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

Watch every episode ad-free & uncensored on Patreon: https://patreon.com/dannyjones Ido Portal is the world’s foremost expert on human movement. Ido has spent a lifetime studying, combining and evolving elements from an enormous range of martial arts, dance genres, athletic endeavors and science to develop a unified theory and practice of movement called “The Ido Portal Method.” https://www.idoportal.com SPONSORS https://whiterabbitenergy.com/?ref=DJP - Use code DJP for 20% off. EPISODE LINKS https://www.instagram.com/portal.ido https://www.idoportal.com FOLLOW DANNY JONES https://www.instagram.com/dannyjones https://twitter.com/jonesdanny OUTLINE 00:00 - The millionaire athlete approach to wellness 04:47 - Freshness & removing the mask of athletes 08:29 - Downside of "flow state" 17:43 - "World champions are robots" 22:06 - Become a practitioner 28:17 - You need to de-ambition yourself 30:41 - Why Ido makes Christian McCaffrey read & do math 38:36 - The spiritual journey of pro athletes 41:43 - Daily strength & conditioning practices 47:17 - Peripheral vision training 55:58 - Genetic ability vs. trained ability 01:04:22 - Doing what you suck at 01:13:27 - The state of mind of a practitioner 01:17:01 - Breathwork is oversimplified 01:25:57 - Movement design for Bollywood movies 01:28:34 - Indonesian "trance states" without drugs 01:35:44 - Psychological effects of desert training 01:38:02 - The Yoga lie 01:40:40 - Surfing vs. skateboarding vs. sports 01:45:59 - Why you shouldn't stretch 01:53:05 - The power of self-observation 02:01:34 - The active hanging challenge 02:06:31 - PEDs & the Enhanced Games 02:13:25 - Ido's view on supplements 02:16:31 - Suffering consciously 02:21:11 - Meditation has been distorted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:37Danny Jones?

  Thanks for coming, Ito.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 0:39Danny Jones?

  And shout out to Inseema for hooking us up. I watched your podcast with Inseema and Mark Bell. Very fascinating stuff. And I remember the first time I saw you was when you were doing some of that workout stuff with Conor McGregor way back in the day. And it looked like you guys were doing some sort of voodoo sorcery in the park. I wasn't sure what I was watching. But now you're doing work with Christian McCaffrey and lots of big athletes and stuff like that. So what is it about you or your practice that people like Christian McCaffrey are looking to gain from or learn?

• 1:23Speaker 02

  First, thank you for having me.

• 1:24Danny Jones?

  My pleasure.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's, I think we've isolated components, categorized, separated more and more and more in an attempt to improve things. So we've created these very tiny little worlds within bigger universes that are supposed to replace or give solutions for movement problems, health issues, performance issues. So one of those is like the world of strength and conditioning or a concept like flexibility. There are little isolated components.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  And often, when you take them, one plus one plus one equals 17. You actually discover that there is a lot of other stuff that comes into the picture. So there were always voices that tried to use a different approach. Not an approach based on knowing, but approaches that are based on not knowing. And try to address those X quantities, those unknown components, unknown aspects. It requires, of course, a different set of eyes, different types of tools.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  And they are less easily perceived from the outside. It's not clear, what are you doing? What is that voodoo?

• 3:03Danny Jones?

  What is that? What is that? A rain dance?

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. But it works with the same approach, specific adaptation to the imposed demand. Only how to create that scenario that addresses the real needs there? How can I make the mind change its organization? How can I address connective tissue? How can I work on rhythmicality? People are mentioning those things. Or people shout, "Relax." You know? You watch some skateboarder or someone performing and they shout, "Relax."

• 3:49Speaker 02

  But there are no real tools or smart tools to achieve that. And that is part of the work and part of the tools that I try to offer.

• 4:04Danny Jones?

  How did this all begin for you? Like, how did you become who you are today? Was there certain things that happened in your early life that led you to this? Like, most people that I've met who are on the cutting edge of something that's maybe not mainstream, but could be very beneficial. Or like, it seems like, just to me, like, my ignorant perspective on everything is that this is a very sort of extremely fringe type of working out, exercise, movement, all this stuff, right? For someone who's not initiated, at least.

• 4:46Danny Jones?

  And whenever I've met people like that, it's something like huge has happened in their life, whether it be some sort of catastrophic injury or something that's really like had a dramatic perspective change for them that led them to it. Did anything like that ever happen for you?

• 5:07Speaker 02

  I guess so in some ways. But I'll also offer another possibility. Sometimes it doesn't have to be a catastrophic thing, but there is a moment of freshness. Freshness, when you get a new flavor, when something comes in and all of a sudden, not something that is on the map, not a gradual understanding, but a critical mess, a phase shift, a jump. So for me, maybe it was a combination of those things. The first thing was maybe some events in childhood or some orientations.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  But then mostly, what I see is these moments of aha, that leap, that jump, that occurs because certain aspects align in your life, a certain readiness is there, and a certain openness. All three come together. The openness is a critical component, as you understand, why we keep doing, trying to improve things through the same tools all the time. Yeah, it's not, I'm not one to abandon good tools.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  So the fringe side of things is what made me popular or why maybe I'm here. But you'd be surprised that I still use a lot of very simple, old-school, trusted methods. But also, the other side, which of course gained popularity, is how can we scratch that itch when it's so deep in the system? When I can't on the surface place my finger on it and I want to address in the person, in the mover, in the athlete, inside, deep inside those layers?

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Because the athlete layer is just, it's supported by the mover, as a general mover. And then underneath, there is even wider that person. And underneath, there are even deeper things. Yeah, beyond the personality, beyond the mask, beyond all these constructs.

• 7:38Danny Jones?

  You mean like their inner psyche?

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Maybe those are words that you can use for it, but maybe underneath even the psyche. Underneath the organization, you know, the word personality originates from the word mask, persona. It is a mask. So that organization is not the deepest layer. And there has always been attempts to go underneath.

• 8:08Danny Jones?

  Soul?

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Perhaps, another word for it. And there are many, many different words, right, that to try? Or maybe, a word that I really like is essence, because it doesn't try to hit something and to pin it down. A soul, a spirit. In Hebrew, we use the word wind, which is also used in Tibet by the Tibetans. So an inner wind, right? The soul is one thing, but then we have this inner wind thing. So in order to reach deep into those places, which are sometimes the limiting factors,

• 8:50Speaker 02

  you need scenarios, you need different set of tools, you need aha moments, you need clicking things.

• 9:00Danny Jones?

  Those aha moments, those are what you get in flow states, right? Would you consider that, what you experience when you're in a flow state and when you have that aha moment, when sort of like training and preparation and discipline meets up with like proper execution and everything just seems to click? Like, that's what people feel like when there's no effort. It's just like you're in the zone.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  I'm not a big fan of the flow state.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  I, I know it's a popular thing.

• 9:34Danny Jones?

  Yeah, yeah, too commercialized.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  No, not, not, sometimes, you know, good things are commercialized for a good reason. And I don't want to, to push, to push back against it from the wrong reasons. But I think it is a part of something. A part of a more, a deeper and even more powerful state. Because the flow state oftentimes become immersive.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Which sounds like a good thing.

• 10:05Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  But actually, it has also some serious downside.

• 10:14Danny Jones?

  How so?

• 10:16Speaker 02

  This immersive thing automizes something. It makes things automatic, mechanicalized. And that's why they work, they're instinctive, they're reactionary. I train the body until the body cannot go wrong. Not until the body goes right, until the body cannot go wrong. I've used this in the past.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  I, I want the body to be able to go wrong.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  I want to maintain the choice. I don't want to automate it completely. I don't want to remove myself from the equation. I don't want to become immersed in the movie until I forget that I am here watching the movie.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  So I want to maintain a double arrow. One is that immersive arrow of flow, but another one on me.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  In the watchful tower. And that goes deeper into the effects and kind of fuses effects in, in deeper layers in me, not only in my body, not only on the performance side of things.

• 11:38Danny Jones?

  Interesting. Well, when I think about athletes, if I think about, you know, a football player or a basketball player, they want to be optimized for completing one very simple task, right? Like for a basketball player, it's getting the ball in the hoop. And you know, you hear stories about Michael Jordan going out and, and shooting a thousand different baskets from one spot on the court, trying to figure that out. And like, then doing it again from another spot on the court, right? And they want to make that like an automatic flow type thing where there's no, there's no thought that's put into it. It's just something that's baked into their, their mind and their body.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  So here, they threw a bunch of stuff inside.

• 12:18Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  But, but as the more time passes, the more we can improve and watch and see, oh, wait, this doesn't belong here. Wait, for example, everybody throws a thousand hoops on that level. But Steph is Steph.

• 12:38Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  It, it's not anymore about hard work. Hard work is the entry point. Come on, everybody works hard if, or you're not there. Yes, from time to time, you have someone so gifted that they even don't work hard and they somehow reach up there. But hard work is not enough.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  And that takes us back to that thing. You're not going to just automate it. You're not just going to stand there and practice until the body cannot go wrong. You got to change your presence, who you are. On the highest level, when you really want to transform something, you need to become a different person in order to do that. And that is a very interesting moment for me, especially when working with people. Because I am kind of in the business of assassination. I am not there to support something. I am there first to kill something that something else can be born.

• 13:44Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Which is also the process that I try to apply with myself. And I think it is the most beautiful process. Because this current construct is also a glass ceiling.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  So in the practice, for example, of shooting those, those baskets, you can insert all kinds of elements to not just go through the motions, but to be there doing it. In your watchful tower, every rep.

• 14:23Danny Jones?

  Like, uh, when you say in the watchful, you mean like, like a third per, a third person type view of yourself doing it?

• 14:30Speaker 02

  It's one way to look at it. It's definitely, I don't mean the commentary. Danny is now going down the ramp. That is just a distraction. And hence, you mentioned, they shoot the hoops until they don't think, the, the empty mind.

• 14:50Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  But that empty mind is now a little bit more tricky, more complex. Because sometimes the empty mind takes you off from that watchful tower, that listening mode. So even now, when we're sitting together, you're fluctuating in and out of that watchful tower. It's not a continuous thing.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  It comes, it goes, and you have good skill there.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  But I've seen much worse.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  Let's say, right? It's funny, in, in the business of podcasts where you're, this is a very important skill for you guys. But often, and I recorded podcasts all over the world, you, the person is not skillful. It's based on something else, how they build their.

• 15:43Danny Jones?

  Their cathedral?

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Their cathedral. Yeah, you have good listening skills, but you can improve them. And there are, so this fluctuation, this presence is not a commentary. And you cannot pull yourself now to the current moment by telling yourself, be here. Or the shooting of the hoops will not be done in that way better. But there is a returning, a widening. Almost like you're opening up your presence beyond your little limited view into the body and beyond into the room and maybe beyond to contain the whole scenario. I am here, going down the ramp.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Not the words that I use, but the presence. And you've had these moments, everybody had these moments. And that is something that has to be cultivated with the practice of shooting hoops, going down, down the ramps, playing football or whatever. And it's a quality that is not flow alone. It contains flow, but it's more than that.

• 16:55Danny Jones?

  It contains flow, but it's more than, it's an awareness. You have to maintain the awareness of.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  It's another state. We shouldn't call it flow. And it has the flow component of being absorbed in the task, absorbing into the task, but without losing yourself. So it's also.

• 17:15Danny Jones?

  But why is that better?

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Because that is actually you. And anything else is some kind of a robot. Who drove here today, Danny?

• 17:26Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Was it you? Do you remember the, the shifting of the?

• 17:32Danny Jones?

  I don't remember anything about the drive, to be honest.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  There you go. So it was not you. And this is the critical thing that we have to realize.

• 17:42Danny Jones?

  If you enjoy watching our show on Spotify or YouTube and you want to be more involved, I encourage you to please come check out our Patreon community. Not only does our Patreon community get every episode you see on YouTube, early, fully uncensored and ad free, but we're also doing Patreon exclusive episodes as well as live Q and A's. And you can get your personal questions answered by our guests every single week. For me, being able to collaborate and communicate back and forth with our Patreon community every week has been huge. And this is my way of saying thank you for the cost of a cup of coffee a month. Now back to the show.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  I've stood behind world champions. And I tell you, nobody's home. Nobody's home.

• 18:21Danny Jones?

  What do you mean, nobody's home?

• 18:26Speaker 02

  It's a robot.

• 18:28Danny Jones?

  Really?

• 18:28Speaker 02

  It's a robot. Doing those things, they cannot fail. They're so good that the robot have been trained not to fail. And then they can even report on it. They can talk about it.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  Nowadays, everybody talks about AI. That's the AI. That's the, that's the reason why AI is AI. Because what created the AI is the AI already to begin with. And we don't need to look far away. It's in the way of being. It can be verified by examining your life day in and day out. And hence, it brings me to what I do. Practice, praxis, this ancient word, practicum, is the most important thing we are here to do. There is nothing else. Life is not for living.

• 19:22Danny Jones?

  I feel way more enthusiastic and excited when I try to get out of my comfort zone with anything. Not just, not just workouts, right? Like, for most of my young life, I did, I didn't really do any sort of sophisticated training at all. I just did basic compound movements in the gym. Along with all of my physical activities that I constantly did, like surfing and skateboarding and stuff like that. It had no benefit. I never really learned about proper technique, proper movements, any sort of like muscle balancing or stretching or any kind of stuff like that.

• 20:02Danny Jones?

  And then, but as I got older and I started to learn new things, I would, at one point, I would quit doing that kind of stuff. And I would start doing a whole nother routine or a whole, a whole nother

• 20:17Danny Jones?

  series of workouts every single week on a whole different schedule, completely alien to what I used to do. And then recently, when I had Insema here, Insema showed me a whole bunch of new things that I had never seen nor practiced in my life. And when I abandoned everything else that I had been doing previously in my life, I started doing all these new tricks that Insema In Yang, for people that don't know who I'm talking about, he's on the Mark Bell podcast, he showed me all this other, this new stuff that I've never done before. I started doing that and it was like, the, the feeling of just being a complete rookie at something and not really understanding what you're doing, but doing it anyway and pushing through it.

• 21:03Danny Jones?

  There's something to that, like the novelty of it or the building of the, whatever like neuroplasticity is happening in your brain, something about it is invigorating. I don't know what it is. But do you notice that? Is that something that you focus on and you, why you think that it's important to sort of be spread wide with everything you do?

• 21:33Speaker 02

  It's one reason, but it's still as corrupted as any other reason. Because you, you are, you're standing in a place trying to get something from it.

• 21:44Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Right? So it's, it's not my game. That's, that's, that's not my thing.

• 21:51Danny Jones?

  That's the way we think about it here in America.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  I know.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  I know, I know.

• 21:55Danny Jones?

  You need some dopamine.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  Well, we do, we do. And, and we're gonna get all those things in the back pocket as a side effect. But it's not good to orient ourselves directly there.

• 22:09Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  To, to go, to go immediately to that. Because some of those things are really side effects. They are really side effects and we should appreciate them as such. So all your report is great and I'm not gonna take it away with what I'm offering, what I'm, I'm talking about. But let me answer your question because that, that wasn't. So first, I spent the majority of my life doing exactly what you described. Hence, I tell people, if you watch me practice in my day to day, you wouldn't, you wouldn't be impressed. I've, I've spent decades being the beginner and I've almost always abandoned things I'm good at. The moment I reach them, I didn't have any more interest to repeat.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm not repeating my skateboard tricks from 16 years old. I went, I moved on. I can do one arm handstands, but I don't do them in the day to day. Cause I can do them.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Because the pleasure, the likes or the dislikes, ah, that's a game that I've seen where it goes and it doesn't go to pleasure as it is, you know, like it's. So here's the dopamine game, right? Like you wanna, you want dopamine? So the, the worst thing is to get, get an easy dopamine.

• 23:30Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Right? Like you don't want that. So it's the same, but it goes deeper, deeper, deeper. Then the other thing is specialists.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  The, this narrow scoop that society is pushing towards, if you can really become good at something, you'll be rewarded, whether it's a successful podcast or a business or an athlete. But then as a person, you lose more and more, the more you go into that place. So that is the other reason. It's a deeper reason to do what you offered, to engage in new ways of examining things and, and go out of your comfort zone, et cetera. And that is not coming from the corrupted place of receiving these rewards for it.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  If I become more wide, then I shall receive these rewards.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Practice should not have a reason behind it.

• 24:37Danny Jones?

  No reason?

• 24:38Speaker 02

  No. It is the default. Everything practices. It's also known by many other words, like the word evolution, by natural selection.

• 24:50Speaker 03

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• 25:21Speaker 00

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• 25:52Speaker 02

  The, the word evolution is practice. It is a way of becoming.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  It is everything, the planets become planets through practice. Everything practices. It's a concept much deeper. Maybe you brought the.

• 26:10Danny Jones?

  Well, for no, for, for no, no, no end goal.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 26:16Danny Jones?

  It's part of.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  It, it, it is, it is something to recognize that is happening through us as well. Our cells are practicing right now. We are at practice. You talk about neuroplasticity? What do you think is going on right now? Neuroplasticity? We kind of mention it as if it's a unique phenomenon. Now it starts, now it ends.

• 26:35Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Now it's all the time there. What about muscle fibers, connective tissue right now? You're adapting to sitting in that chair.

• 26:44Danny Jones?

  I know, it's painful.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  Right? Like.

• 26:46Danny Jones?

  Trying to undo it all the time.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, we all do.

• 26:50Danny Jones?

  That's why Mark and Insema, they stand and they have, they put like all kinds of different like balls and stuff under their feet while they're doing their podcast and they're constantly stretching and.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:00Danny Jones?

  That's ideal.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  And so, so in essence, it's more something to recognize and then to align with in your life to what we call to become a practitioner, to become a practitioner, to view yourself not as a finished product, as a something in constant transformation and evolution in certain growth, not to corrupt it by pushing it in this direction, pushing it in that direction. And apply the needed pressures and stress so you can grow. And you've pointed that in your question, saying, when I apply these pressures to myself,

• 27:43Speaker 02

  like novelty, unknown, difficulty, then I get all these good effects. And I said, you're right. But the, the idea is not to get just these good effects. You will continue to get them and more, but there is something even more important than that. This is the only way, my way or the highway. It's not my way. It's someone else that says, the absolute that says my way.

• 28:14Danny Jones?

  Right. What you're saying is so counterintuitive to Western culture and how we do things, right? Especially if, you know, any practitioner of any sport or any everyday person, they, they typically, they wanna strive for something, right? And typically, you know, in every single element of our society, something is trying to be sold. And it's all based on consumerism, right? Everything is, is a product. Everyone is trying to, whether it just be a gym or whether it be some sort of supplement or whether it be some sort of, you know, special workout program to fix your lower back. Right?

• 28:55Danny Jones?

  So like what you're doing, it seems to be just a breakaway from everything that Western society is adapted to. You know, where Arnold Schwarzenegger, muscle cars, fast food, you know, that kind of stuff. And this is like a, a huge departure from that. So it's very interesting, I mean, also to throw in to that list, American football. And it's just very fascinating how, you know, some of these guys like Christian McCaffrey are, you know, trying to learn from you and, and learn from what you do.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  I, I wanna, I wanna be positive and, and to, to give you something very positive, to, to give a little space for this quality that is already present in our lives. And it, and it is present. You're right. A lot of it has been corrupted in this way.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  But there are still places in our life, and always were and always will be, that are motivated by something else, or shall I say, not motivated by anything.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Whether it's an expression, whether it's a certain kindness that is there, whether it is a remorse, even if there is no kindness at all, a sense of remorse, whether it is something like this or that. So even with NFL and with the demands, the highest of the highest level, when you reach, when you climb up there, you realize you need to de-ambition yourself.

• 30:34Danny Jones?

  De-ambition.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  De-ambition yourself in some ways to prevent this issue. And that has been my experience. The best of the best, the ones who are really free, they are above the game. They made the game. They grew up in the game, but now they are swallowed the game. Right? And there is such examples. Then they find a different quality. Not always, not always. Sometimes the greats are distorted and just play the game better than everyone else. But sometimes you got a Messi, a Leo Messi. So it's a different character, huh?

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Doesn't look like that winner that we know.

• 31:21Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 31:21Speaker 02

  But he's such a winner that he eats all the winners. That even my biggest idol growing up in football, in soccer, was Diego Armando Maradona, the greatest. But one cannot argue with the greatness of Messi.

• 31:42Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  Because there is something else, a different component. And there's always been such figures, and that comes from a place beyond. Because really, when you're really strong in the deep essence of the world, do you need to ambition yourself? Do you need to push? No. It's easy. You open the window, the air comes in. You don't pump the air in. You have that freedom. You have that capacity. Some athletes that I've had the pleasure to work with because of the complexity of the ideas. For example, I'll take Christian. And we will read texts together.

• 32:25Danny Jones?

  What kind of texts?

• 32:26Speaker 02

  Difficult.

• 32:27Danny Jones?

  Ancient texts?

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, sometimes. Difficult texts. Difficult. Like, for example, we've read this week, Jorge Luis Borjes, an Argentine author. A text that will make you, after one page, your head hurts a bit.

• 32:44Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  Or we will, or we will, we did math. Yeah, two weeks ago, we did some math work.

• 32:53Danny Jones?

  I thought you said you did math.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Not with an E.

• 32:58Danny Jones?

  That's one way to do it.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's another practice. It can bring some things, for sure.

• 33:03Danny Jones?

  For sure, yeah.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  So we did some.

• 33:06Danny Jones?

  Some complex mathematics.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, some mathematics to make a point come across. Now, again, when the video is presenting it, it presents it as if this is what we do out of 12-hour days of practice, which nobody puts in. This is a small component, but it's popular, it's sexy, it's different. So people, but we also do the power cleans, the strength and conditioning. We go to the field. But how much can you do that? Right? Recoveries, like. So we do a lot of other things. And we do, we meditate every day. Hardcore, sitting still, no movement for long periods of time.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  And all of these things are coming together to transform something in a person who is already at the top, at entering the 10th season, come from a family of legends.

• 34:05Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  And he's, you know, perhaps, you know, one of the best, if not the best to have done it. And yeah, and that's the place where he's at and he's searching. So it's a very interesting work. If you, I wish you would have come to visit and to draw by and to see a little bit of the work. Then you would have a better idea. But people maybe have now some kind of an idea.

• 34:30Danny Jones?

  Well, I can imagine what the first conversation with you guys must have been like. I had to imagine it must have been similar to this conversation because most, I feel like, you know.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  Bingo.

• 34:40Danny Jones?

  Football players, they want to gain an edge. Right? Like, what can I gain from consulting with you or working with you every day for months during the offseason, right?

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Bingo, you got it exactly right. It's very similar to this conversation. I've had this conversation once or twice before. It's, but what is unique is some people, there is a push away. There is almost like a sense of like, stay away from this guy. It's dangerous. And it's not personally me, Ido, but it is that assassination. And there is definitely a risk of being close to that thing.

• 35:21Danny Jones?

  You're like a psychedelic drug.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  Maybe, maybe in some way. It's not me. It is the practice itself. It is a genuine practice, and I am not willing to sacrifice that. So I make sure it's there. So the conversation starts like that, and many times people will like, come out of one ear, go to the other ear, or, ah, interesting things, not realizing what they have met, who they have met. Not me.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Not me. But I'm talking about something that is moving through that, that me thing. And with Christian, he has that special combination of intelligences and observation and honesty that he was almost immediately, that was very impressive. I was like, okay, I got you. We're dropping this. We're dropping this.

• 36:17Danny Jones?

  Really?

• 36:18Speaker 02

  I'm with, yeah. Like, I'm gonna, let's go. Let's go. And the threat was like, that's why I saw real power in the guys. Like assassination? Sure, go ahead. You know, like going to the dentist. I was like, no anesthesia, go in.

• 36:35Danny Jones?

  Right, right.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  That thing, like beyond.

• 36:38Danny Jones?

  Like, what if I start doing all this stuff with Ido and I decide I don't want to do football anymore?

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Part of it.

• 36:44Danny Jones?

  You know?

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Part of it, and you know what?

• 36:48Speaker 02

  I wouldn't speak by anyone's name. And it's not the point. I don't want anyone. You have kids, you don't need to get rid of your kids. You don't have kids, you don't need to make kids. I tell people. It's not, you don't need to live. It's an excellent platform to work on yourself. But definitely, there were days we were having so much discovery and fun that football took a distance.

• 37:14Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  And then I made sure to bring it back, to not get too much distance from my side as well, not only from his side. And both of us cared about it because there is nothing wrong with it. Of course, there is freshness, there is something new. I'll take the skateboarder, I'll make them play football. I'll take the footballer, I'll put him on a skateboard.

• 37:35Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  And that would be misunderstood. It's like, what will that help him? You don't get it. You still don't get it.

• 37:42Danny Jones?

  Right. You're looking at it from the wrong perspective.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  You need to reopen the system. You need to reinvigorate it. You're not gonna lose an edge, a special edge. It's easy to maintain after so much time. So that is not at risk. What do you think in the 10th season in the NFL, you're gonna improve your speed? It's possible to do something. But even if you do, what's that gonna give you? When there is so much more that you can get in other ways. So sometimes, the best thing to do is what you offered, what you've reported from your own experience, to go to the shoshin, the beginner mindset, that Japanese perspective, and to observe there's something. But it's not the only thing that we will do.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  And we're not gonna abandon good old tried methods, maintaining and boosting things, protecting the skeleton, bulletproofing it. Working, we've done a lot of work on pressurization, pressure in the body, which is something that nobody practices in the NFL. Or I don't, at least I don't know anyone. We've worked on rhythmicality, which is a huge thing on the playing field. Christian is also like, plays the piano and he has some background in music. So he was very quickly able to understand how important it is. You know, skateboarding, it is important even there. This feeling of where you are on.

• 39:13Danny Jones?

  Sounds are very important.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  Sounds are extremely important. You know, my boxing coach used to turn his head around while we're working on the heavy bags and shout, I can't hear the music.

• 39:22Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  You have the same with skateboarding. You can sit with your eyes closed and you will recognize when someone of a high level is there by the sounds. So these things can be trained and can be worked at. And sometimes people are kind of deaf. They're missing that skill. You can enhance it. Because we know that that guy is talented in it. But what about developing it when it's not there?

• 39:47Danny Jones?

  Right, yeah, 100%. And, you know, I would imagine that this stuff would be not only like incredible for his performance and his movement and his athletics like on the football field during his career, but also broadening his horizons for when he does retire football. You know, because most people, the tragic thing about the NFL is that a lot of these guys, they're in there for so long, they get incredible damage to their body and to their brain, and then they leave football and they've kind of lost their meaning. They kind of like lose their way. You know what I mean?

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Beautiful. You bring some, you bring an insight from your place, which is beautiful, and you're hitting it. Bingo, bingo, bingo. There were two occasions over the years that I remember that were special working with athletes specifically. It's not the only thing that I do. I don't just work with athletes. One was when I came to work with a very known football, soccer, European football player, the top of the game. Played in Barcelona. And I asked him, what do you want to do? First question when we met. And he said, I want to enjoy the game again. That was one occasion I remember. And I shook his hand, I said, let's go.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  Second is with Christian, where he told me before hiring me.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  It's not about winning for me. It's a spiritual journey.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  It's not about the NFL, it's not about this. Maybe I get injured the first game. And, you know, and he's been injured before and he knows. So, so it's exactly what you said. It's, it's already touching things underneath.

• 41:40Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  The athlete, the mover, the person, and it's important for our lives. He's a parent. He's, he's, he's, yeah, he's a person in this world and we are not addressing those things. We don't, we don't have license for parenthood.

• 41:57Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  And we're a product of, you know, people who didn't have license for parenthood. And this is a missing practice. All religions tried to, all religions represents practice. This is what they offer. It's not just a belief in X, Y, Z, but there is always practices involved like fasting, like not speaking certain words, like not doing certain things, right? Those are representative practices, also spiritual traditions, also various systems, various martial arts, various yogic systems, they're all practical. The word practice encompasses all of this. It's a huge word. It's almost the word life.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  It's, it's a huge word. It's a word bigger than religion.

• 42:47Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  Even so, because it contains the world of religion. So for me, that was why I do what I do. If I found something better, I would have done that.

• 42:56Danny Jones?

  Yeah, it's like you're helping these guys unplug from the matrix, right? It's like a, it's like a big perspective shift to not just wanna optimize something simple, something two dimensional, but you're just really expanding it into something that's on a whole nother level. So like to drill down specifically on like, like more of the specific things that you guys were, I said, you guys were like reading hard texts, philosophical stuff, maybe doing hard math problems, like, like when it comes down to like physicality stuff, like what types of things do you like to work on in regards to that? Or like, are there any kind of like, for example, is there one thing you do every single day? Or is every day something different?

• 43:41Speaker 02

  Both. There are the components which are daily addressed because of the demands of the specific practice. Like for example, certain connective tissue work that we do. Not, not, not so much muscular work directly, but like, how do you thicken connective tissue? Joint capsules, tendon, fascia, all this stuff. How do you really build these guys up? So this is like a daily thing that we've been doing, weird practices that are not known so much in, you know, in the, in the West here and we're trying to take strength and conditioning and bend it into that reality.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  But in reality, it's not that suitable for it. So like people try to do, for example, isometric holds, mentioning the effect over tendons. You know isometrics? Statics, when you hold a position under load, you're not moving dynamically.

• 44:42Danny Jones?

  Right, right.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  So that, yeah, it's true that it has certain effect over the connective tissue, but this is also still sets and reps and time under tension. It's, it's affected by the original state of mind of a strength and conditioning coach.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  And I, I went a bit wider and so able to bring practices from rock climbing to the ballet dancers, from the ballet dancers to the fighters, from the fighters to the football players and move this stuff between somatics and between, so this is an example of a daily thing that is needed. Strength and conditioning needs to be programmed. That's part of what I do. We do power work, strength and conditioning. We use a variety of tools for that. You cannot build someone's explosiveness, for example, for football without weights.

• 45:37Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 45:37Speaker 02

  You need it. It's not gonna happen by doing, you know, pistol squats or calisthenics. You need to load the posterior chain, you need to develop, you need to develop in high speed ratio, you need to be able to deal with very fast eccentrics, very fast negatives. Also skateboarders, by the way, which are horribly prepared for what they do.

• 46:01Danny Jones?

  By design.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, they just do it.

• 46:04Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Cause they're so, and that's why I love skateboarders and always did, they're artists. But they also sacrifice a lot of their bodies because of that lack of professionalism that is not there yet. It starts in some places. Yeah, it is, it is. By the way, I kind of meet a lot of skateboarders, Huberman is one.

• 46:23Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  And so we had on the, the latest podcast that I recorded a few weeks ago, we talked a lot about skateboarding and we, he asked me a question about a weird quality that I, I mention often, that is not so often mentioned here called air sense. The ability to perceive where you are in space when you're flying through the air.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  And you know that like those elite skateboarders, they have this keen sensation of where they are.

• 46:55Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  I don't know how, how far you went in, in your practice with skateboarding. Did you do high ramps and?

• 47:03Danny Jones?

  I didn't do much ramp stuff. I mainly did like jumping off of huge.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Huge shit.

• 47:09Danny Jones?

  Loading docks and down staircases and stuff like that. And now that I'm older, I'm doing more of just like that thing out there, that mini ramp. Cause I just, you know, the, what stopped me was injuries. I, I probably sprained my ankle a dozen times and that's.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  So, so you know a thing or two about this air sense?

• 47:27Danny Jones?

  Yeah, or lack thereof.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, sometimes, yeah. I was also, I, I was working as an acrobat, you know, for a length of time. So there is this quality, which you sometimes you cannot predict, like a person is very coordinated, looks great as long as they touch the ground.

• 47:45Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  But the moment they're in the air, rolling down the windows, you know, like whoa, where am I?

• 47:52Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  You can see it on trampoline work, you can see it in, in big ramps, in skateboard. So this is a quality that how do you, how do we develop it? And you can develop it. There are practices to work on it, to enhance it. For example, nowadays skateboarders work a lot with pits, with gymnastics pits, big ramps into gymnastics pits.

• 48:13Danny Jones?

  Like foam pits?

• 48:14Speaker 02

  Foam pits. And, and all kinds of tools, trampoline work is very useful. There is even spotted string work, like from the world of circus, where you have these strings like suspending you and certain harnesses.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, so there, there is a way in, there is always a way to develop and not just kind of saying, I don't have that. So I, I gravitated towards, you know, a different part of the practice because I couldn't do it.

• 48:43Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  There is a way to do it.

• 48:45Danny Jones?

  Yeah, a hundred percent, man. And I think, I think probably vision has a lot to do, do with it as well.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Huge.

• 48:52Danny Jones?

  You know, I mean, I've seen stuff that, you know, other like super high level athletes, like football players, specifically the receivers, the guys who catch the ball, like they do all kinds of crazy work with, you know, like bouncing balls off walls and catching them and like working with peripheral vision, trying to do things where they can like do simultaneous zones of awareness where like they're trying to pay attention to what's happening out here while focusing on what's happening here and like doing.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  We're doing a lot of this stuff as well.

• 49:20Danny Jones?

  Oh, really?

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also this last weeks, we've had also a Christian brother, Luke, who is a wide receiver for Washington. And so we did a lot of this stuff and yeah, this is very important, huge part of it. The use of the eyes, the use of peripheral vision, dominant eye and, and also working on the non dominant side.

• 49:45Danny Jones?

  Closing an eye and trying to do something.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, or, or having certain implements that are closing parts of your vision, field of, there is all kinds of things.

• 49:53Danny Jones?

  I feel like that's such a fundamental part of everything that you do when you move is your vision and how you, how you picture yourself in the world.

• 50:00Speaker 02

  You're very correct. Even when, when I'm moving my neck right and left and my eyes are cading, moving on the horizon, the quality of the, the smoothness of the eye movement will dictate the smoothness of my neck movement.

• 50:15Danny Jones?

  Really?

• 50:15Speaker 02

  So essentially you can't be smooth if your eyes are not smooth. So it's not just training the eyes to see, it's training the eyes to be very smooth, not to be jumpy.

• 50:28Danny Jones?

  Is that possible?

• 50:29Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 50:30Danny Jones?

  To, to move across and not, cause I feel like your eyes stick on things the whole way.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  But, and what happens if you, when, when you're staring out of a window of a car or a train?

• 50:40Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  And you can shift your eyes to the details on the window. So if I'm watching my fingers and I'm opening them slightly to see the outside and you're moving it, but you're watching the edge of your fingers, you'll be able to keep them smooth.

• 50:56Speaker 02

  So it's more the focused vision that keeps locking up.

• 50:59Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  But when you open up, you can, you can gain a different quality.

• 51:04Danny Jones?

  What I've always noticed about like incredible athletes, like for example, Michael Jordan or Tom Brady specifically, they have a very wide vision, like their eyes are almost always pointed outwards. I don't know if you've ever looked at their faces, like find a photo of Michael Jordan,

• 51:22Danny Jones?

  like his, like a picture of his face on the court or even Tom Brady, like when he's playing football, he'd look at their eyes, they have like a crazy peripheral, peripheral vision, like you, I mean, I would imagine how that would be super helpful, especially in basketball to have like the full court vision to see wherever, be aware of like everything at one point. But I always found that very interesting about those guys in particular. Also Kelly Slater, same, same thing with him.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 51:47Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  The use of the peripheral is a lot about also to be able to trust it. What I, what I, what I encounter often is not a lack of peripheral vision, it is an inability to trust it. So you use your focus vision because you didn't trust that stain that you saw.

• 52:08Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  To react to it.

• 52:10Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  So I, I educate and create scenarios in which you trust it, go for it. That is a blur, that is a stain, learn that it's enough. Don't focus on it because that will be too late, it's too slow. The peripheral vision is much quicker, much more sensitive to low light conditions. And even if you look in my eyes and don't move your eyes from my face, can you tell me what numbers do I have up there?

• 52:40Danny Jones?

  I believe you have a.

• 52:45Danny Jones?

  Four, three, three on your right hand.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 52:47Danny Jones?

  And I think you have one on your other hand.

• 52:49Speaker 02

  Look, look at it.

• 52:50Danny Jones?

  Two, you have two and three.

• 52:52Speaker 02

  So, and I tricked you here a little bit, right?

• 52:54Danny Jones?

  You did, you did trick me there.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  But it's still, so you can train to be able to pull that information even from the peripheral without moving your eyes, but you felt there was a limbic friction, right?

• 53:05Danny Jones?

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:06Speaker 02

  Like, you didn't, you wanted to move your eyes to find out.

• 53:09Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  So it's about learning to trust it.

• 53:11Danny Jones?

  It's so hard to, it's a hard thing to train too, I feel like.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Just, we just trained it.

• 53:16Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 53:16Speaker 02

  And, and you, and you were able to, to, to say it's three. So in reality, if you are in a military situation, hostage situation, or you're in a high-speed football game, and you can trust that blur and say, that's three, and not move your eyes, you have an edge.

• 53:38Danny Jones?

  Right, a hundred percent.

• 53:42Danny Jones?

  Found a photo of Michael Jordan, bro?

• 53:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I, his eyes look normal, to be honest.

• 53:47Danny Jones?

  On the court, like playing? Oh, I don't know. I guess you, I guess you just have to see a video.

• 53:52Speaker 04

  Like, just like the way his eyes react?

• 53:54Speaker 02

  I don't necessarily think that you will see it from outside. Yes, there is, his eyes are not straight on.

• 54:00Danny Jones?

  You can't, you, you, it takes, it's certain photos, you really notice it.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I don't think that it's necessarily connected to the peripheral vision, but it's interesting that, that you've noticed.

• 54:09Danny Jones?

  Look at Tom Brady, look at a close-up of Tom Brady. Just type in, type in Tom Brady.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Eyes.

• 54:16Danny Jones?

  Tom Brady eyes, try that, yeah.

• 54:19Speaker 04

  Okay, eyes.

• 54:26Danny Jones?

  Try to find, I mean, look, go up, go up. Look at that one, no, the GQ one on the top. Up, up, middle, right there. No, not that one, go back. Down to the left, very far left, underneath the one of him in the red shirt.

• 54:40Speaker 04

  GQ.

• 54:41Danny Jones?

  No, no, no, to the left, left, left, left, left, right there, yes.

• 54:45Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 54:45Danny Jones?

  Punch it on that, yeah, I mean, you can't.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  There is, yeah.

• 54:47Danny Jones?

  You can kind of see, like, he's got a wide, you see it more when he's playing football, when he's like on, when he has his helmet on and he's like on the field. But like, you know, if you have a guy running that way, a guy running that way, moving in different angles and they all have defenders on them, you kind of like, have to be trained to be able to do what I just tried to do, see the three and the, and the one and the two.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, or catching balls from, you know, or sticks, or we do it with a variety of things. Or, or sometimes I, I do something else, I ask the person to map with a, with a glimpse. One glimpse, you have to map the scenario, then it's taken away from you. And now you have to do it. So for example, I did it a few weeks ago where I, we were in a tennis court and I threw three tennis balls and they stopped in certain positions on the court. And I say, look, now blindfolded, him, go pick them up. In a whole open tennis court.

• 55:49Danny Jones?

  And like by memory?

• 55:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, it, it's not by memory, it's by mapping, spatial mapping. Like when I entered this room, for example, I was in the lounge, in the, in the, in the, how you call it?

• 56:02Danny Jones?

  The lounge, yeah.

• 56:03Speaker 02

  The lounge, the, the hangar.

• 56:06Speaker 02

  This hangar, it still exists inside of me now. It's mapped.

• 56:10Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  I, I know how to get out, I know where the door is, I know where the toilet is.

• 56:15Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  So this whole thing is actually constructed, simulated by us, without us even noticing.

• 56:23Speaker 02

  And similarly, our body is also constructed inside of us. There is these schemas, simulations of ourselves, the peripersonal space, which is even a bigger sphere, not just my body.

• 56:40Speaker 02

  And spatial schemas and even social schemas. So you kind of know where you are in society.

• 56:48Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 56:49Speaker 02

  Right, like culturally, and all these simulations are like coming together in our, in us.

• 56:54Danny Jones?

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  To create the us, the, the.

• 56:57Danny Jones?

  Yeah, a hundred percent. That's very interesting.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  So you can work and, and you can, so by placing this, it's not just memory, but it's, let's see how detailed your simulation is. I put the balls and then go pick them up. And it was amazing, there was like eight steps, bends down, picks the ball.

• 57:16Danny Jones?

  Really?

• 57:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, four steps to the right.

• 57:19Danny Jones?

  This was Christian who did it?

• 57:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, Christian, yeah. And, and so it was, it was very accurate compared to other people. Yeah, I don't remember exactly the, the scenario that we did, but that was something like that.

• 57:30Danny Jones?

  How much do you think people like him, or people like Connor, or whoever the person might be, whoever the super athlete might be on their level, how much of that ability that you're describing is genetic versus trained? Or how much, how much of it is, is trainable? Or is there like a limit? Because with him, it just seems like a natural, a natural thing he was born with.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  It's a natural thing to be born with, maybe. And what about growing, growing up as a McCaffrey?

• 57:59Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  Did you forget that?

• 58:01Danny Jones?

  Yeah, I did forget that.

• 58:02Speaker 02

  So, so you know what? How can all these McCaffreys be in the NFL? What, all them won the genetic lottery? For example, he's the shortest of the family.

• 58:13Danny Jones?

  Is he really?

• 58:14Speaker 02

  And he looks different than everyone else. He still made it work.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  He doesn't look like his dad.

• 58:21Danny Jones?

  Does he really look different?

• 58:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, he looks different.

• 58:23Danny Jones?

  Interesting.

• 58:23Speaker 02

  He's very different to his dad or his brothers. And they're all a bit different. You know what I see there more? Like I told you, it's not so much in the genetics or in the body. It's in the cultivation, it's in the environment, it's in the practice, which you grew up in, playing baseball, basketball.

• 58:42Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 58:43Speaker 02

  Playing football with a dad who was obsessed.

• 58:46Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 58:46Speaker 02

  Right, like with these things and he told me crazy stories about growing up there. And on top of it, of course, there is a good genetic pool there.

• 58:58Danny Jones?

  Sure.

• 58:58Speaker 02

  You know, they're, they're also gifted in that regard. I don't like the genetic question so much, because I feel it moves us away from practice. Instead, I prefer to ask, how shall I practice to improve? Not, is this genetic or not genetic? That goes to the comparison, can I make it as a professional skateboarder or not?

• 59:18Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  Here is my beef. And here is why I like skateboarding, or parkour, or breakdancing. Some kid is born somewhere with a polio disease, but he wants to be a gymnast. Can he be a gymnast?

• 59:39Danny Jones?

  Um, I guess if he really tried hard and worked hard at it.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  No. You're wrong. It's impossible. Gymnastics, he cannot do.

• 59:49Danny Jones?

  Why is that?

• 59:50Speaker 02

  Because he has polio disease.

• 59:51Danny Jones?

  You can cure polio, right?

• 59:54Speaker 02

  You, you cannot, you cannot cure, I'm talking about the situation where his, his legs are.

• 59:59Danny Jones?

  He's paralyzed.

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, he has like a certain paralysis, right?

• 1:00:02Danny Jones?

  No, he cannot do gymnastics.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  He cannot do gymnastics. What happens now? This kid becomes the greatest breakdancer in the world because his legs are lighter a little bit. And he does these crazy tricks, you've seen them. And he makes millions more than any gymnast does in the Olympics.

• 1:00:21Danny Jones?

  Is this a real thing?

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. It happens every day.

• 1:00:22Danny Jones?

  You gotta find this guy.

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  So, yeah, there is a million of them these days already. He uses YouTube, paralyzed, yeah, just like, you know, the legs are atrophied. They're with scratches, but then they're so light, he leans into his hands, his legs are floating. So, why do, I don't like the standardization of humans, which we've saw where it goes in the, in, in our history, that is still happening in professional sports, Olympic sports. You got to be born to the right parents and in the right skin color to be in the 100 meter final in the Olympics.

• 1:01:04Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:05Speaker 02

  It's just the reality. So, okay, what about if I wasn't? So then there is this new phenomenon, it's like skateboarding, where you can find a way.

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• 1:02:02Speaker 05

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• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  It's not one way. There is an art to it, there is an openness to it.

• 1:02:09Danny Jones?

  And also limiting factors, I feel like motivate people to do things.

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  Also.

• 1:02:13Danny Jones?

  You know?

• 1:02:14Speaker 02

  And I love that. Instead of being blocked, you're never gonna do gymnastics.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  Because your legs are, you know, or your elbow does not straighten. You cannot do gymnastics.

• 1:02:25Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:02:26Speaker 02

  You can't, you know, you know, people that cannot fully lock the elbow, you cannot do gymnastics. You're not gonna get anywhere.

• 1:02:34Danny Jones?

  There's this guy I follow on Instagram, I can't remember his name right now, Steve, you're gonna have to look him up. He's a blind skateboarder, completely blind. And he rips harder than anyone I know on a skateboard. He rides a half-pipe, a huge half-pipe, and he, he does things I couldn't fathom doing. Completely blind. It's incredible, and he even brings the stick with him on the ramp.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 1:02:58Danny Jones?

  It's crazy.

• 1:02:59Speaker 02

  This is what I'm saying. So for me, this is a lot more about movement and our humanity coming back. And now you can even make a fucking living from it.

• 1:03:08Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  In, with Instagram and with YouTube, and that's the positive side of these things. And.

• 1:03:14Speaker 04

  Is it Dan the Manche?

• 1:03:16Danny Jones?

  No, this guy, this guy skates a half-pipe, go to his page.

• 1:03:19Speaker 02

  This is also great, what he did.

• 1:03:21Danny Jones?

  Yeah, this is definitely cool.

• 1:03:22Speaker 04

  There's, there's Anthony Ferraro, Brett Devloo?

• 1:03:26Danny Jones?

  Just type in, uh, just type in blind skateboarder half-pipe.

• 1:03:33Danny Jones?

  See what comes up. That might be him on the second, yeah, right there, with the helmet, putting the helmet on. That might be him, click on that, yeah.

• 1:03:44Danny Jones?

  I'm not sure if this is him or not.

• 1:03:49Speaker 02

  You saw how he felt that edge there?

• 1:03:53Danny Jones?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:54Speaker 02

  Uses it like a stick, like a blind man's stick.

• 1:03:57Danny Jones?

  That's a giant vert ramp too. That's like a 12 foot vert ramp he's on.

• 1:04:01Speaker 02

  Whoa, man.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  Look at the confidence, the speed he moves to the edge.

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  Incredible.

• 1:04:13Danny Jones?

  This isn't the guy I was talking about, the guy I was talking about, somebody different, but that's still super impressive. To be able to do something like that. And that's what I'm saying, you know, like.

• 1:04:24Danny Jones?

  Maybe if this guy wasn't blind, he wouldn't be so motivated, you know, he probably would, but there's a, there's a good chance if he wasn't blind, he wouldn't be making videos of himself skating. A vert ramp, you know, if he was naturally given, if he was born with this ability just to be good at doing this, he might not take it so seriously, or he might not be that interested in it.

• 1:04:44Speaker 02

  Right. She's something else to examine. Do we need that? Or, or can we do our best without that?

• 1:04:52Danny Jones?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, totally. Before I started this podcast, I had never. Talked in front of a camera or never done anything like this at all. Like I was, I was just a cinematographer. Shooting videos and documentaries and trying to make things look cool visually. Editing stuff and shooting stuff, never once thought about. Completing a sentence on my own, you know, and having people like listen to me and like judge me for how smart or dumb I sound. And then like when we started doing this in 2016, 2017. I could barely form a sentence. You know, I had probably, I hadn't done much reading. I didn't, I was ignorant to so much about history, to so many different subjects.

• 1:05:36Danny Jones?

  And then like starting to learn stuff and starting to have more conversations with people and trying to actually connect with people and have a flowing conversation. It's been like a crazy learning experience. And I'm still, I'm still terrible at it, but it's, it's, um, you know, it's a lot like the whole nature of this conversation, like starting things that. You have never tried and that you're awful at. And trying to develop that stuff. And it's, and it's also things that you're naturally not good at.

• 1:06:02Speaker 02

  I love it. I, I think in essence, you're using the situation, you're, you're, you're using the podcast. Instead of being used by it, which I often is what I see. And, and it's not just about. The success of the podcast. This is the core thing. What are you going to take on with you from here? You're not going to do this forever.

• 1:06:27Speaker 02

  So what are you going to take from this? And even if you do this forever, what do you take from here, from that doing? That should be a practice. It should, it is a practice already. It's just about recognizing it. And the second thing is, there is a lot more. Don't find what you're good at and do that. That, that's cool. Everybody knows that. But my offering is find what you suck at. Cause there you have a lot more for you. Not for what society. Put you in under that thing. It's like, oh, he's great. But what does he care? People, you know, people come and tell me like. Oh, you're great. Oh, you did this. You affected me in this one. I feel nothing.

• 1:07:13Speaker 02

  I feel nothing. This hasn't, this doesn't touch me.

• 1:07:17Danny Jones?

  Really?

• 1:07:18Speaker 02

  Of course. Who, well, where am I in this? Where am I? You're great. You're great. You can do this. You can do that. You have no idea. Sometimes people, you know, present me in a podcast. The greatest experts about, the greatest expert in human movement or whatever. And if I am, what do you know about it? You need to be an expert yourself to know if I'm an expert or not.

• 1:07:43Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  So it's, it's this lie that we keep joining in. It's like you lift me. It's like, okay, you, Nassima introduced me. So I'm here and now I'm lifted by you. And then the next person brings me in and.

• 1:07:58Danny Jones?

  Yeah, the people that try to do that kind of stuff are, are the ones that are trying to compensate for a lack of something that internally, you know?

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  I agree. I agree.

• 1:08:08Danny Jones?

  The, the people that I always say, like the people who brag about getting the most girls or the people that brag about being able to beat anybody up. Are the ones that are the opposite is probably true.

• 1:08:19Speaker 02

  Beautiful. And that's why I often see in fighters. The ones who end up in martial arts like me. Are weak. My father.

• 1:08:34Speaker 02

  He never went to martial arts. Because he was strong. He was confident. He had fistfights, he had this, and he didn't need to go to martial. I felt weak. So I found myself in martial arts.

• 1:08:46Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:08:47Speaker 02

  Most of these fighters are that way. They come from a place of being abused, being bullied. It's a common thing that keeps repeating. But then the other recognition is I don't have to pursue this anymore. To be able to understand it's okay. It was part of my journey. But I don't need to continue to pursue it or feeling dumb. So people pursue, you know, crazy careers in mathematics, in physics, in whatever.

• 1:09:19Speaker 02

  From one experience in primary grade where they couldn't get it and everybody else got it. And now they're dumb for the rest of their life.

• 1:09:28Danny Jones?

  Yeah, that's another thing that goes into, you know, that's baked into our culture too, is just the, like academia and science and. And, you know, all of these scientific pursuits, there is this built in competitiveness to it, where they all want to be smarter than the other one. And they all want to beat them on the hierarchy. And they're just like in this very, very shallow, like two dimensional. Game that they're playing. It's all, it all boils down to the same thing. It's all ego. I feel like at some level for most of this stuff, even for like jujitsu, like when I started doing jujitsu. I was, you know, I always heard these stories like, oh, you know, you kind of like lose your ego. You realize that you're helpless. And it's like, you know, that.

• 1:10:10Danny Jones?

  Anyone can take you out, anyone can take you down, even a kid who, a 16 year old can do this to you and, and you're helpless. And I'm like, oh, wow. Interesting. I get in it. All those guys have the biggest egos.

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  Oh my God. I'm, I'm so happy you say it because I often need to, I need to, I'm, I'm, look, I've never, I've never seen. Not never, but I don't need to take my shoes off to count the number of times.

• 1:10:36Speaker 02

  Working with a fighter who actually uses fighting as a practice for themselves, a spiritual journey. It's often mentioned in all these beautiful clips, the samurai.

• 1:10:46Danny Jones?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:47Speaker 02

  And the one, it's like fucking bullshit. It's, this is, this is the biggest crime. Because it's not, it's okay if you keep silent and you, you just do your thing. And maybe you know, you're corrupted in that way and you fight to be a showman. You fight for the sense of strength over others. But then to claim it's a spiritual journey, come on, it's not a spiritual journey for you. It's clear to everyone who you are. The persona, the ego, the pursuit, et cetera. And you know.

• 1:11:19Danny Jones?

  Even the belt system, you know, the belt system is a whole.

• 1:11:21Speaker 02

  Of course, of course. Yeah. And if you look back at the belt system, you know, where, you know, how it evolved and, you know. Also the need to give you that to pull you in. You get this belt and then this belt and then this belt. There is.

• 1:11:36Danny Jones?

  It's like Scientology. It's like a cult.

• 1:11:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And stay longer, you, you're going to get, you're going to get the black belt soon.

• 1:11:42Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:43Speaker 02

  So it, like some people in BJJ, they stay for like three, four years beyond the point that they would have. Quit just to get the black belt.

• 1:11:52Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:11:52Speaker 02

  It's such a common thing. And then they get the black belt, they quit.

• 1:11:55Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:56Speaker 02

  So it's like.

• 1:11:57Danny Jones?

  So strange, isn't it?

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  You just sold four years of your life. It's like, for what? Ridiculous. This happens everywhere. It's not BJJ. It's not just martial arts. It's everywhere. You're being pulled by these forces and it's not about you. It's not about us.

• 1:12:12Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  So for me, it was a big thing of like, wait, what is it for me here? You're great. You're great. Or working on stage and seeing the audience or, you know, or. Or being popular or making the money or whatever it was. I was like, there is nothing here for me. I'm left with nothing. I'm playing. Other people's games. You said before the matrix, but this is another matrix.

• 1:12:39Speaker 02

  It's not the ma, you know, it's not the, the inner matrix, but it is an outer matrix, which is clear. So it's almost. The job, the obligation of the practitioner to be a renegade.

• 1:12:53Danny Jones?

  I like it because it enhances other parts of my life. You know, if I do like a hard jujitsu session and it really kills me, the rest of my day feels so much better. And I, I'm uplifted. You know, this might be, you know, the wrong way of looking at it, but for me, it's useful because. It puts me in a great mood. It makes me feel like I did something and.

• 1:13:17Danny Jones?

  You know, it enhances different things, like it enhances cardio. I feel better after I do my cardio and I don't know, I feel like things like jiu jitsu, things like, not necessarily skating, but definitely podcasting, different things like this, they, they spread out into other aspects of my life and they, they enhance all of those, right? It's not just one specific lane that's mutually exclusive to that thing, which is what I really like about it. And I like, like when Nsima was here, he was explaining to me a bunch of things with jiu jitsu, like when it comes to breathing and all that stuff. And he's like, he's like, I like to compete against myself in this way where like, I go, when I, when I roll with somebody, I try to go as long as I can without breathing through

• 1:14:02Danny Jones?

  my mouth. I'm just like, see how long I can go. Don't worry about anything else. Like, do whatever you can do and then just focus on not breathing through your mouth and see if you can last longer than that guy. And it's just, it's like a, it's like a competition against yourself, not necessarily like this, you know, strength or technique thing.

• 1:14:20Speaker 02

  Beautiful. Very, very much in line with how I do things. When I was rolling and we're using a lot of counts, for example, so instead of doing that with the mouth, you can maintain a certain breath count that you cannot break, like four seconds inhale, four seconds exhale.

• 1:14:37Danny Jones?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:14:37Speaker 02

  And you're, yeah, but, but you'll be able to do it with someone who is maybe lighter or maybe, you know, and that's a great practice. It's a great practice and you, and you get something for you.

• 1:14:48Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:49Speaker 02

  You know what? I'll tell you something else. Don't tell the other person.

• 1:14:54Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  Don't tell anyone. Don't do charity and then tell anyone.

• 1:14:59Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:15:01Speaker 02

  Even more for yourself. Keep some things just for yourself.

• 1:15:04Danny Jones?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. And that's a cool way too, to get your mind off like that vibration, that like normal, like, like this could be true for football or martial arts or whatever. Like if you're doing what you're doing, say, let's just say football, like my goal is to run the ball across that line and get seven points or six points, whatever it is. Instead, if you can think about it, like my goal is to do this many breaths between the 50 yard line and the one yard line or something like that. And you're, you're now kind of measuring your success based on something completely different. I wonder what kind of effect that would have, you know, for the overall picture.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  I love it. Great, great, great ideas. And this is exactly the, the, the state of mind of a practitioner, or even within this conversation right now, I'm already using a similar thing. For example, there are certain expressions that I don't wish to come about, or for example, a certain expression of negativity, that I don't wish it to be present, but I don't want it to control me. Maybe I'm tired or my stomach is a bit queasy or something. I want to be in charge here. So in this sense, you can

• 1:16:26Speaker 02

  practice it. For example, don't frown. You, you do this a lot.

• 1:16:33Danny Jones?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:34Speaker 02

  But not in a frowning way, in a, in an expression of wanting to understand.

• 1:16:38Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:16:39Speaker 02

  That you can, you can play with it.

• 1:16:41Danny Jones?

  Okay.

• 1:16:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. You can try all kinds of things and these are practices. These are things. When I work with athletes here in the US, they have this thing, fucking dumb ass to themselves.

• 1:16:54Danny Jones?

  Oh, really?

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  You know that thing?

• 1:16:55Danny Jones?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:55Speaker 02

  When they fail, I'm like, one of the first things that I do here, when I start to work with someone, I don't want to see an expression of frustration. My job is to make you frustrated. Your job, don't show me any expression of frustration.

• 1:17:11Danny Jones?

  Yeah. That's a task in itself.

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  That's a task. And doing that, it's exactly what you offered. This amount of breath until that line. And it's like, you play a double game. And what happens? Growth inside, a release.

• 1:17:25Danny Jones?

  Hmm.

• 1:17:27Speaker 02

  Development, all kinds of things, not just directly in the corrupted way, I become a better athlete, but much deeper than that.

• 1:17:37Danny Jones?

  That's very interesting. And associating, it's interesting what you said about like frowning or anything like that. It's very interesting how different physiological things you can do with your face or with your body or with your posture can affect your, your mind and your mood.

• 1:17:52Speaker 02

  They are glued together.

• 1:17:54Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:55Speaker 02

  Try to inflate your chest. Try.

• 1:17:58Danny Jones?

  Inflate?

• 1:17:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, like me, like, like that position. No, no, no, keep breathing, but just hold this position. Try to locate humility inside.

• 1:18:09Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:18:10Speaker 02

  It's, it's hard.

• 1:18:11Danny Jones?

  It's not easy.

• 1:18:11Speaker 02

  It's not easy to, or if, if you're, if you're collapsing down the shoulders and you slither, try to, try to locate confidence. They're attached.

• 1:18:21Danny Jones?

  Or if you look down.

• 1:18:22Speaker 02

  Or if you look down.

• 1:18:22Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:23Speaker 02

  They're fused together.

• 1:18:24Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:25Speaker 02

  Of course, we can separate them again. We can uncouple them, the posture from the emotion, from the state, but it's something that can be used. Like when you get hit in fighting, in boxing, you put on a smile, little smile for yourself, not for him, for yourself, to calm yourself down. Cause the moment you soften here and the corners of your eyes and the corners of your mouth stretch towards the ears, even the pre-smile, immediately something changes inside.

• 1:18:58Danny Jones?

  It's very interesting how that works.

• 1:19:00Speaker 02

  So this can be practiced. Those are great observations that you have. And I'm sure that your ability to glimpse those things and to make them intelligible for yourself are a big part of your life and the way that you do things. Because it's not so often that I hear it from people.

• 1:19:19Danny Jones?

  Hmm. How, how much do you guys focus on? Because I know I've heard a lot from people like how breathing through the nose is like very important and you shouldn't breathe through your mouth. And especially when it comes to like very taxing physical activities that are like cardio intensive. How much do you guys focus on that? And I know also like belly breathing, I've heard is like very important and like with, when you're, when you're moving, how your breath should be synchronized with your movements. Like for example, exhaling on effort and things like that.

• 1:19:55Speaker 02

  So there is a bunch of stuff in here. There is some good stuff, but there is a lot of bullshit as well, like put together there, oversimplified stuff in essence that it's easy to conceptualize, you know, like, okay, here you go, 30 second clip on Instagram, breathe through the nose, you know, or, or chest breathing is like creating panic, all this stuff. And of course you're part of the BJJ community. So you've had that effect from Rixon and trickling, trickling down and all these mentions. I know where they come from.

• 1:20:29Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:29Speaker 02

  But there is some truth there. There is also, the breath is extremely versatile for a good reason. We should be able to adapt the breathing to whatever situation we do, including this situation right now. When I'm talking to you and my breath is in line with it. So I don't stop to, huh, all of a sudden. Or if now we go into a sprint or into a fight or whatever it is. So guess what? If breathing through the mouth was bad, evolution wouldn't have allowed that.

• 1:21:06Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:21:07Speaker 02

  To be.

• 1:21:09Danny Jones?

  There's a time for it.

• 1:21:10Speaker 02

  There is a time for it and there is a time for everything. So it's oversimplified things that are, and then we can practice and you can notice you're breathing through the mouth all the time. And that is where it comes from. And then to breathe through the nose helps and you know, one of the, of course, in the yogic breathing, there is a lot of practice of that, alternate nostrils, bringing the air from different cavities from the mouth. And eventually, you know, if you really look deeper, breath is not about the physical breath. Breath is about a different process altogether. The word

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  for breath work, the, the ancient word pranayama, does not mention breath really. It is about prana. You know what prana is, right?

• 1:21:59Danny Jones?

  What's prana?

• 1:21:59Speaker 02

  Chi. You know the word chi?

• 1:22:02Danny Jones?

  Cheat?

• 1:22:02Speaker 02

  Chi. Energy.

• 1:22:04Danny Jones?

  Oh, chi.

• 1:22:05Speaker 02

  Chi.

• 1:22:05Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:07Speaker 02

  It's the same, the same word. So, um, there is so much adaptability and, and depth to breath work. I think it is still in early stages of understanding in the West. I didn't go to the Western sources so much to learn this. I went more to the Eastern sources where there is a whole world there that opens up. But it's useful for you to pay attention to nose breathing, mouth breathing, to pay attention to how you manage it. Belly breathing created, for example, is it created more issues than helped.

• 1:22:49Danny Jones?

  Really?

• 1:22:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. Extremely oversimplified thing where there is already a displacement, a breaking of the proper posture. The diaphragm is the primary breath apparatus. You know the diaphragm?

• 1:23:05Danny Jones?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. They make, um, they make things that you can put in your mouth that you can like adjust how hard it is to breathe through your mouth. And you're like, we're just supposed to strengthen your diaphragm, like tools to do that.

• 1:23:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. Not a fan of those as well, but yeah, there is a lot of methods to do this. By the way, Nassim, I, I gave him a practice of breathing last time we met. He asked me and I told him, you don't need those implements. Buy a watering hose and put the edge of the green hose in a bucket of water, take the other edge and make bubbles.

• 1:23:42Speaker 02

  Old method.

• 1:23:43Danny Jones?

  Low bubbles into the water.

• 1:23:44Speaker 02

  Blow bubbles in the bucket.

• 1:23:45Danny Jones?

  Interesting.

• 1:23:46Speaker 02

  Do it for a period of time. And then from that, he started to go into didgeridoo and all kinds of, you know, esoteric sides of cyclical breath and there is a lot there to discover.

• 1:23:57Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:58Speaker 02

  But anyway, so when everything works well and the diaphragm is in a natural scenario, the posture maintains a certain position, the rib cage.

• 1:24:11Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:11Speaker 02

  The pelvis. And then you don't push the abdominal wall out and in. And this belly breathing is an attempt to move the diaphragm, but it's actually creates a distortion oftentimes. It has a place, but it has again been oversimplified. Maybe what I'm saying will not be so quickly and easily understood by people, but maybe it will open a path to investigate further and I advise.

• 1:24:40Danny Jones?

  Yeah, well, my, my general understanding of it was that, maybe not so much to do with the diaphragm breathing, but like when you are like moving heavy loads, that when you're to protect your spine, that if you breathe out, when you are putting in the effort, it is safer or like.

• 1:25:02Speaker 02

  If you breathe out too much, you will deflate that support. So it's a breathe out to a certain extent and maintaining pressurization. Imagine now you need to lift the fridge.

• 1:25:16Danny Jones?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:25:17Speaker 02

  It's not gonna work. So to breathe out, again, it's oversimplified. And sometimes it's not so easily understood and people make a, until even with elite level athletes, I see that they don't know how to breathe well as per the scenario. When I say breathe well, there is no right way. There is a right way per the scenario. If the scenario is to sit now in stillness and meditate, there is a certain breathing. If there is, if I'm here in a podcast talking for two hours, there is a different type of breathing. If I'm lifting heavy loads, different type of breathing. If I, if somebody's knee on belly on me, different type of breathing.

• 1:26:01Danny Jones?

  Yeah, for sure. So you, you were talking about how you, just a minute ago, how you studied like eastern sources to learn a lot of this stuff. Where specific, so were you reading like, like old yogi texts and stuff like this to try to learn and digest some of this stuff originally? Like, or did you have any kind of mentors that taught you this? Was it all self-taught? How much of it?

• 1:26:28Speaker 02

  All, all of the above.

• 1:26:29Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:31Speaker 02

  I've been reading a lot from a young age, different sources, the east, from the west, philosophy, and also teachers that I've met along the way, a big influence on me. My teacher, David, David Malka, who is a yogi.

• 1:26:48Speaker 02

  And yeah, he sent me down the path of a lot of this. And I went to China, I went to India, I went in Europe. I was in Russia many times researching and getting little pieces and trying to understand more from a young age. And I've started also to teach very young. I'm, I'm celebrating, I've celebrated this year, 30 years of teaching.

• 1:27:12Danny Jones?

  Wow.

• 1:27:12Speaker 02

  So I've started early on and that was also a big part because I didn't know what I was doing. So I had to bring, I had to bring some, some stuff. And I, so I devoted a lot of time to study. Not just to the practice.

• 1:27:28Danny Jones?

  Did you study, like, how many different cultures have you looked into that are doing this kind of stuff? Like, is it mainly like the eastern cultures? Or have you looked into like different?

• 1:27:37Speaker 02

  Everything, everything that I could, including, you know, I spent many years in Brazil.

• 1:27:43Danny Jones?

  Oh, really?

• 1:27:43Speaker 02

  I was, I, I did capoeira for many years, 17 years.

• 1:27:46Danny Jones?

  What is that?

• 1:27:47Speaker 02

  Capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art.

• 1:27:49Danny Jones?

  Okay.

• 1:27:51Speaker 02

  That is a whole cultural 600-year-old weird phenomenon. So I can speak Portuguese fluently. I, I spent many years in Brazil studying that. So that was one side, the South America, the shamanism, the, the, this whole thing was always there. You know, candomblé, the religion there, the Afro-Brazilian religion. And then I spent a lot of time also in the east. I work closely. I do also movement design for movies. So I worked with Bollywood, the Bollywood industry. So I've had the, the opportunity to be taken around and to be shown and then.

• 1:28:30Danny Jones?

  Movement design, I've never heard that.

• 1:28:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, nowadays, you know, you got a character, like, you know, some superhero.

• 1:28:41Speaker 02

  So Superman, everybody knows Superman, but you know, how, if you got a new character, how, how does he fly? How does he manipulate? Or for example, the, the movie I worked with, he is manipulating fire. So who's, who is responsible for the, how do that character manipulates fire? The actor doesn't know shit about this nowadays. They, originally actors came from physical theater. It was first grounded in the physicality, but it became much more about the face and expression and vocalization and a lot less about the body. So movement design is designing the motion of the.

• 1:29:19Danny Jones?

  So do you work with the actors of these movies to do this stuff? To get that ingrained into their brains?

• 1:29:23Speaker 02

  Yes. First, we design the concept, the movement concepts, and then we train the actors, take care of their bodies, et cetera. And, and also this also touches the stunt people, it touches the directors. I, I worked with the, some of the greatest names in, in India that are, you know, people who cannot walk on, walk on the street. And it was, was amazing experience. And that gave me also access to various things in the, in the east.

• 1:29:51Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:52Speaker 02

  I went to China, I come from martial arts background. So I research a lot in the martial arts and have a look and have, have the fortune of having friends in a variety of places. So there is a lot of weird practices there.

• 1:30:05Danny Jones?

  In China?

• 1:30:06Speaker 02

  In China. I was in Russia multiple times, studying the Soviet methods. And I spent a lot of time in Germany. In Germany, there is a whole host of things in Europe. The old methods out of France, Swedish gymnastics, and esoteric systems from the west,

• 1:30:26Speaker 02

  hermetics, all kinds of things that over the years, just, I'm, I'm passionate about this. So I thank you as well, so from seeing your little library out there.

• 1:30:36Danny Jones?

  Yeah. Out of all those cultures that you've, that you spent time with, which one was the most interesting to you? Or which one kind of, maybe not the most interesting, maybe that's the wrong word. Which one kind of like shocked you the most? Or like changed your perspective the most?

• 1:30:53Speaker 02

  Recently, in recent years, I've had the chance to go to Indonesia. And this is right now the most fascinating thing. And I believe it is the most fascinating place on the planet for me right now, which still contains so many unknowns. I, we did an expedition to these ancient people there and stayed with them.

• 1:31:23Speaker 02

  There is a lot of new life forms that are being discovered there still. Weird practices. Even the religion, various religions and various dialects are very interesting, weird combinations. There is a lot of trance states, not a lot of psychedelics.

• 1:31:43Danny Jones?

  Trance states?

• 1:31:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. Working with trance.

• 1:31:48Danny Jones?

  How does that work?

• 1:31:51Danny Jones?

  With no drugs?

• 1:31:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's, well, it can be facilitated in all kinds of ways, but the weird thing that it happens there very naturally, without much needed.

• 1:32:00Danny Jones?

  Whoa.

• 1:32:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it just kicks in. That's why there is no drugs. And it's, it's just a powerful place. And, and powerful people still connected to something. Even the common people, you, you still feel this flavor underneath the surface. All kinds of things that also came out of these ancient kingdoms that still were together, India, Thailand. And there is a lot of stuff from the Cultural Revolution from China that escaped, certain practitioners escaped. So that is, that has been the latest thing and I'm, I'm there every year.

• 1:32:42Danny Jones?

  Do you think there's, do you think there's something different? Like, have you, you've been to the Amazon rainforest?

• 1:32:49Speaker 02

  I have.

• 1:32:49Danny Jones?

  Like, what you just explained with Indonesia and the people there and the type of states they can achieve, and even with people in the Amazon compared to people who live in society over here? Like, compare that to New York City. Do you think there's something about being in those locations surrounded by nature that maybe like opens up the human possibilities even more? Like the senses or? I feel like, I've always felt like there's, what happens when you put people in like this electrical, electrical grid surrounded by buildings and this, you know, wifi and Waymos and, you know, screens everywhere.

• 1:33:33Danny Jones?

  I feel like there's a, it, it limits human potential in a way that's kind of hard to, it's kind of hard to articulate exactly how that happens. But I feel like there's something that happens like, maybe it dulls our senses a little bit more. Because I've heard stories of people that go to place, like the way you just described it to me. I've had many people describe to me how when they go to places like this, it kind of like, it broadens their senses where they can, they can sort of,

• 1:34:01Danny Jones?

  they can pull more out of nature and they, they kind of like sense more. There's more of a like, an, an, an native intuition that comes out of them.

• 1:34:08Speaker 02

  A hundred percent. And it's also very similar. You're right about the Amazon and Indonesia and these ancient cultures. If I'll show, I'll show you afterwards some pictures and it's, it looks very similar. It's, and I think what is often not understood about this process. First, you go to, you go to a certain place. Sometimes it's about being in the place. Forgive me for, you know, the weekend ayahuasca ceremonies in Miami. You know, but sometimes you go to a place. It's not only about the shaman, it's not about, it's about the place.

• 1:34:51Speaker 02

  There is vibration, there is emanation, there is a space, there is a smell. And more importantly, it's not a jailbreaking, a hard change, which we sometimes expect. I went there, nothing happened.

• 1:35:08Speaker 02

  You didn't go there.

• 1:35:09Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:35:11Speaker 02

  To go there, you have to go there. And to go there means desensitizing.

• 1:35:18Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 1:35:19Speaker 02

  I can't taste a fucking tomato. I'm eating McDonald's. So the tomato is perceived plastic flavor. Tomatoes are sweet. People cannot feel the taste of a tomato.

• 1:35:36Speaker 02

  So, once you step away from all this stuff and you gain a bit of distance, you start to hear the whispers around.

• 1:35:44Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 1:35:44Speaker 02

  And that is so powerful that by the mo- it starts with something very small. It's almost like a little touch in the- that you don't notice is there, but it gains momentum.

• 1:35:58Speaker 02

  And then the real demons come out and it's a very powerful thing. So this is something that happens and that's why I take people into those places also to practice. So we, we, we do these events and we bring people into that because it's part of the experience. It's part of the change. I cannot reach a critical mass transforming something without sometimes stepping out of this place.

• 1:36:22Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:36:22Speaker 02

  I do it also with athletes. I'll take an athlete like has serious issues, cannot change, can't- take him, fly somewhere.

• 1:36:30Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:30Speaker 02

  You know, private jets, whatever is needed. Put every resource you can behind it, we're coming back different.

• 1:36:39Speaker 02

  Stripping away all these comforts, all these little things. Arriving there, you fly on a private jet, but then arriving there into hell, you know? Yeah, but it's needed.

• 1:36:50Danny Jones?

  Yeah, and there's something to be said about, you know, walking barefoot through the forest in South America, surrounded by millions of heartbeats of insects to the monkeys, to the jaguars, to everything else, knowing that there's eyeballs on you, three sixty. And, you know, just from like the patterns, the way the wind's blowing, the patterns that the birds are chirping in, the way the insects sound, the way, you know, hearing the river. And, you know, like something about that, I feel like it unlocks something deep inside us that is kind of like, it is degraded when you're in a city. You know what I mean?

• 1:37:29Danny Jones?

  And, you know, I imagine it's probably gotta be, it's, it's gonna be way different and it's gonna shape not just the way you think or like the vibration that you're on, but it will like shape your physical body trying to move through an area like that as well, you know? Like trying to get a workout in, in the forest, like what are you gonna do? Like, are you gonna climb a tree? Are you gonna swim through the Amazon River? Are you gonna?

• 1:37:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, the concept of a workout becomes ridiculous all of a sudden or.

• 1:38:01Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:38:01Speaker 02

  Or, but you know, you mentioned all this environment, but at the same time,

• 1:38:07Speaker 02

  switch the scenario, desert.

• 1:38:09Danny Jones?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:38:10Speaker 02

  And you'll also get crazy.

• 1:38:12Danny Jones?

  Really?

• 1:38:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, crazy experience. What's the feeling in desert? You're drowning. That's weird. Like it's the open spaces, lack of water, you feel like you're underwater. You're suffocating. It's claustrophobic. It's, it's open. And it, and, and there is something there. The people of the desert, the bad winds, you know, that my grandfather, he, he is a Africa, he came from Africa, from North, North Africa and he was a Berber. That, that, that desert people, like the freemen in Dune, you know?

• 1:38:50Danny Jones?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:38:51Speaker 02

  Different people, special people, different connection. The eyes cannot focus, dunes. So you go into this peripheral state.

• 1:39:01Danny Jones?

  Wow.

• 1:39:01Speaker 02

  There is a, yeah, we, we have built, constructed the cities and now there are prisons. We are in this cement ju- cement jungle that is imprisoning us and we're not supposed to see these straight lines. They're barely straight lines. Imagine the forms. People talk about taking drugs and seeing all these shapes, but.

• 1:39:27Danny Jones?

  Geometric stuff.

• 1:39:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, but start, just change the geometry around you in nature. You immediately change the state of mind. You immediately change the state of the use of the eyes. When you walk in the jungle, you don't use focused vision ninety percent of the time and ten percent of the time use peripheral vision like we do when we're driving or something. It's exactly the opposite. Most of the time, you're peripheral and then something draws your attention, like a movement there. You watch, oh, it's a bird. Then you go back to peripheral. You don't study every leaf on the tree.

• 1:40:03Danny Jones?

  Right, exactly.

• 1:40:05Speaker 02

  So.

• 1:40:06Danny Jones?

  It's like touching it with your palms versus your fingertips.

• 1:40:08Speaker 02

  Beautiful. And what, what I have observed, this invaded our anatomy. Now our movement forms are these straight lines, yoga. How can this be an ancient practice? Look at the poses.

• 1:40:26Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:40:27Speaker 02

  Nothing looks like, looks like this in traditional cultures. Look at the dances in Africa. Look at the shapes, look.

• 1:40:35Speaker 02

  That is a lie. That is a lie. That is not an ancient practice. And when you investigate deep, you discover that's not the real yoga, the ancient yoga. That was a yoga fabricated for the Westerner who came in. It was affected a lot by Swedish gymnastics. And, and, and the English being in India and, and all of this. There are great works, there is a book called The Yoga Body that goes into this, breaks a lot of illusions for people about how ancient it is. That, that modern postural yoga that we often pursue.

• 1:41:12Danny Jones?

  That's interesting.

• 1:41:12Speaker 02

  And this is in everything. This is in everything that we do. Even the skateboard is a bit too linear.

• 1:41:22Speaker 02

  The board itself, it's not linear, right? But it is a bit too linear. And late in, in the recent years, there's been better attempts to not try to do that. Why the skateboard is linear? Cause it gotta communicate with straight ground, which doesn't exist in nature.

• 1:41:40Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:41:41Speaker 02

  You barely have a situation where there is a straight ground.

• 1:41:45Danny Jones?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:41:46Speaker 02

  The same for the human foot.

• 1:41:48Danny Jones?

  Well, I mean, like,

• 1:41:52Danny Jones?

  it seems so unnatural, but in the big picture, it is, it's natural in the sense that this is human, this is evolution. This is, you know, the first technology was fire. And now we have space lasers. Cities everywhere.

• 1:42:10Speaker 02

  The problem is with the word natural, which means absolute shit. Everything is natural.

• 1:42:15Danny Jones?

  Everything is natural.

• 1:42:15Speaker 02

  Everything is natural.

• 1:42:16Danny Jones?

  Yep.

• 1:42:17Speaker 02

  This is natural.

• 1:42:18Danny Jones?

  Viruses being genetically manipulated in labs, that's natural.

• 1:42:22Speaker 02

  That's natural.

• 1:42:22Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:23Speaker 02

  The word, I'm not using this word, I'm often confused with this word. Natural movement guy. No, that's not what I do. Because the word is meaningless and it's dangerous word. It's a word of snobs.

• 1:42:38Speaker 02

  In order to go beyond, you must go through.

• 1:42:41Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:42Speaker 02

  You're not gonna go back, so I'm not the guy going back to nature. I love skateboarding, but I just mentioned, let's not forget also that side. It's supposed to create some kind of an interaction with a straight surface or relatively smooth surface. By the way, surfing is very different in that regard. Many people place them very close to each other, but they are very different in many ways, as you know. Also movement wise, they're very different. State of mind wise, they're very different.

• 1:43:12Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 1:43:13Speaker 02

  Surfers versus skaters, very different people.

• 1:43:17Danny Jones?

  Yes, well, there is, I mean, there's a lot of overlap in the people for sure, but the, the physical aspect of it is a completely different thing for sure.

• 1:43:24Speaker 02

  And there is an overlap because it's kind of a way, when there is no waves.

• 1:43:28Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 1:43:29Speaker 02

  But there is also a very.

• 1:43:31Danny Jones?

  Different psychology.

• 1:43:32Speaker 02

  Different psychology, yeah. I, I just met a big, a big wave surfer, working with Christian, he's a good friend, Luca. And Luca Padua, I believe his name, he's a young kid. Laird Hamilton took him.

• 1:43:46Danny Jones?

  Oh, really?

• 1:43:46Speaker 02

  Took him in.

• 1:43:47Danny Jones?

  Okay.

• 1:43:47Speaker 02

  Saw him surfing when he was, you know, young, thirteen years old.

• 1:43:52Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:52Speaker 02

  And took him in, he came to practice with us.

• 1:43:54Danny Jones?

  That's a whole, and big wave surfing is completely different from surfing.

• 1:43:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. So that, that was so beautiful to see how he works, the state, the animal, the archetypical animal compared to like football player.

• 1:44:08Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:08Speaker 02

  Compared to another person was there was a professional soccer player.

• 1:44:12Danny Jones?

  Yeah. And that's another thing about, you know, going back to what we were saying earlier in this conversation about skateboarders compared to like NFL players, right? There's like, there's no professionalism in it. Some of the best professional surfers in the history of the sport at their, in their primes, were in their early twenties, getting hammered every night, staying up all night, partying on no sleep, getting up, still drunk, slamming a beer, going out and winning a contest, you know, in like, in, you know.

• 1:44:42Speaker 02

  They're not athletes. They're not jocks, they're not athletes.

• 1:44:46Danny Jones?

  No, it's a drug. It's like surfing a wave, like, like that and like getting barreled on like a wave where there's three feet of water between you and the razor sharp reef below you and like people in the crowd screaming when you get spit out of that thing is a drug. That's, I feel like.

• 1:45:02Speaker 02

  And the risk, you, you didn't talk about yet the, the danger. Sacrifice, it's a life or death thing. So it's, it takes a totally different state of mind. The sports person is a person of control. That person is often a person who is able to let go of control.

• 1:45:22Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:23Speaker 02

  It's more often in sports where you find a person who can control the environment. But when you go to the ocean, you don't.

• 1:45:30Danny Jones?

  There's no control over it, no.

• 1:45:32Speaker 02

  It's a different way to control by letting go of the control. You gain a certain control.

• 1:45:40Danny Jones?

  Yeah, it's definitely super different when you have, when the environment is in control and you just have to work with it and do your best because there's never, there's no two waves that are the same. I mean, there are actually, there, I mean, there, there's obviously depending on where you go, you can get very similar waves, but for the most part, like, everything is different. Like, there's never two waves that are exactly the same. So you kind of have to adapt to the environment. And speaking of adapting, there was, which is kind of like in line with what we've been talking about, I had this woman on the podcast a couple of years ago, who was studying a culture, I believe in Indonesia, of these sea people, that they live on the sea and they-

• 1:46:21Speaker 02

  On these boats.

• 1:46:22Danny Jones?

  On these boats.

• 1:46:22Speaker 02

  Pirates, basically.

• 1:46:23Danny Jones?

  They spearfish. All they do is they hunt fish with spears. And they can hold their breath for like, I think it was 10 minutes. They can go down with like 10 plus minute breath holds to go down and catch fish. And she believes, she studied them, and she thinks they're evolving, like in real time. She found out that they have like incredibly huge spleens. And like, there's different traits, like their feet are very wide, big, like-

• 1:46:47Speaker 02

  Which is a very different adaptation than the Sherpas of Tibet, who are climbing those mountains. And that's very, very interesting. They have this red blood cell adaptation, and they have this spleen adaptation.

• 1:47:01Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:47:01Speaker 02

  But both of them have a capacity with oxygen, which is abnormal.

• 1:47:06Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:06Speaker 02

  So it's very interesting, yeah.

• 1:47:08Danny Jones?

  Yeah, it is interesting to see how there's different humans all over earth that are so much different than each other, like adapting and evolving in different directions.

• 1:47:16Speaker 02

  And evolving by different practices, which touches everything that we talked before, that oftentimes people confuse. They see from the outside a certain practice that we do, and they take it from the perspective of one practice. And so, for example, from the place of strength and conditioning, you'll say, this will do nothing. But then they don't realize it's a practice for the skin, or it's a practice for the neurology. So the adaptation goes somewhere totally different. But the general public has-

• 1:47:48Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:49Speaker 02

  Went down to these narrow attention spans and narrow, there is not even an attempt to understand. So there is a split almost in the world of real seeking still of depth and understanding, and the other side, which thinks that they do it, but actually approach it from the superficial side.

• 1:48:10Danny Jones?

  Yes. Yeah, 100%. Hold that thought. I gotta pee real quick.

• 1:48:14Speaker 02

  Go ahead.

• 1:48:15Danny Jones?

  We'll be right back, folks. I was just explaining to you how my hamstrings are super tight, but you said it's bad to loosen them?

• 1:48:21Speaker 02

  It can be. It can be, in the sense that there is a reason. When, when people say usually, like, my hamstrings are very tight, and I can't seem to loosen them, even though they're trying to stretch them. There's a kind of worms there, that you don't want to open up by forcing, repeating, just stretching. Why? Why the hamstrings are tight? That's an investigation. It's a big thing to, to, to look into, but there is, usually it's related to some kind of a protective mechanism that is kicking in.

• 1:48:56Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:57Speaker 02

  To keep you safe.

• 1:48:58Danny Jones?

  Right. To protect some other part, maybe like the back, or something like that.

• 1:49:01Speaker 02

  Correct. So in the past, I've jailbreaked some things and regretted it.

• 1:49:08Danny Jones?

  Oh, really? On yourself?

• 1:49:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, on myself and also on others, making the mistake, making a mistake. Like, especially with the motivation and the work ethic, and you know, the harder you are, harder hard worker, this is dangerous.

• 1:49:25Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:25Speaker 02

  So I'm not saying not to stretch them, but if you notice that they don't react to your stretching so easily, and they are very tight, we should go back, you should go to another path to, to look at it.

• 1:49:40Danny Jones?

  Instead of just attacking it head on?

• 1:49:42Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:49:43Danny Jones?

  Right, that makes sense. Yeah, I've tried different things forever. It's been years, but I've like tried with sitting on, or like-

• 1:49:48Speaker 02

  Foam rollers?

• 1:49:50Danny Jones?

  Not just foam rollers, but sitting on like tennis balls, like under my hamstring, and like putting a lot of weight on it to where it's almost feels like there's a knife sticking into it. And different things like that, different stretches, yoga, I've tried it all. And it's, you know, it's also like glued all the way down the hamstring. It's just like, if I move too much, I feel like my hamstring is literally going to explode.

• 1:50:14Speaker 02

  If you move too much, what do you mean?

• 1:50:16Danny Jones?

  If I move in a specific way too much, right? Like, if I bend down to tie my shoes, I feel it big time. And it's a, it's a huge limiting factor for me, I feel like, in everything. But yeah, I do need to explore that, figure out what that is. I feel like, and I've been told this too, that like, everything from like the way you sit to even the way you walk, like the way you just walk down the street, has a, a huge effect on, you know, like the balance of your muscles, or how tight certain muscles will be, like in your legs, or different things like that.

• 1:50:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course. You are what you do often. This is part of it. But there is even more primary things, like breathing. Like, every breath might be responsible for your tight hamstrings, which means 20,000 plus times a day, even when you're sleeping. You're, so for example, the certain breathing mechanics, or, you know, gut issues, digestive issues can, can create all kinds of weird stuff happening. And, yes, of course, you know, certain emotional states, looping thoughts.

• 1:51:32Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:33Speaker 02

  Repeating thought. There is all kinds of things, we don't notice, they're constantly there, and they build up a lot of tension and issues in the body.

• 1:51:43Danny Jones?

  You were saying on, I forget what, I heard, I saw a clip of you, you were explaining how you were doing a practice where you just decided to get up and walk down a, was it in Tokyo? You decided to walk down the street in Tokyo and not touch another person?

• 1:52:01Speaker 02

  In Hong Kong.

• 1:52:02Danny Jones?

  Hong Kong?

• 1:52:02Speaker 02

  Similar.

• 1:52:03Danny Jones?

  You were just like, like jiving through people, like-

• 1:52:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:06Danny Jones?

  Acrobatics, trying to-

• 1:52:07Speaker 02

  No, not acrobatics, it's just, like what you said before, like you give yourself a little task, and nobody knows. So I was just like making my way to this place. Every day, I had to go down, but it's packed, Hong Kong, it's like, you know. So, and just try not to touch anyone, which is very difficult in Hong Kong.

• 1:52:27Danny Jones?

  I bet.

• 1:52:28Speaker 02

  So you, you end up, you know-

• 1:52:30Danny Jones?

  Contorting all different kinds of ways.

• 1:52:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. And just to show people, like, practice, there is the official practice, that gym. You set up a gym for yourself, and it's a room of practice, we enter the room, but there is an unofficial practice, that can happen maybe now, under the table, or, you know, when we're eating lunch, or, you know, just before a, a meeting, or any kind of thing. Because eventually, practice is 24/7. So, that understanding is potent. So you can, you can put it into your life, climbing stairs in certain ways. So whenever you have an opportunity to climb stairs, you do it in a certain way. Like, for example,

• 1:53:13Speaker 02

  not putting your foot deeper than the seam of your toes on the edge of the stair.

• 1:53:19Danny Jones?

  Like climbing with just your toes?

• 1:53:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you have to create this kind of a platform, right? Like, you can press with your toes, and then the rest of your foot is hovering. So it strengthens that, that connection.

• 1:53:34Danny Jones?

  I'm gonna have to show you my toes after this podcast. I got some fucked up toes. That really limits my, my movement.

• 1:53:39Speaker 02

  Is it because of injuries? Because of-

• 1:53:42Danny Jones?

  No, I just have, I think I inherited bunions from my mom, so I have really bad bunions on my feet. So like, I don't have, like, I'm not able to like sprawl my toes out, like, very well. So it inhibits the way, and I have to like constantly compensate and think about how I'm walking. Because I know people like to talk, like, some people like will walk duck footed, and that makes, makes it worse. Have you ever seen LeBron James's feet? My feet kind of look like his, except I don't play basketball. And so I like consciously, consciously have to work, worry about, like, I'm always trying to like point my feet more forward, and trying to, you know, maintain the proper posture and gait, like when I'm walking, for the, like, the health of my feet, and so I can keep

• 1:54:26Danny Jones?

  doing, doing shit when I get older.

• 1:54:28Speaker 02

  It's, it's, there is a lot you can do about it. First, it's good that you have all this awareness and understanding. I notice also the structure of your thumbs is very unique. So, all these things are good to realize, but there is also a lot-

• 1:54:42Danny Jones?

  The structure of your thumbs?

• 1:54:43Speaker 02

  Of your thumbs.

• 1:54:44Danny Jones?

  Yeah, I got fucking crazy thumbs.

• 1:54:46Speaker 02

  I know, I saw. That's my job to see those things. So I immediately, the analysis goes on, how you walk, how you, you know. So, there is a lot you can do about it, but the awareness of trying to walk straight is not always going to be enough. In most cases, it's not. Why is it not straight? And, and that, again, that goes back, and I'm creating more questions than answers, but I'm, I want to also give something real. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of the things that are happening in the day to day, to bring awareness to

• 1:55:29Speaker 02

  them is powerful, but immediately to try to change them, not as powerful. Funny.

• 1:55:37Danny Jones?

  Trying to change them is not as powerful.

• 1:55:41Speaker 02

  Yes, immediately to try to change them. So for example, with your walk, try, instead of straightening your feet forward, just try to pay attention to your walk. Don't change anything. You'd be surprised if you actually do that for a while, every time you walk. Simply take the observer's seat, don't change anything, and try to, would give you more. Something that the world may be, most of the world is not ready to yet understand, for those who understand, it would be gold.

• 1:56:19Danny Jones?

  Interesting. So just not consciously trying to make any changes, just pay attention to what you're naturally doing.

• 1:56:28Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:56:29Danny Jones?

  And you're saying-

• 1:56:31Speaker 02

  And this is true for a lot of other things. How we talk, or how we treat others, and-

• 1:56:37Danny Jones?

  And you're saying we can, you can gain some sort of unique insight from this?

• 1:56:41Speaker 02

  The insight is of course clear, because you are paying attention.

• 1:56:44Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:56:45Speaker 02

  But there is more than that. The attempt to change is another distortion. We think now we have, we've changed, we made a solution. You obviously see, you don't walk straight.

• 1:57:02Speaker 02

  Even though you've tried to straighten it.

• 1:57:04Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:04Speaker 02

  The hamstrings do not open up. You're foam rolling and stretching. The harder you go into this, the worse it will become.

• 1:57:15Danny Jones?

  Interesting. So what's the answer?

• 1:57:20Danny Jones?

  Is there no answer? Is that the answer?

• 1:57:21Speaker 02

  No, there is an answer. We don't know it, and in order to know it, we must first observe.

• 1:57:29Danny Jones?

  Okay.

• 1:57:30Speaker 02

  We must first pay attention.

• 1:57:33Speaker 02

  It takes a maturity, it takes a place inside of you just to watch. Things will come to you. Which, these things are not coming yet. When, when you're not in that state, you're trying to force a change. This is also part of what happens many times in the positive side of using psychedelics. There is a watching. Not a change yet, right?

• 1:57:57Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:57:58Speaker 02

  There is just a moment of, hey, look what's going on here. Oh shit.

• 1:58:05Danny Jones?

  Gives you a different perspective.

• 1:58:08Speaker 02

  And that can be cultivated, you don't need psychedelics. You, you can do it in any moment. But it's not something that we are promoted or educated. Sit up straight, chew with your mouth closed. This didn't help anyone's posture any, any time, anywhere in history.

• 1:58:27Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:58:28Speaker 02

  It only brought tension.

• 1:58:31Speaker 02

  It's not a good posture. You see, I slouch in the chair. This is a perfect posture. There is no issue with that. Posture is not an external position. Posture is a capacity, is an organizational capacity. It's like a candle flame. You're not gonna stop the candle flame and tell it, no, now you're in the right spot.

• 1:58:53Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 1:58:54Speaker 02

  My body is alive, so I can sit like this with no issue. Or, as I do sometimes in retreats, sit upright for 12 hours a day. In meditation, without moving, and there will be no issue as well. So the posture of the meditation is not necessarily better or worse.

• 1:59:14Speaker 02

  But how do you gain that? Well, first, first step is to start to watch, to keep the watchful tower, what we said before. Not just to become immersed in every activity, but to pay attention.

• 1:59:31Danny Jones?

  That's very interesting. So if you can do that, pay attention and put perspective on what you're naturally doing without trying to force a change, without trying to change the way you are perceived, just that will naturally

• 1:59:52Danny Jones?

  open up insights that will

• 1:59:56Speaker 02

  Transform you.

• 1:59:57Danny Jones?

  Transform the way you do those things. Whether it be good, whether you think it's good or bad, it's ultimately the right thing.

• 2:00:06Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 2:00:08Speaker 02

  Here, let's make an experiment.

• 2:00:10Danny Jones?

  Okay.

• 2:00:11Speaker 02

  You are seated right now. That you know, but you haven't observed it until now.

• 2:00:20Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:00:20Speaker 02

  Those are two different things. Knowing is a switch that we flipped in the past and it stayed flipped. I know I'm in the chair, but it doesn't mean that I observe I'm in a chair. Even now, when I tell you you're observing the chair, pay attention. Which seat bone receives more weight? The left or the right seat bone?

• 2:00:45Danny Jones?

  It's equal.

• 2:00:46Speaker 02

  Is it equal?

• 2:00:47Danny Jones?

  Pretty equal.

• 2:00:48Speaker 02

  Impossible.

• 2:00:50Speaker 02

  Investigate deeper. Just take a moment, don't, don't move, don't do anything different.

• 2:00:56Danny Jones?

  Okay.

• 2:00:56Speaker 02

  Try to see if there is a little bit more anywhere.

• 2:01:05Danny Jones?

  I wanna say,

• 2:01:08Danny Jones?

  ah man, it feels so equal.

• 2:01:10Speaker 02

  Okay, okay, I'm not, I don't want you to gratify me.

• 2:01:13Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:13Speaker 02

  The reason why I said it's impossible to be equal, physically, you're a sack of liquids on a spinning rock around the sun. It's not gonna be equal.

• 2:01:22Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:01:23Speaker 02

  Coriolis effect, centrifugal forces, centripetal forces, gravity, everything is moving and the chair is soft.

• 2:01:30Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:01:30Speaker 02

  So if you tell me equal, you tell me from knowing. And when I ask you to observe, I ask you, pay close attention.

• 2:01:40Speaker 02

  My left back cheek is a bit lower than the right.

• 2:01:44Danny Jones?

  Really?

• 2:01:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, that's what I observe right now.

• 2:01:47Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:48Speaker 02

  When I pay the attention. Or which shoulder of yours is lower? Without moving, without changing.

• 2:01:58Danny Jones?

  My right.

• 2:01:59Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:01:59Danny Jones?

  I think.

• 2:02:00Speaker 02

  Okay. That's the beginning. And when you observe this, when you did this little moment, something starts to change.

• 2:02:11Speaker 02

  It's a magic that you cannot do by equal your shoulder, equalize your shoulders, but you haven't even observed.

• 2:02:17Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:18Speaker 02

  Which shoulder? So if you learn to do this, and again, it's not sexy. It will be for the select few at the moment that are willing to. It's equal opportunities, everyone is invited. But it's not easy to do, our lives took us somewhere else. Tell me what to do. How shall I sit?

• 2:02:36Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:37Speaker 02

  How shall I do? What shall I do for my hamstrings? How can I open up my hamstring?

• 2:02:42Danny Jones?

  Right, right.

• 2:02:43Speaker 02

  Okay, I help you to open up your hamstring. I can open up your hamstring easily today.

• 2:02:48Danny Jones?

  Give me $50,000.

• 2:02:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, first, give me $50,000. Well, I'm more expensive than that, actually. But second,

• 2:03:01Speaker 02

  I, I will open them, but I will open a can of worms.

• 2:03:05Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:03:05Speaker 02

  And in three months or three years after opening them, you will have a terrible injury in your lower back. And this is not connected.

• 2:03:18Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:03:19Speaker 02

  In your brain. Oh, I met this amazing, I met this amazing teacher and he really helped me with my hamstring. You don't even connect it. But what I'm offering in terms of observation and placing yourself in certain practices, which are not trying to push you into a direction.

• 2:03:40Speaker 02

  It's not trying to put you in a position. It's not trying to make you do this. It's open scenario in which you have to handle yourself. You have to find yourself within those constraints.

• 2:03:52Danny Jones?

  I feel like you need curveballs thrown at you too. I, I, the first time I ever started to like pay attention to any of this stuff was when I had my first baby. And I would have to stay up for hours, holding the baby at night because he would cry. And I was starting to have extreme back pain in my lower back, like sciatic back pain, to where it was almost unbearable to get out of bed at one point. And I did not know what to do. I was probably, I was in like my mid, late twenties and I was like, I should not be dealing with this right now, I'm way too young for this. And I started paying attention, like very closely to how I was standing, how tight my glutes were flexed. Like how my scapula was.

• 2:04:37Danny Jones?

  And that's, I started to, I watched some videos on like scapula movements and stuff like that. I learned about the scapula pull-ups, where you just use your scapula. You, you don't flex any muscles except for your scapula and like, I learned.

• 2:04:48Speaker 02

  Probably came from me.

• 2:04:49Danny Jones?

  It probably did.

• 2:04:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04:51Danny Jones?

  Probably did.

• 2:04:51Speaker 02

  It's like years ago, I created this hanging challenge. Where I didn't invent hanging, but it was not popular. And then it went viral, Joe Rogan, everyone was starting to do it. And we started, it spreads like wildfire. I received hundreds, thousands of thank you letters of people who were scheduled for surgery. So one of them was this active hangs, we call them, scapular pull-ups. And it wasn't popular, people were doing pull-ups, but they were not doing much hanging work.

• 2:05:21Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:05:21Speaker 02

  And that is very potent. Another example of a practice, the right practice.

• 2:05:26Danny Jones?

  Yeah, I was focusing a lot on my scapula and like the scapula pull-ups with the hangs and as well like scapula push-ups.

• 2:05:33Speaker 02

  Great as well.

• 2:05:34Danny Jones?

  And, um, you know, like things that are just so frustrating because you don't feel it. You don't feel any benefit from it. It's just like, this feels so weird, but it's gotta be good. And, um, you know, a bunch of other little things like that I did. And then just like, you know, it's kinda like all making sense to me right now, like what you're saying. Because when you're, when I was holding the baby for so long, that forced me to have to focus on

• 2:06:00Speaker 02

  Beautiful.

• 2:06:01Danny Jones?

  On like different little parts of my body and like how they felt and where they were.

• 2:06:05Speaker 02

  Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing.

• 2:06:07Danny Jones?

  That makes sense.

• 2:06:08Speaker 02

  And I'm happy that you, you had the baby and that you had, and that, that it gave you, it gave you a practice, especially long nights. The discs are a bit more dried up. You wake up in the middle of the night.

• 2:06:23Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:24Speaker 02

  And then you're, you're in all kinds of half asleep, you know, situations and then people often get injured. And then the other side of all this, which is important to marry, is that observing something, sensing something.

• 2:06:45Speaker 02

  Is almost the same as releasing something, releasing tension from that thing. There are two things, two faces of the same thing. So when I ask you to pay attention to your seat bones and you tell me they're equal. And I know logically that they're not equal. It makes me think that there is a huge amount of tension around your pelvis. Which you already reported.

• 2:07:11Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:12Speaker 02

  Which means you cannot even sense what's going on there. How do we soften up? By sensing. The reverse.

• 2:07:21Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:21Speaker 02

  So as you will pay attention to your left shoulder, for example, if I will now force you to pay attention to the left shoulder for a period of 20 minutes, I'll guide you with eyes closed and you will be in a good state, fueled with all the drinks you have outside, nicotine, modafinil, whatever you need.

• 2:07:43Speaker 02

  And let's say you, you 20 minutes really go into it, you'll be shocked, absolutely shocked to find out what will happen with your shoulder.

• 2:07:53Danny Jones?

  Wow.

• 2:07:54Speaker 02

  What will it do to you? But because we don't have the power, the excess concentration. It feels weak to us. Like you said, I cannot even feel what this is doing to me. But it did.

• 2:08:09Danny Jones?

  Interesting.

• 2:08:10Speaker 02

  All the best things in life are moving away from us. The delicate things that are powerful to transform our lives, we desensitized ourselves. So all the beautiful tools are moving away from us. These ideas are not going to be popular. What is popular has to be sexy, strong, like this. And I've manipulated in the past. I can take my shirt off, show my six pack, do a handstand, lift a heavy weight, talk the talk. But the beautiful fine things are moving away from us. Potent things.

• 2:08:49Danny Jones?

  What, what are your thoughts on performance enhancing drugs? Cause I know a lot of NFL players take it. They specifically.

• 2:08:57Speaker 02

  Everybody takes.

• 2:08:58Danny Jones?

  They get exemptions. Oh, of course. I mean, any top level athlete in any sport, I'm sure is on some kind of performance enhancing drug. And there's so many different ones, right? Like if you're.

• 2:09:07Speaker 02

  Did you see the enhanced games?

• 2:09:10Danny Jones?

  I heard, I didn't watch it, but I heard a lot about it.

• 2:09:12Speaker 02

  You heard about the, the results?

• 2:09:15Danny Jones?

  No.

• 2:09:15Speaker 02

  They were poor.

• 2:09:16Danny Jones?

  They were poor?

• 2:09:17Speaker 02

  They were poor.

• 2:09:18Danny Jones?

  Interesting.

• 2:09:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, they expected, you know, world records to be broken right and left. No, it didn't happen.

• 2:09:24Danny Jones?

  Really? Michael Phelps' record wasn't, wasn't broken?

• 2:09:28Speaker 02

  There was something, one record was broken in the swimming pool and even that was, you know, like arguable. What does it tell you?

• 2:09:36Danny Jones?

  Yeah, it doesn't, doesn't do much.

• 2:09:38Speaker 02

  It, it does, but what does it tell you? If, if now in the enhanced games, everybody's enhanced. And they're not, you know.

• 2:09:48Danny Jones?

  They're more jacked.

• 2:09:50Speaker 02

  Seemingly, but what does it tell you about our records, our current records already?

• 2:10:00Danny Jones?

  I don't know, what does it tell us? That they were, they were already enhanced?

• 2:10:03Speaker 02

  They were already enhanced. They were already enhanced.

• 2:10:06Danny Jones?

  They were just better hiding it.

• 2:10:07Speaker 02

  Let's say, okay, we caught Ben Johnson right back in the day, sprinter. That he was enhanced and he broke the record and they took away the record from him. Cause he was enhanced, he was caught on roids. Many other athletes, right? What about those we didn't catch?

• 2:10:26Speaker 02

  What, we caught everyone?

• 2:10:27Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:10:27Speaker 02

  So do you agree that some of the records were enhanced? If the records are enhanced, how are you going to break the records? How are you going to participate in the game? How are you going to do this? It's forced.

• 2:10:42Danny Jones?

  I heard that with, um, with like how they did that with Lance Armstrong. Like if they did that to him, they had, they had to do that for the next 20 people in line because they were all, they were all doing this stuff to some level.

• 2:10:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, this stuff is a trap that we are, and, and you know what?

• 2:10:55Danny Jones?

  That's what we were talking about earlier, nature.

• 2:10:57Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 2:10:58Danny Jones?

  People have been doing this, manipulating their physiology with, with drugs since the beginning of written history.

• 2:11:06Speaker 02

  It's connected to us. There is no separation. What is food? Food is not a manipulation.

• 2:11:13Speaker 02

  I don't want to be dependent on this. You're depending on air, you're depending on food, you're depending on a smile, you're depending on human contact. It's ridiculous, we've lost sight of it. At the same time, don't use it as an excuse.

• 2:11:27Danny Jones?

  Exactly.

• 2:11:28Speaker 02

  Take responsibility. But we are dependent. Here in life, in this reality, we depend on shit.

• 2:11:35Danny Jones?

  Everything.

• 2:11:36Speaker 02

  We depend on each other, we depend on.

• 2:11:39Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:39Speaker 02

  So I think it's a, I think it's an immature. It's a childish thing to, to, to, to say that.

• 2:11:48Danny Jones?

  To condemn people for it.

• 2:11:49Speaker 02

  To condemn people and to say, I'm not gonna, you know, I don't want to be depend. Like for example, caffeine, I went many times off of caffeine for this process, for that process. And I only drink twice a day caffeine, but I drink it from a young age relatively, let's say 16 years old or something, not something uncommon. And at a certain point in time, I thought, I don't want to depend on this and this. What do you find out? You don't depend on this, you depend on that. You go to the next thing.

• 2:12:22Danny Jones?

  Exactly.

• 2:12:23Speaker 02

  You go to the next, and eventually you see it's, it's, it's just a childish thought.

• 2:12:30Danny Jones?

  It's an interesting exercise though, to think, things that you think you depend on, like coffee or things like that, or whatever it might be. Maybe it's nicotine, maybe it's energy drinks or, or whatever. If, if you can try to stop doing that stuff for like any period of time. I mean, I'm sure it depends on, on person to person. I'm sure people react differently to that kind of stuff. But I feel like overall, that's probably a good thing. Like take a week break. If you go on vacation, don't bring your, your nicotine pouches with you or your cigarettes with you or whatever that, whatever that thing might be.

• 2:13:05Speaker 02

  My, my thing is to, to say, great practice, but don't confuse it with now being a person that does not depend.

• 2:13:15Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:13:16Speaker 02

  That's the illusion.

• 2:13:17Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 2:13:17Speaker 02

  Great practice, go off of nicotine, go off of caffeine, but don't, don't think your shit doesn't stink.

• 2:13:23Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 2:13:24Speaker 02

  It's, it's just a great practice for you as a human being, but you're still depending on something else. And you know what? Going off of this, you depend more on something else, almost immediately. Almost immediately. What happens to people who go off nicotine? They develop a million other addictions.

• 2:13:42Danny Jones?

  Do they really?

• 2:13:43Speaker 02

  Of course. It's just changing the, the, the tools on the board.

• 2:13:46Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:47Speaker 02

  You're just moving the tools on the board. First they, they try maybe with more caffeine, others, food, they gain weight. Go off nicotine, they gain weight. It's a replacement. It's not a deep change, a real change. So it's a good practice to come off of things. I'm not condemning that, but I'm also not, I don't think that it is what it, it's often promoted to be.

• 2:14:10Danny Jones?

  Yeah, well, some people like to be purists, you know? Some people like to say, you know, shun anyone who takes any kind of like performance enhancing drugs or any kind of, you know, I don't drink coffee, all I drink is water. Purified distilled water and, uh, you know, I only, you know, I only eat wild game and that's it. I don't ever sip any alcohol, I don't do any of that stuff. And they kind of like turn their nose up to people who do.

• 2:14:34Speaker 02

  The, the we versus us thing, which that's also have been my error many years. Them versus we. Even when you are already employing the, the change that you want to see in the world, it's still, it was an error to, to do that and not to say we, to take the deep responsibility. Even when employing it. We're not different. We're all addicted.

• 2:15:09Speaker 02

  It's part of the human condition. We depend. We're all manipulators.

• 2:15:16Speaker 02

  We're all judging. All we do is judge. And I place my hand on here, my, my nervous system is judging and trying to compare how will, will it feel to the actual thing that is incoming?

• 2:15:28Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:29Speaker 02

  It's all part of it. We're not better than that. So an awareness to that is the only thing that we can bring. So it's we. It's not them and us.

• 2:15:42Danny Jones?

  Yeah, for sure. Is there, is there any kind of like supplements or anything like that, or any kind of things that you like?

• 2:15:48Speaker 02

  I love supplements. I love supplements. When they're supplementing.

• 2:15:52Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:53Speaker 02

  When they're supplementing, if you have like, for me, the practitioner deserves to supplement. If you are out there practicing.

• 2:16:02Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:02Speaker 02

  Doing, working on yourself. Use supplementation if it's assisting. But it's a slippery slope and can be tricky at times. We have to find out what is what and, and it's a, it's a deep investigation. There is no general recommendations to be made beyond a few very basic.

• 2:16:20Danny Jones?

  Is there any, let me put it this way, are there any cheats you like to use to help yourself with what you do? What, like what specific ones that you can talk about?

• 2:16:29Speaker 02

  Minerals. You know, it's simple, not, not, nothing sexy. I'll use nicotine. Sometimes I'll, I'll use, it's a nice thing. I'm not, it's not a common thing for me, but I'll use it or. But I, the other component which I always have is I'm going to practice now. I take never for just feeling good. Like even for example, now I don't use nicotine.

• 2:16:58Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:16:59Speaker 02

  To do this podcast.

• 2:17:02Speaker 02

  But when I really go to my deep.

• 2:17:04Danny Jones?

  You want some, I got some.

• 2:17:07Speaker 02

  When I'll go to my practice and if I feel like I will use this assistance to help me practice deeper, I'll use it, not as an excuse to practice and not as a relying thing. And then it can be a great supplement. So for you, for example, it makes sense to use nicotine while doing this. If it helps you to get a better conversation, a deeper, more meaningful thing, to support long form content like this, it's not easy to stay focused, to stay. So that makes sense. But for me, this is not so much my practice. This is easy for me.

• 2:17:44Danny Jones?

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. I've experimented with so many different things, like so many different supplements, so many different like diets, so many different like routines and everything, like to figure out like the optimal way for me to do stuff. And I just love experimenting with that kind of stuff to see how it affects my body, to see how it affects my energy levels and all that kind of stuff.

• 2:18:05Speaker 02

  I'm the same.

• 2:18:05Danny Jones?

  And I've been doing it for so long, I can almost tell when I wake up in the morning, exactly what I'm gonna need to get through the day. You know what I mean? Like depending on how much sleep, depending on how I feel, I could like literally like wake up, drink some water, go for a walk and like have a full cup of energy for the whole day. Some days I'll need like tons of espresso, tons of energy drinks, nicotine pouches, all that stuff. And you know, it's like, like you said, you know, we're, we're not constant. We're always in this like

• 2:18:36Speaker 02

  Flux.

• 2:18:37Danny Jones?

  Flux, right? We're this bat, we're bat chemical bags and there's never one static state. It's always different.

• 2:18:43Speaker 02

  But, but

• 2:18:44Danny Jones?

  It's just knowing where you are.

• 2:18:46Speaker 02

  But, but another question to ask is, have you had days where you woke up and you didn't have that energy and you didn't use those assistance, those supplements? And it turned out to be a good day?

• 2:19:04Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:05Speaker 02

  So there is a

• 2:19:06Danny Jones?

  Only when I didn't have access to them though.

• 2:19:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:19:09Danny Jones?

  I never chose, I'm gonna, I'm gonna raw dog today. I never did that.

• 2:19:13Speaker 02

  That is, that is honest and nice of you to say and also for the others to hear, but it's not important.

• 2:19:20Danny Jones?

  Okay.

• 2:19:20Speaker 02

  The point is you have a foot in the door. There is a third possibility.

• 2:19:29Speaker 02

  Not one, I'm full of energy. I don't need much. Two, I'm not full of energy. I have to have assistance. There is a third possibility. I don't have energy and I'm not gonna use assistance and I find a way, another way.

• 2:19:44Speaker 02

  That's the investigation. That's the observation.

• 2:19:48Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:48Speaker 02

  And when you

• 2:19:49Danny Jones?

  Explore your shitty, your shitty state that you're in.

• 2:19:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, because, because that shitty state is not much different than the good state, really. It is, it is not that different. When you really observe, when you really pay attention, you're not afraid of it anymore. The fear of the fear is larger than the fear itself. It's, it's the anxiousness of like, I can't go through this day. I'm drained.

• 2:20:19Danny Jones?

  It's placebo. It's a, it's a self licking ice cream cone.

• 2:20:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and, and there, I don't say never use nicotine or give you, but also sometimes try to engage in this investigation. It will give you something, great insights. But don't suffer through it for nothing. Suffer consciously. In essence, pay attention.

• 2:20:43Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:44Speaker 02

  Observe. For example, what is this?

• 2:20:50Speaker 02

  That you don't feel well now?

• 2:20:54Speaker 02

  What is that thing that you don't feel well? What is it? Pay attention. Is it something in the stomach? Is it in the chest? Where is it? Where is the fatigue? Is it a muscular tension?

• 2:21:09Speaker 02

  Take it down to the components, to the physical components. What can you tell me about it?

• 2:21:14Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:21:15Speaker 02

  Is it a contraction inside your stomach? Is it a pressure in the chest? Is it a taste in the mouth? When you do this game and you observe and you pay attention, you start to open it? And what do you discover? It disappears many times.

• 2:21:32Danny Jones?

  That's interesting. I've never tried that.

• 2:21:38Speaker 02

  Which is funny how we go through our lives.

• 2:21:41Danny Jones?

  Funny how, how, when you, because it is, it is true for sure. If I wake up and for example, I'm a little bit extra sleepy, I could feel like, oh man, I didn't get a lot of sleep. I'm probably gonna be in a shitty mood today. And that will be a self fulfilling prophecy.

• 2:21:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:21:57Danny Jones?

  Instead of exploring like, what exactly is it?

• 2:22:00Speaker 02

  What is that shitty mood? And when you go into it, even to go into it, you immediately distance yourself from it because you're watching it. You don't immerse. You want flow state?

• 2:22:17Speaker 02

  What does it mean? You wanted flow state, but now you have the, the other problem, flow state, that you are immersed in shit.

• 2:22:25Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:22:26Speaker 02

  Because we mechanicalize and automize the good stuff. We also mechanicalize and automize the bad stuff. So now we only know, we don't know how to observe. We don't know how to be present. So it's, it also drags us into those shitty moods and we become that shitty mood. It's so weird. You feel so horrible, yet you don't even feel that. You don't observe that. So it's more the feeling of the feeling of the feeling. It's something that rolls away. The moment you go into it, as Sam Harris once said, I can't

• 2:23:06Speaker 02

  bear the pain. You're already bearing it. It's, you, as you're screaming, I can't bear the pain. I'm in a shitty mood. Stop for a moment. Pay attention. Take a moment of silence. Take a walk. What, what is it here in my stomach right now that I feel? And as you practice this more and more, you will be, you will receive so much for it.

• 2:23:30Danny Jones?

  Is this something you gain from, is this a, a skill that you get from doing a lot of meditation? Like being able to focus on these things? Does it become easier the more you do it?

• 2:23:39Speaker 02

  It comes with the practice. For me, it's all one thing, practice.

• 2:23:43Danny Jones?

  Gotcha.

• 2:23:44Speaker 02

  Meditation is a flavor of the practice, where for example, sitting meditation, seated meditation. It, yeah, you can sit there and to observe, but what happens when you'll go

• 2:23:56Speaker 02

  to a restaurant with your partner or something? Then the skill will be different. So I prefer to practice in many ways, but the big part of my practice is meditation. The seated practice as well.

• 2:24:09Danny Jones?

  The seated practice.

• 2:24:10Speaker 02

  Seated practice. Like, the word meditation is meaningless these days. It has been abused.

• 2:24:15Danny Jones?

  Okay, I see.

• 2:24:16Speaker 02

  It's, there are many things inside, all kinds of practices, concentration practices, focus practices, embodiment practices. This is, the word is meaningless. It's like, it's like the word movement. It's meaningless. Fitness, meaningless. Fit for what? Fit for skateboard?

• 2:24:35Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:35Speaker 02

  That means drinking, drinking

• 2:24:38Danny Jones?

  Exactly.

• 2:24:38Speaker 02

  Hard liquor.

• 2:24:39Danny Jones?

  Yes.

• 2:24:39Speaker 02

  Sometimes and smoking, you know, sometimes that's what you need to, for, for that artistically. So fitness is distorted. All these words are distorted.

• 2:24:49Danny Jones?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:51Speaker 02

  So meditation is similar in that way. I think it is a very potent practice for us these days, as it always was. But I think there is, there are many bridges, bridging practices that are needed in many different flavors of being present, being in that presence.

• 2:25:13Danny Jones?

  It's very interesting. It's very interesting because it's like, it's connecting a lot of dots for me in like different realms or different, different like skills, or if you notice like different talents too. Like for example, there's a lot of people who, whether it be in music or art, a lot of like the, the most

• 2:25:35Danny Jones?

  successful or like world renowned artists or like thinkers or writers or creative people in general. A lot of them at their peaks were like heavily on drugs, whether it be alcohol, psychedelics, cocaine, you name it. All these people were blasted on drugs during the peak of their creativity or whatever it is they're creating. It's not really, it's, I don't think it's a one to one to like movement and athletics and those types of skills. But there's something to be said that with what you're doing with athletes is similar to what drugs are doing to these people in the creative arts. It's sort of

• 2:26:16Speaker 02

  Interesting. I've never heard this before. Interesting way to look at it.

• 2:26:20Danny Jones?

  Because it's interesting. Well, it's getting them off like the, it's getting them off their, their normal pattern of thinking, right? These athletes, these athletes aren't gonna go to drugs. They're, they're

• 2:26:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:26:30Danny Jones?

  They're too worried about their body. They're too worried about being fit.

• 2:26:33Speaker 02

  Some go, but yeah, there's a price to it also.

• 2:26:36Danny Jones?

  But like, there's no, and it's regulated. Also, like these big sports, NFL and NBA and all those things like, but when, when you're talking about someone who's a fucking painter, or a hip hop artist, or a rock and roll musician, or guitarist, there's no, that's not regulated. These guys stay up all night doing drugs and just pulling stuff out of the air and putting it on paper or putting it into music. And

• 2:27:03Danny Jones?

  there's something to be said about like maybe that different way of thinking about things and not putting it into this like rigidized framework that most people look at it in, you know? And you're, I feel like you're kind of like a psychedelic for athletes. Edo is like a psychedelic drug for athletes to take.

• 2:27:24Speaker 02

  Wow, it's, it's, it's a, it's a perspective I haven't looked through, like in, in this way, not looked at myself. Yeah, there is something about the rigidity, like, like you've pointed out, that is like a killer, the, the mechanicality, the automatism, this thing that is a very, very important theme in our lives. Not just to do, not just to be successful, who is doing?

• 2:27:52Danny Jones?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:27:54Speaker 02

  How I'm doing is

• 2:27:55Danny Jones?

  Not, it's not an, it's not a means to an end.

• 2:27:58Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 2:27:59Danny Jones?

  You know, just like these, like

• 2:28:01Speaker 02

  That's why I said, practice should not have a reason. Now you understand. Picasso didn't do what he did for

• 2:28:07Danny Jones?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 2:28:11Speaker 02

  So it's pure and that represents choice. One of the things which are tricking us, you reap what you saw. No.

• 2:28:23Speaker 02

  That's a lie. Tell that to the three-year-old who got cancer.

• 2:28:27Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:28:28Speaker 02

  How does that sit with our reality? Come on, oversimplified, childish, immature, damaging. You don't reap what you saw. Sometimes you reap what you saw, other times you don't. For this, it is said in the Bible,

• 2:28:48Speaker 02

  evil men shall receive all the treasures of the world, and the saint shall receive the opposite sometimes. Why?

• 2:29:02Speaker 02

  So you can actually choose.

• 2:29:05Speaker 02

  So your choice is pure. Because if you chose to receive XYZ, you're distorted again. So the practice should not have a reason. If the side effects come to you, they come to you. For example, I've worked with the human body and also with health to a certain degree. I'm not the health guy. I'm not the longevity guy. I've damaged my health. I've, you can see my face, I've spent my life in the sun, in the wind, in the salt water, in the, I've, I've damaged myself in discovery and practice. I don't, I didn't discover what is a moisturizer until I was forty-something. I, I couldn't care less.

• 2:29:55Speaker 02

  I didn't want to pursue this for XYZ. So when I found myself, I'm practicing to have a beautiful body. I took it away from myself. Then I practiced to move beautifully. I took away that for myself. I stopped moving beautifully. People say, oh, what a beautiful movement you have, what a beautiful body you have. Okay, what a beautiful movement you have. Took it away. So I move for health, took it away. So it becomes for me, no reason.

• 2:30:29Danny Jones?

  Right.

• 2:30:30Speaker 02

  No reason, not even, that for me is not really a reason. It's something beyond. And I think this is important, that we have this sacred thing in ourselves, in our lives, that is not damaged by the goals, desires.

• 2:30:44Danny Jones?

  What are we, what are we gonna get?

• 2:30:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:30:47Danny Jones?

  You know, what can you do for me? Yeah. I think you're right. Very well said. Edo, thank you for doing this, man. It's a great way to wrap this up. This has been super fun.

• 2:30:58Speaker 02

  It was fun. Thank you so much. I'm happy I came.

• 2:31:01Danny Jones?

  I appreciate your time very much.

• 2:31:03Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 2:31:03Danny Jones?

  Is there any, is there anything else we can tell folks about how to learn more about what you do, what you talk about, or where to find you?

• 2:31:11Speaker 02

  They can find me. It's easy. My name is.

• 2:31:13Danny Jones?

  Edo Porto. You're probably the only one on earth.

• 2:31:16Speaker 02

  There are a few more, but yeah.

• 2:31:18Danny Jones?

  Perfect. All right, man. Well, I think you have like an Instagram, we'll link that below. And if you have a website, we'll link that below as well. But thank you, I really appreciate it.

• 2:31:25Speaker 02

  Thank you very much.

• 2:31:26Danny Jones?

  All right. Good night, everybody.