is the word which many people don't know and actually this is the two the the big battle the battle between the forces of the dark and the forces of the light the original battle the one everything is modeled on later in zaras strian and later in the

you know abrahamic Religions Etc Etc they took this they extrapolated it all the way into El Diablo and the good the good God and I don't expect coherence I expect coherence as much as I expect disorder I expect this to inter to to be superimposed one on top of the other that's what I expect I look for the the interplay the game and if the game is not there evolution is not there I'm not interested if it's Fully ordered and coherent I'm not interested and if it's fully disordered random out of you know any kind

of um process I'm also not interested and then that interplay is always present in some way it's just finding you know the correct dosages and balances in specific times like for example if we want to learn how to fight the you know a simplistic mind would would say just practice fighting it wouldn't work so well it Will work to a certain extent but even if we go you know a group of 10 people we go on top of some mountain and we stay there for 20 years and we're just these 20 people together none of

us have any knowledge of fighting but we spend every day six hours a day figh fighting each other sparring after 20 years we come down from this isolated mountain and even an immature MMA fighter will eat all of us for breakfast this is the reality of Collective knowledge this is the reality of process of bringing just a bit of order into the chaos and transmission and experience what is transmitted by this Collective knowledge these Generations order a certain amount of order within the disorder but then the other side is all kinds of fighting methods and

systems that are based only on order and have removed the act of disorder the sparring situation now Think about any field it's the same extrapolated from fighting into movement into Humanity into everything we're not going to avoid disorder we're not going to kill this order and then have order we have to superimpose order on top of this order and have this interplay always occurring this is closer to our reality and what constellation has to happen so the person through being Exposed to these different processes and this ideas gets to the point of being able to

maintain s self-education from it like being still attached to the source and being Guided by someone but also develop the capacity to kind of self-organized in a way that is fruitful and not just all over the place yeah well there is this H knee-jerk reaction that many people have uh to this concept of being Guided and and you can take many flavors of it like for example the word loyalty the word loyalty these days somehow mostly have negative connotations it's incredible one moment a person have a very negative connotation for the word loyalty in relation

to teachers but then another moment he pursues loyalty in relation to his wife actually loyalty many times is confused with the word Obedience it's not the same and then being guided what is it about well isn't it better that we have two people thinking how to do this Anna thing than just one person who is Anna locked inside Anna what would be more successful we all need guides mentors teachers you can be your own teacher yes you can and you are anyways there is Something to this guidance because we are attempting an assassination and that

assassination that the solution of the self the fake the counterfeit self is very hard to achieve without help from the outside another way to think of it is the old parable of Escaping The Prison we are attempting a prison escape and in order to escape this Prison we need someone who already escaped prison or somebody who is also in the process of escaping prison and together we can collaborate and can have some exchanges Etc so this is the guidance doesn't take away all your personal struggle that is going to be there anyway ways and it

is in the form of practice and those who throw the baby with the bath water usually do it out of some kind of an emotional motive which Is very clear to see from outside but since they have removed the outside they are the one calling the shots they're going to have to continue in their own Circle um to spin around until they can see that happening that has been my experience and my experience was also I have noticed that being Guided by a teacher provides you with so many different layers that by Yourself you would

never achieve you would never be able to tap into because of what you're saying because of there is nobody pointing you at these things because they are hiding in your Plain Sight like you you said this once I remember that everyone knows who you are except for yourself which really stayed with me and developing this capacity to self self observation do you think it's even possible for us to to notice those things that are holding us back that are Making us blind to the possibility of developing further or it is only possible to be pointed

by the outside Source you're always pointed by the outside Source this is the way that you perceive it it doesn't mean that it's a teacher in the official way but it's through rubbing against reality that we learn or else we have no selfawareness it's like losing losing your sense of self by not moving for a very long Time like the that freeze response that sometimes happens in the human body or you know a sensory deprivation thing or you know or deep meditative processes where you're you're not anymore registering any kind of external dis disruptions hence

the self is tremendously changed and inherently changed so a teacher is just one more example of that it's not it it Is going to be the outside that informs you about that observation and you still need to bring your attention to the place attention to ideas attention to Concepts keeping guard be on your guard life is not about just whatever life is about living the biggest lie they sold to us that didn't make sense to begin with that means that you know you got to reach the point like n to dance on the edge of

the Void because there is a void there is a Very very clear void if you don't see the void you haven't really looked deeply in so then we are starting to become aware of the need of that external interaction what is that let's bring it into a practice let's not let that control us all the way through because it's already controlling us life will happen to us death will happen to us lost of everything will happen to us good things Also will happen to us but let's start to develop some kind of a observation into

this interaction and beautiful things will flourish and will come out of that that means we're having a practice what I noticed also in people who are in the process of getting there and developing a practice and trans forming themselves and you mentioned also this before the emotional layer and we're not Going to go I don't think it makes any sense to go into what emotions are but working with emotions is something that I found very powerful and to give a personal example when the war in Ukraine started and I have horrible problems with anxiety you

gave me some protocols uh with some breath and some food things that really helped me tremendously and what I see that people don't believe that it is possible to address those kind of issues through Something that is not pharmaceutical intervention and I would really like to talk about for you to talk about this because for me that was absolutely incredible how something so simple seemingly there was some breathing protocols which are actually opposite of what you see in like the mainstream they helped me so much with the condition that in the moment when you find

yourself in this place it does seem that it's impossible to get out so you're you Feel trapped in overwhelming emotion but it completely transformed me because you suggested to make a practice out of it and if my example is not enough for people I want you to elaborate a little bit on the underlying process of this of how do you approach working with emotions and how do you suggest to people who are in maybe a very dark places to start addressing this issue without you know hardcore interventions very good question and I Think very helpful

if people can tune in and can really listen well and something that I found very helpful in my life the first thing is what is the real gift of being in practice being a practitioner everything can be practiced actually you are being practiced you are being woven together you're being made you're not fixed your density is different than the common person who is rigidified Who is already locked and then I need an intervention a strong intervention an external intervention to kind of scw me break me what what are these Pharmaceuticals or these strong interventions are

doing they're softening you so change can happen but we achieve this by the concept of being in practice now when really difficult things will happen you're not going to be successfully applying this procedure Right away so a person would emergency this is happening now in my life Ido help me well we should have constructed for years before that your concept of a practice and you being a practitioner so the war in the Ukraine had to be addressed by working endlessly with partnering tactical tasks and all kinds of playgrounds that you can examine the self in

and now we need emergency we go to the psychiatrist we go to the psychologist It's an emergency situation and what do they try to offer well either medication which is this like forceful thing or some kind of a practice which will often not work why because we're not practiced as practitioners we're not in practice so to apply a practice very difficult so this is the gift of being in practice and this is why we practice as well for these situations not only but this is another example because eventually we're going to have to deal with

very Difficult things things like aging looking yourself in the mirror seeing yourself going getting older loss of capacities ER diseases material loss during life death of loved ones and eventually our own mortality the meaninglessness of things all this is constantly around us yeah we can you know we can turn a blind eye we can try to entertain ourself take some drug drink something eat nicely not Think about it but this is either going to put you to sleep which completely disengages any process of evolution so you're happy pey you want to see happy py go

to the med house everyone is happy pey or the other side it will SL slowly start to come back to the surface all these issues maybe you push them away after 3 years they pop up in one place you push them Away they come in another place we are here for school we are here to get schooled we are here to practice we are here to evolve so the universe sends us messages here's a task go through it we refuse we refuse to be in practice it sends a bigger one a bigger one a bigger

one eventually a disease comes eventually a bigger life lesson comes it's not like some big God in the sky is sitting up there and say what shall I send down there it's the basic way that Entropy and disorder and Chaos communicate with any kind of a sense of order organization and process it's going to meet weak links it's going to expose weak links and this is constantly in happening to us so us being in that game is so important to realize that this is a game that this is this is a game of evolution this

is a game of practice that life equals practice life is not for living life is for practicing life is to learn something life is not Just to be that means to exist there is a difference between existing and being yeah definitely after the years of of doing that and applying it to different life situations I understand that this is this is the case and I was talking today with someone about different practices of meditation Stillness practices Etc and there is an overwhelming amount of people who are being completely broken for example by a pass in

a Retreat I personally know someone who went to a mad house after it because he developed an extreme case of psychosis so is there a place to grad uality or in certain cases like for example when you're in such an extreme situation and you have have no other way of just confronting it and dealing with with it like War for example many people they go numb completely like I see it with a lot of my friends who are participating in it right now they go Num and then it creates a lot of problems down the

line but sometimes like when I was exposed to standing practice Stillness it was I don't know 78 years ago with you for an hour it was my first exposure for an hour I had panic attack I was crying but because you were standing next to me I was like I cannot I cannot break down I'm going to show him that I can you know so I did it kind of pushing myself through it but after I realized that the fact that There was something that cracked me through being exposed to it immediately to such an

extreme extent it helped me tremendously down the line so does it depend on individual does depend on situation and how do you recognize a moment when things like this should be applied very gradually and little by little or when you can just throw a person into the lake from the boat so they learn how to swim immediately at the Moment I'm not really big on throwing people into things so even though it seemingly can feel that way at times I never tend to force anything on anyone and I'm I'm I'm in a big ER I

I got inspired by something that my boxing coach Jacob dascalo said to me once he said I never put a person to spar for the first time unless he asked for it said wow what an intelligent thing because a person will not ask for a long time and then when a person asks then You can decide if it's not if the person ask let's put him through it that's not enough but it's the initial prerequisite to say okay on some level that individual has reached a certain Readiness to even ask so I'm a big believer

in that having said that to put a person to be still to sit still or to stand or to do whatever um is not falling under the same risk a vasana retreat is very extreme it feels as if it's eternity to Put a person to sit quietly for an hour is not a vasana retreat a vas Retreat can be too much you already lose sight of why you came there who you are where you are and many people if they're not ready and if they don't have a concept of a practice which most people don't

and therefore falling into a very powerful practice like that they can be damaged just like they can be damaged by drugs or By Any Other Extreme situation what is the Extremeness and the power of a situation the intensity what is it constructed from time times intensity a rape can be very short but it's very intense if V pass a retreat is a lot less intense but it's 10 days or S days it accumulates not comparing the type just giving a general Example this has to be taken into account when you're working with things I like

to work with safety so there is enough safety but I like to work with the sense of danger that it feels like you said you were committed to staying still there but actually you could have changed there was no real danger or risk now what will happen in a V pass a retreat you also have that capacity yes and you got to watch out because the danger there is Changing a little bit because you remove the outside experience more and more and more no talk you eat a lot less there is no music there is

no books there is no iPhones now the danger changes its face and you got to watch out in a different way from that and the practice allows you to slowly construct this people don't need a lot in the beginning hey just come in have a class of an hour and a half or take online coaching from us And start to deal with some tasks you're alone in some gym facility apartment Park you receive the information you start to work with it here is the task do this here is a rhythmical task here is a a

ball exercise here is a handstand here is a strength work and start to unpack it and that's it's like things come to the surface it's very safe but most people can't even P that phase working practicing alone for an hour a day An hour a day that's already too much to ask from most people and they invent any excuse in the world to not do it it's not for me this is not it's not free enough it's not this it's not this is not about this is not real Evolution I'm being told I'm like a

parot all this is just emotionally driven there is huge benefit to having a practice even when it's fully laid out to you take these scenarios work within them come back let's communicate about it there is Beauty in that process there is intelligence in that process and if you do it for long enough time you start to develop Your Capacity to do it with yourself and with others and also the capacity to do this with your life very powerful practice very simple no big bells and whistles it's not going to feel great we're not here giving

you high fives and you're all alone in some apartment doing something but the way that it's done the way that it's Discussed the way that it's promoted over years and years and years and staying with it most people don't but those who do transform definitely it is the case because I've seen it in myself and in other people also around me who are engaged with this practices and then the question is what do you think is being a good student what does it mean to you to be a good student it's a very difficult question

to Answer and it's a question that I ask myself often am I good enough of a student and I think it is to be engaged it has nothing to do with gratifying the teacher it has everything to do with practice working truthfully honestly not calling the shots not in the way that we usually call the shots leaning into the process leaning into the practice I don't like this picking and choosing I like this I Don't like this this is not to be a student in the depth of the word or to be a practitioner to

study well relates to this essence of how we practice and from which place do we practice and that's why many people have an issue with it because they feel a threat to the self for a good reason because we are threatening the self like I said we are here to perform an assassination of all that is fake inside Of us all that is emotionally driven and later built and constructed intellectually to do what we felt we wanted to do to begin with not what we need to do to be a student is understanding that seeing

that working within that and still struggling every day because it's it's pulling you all the time back but having that capacity that communication so for me to be a student and to be in practice and to be a practitioner is almost the same thing The good students are the good practitioners from my point of view and not those people who come in and say I'm your best student I'm I'm your loyal I'm your most loyal student or I'm your biggest fan like I I look even on odelia for example we've been together for you know

going into 20 years soon she was never that person those people came and went um or you for example you you speak highly of me you speak highly of the Practice but there is some some sense of a very strong individual capacity that is not just taking things for granted you question me you challenge me with things not for the sake of challenging not for the sake of questioning but because you want to verify because you work with it I make things very uncomfortable for you not because I wish to do that but because I

wish to to give you the practice a development procedure you are engaging With that honestly you're not just keeping your mouth shut you're not just taking things for granted you're not just following the rules but you're also allowing and trusting and leaning into and being loyal and being a friend and being a promoter and being an offering as well and this is a good student so you're an example of that after 10 years I think you know very few people Earned that who has students of 10 years very few people it's not easy to have

a student for 10 years when you're constantly challenging yeah if you go to some martial art class and you know all the black belts have a big belly and you come there twice a week and I've been studying here for 25 years that is more common but when the practice is constantly challenging look at for example if we took that example MMA you wouldn't see Many people coming for 25 years it's almost non-existent and for me this is where it is it's like every day you're still being challenged by this practice emotionally physically mentally cerebrally

ethically etiquette wise philosophy wise so after 10 years you better have transformed you've transformed tremendously because you've had to continue to deal with it what about boredom what about the shiny things Around oh that's a cool thing oh here's a nice practice or here's a nice book what about all this you've had to work through this you've transformed yourself there is no other way that means you are a student you are at in practice you are a practitioner thank you first of all to really uh uh alexir to my ears to hear this feedback from

you and to say something from my side about this this is I think what people often Misunderstand um about the relationship of teacher and student because it's not a a blind following because I was never a person who was able to follow someone blindly but I do think that Authority is respecting Authority is a virtue but Authority that is earned by being an example but actually walking the talk um and loyalty is also a virtue when it's not taken to the extreme like obedience as you mentioned at the very beginning I'm not a big fan

of the word Authority But I understand what you mean yeah yeah Authority is not about it's not about it we're not here to be an authority I don't like the word master I'm not I'm not feeling like an authority I'm I'm a guide I'm sharing some experien I'm I'm a friend I'm a Helper and I use and manipulate my own difficulties and experience to help people and I'm also not the void of you know difficulties weaknesses and I can abuse that and I have abused it many Times before and I had to rise up from

it and go again and many times I had to ask forgiveness of people and and say I apologize I've abused that I fell down this is not how I wish to be a teacher of XY Z but this is also something that the students the intelligent and the mature student realizes so people misunderstand the relationships between students and teachers and Also what do you think in general people misunderstand about your work and as there are different levels of understanding I think I think there are also different levels of misunderstanding like someone who have been doing

it like me for a decade have certain things that I might misunderstand and then someone who is just watching your podcast and looking at the whole thing from the outside has a different level of misunderstanding so What would you think what you say are these misunderstandings that are surrounding this whole idea of the practice most of it is misunderstanding it's you know there is this quote if you can't explain it to a 5-year-old you don't really understand it I don't like this quote so much it has some truth to it and it also has a

very misleading feature to it and the reason why people love this quote is Because they feel inside like a 5-year-old so if somebody can't explain it to a 5-year-old it means they're out of the game so they love the quote the point is not to oversimplify and not to under simplify things should be made as simple as possible but not any simpler than that the second part of the phrase is as important as the first part not Complicated but complexity complex things if I'm busy 10 years 20 years 30 years building concepts of practice researching

practicing doing trying failing coming back to the drawing board talking about it with my teachers with my students trying you develop a certain amount of complexity and a certain amount of complexity is not so easily transmitted but it shouldn't be complicated for the Sake of being complicated and we can simplify certain things so I think many people when they come into it first they have no understanding of it all they have is a visual reference and an association oh that's what it is movement practice oh I know what it is just from the visuals and

from their associations so they make it they turn it into some kind of a fitness thing something about Hance circus maybe dance martial Arts but they don't really investigate what is truly there wait wait wait those are tools in the toolbx but what is this toolbox even going to construct I can take a hammer and I can break through the wall or I can take a hammer and I can build a table I use the same tool but I can create two very different things so most of it is misunderstood what is a practice what

is movement not as a finalized answer that we Provide but as an investigation who am I am I stable am I fixed am I in practice am I a finalized product what am I supposed to do here in this life etc etc etc most of it is misunderstanding people would come to because they are emotionally attracted to an idea intellectually attracted to an idea or physically attracted to an idea all three of these are not the truth are not the deeper motives that we should develop and find in ourselves They're just entry points if you're

gifted in doing handstands then you love the handstand practice if you're emotionally stable naturally you love to fight because others are less emotionally stable than you you're successful or if int ually you love these words that come out of my mouth here or someone else's words then you're attracted to that that is just some likes and dislikes some Inclinations we shouldn't put too much stock into it we should develop deeper motives what do I need and that sends you to weaknesses more than to strength that sends you to challenges more than the ease and the

fun and the games just some examples of misunderstandings in relation to movement and practice in order to map something like a practice or your relationship to other people or any kind of complex concept That exists you need to ask good questions so in order to prepare for this interview I was trying to come up with all these questions that would um allow the idea to flourish ideally and this question naturally arised of how do you ask better questions is there a way to practice this I think you asked good questions both pragmatic and also not

for the sake of asking Questions and as you know I'm not often in this situation of this interview where I'm interviewed by a person who is close to me and a student usually I'm interviewed by someone from the outside actually in reality I'm not very much interested in this kind of a situation even though it has great advantages from one side I'm a big fan of inside jokes I always love when an inside joke is told even if I don't understand it and I'm not part of It it rubs me the right way on the

other hand I don't like like that the discussion is about drinking the Kool-Aid together and establishing Cherry pecking and establishing what we believe in or what we like as the truth so I I much I'd much rather have someone come from the outside and question me and try to understand for the benefit of others those who are on the inside don't need that so much but having said that The situation also has great advantages we can dig so much deeper um and so asking good questions it comes from where where it comes from practice first

we have to recognize we don't even know which questions to ask this recognition is not achieved by most people I many times had this feeling in my life when I met a certain teaching or or a teacher of true Essence Wow I can ask anything to this person but I don't even know what to ask and then you enter the practice and as you enter the practice you start to develop questions out of the difficulties out of the problem solving and then you can start to use those questions to get to bigger questions notice I

didn't say answers the question is the important part the answers are almost a passive component Instead we flip the relationship the question became passive and the answers are glorified and are the active Pursuit most of it is questions and unanswered questions the unknown is much bigger than the known a practice is about asking questions and living in inside questioning not about receiving finalized answers achieving some static Point I've achieved it I've reached it I'm out of the game to be in practice is to be Inside the game well teacher of great Essence is a way

to describe you I would say and um I wanted to thank you again for being here and for having this talk with me and also for all the years that you have helped me and you have guided me through the practice it has been transformational and I wish more people will connect to that and I wish more people will listen to you talk and um something will click in them so they do Start the process of transformation that you offer so thank you thank you very much thank you my dear always a pleasure and it's

an honor to really be of service you know in your life and in this way and I'm fortunate that there are such people coming and really applying themselves in something that I hold the very dear to my heart so thank you thank you very much