so we find purpose. we create purpose. 

from a young age we are given roles to fill. without understanding who we are, we are given an objective. faced with expectations and immediacy – the desire to fit into the system often overrides the slower process of understanding ourselves. we are problem solvers. immediate objectives keep us driving forward. the system is massive and redundant, it does not require us to be happy or even content – only useful.

we become so accustomed to tumbling forward, flitting from one judgement to the next that many of us have never made the effort to create an internal structure, a self-referential value system that can at least push back on the environment that surrounds us.  

space. and time.

these elements are so often stressors, but in claiming them as your own they become fuel for definition. removing immediacy gives us space to learn. understanding is currency of sorts. a force multiplier. taking the time to understand your objective, your material, and your tools. it is an accounting. identifying what elements you can change, and at what cost. 

in defining why we can begin to work on how. raw material is simply potential, it is only after we have an objective that we can understand the balance sheet. assets and liabilities. artistry is the ability to see – to interpret the objective, to understand that a tool is simply a lever, an extension of will. it is that will, that understanding, that striving to be that is your most vital asset. we are all works in progress. snapshots of inheritance and influence. we are often so focused on moving forward that we don’t stop to ask if it is the direction that best suits us, or one that we want in the first place. 

purpose. created, deliberate, purpose. 

understanding and artistry.

these are things i value. 

these are things i choose to refine.

to see the end result within material. to recognize potential and expose it. to nurture it with a deft hand…

a traditional bow is nothing more than a piece of wood that follows a few simple rules. making it is actually quite easy: to bastardize Michelangelo – just remove everything that isn’t the bow. to build a bow is to take a material and, with our action, give it purpose. the “rules” are ones of function, and the skilled hand is the one that can interpret those rules more creatively. it has access to more material because of understanding how to balance and exploit what initially appear as liabilities. 

i am obsessed with lessons. with rewards. with identifying the traits our challenges are selecting for. the skillset required to be victorious. matching material with a realistic understanding of my capabilities. understanding appropriate tool selection. the stages of reduction. how to cope with the unexpected… 

understand your material. understand your objective. understand what you can change and what you cannot. most of all, understand why.

working with my hands, working with wood or steel or stone will always remind me of these lessons. will force me to look at problems differently, to turn mistakes into centerpieces, to recognize how to make an asset out of a liability, to be flexible and open to new information. 

applying these lessons day in and day out have changed me as much as they have changed the objects i have created. it has made me more comfortable being a work in progress, a being undergoing refinement. 

and refinement is heavy work, for if i cannot see myself – how am i supposed to see others? if i cannot control my hand then why would i lift a tool that will multiply my effect exponentially? 

i wish to have an effect. 

i have limited energy. 

to maximize my effect i must understand my material. i must seek out and master the tools that will best allow me to craft that material to a purpose.

to my purpose.

CONT… soon

it has been almost a year since i sent off the zine. over the next few weeks portions of the text will be released for those who missed it…

most people are not strong enough to hurt themselves.  at least not at first. i don’t mean that they physically lack strength to cause injury, i mean that in the gym or any environment that they can exercise control, they will quit mentally long before they encounter any real physical danger. “hard” work is a constant negotiation, your body sends you signals, information about the cost of your actions and you have to convince yourself to keep carving away at that pound of flesh despite the consequences. in that situation, most people drop the knife at the first sight of blood – but as we train, as we learn to get comfortable with the pain, to manage those costs, we creep, inch by inch, into the deep end and one day we reach our toes down only to realize we cant reach bottom, we are in over our head.

this exhibits in a few ways – cramping, vomiting, blinding headaches, symptoms like food poisoning, burst blood vessels in the eyes and face. symptoms usually last from a couple days to a week – working out during this window is usually nearly impossible and certainly ill advised,  but something happens during this forced downtime, something transforms. there is a realization; that every time you “went hard” before this you held back. you left something in the tank. as hard as you may have gone before you had never felt like this. it usually happens by accident, a change in circumstance or scenery – an adjustment or challenge momentarily shifts your self image and you fall victim to L’appel du vide, you gave in to the call of the void and this time nothing stopped you, no one protected you – and now the world looks different. shifted. it is like your first true heartbreak – it can’t really be “sought out” and no one wants to wish it on someone else, but there is usefulness to be found in the darkness. the bone-deep realization that the world is a little less safe, that risk and consequences are visceral things, they have a taste and a sound and a cost that must be paid. more than that, there is now an understanding that you possess the ability to do real damage. you have earned a bit more responsibility and the freedom to do with it what you will. the safety is off and the gun is loaded, now it is up to you to hit your target and avoid shooting yourself in the process. 

i don’t mean to romanticize this. anyone who has felt it or even witnessed the effects will tell you that it is far from flattering – but that does not mean it isn’t useful. it is a shift in perception. a changing of the rules. after someone goes through that fire it is now up to them to hold the reigns – because we do not get better by doing this – it is a tool with an extremely high cost, and one that does not get cheaper with frequent use. it is physically damaging and even from the most meat headed perspective, it benches you from meaningful training for at least a  couple days. but after something like this we realize that we are responsible for these costs  – and we can exercise judgement of when it is worth it. we are more capable of making that decision, of exerting our will. most  of the time in the gym we chase numbers  as  reflections of our ability, moments like this are shifts in perception. they are lessons that once felt will never be forgotten. 

this was written years ago, in what feels like a different world, and while the struggle i was speaking of might feel a little trivial at this time, it does not feel irrelevant. rites of passage have always intrigued me – a socially agreed upon line where childhood ends and adulthood begins. 

often forced. often unpleasant. it is an accounting of sorts. an excising of the assumptions of childhood.  

isolation is, ironically enough, a key piece in many of these rituals. to strip away the attention of the community, to make one live for a time without its constant presence – and to ask them to return only when they have something to bring back. 

isolation is a beautiful teacher. our environment exerts such an overwhelming pressure on us that without it we become unmoored, we drift and spin and obsess over the past and the future and anything but where we are right now. but then it breaks. the self is all that is left. regardless of what created it, it is the only thing available to explore. so we do. we try and understand our place in all of this. more than that, in learning that we can be cut out, cut away – in learning how much we actually take from our surroundings without thought – we have to learn how to justify our expense. 

purpose. purpose is what separates a rite of passage from a crisis. from a penalty. 

purpose, above all, is a choice. it is an attitude. it is a way to view a set of circumstances.

so we find purpose. we create purpose. 

CONT... soon…

we hear it all the time. we obsess about it. strength. independence. the ability to resist. ability, however, can be as much a blinder as inability, if we are not careful.

i have often heard (citation needed) that many of the more extreme positions on the political spectrum are held by highly educated people – essentially that the first thing we learn is how to find information that supports our case, and the second thing is how to refute the arguments most often used to challenge our ideas.

it is good to remember that no good deed goes unpunished. training yourself to resist, to overcome, to hold fast in the face of outside pressures increases your tactical effectiveness, but does not directly increase your tactical awareness.  more directly, the longer you can go, the longer you can go in the wrong direction. the more independent you are, the more self referential your logic becomes…

i am smart, i am critical and research ideas. so if i believe this it must have merit…

or even worse:

i am a logical person, and this thing/person/event makes me angry. i am not an overly emotional person, i am in control of my feelings, i train, so if i feel this way it must be for a reason…

the internet is a wonderful and horrible place. it is so easy to get caught up in the fray, the excitement of the news and “facts” that support our narratives. the unspoken reality that we are all the heroes of our own stories, we are not just right but righteous – and the implication that those who disagree are unenlightened or simply the enemy of that righteousness.

definitions matter. strength without sensitivity is a liability. a focused assault exposes your flank and a hardened defense will hamper mobility. we always say “don’t be lazy, don’t be stupid” – the following statement is just as important: ” realize that in learning to not be lazy, you have made yourself stupid”

if you can agree that definitions matter, then you must be responsible for their accuracy. the idea of applied mathematics is the understanding that solving the equation is not the same as solving a problem. every equation has an author who brings their biases, who edits and simplifies reality into a set of definitions in order to process them. a bad equation can still, on occasion, get us the right answer – that does not mean the formula must be protected.

self-actualization is a beautiful process. the act of pitting your strength and thoughts against peers and challengers is what creates many of our personalities. but defining yourself as “dangerous” or controversial is going to prime you to see others as threatening or challenging you. resisting outside pressure assumes that outside pressure actually exists. richard morgan stated that “a preoccupation with the next world shows an inability to cope credibly with this one” – in the same way a constant refrain to abandon the victim mentality starts to sound a lot like performative martyrdom.

this is not an attack, just an observation.

how you see yourself makes you see the world in a specific way. in a way that justifies your stance. preparing for the worst case scenario requires us to imagine the worst of humanity and calculate a defense against it. we are creating a formula and solving it. zenos paradox of motion states that when traveling from point A to point B we first must travel half way. then we travel half of what is left. then half of that. if you agree with those statements then the paradox states that we can never actually reach our destination, just get closer and closer but never actually arrive. the problem here is that the paradox only exists within a mathematical simulation of the observed action. the formula created breaks down at some point and paints a picture of reality inconsistent with experience. there is no paradox, only poor models.

so interrogate your model. update it often. use your strength. challenge your definitions. recognize when you are getting angry about a media pundits characterization of their opponents argument. use the internet (or better yet the real world) to actually talk to someone who disagrees with you. ask them why they believe what they do. what their objective is in supporting certain policies. realize that we are all variables in someone else equation – modeled and primed and generalized to explain and mobilize. that we are sold formula-as-truth by those who’s profits are the sum. we all do it.

we can do better.

-the station

“we are continually cultivating our past.” – Lisa Feldman Barrett

our experience is, at least at some level, constructed. our brain is predictive and is constantly preparing us for what happens next by relying on what happened before.

the thing is, “what happened before” is not as simple as that. we remember our experience, not what actually happened. more than that, we actually remember the last time we remembered the event. we drift. we talk ourself into a persona, create a set of expectations and prepare for the outcome we believe will happen. we experience the event the way we are prepared to. there is a chance that it will play out different enough to update our predictions, but for the most part the most efficient thing for our brain is to assume we are correct and move on.

this is not “the secret” or anything like that, this is acceptance of responsibility. this is exercise of agency. this is playing your part in whatever way you can. because that’s all we can do.

our brain is miraculous. it is 3 pounds of meat in a sealed box. it doesn’t see, it interprets electrical signals that have been triggered in response to the reflection of light. it doesn’t hear, it interprets signals that have resulted from changes in air pressure. it doesn’t feel, it interprets signals from the rest of our body in attempt to preserve its self and spread its genes.

our brain uses our past to create context, but that is not enough. it uses emotion to flavor that context., to shape it and drive it and prepare the body for what is about to happen. this. THIS is where we can start the change. it is called affective realism. our emotional state influences our brains interpretation of whatever situation we find ourselves in. to be clear: its not that we think that we see something differently, we don’t “see” anything – there is only our interpretation.

sit with that. then do something about it.

self awareness. granulation of emotions. being able to tell the difference between feeling disappointed and dejected. elated and excited. these emotions carry flavors, shades of nuance and color. being able to think about nuance permits us to feel nuance, and being able to feel it is a prerequisite to experiencing it – and the empathy required to meet the world as it is, and not just how we are.

training takes many forms.

read a book.

write a poem.

paint. take a picture. feel what someone else feels.

and grow.

– the station

(one book suggestion – and the one that most inspired this post – is how emotions are made by lisa feldman barrett)

many of us are realizing exactly what kind of life our environment is pushing us into. with the normal distractions of work and play upended the pressures of our created environment become all too obvious…

what is easy? what is your home encouraging you to do? to be? one of the difficulties about changing behavior is that there is a gap between making the decision to change and the actual action of changing. its really easy to say that you are going to do yoga in the morning or spend 15 minutes writing at 3pm on a thursday – but everything is a little different when the rubber hits the road. absent that post mid-afternoon coffee motivation everything seems a little harder. less pressing. the couch is calling…

environment is important. it is a tool that we can wield. this idea was pressed upon me over a decade ago and i am still finding new applications from that simple lesson.

if your actions are not in line with your desires – examine your environment. what is it asking of you? what behaviors is it rewarding? accept that when you are tired and hungry and scared that you will do what is easiest, and find a way to make what is easiest also what is correct. use that 3pm energy to set the stage. make it beautiful. make it echo and nurture your desires. because it effects you. it affects you. accepting that will at least allow you to use it to your advantage.

too often people see “change your environment” as move to a different one. while this is sometimes needed, how often do people simply recreate the same mess in a new place? yes, there is occasionally toxicity that must be left – but if that toxicity is your own mess, there may be value in at least trying to clean it up. there is also power in creation. in molding an environment for a purpose. to sit in a space with ethos. with soul. and an objective.

this home is a foundry.

a factory.

the question, as always, is simple.

who do you want to be?

and what are you doing to get there?

the job of a coach or trainer is all about communication. we meet with people, help them problem solve – we talk. we tell people things, explain and cajole and convince people to do something that is often scary and wildly uncomfortable…

 and then we get paid for it. 

we often joke that excelling in our profession often resembles a degree of sociopathy. the goal is to be whatever the client needs at that moment. to read and anticipate and fill a role. the agreement is that this is about them. their goals. their process. our job is to accelerate their process. to be a force multiplier, to be a guide, a catalyst. this has made many of us hyper aware of the nuance of communication, the different approaches we need to take depending on our current audience, their state, and where they are in their process.

the internet. the glorious web of interconnectedness, has robbed us all of much of this nuance. not robbed us, but exposed us. in general, i don’t recruit the same way i reinforce. i am deliberate with tone and phrasing, and sound different when trying to invite versus trying to incite. 

audience, and objective. 

we all have been at that crossroads when we can choose between being clever and kind. jokes that make those close to us closer, or vulnerability that invites those who don’t know us to step inside and share their experience. arrows and olive branches. 

we are told to never watch how sausage gets made, that if we knew it would spoil it for us. that is fine for children, but as we mature we should be able to recognize – and accept – our own behaviors in others. to extend the openness and understanding that we ourselves would like to be afforded.  the hard part about that approach is it requires us as the listener to accept that we are not always important. that in many instances, the speaker wasn’t talking to us. that certain information was not for us because to them, right now: we do not matter. 

communication is vital, profoundly personal, and infinitely tactical. it always has been and it always will be. if we are forced to perform communication for the world we will have to sacrifice its effectiveness. i don’t think there is anyone out there will disagree that context matters. that audience matters. that intent matters. and it is our intent as listeners that we can control. are you trying to learn, or trying to win? are you trying to understand another human or looking for more bricks to fortify you position? 

how are you presenting your argument? how are your performing as an audience? in training, we talk about creating behaviors. rep by rep, experience after experience. we are placing our thumb on the scales, lending our will, our actions towards an outcome… so what outcome are you working towards? what behaviors are you encouraging, both in yourself and in the people around you?

if you are unaware you are a liability. worse than that, you can’t even be aware of how much of a liability you are. objective is a lens, it has a focus. this focus gives us power, but it does it at a cost. like focus, our reality is also filtered through the lens of our emotion. regardless of how hard we may try to be objective we cannot avoid the aberration that comes from the things we want and we feel, the most we can hope to do is to observe them, accept them, and try and make corrections. 

being afraid changes our perception, it changes what we see and how we interpret it. if we fail to recognize our fear, than we can not correct for our bias. we believe that we are being rational, that we are actually under attack. we project our animal instincts on the world around us, and without cooler heads to prevail, we create the “reality” of our nightmares. anger. depression. petty annoyances… its ok if you are angry. it is ok if you are scared. if you are lazy, depressed, or even just pissed off for no reason. if you feel it, then it is effecting you. affecting you. and if you can accept that then you can work with it. make tactical decisions to correct for the distortion. how many relationships are damaged because one person is having a tantrum and cannot admit it? at least if you can admit you are having a tantrum, communicate it, there is some ground to work with. ignoring our emotions is ignoring empathy, and without empathy, it is not communication, it is performance. 

in general, i do not fear making small mistakes. in training, in cooking, in communicating with someone close, i am afforded opportunities to course correct. to bracket an idea and through honest exchange and small adjustments – honestly approach the objective. written word lacks that corrective step, and sound bytes doubly so. in jiujitsu, if your goal is to improve a large part of your practice will be spent with people more skilled than yourself, will be spent deliberately putting yourself in bad situations and working your way out. if on the other hand your goal is to win, your objective is to avoid any place you are weak and make it impossible for your opponent to be strong. so the question is: are you trying to communicate, or trying to compete? to progress or perform? 

both have their place. but first you have to know what you are doing, and what it costs.

then act. clearly. honestly. and with intent.

its funny, it was only 12 years ago – but i have no pictures from this part of my life.

i had just moved to bozeman, montana, to be part of the first residency program run by the past skills wilderness school. i don’t think i would have considered bill McConnell a friend at that point, but it is safe to say the months that followed changed my life.

this was before the gym, in fact – bill was the first person to get me into a gym. the first prison who framed it as a personal resource, an account which can be drawn upon to solve problems. bill created something, got a dozen or so individuals to move across the country for 6 months, to see what they could create given the right environment.

bill was one of those teachers who never stopped, the lesson wove through the physical skill into jokes over lunch and teasing in the gym. there was an example set: always be a beginner at something, nothing is off limits, and never stop trying. he went from heartfelt, philosophical discussions to dick jokes and back without missing a beat.

bill showed me how to teach, how to invest in people. rewarded me for taking a chance and encouraged me to do things that scared me. my time at past skills taught me a lot about environment, and how i learn. i was exposed to the effectiveness of weaving a lesson through discussion and actions – the allegory of practice – and using physical actions to cement deeper lessons.

bill is actually the person that helped me build the audacity to try. to find my way to gym jones, to dare to teach, and to build something of my own.

the residency program is a hell of a commitment, but if you are at all curious about primitive skills and philosophy, i cannot recommend bill or his program enough.

www.pastskills.org

in addition to everything bill introduced me to ryan mclimnent (who gave me my first sufi text and who’s questions and comments have shaped who i am today) and josh harth. it is hard to explain the effect josh has had on me, i would say that he changed my definition of what was possible. the sensitivity of that man and his uncanny ability to bring calm to a situation was truly unbelievable, and something i will strive for until the day i die.

gymnastic strength training (GST) is an approach to physicality that attempts to address the specific strength concerns associated with a skill based performance. the idea is to mimic the positional strength requirements, to build capacity and familiarity with the extremes so that during a performance the individual can better focus on the timing and nuance required to excel, and not be overwhelmed by the raw physical demands of the problem. 

the practice of jiu-jitsu can benefit from a similar approach. the goals is to build an athletes capabilities in the extremes, to focus on the positions and stability that are utilized in the fullest expression of the sport. physicality is the budget, technique is the efficiency of spending. victory is purchased by balancing the two better than your opponent. 

GST for Jiujitsu is an informal approach, borrowing the positionally dependent strength-building techniques and porting it to individual combat sport athletes. it is, above all, a toolkit. the goal, as always, is to solve problems. 

identifying the right problem to solve is a skill my jiujitsu coach is constantly encouraging me to refine. think of the information here not as a trick to improve any skill other than the skill of being a good and attentive student. the hope is that by minimizing stressors the practitioner can focus purely on the position, to build and refine both capacity and comfort so that we can absorb the technical nuance of the lessons without having to struggle to meet the physical needs. again, the effort here is to become a better student of the art, to bring the attentiveness and clarity to your physical routines. to build.

– MOVEMENT LIST–

this list will keep growing as movements get filmed and added, please comment via instagram if there is something you would like to see addressed.

items marked with an asterisk * are scheduled but not yet filmed

Understanding tension:

end range tension
front plank
hollow hold
*A/T/Y

hip warmups/strengthening:

hip activation
*dumpy ballerinas
90/90
*wall march
kneeling back bend
*pistol hold
single leg wall bridge

shoulder warmups/strengthening:

banded passthrough
hanging lat pull
*elbow circles
*yao-ping
*banded A/T/Y
*cactus stretch
*scapular movement drill

hand/forearm strength

outside curls
wrist pushup
*chin-up hang

abdominal control:

curl up
reverse curl
ab-slide
ab-slide + twist
compression
pike-up
*hanging pike press

recovery:

*forearm smash
*nerve flossing

fatigue resistance:

dynamic-tempo squats
plank rotation
*bounce lunge

ring complex:

8 reps each, rest between each movement, feel free to adjust foot position within each set. make sure your struggle is because you are not feeling strong enough, and not the you feel too tired.
push-up
archer push-up
salute
superman
circle
palms up push-up
dip
hollow body pull
tricep pushup
feet to hands/knees to elbows
pull-up
skin the cat (if possible/wise)

success. and the defining of success.

my first disclaimer is that i have always been lucky enough to find good teachers. lucky that my worst traits have historically been overlooked or at least outweighed by potential and faith.

that first picture is nearly 10 years old. it was taken a couple months after i signed my first commercial lease for the station. 10 years is one of those milestones, one of those things that makes us – or at least me – reflective.

so often, we talk about the people that made an impact on us, but we don’t talk to them. we tell our stories, stories that shaped us, but some peoples impact is so monumental to our growth that, in a way, it becomes invisible.

it is amazing how much a discussion can change your environment. how much an example can change your perception of what is possible. mark did that for me. there was a bright line of before and after, a concrete change. two days of discussion that took years to unpack.

one thing that is sticking out is that he told me to never meet my heroes.

what i think he meant is never expect the people you admire to not be people. to never let the perceptions of others stop me from believing that i too am human. he showed me a lot, how to ask questions (most of our initial email conversation was him asking me questions in response to something i asked of him) he introduced me to so many people, people who on the surface seemed wildly different, even opposing in view – but after exposure i could feel the resonance beneath.

mark taught me information, but more than that he showed me how to employ it. provided me with an example and a challenge. constantly learning, constantly open to new ideas.

mark showed me something about success. about defining success. about understanding language in practice, as well as in theory. this constant questioning helped me understand the underlying assumptions i was carrying, and helped me practice changing them.

success. knowledge. friendship. love.

these are not things we acquire, but practices we engage in. they are relationships.

and, at least for the next few months, i intend to practice. to share a little more about the people who shaped me, and through that shaped this project.

it seems fitting to start with mark twight – someone who truly reshaped my perception, someone who still provides a challenge, and an example. so in the off chance you haven’t… check it out.

Mark Twight // Non-Prophet

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testestorone. oxytocin. dopamine.

chemical signals. reward and preparation. 

biochemistry is how our body prepares us for what comes next, or rewards us for what we have just done. it is a beautiful system that has woven us into a complex tapestry of behaviors — and more than a few neuroses. 

if we look at this chemistry as a tool of behavior modification, then we must also recognize that most of us are walking in on the middle of the story, with decades of habits already written and entrenched, reward systems so ubiquitous that it is easy to see them as natural and un-changeable. 

but what are we but engines of adaption. we shape the world and shape ourselves to fit it. we are so well adapted to signals that we begin to respond in preparation for the event, to the internal signals of thought and emotion. 

this. this is where our greatest power lies. 

our ego, our sense of self — the things we like and dislike are more under our control than we are led to believe.  we learned to respond the way that we do, we can learn to respond differently. it is a matter of argument. of narrative fidelity. who are you? who do you want to be? what makes you feel rewarded and at what cost? 

this is not a pep talk but an honest question. a plea to pay attention. to ask questions. why does a certain act fulfill you? and where does that road lead? is there a different path that is more consistent with the big picture view of how you see yourself? 

are you still rewarding yourself for battles you have already won?

defending yourself against threats long expired?

reinforcing behaviors of someone who you no longer want to be?

all training is ego based. it is the wish to be seen by the world as we see ourselves. the problem is that we are too close and too far away, we forget to turn our logic and our argumentation inward. we forget that on a chemical level we are all toddlers, having temper-tantrums and grabbing for candy. wired to find the shortest route to success. being an adult is simply taking responsibility for that truth, telling a convincing enough story that the shortest path to gratification is also the one we are most proud of. 

a friend once wrote “if quitting would make the pain stop than i would do it every time” he was able to reframe quitting into a more costly choice than finishing. 

this isn’t to say that it is easy, the decision to change is predicated on the idea that there is something to change. what is easy, or at least familiar, is what got you where you are. deciding to change means deciding to be—to do—something else. searching for easy is often a flailing attempt to acquire the symbol of change without the work (and with it, the benefit) of movement. 

i choose to move.