Movement Practice to Strengthen Your Mind-Body Connection | Ido Portal

Huberman Lab

Ido Portal discusses movement, discipline, and awareness as tools for neuroplasticity and self-mastery. The conversation explores transitioning between states of consciousness, micro-practices, and the role of play in personal growth.

Key takeaways

• Discipline should scaffold growth, not dominate it.
• Micro-practices create lasting shifts in awareness.
• Sleep transitions offer powerful opportunities for mental recalibration.

Transcript preview

Discipline is very important, but it's similar to the wall in learning to do a handstand. If you use the wall, one way, where you're all the time pushing yourself off of the wall, try to catch your handstand, you become reliant on the wall. But there is a different approach. We can use the wall, but pull off of it, which comes from the other end, from our hands, from the connection to the ground. That does not necessitate the wall. This is the correct way to use discipline. You should use it as a scaffold thing as a way to get things going like write that book But inside the process you must make sure you don't lean hard into it. You don't leave everything for it to dictate and you bring Some playfulness some relaxation some deep choice I want to do this Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast where we discuss science science-based tools for everyday life I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Edo Portal. Edo Portal is a world-renowned movement teacher and the founder of Movement Culture, which is an integrative practice for developing the self that combines physical and mental practice. Today we discuss how anyone can practice movement, deliberate awareness, and even language and other forms of communication in ways that explore and expand your capabilities and expand your capability. and your understanding and sense of self. Now, Edo is not anti exercise or anti fitness, but what sets him apart as a movement teacher and why so many professional athletes, dancers and people around the world continually seek out his teachings, is his ability to show people unique ways for how to go about their daily life in ways that truly expand both their mind and their body, as well as their athletic performance in the case of athletics. Today we discuss unique meditation practices, ways to build discipline and will power and by the way what the difference between discipline and willpower is and how to use play as an extremely potent way to rewire your default operating systems in everything you do. If you like so many other people typically think about movement practices as for strength or endurance or mobility well today you're in for a surprise because Edo explains how the transitions between brain states and physical states are linked and our fertile ground for extremely rapid neuroplasticity and that they can help you truly understand how your mind and body are organized and can function better. Today's conversation is a truly special one. I have to be clear it's not philosophical, it's not theoretical, it's a practical exploration of movement, awareness, language and cognition that is rooted in science and has real world implications for all of us. Edo is a truly unique human being teacher and friend and it was an honor to host him again. So prepare to learn. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast that this podcast that this podcast my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Edo Portal. Edo Portal, welcome back. Thank you. So happy to see you again, my friend. Good to see you. You've aged backwards. So you're doing something right? Now you haven't aged at all. What have been up to lately lately? I have many questions. What's been your first thought on waking most consistently over the last year or so? The same thing, always the same thing, the most important thing that exists, that there is. That's how my system operates, but getting that change, that deep transformation in people, in myself, why are we missing it? what is required. That's always been there and changes its face, but it's the same one. When you wake up, do you open your eyes right away, or do you ever spend some time in that liminal state between a sleep and awake? I'm sometimes spend some time there. I experience also sleep paralysis before and various in-betuings. Where you're wide awake, but the body is still paralyzed. Yeah, when you sit a lot, when you meditate a lot and other practices, somatic practices, again you get to know the territory and you can stabilize fragile states more easily. So crossing into that boundary of the sleep, it becomes a slow-mo journey that you can pause, that you can spend time at any point in... Interesting. I do yoga-nididra. non-sleep deep rest and there are moments where I can feel myself falling asleep and it literally feels like falling and then you can kind of catch yourself in these liminal states. Rick Rubin once said to me he said if you wake up from a bad dream a nightmare just move your body and look around the room. If you wake up from a dream you were really enjoying and you want to go back in keep your eyes closed. us what you're talking about, the ability to kind of forward and reverse out of these transition states. Usually the common way that people live in the common person has a very simplified perception of these states, of this, the granularity. So they're difficult to stabilize. It becomes very binary. Black, white, sleep, you know, like you're someone, they fall asleep. That's what happens when there is not a lot of experience. Everything is immediately going there, but there is a lot of benefit in heading to sleep and taking a sharp left just before. Tell me about that and how one might practice that. Well, the sleep, there is a kind of a way where we can inverse the relationship. This is the sleeping state, which is discussed in... various authors and the waking sleep. And then the sleep has a benefit because there is an openness towards something else. So heading directly to sleep and then navigating from there is very powerful to reset the system, to change the schemes, these rigid schemes that we sometimes have, the rigid schemas, the models that we are running. When they become too rigid, when they're surrounded by a hard membrane. when they oversimplify and there is this basian reduction and you got to pop out of it somehow so psychedelics is one way and there are other ways but the sleep every day is key because it's a very different status and way of being and way of experiencing which we experience daily and we can use that transition part and the thing itself as well. intentionally get up in the middle of the night to just experience being mostly awake but somewhat asleep just to experience what that's like. Yeah I did before. Various practices use that kind of instruction. People, some people might be familiar with the lucid dreaming or the dream yoga or the sleep yoga, what is called various practices. you to appreciate something else, something different. Sometimes it happens and you can manipulate it into somewhere. Sometimes you can do it on purpose. Nowadays with all the longevity talk and all this direction we sometimes don't capitalize on such things. But sometimes there is more to be gained with a bad night sleep than with a good night sleep. 2018 I was very busy but I was mourning the death of my graduate advisor. I was very close with her. Unusually close for a graduate advisor and student, very maternal her to me relationship, knew her kids, I'm friends with her husband and kids still. And she died in 2014 and I was really distraught about it and someone recommended to me that I set an alarm for the middle of the night, somewhere between 3 and 4 a.m. and I just get up and try grieving then. And at first I thought, like that sounds like the worst thing to do. I'm like no, I have no protection then, you know, my forebrain is shut down. That's when I normally would be entering more REM sleep and I tried it. It was very interesting. It definitely allowed for more intense morning, but it had a very interesting effect where I no longer had the challenge of like falling asleep and waking up. I had this like designated period in my sleep. Did a lot of crying between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m and in many ways I feel like it worked. Who knows in some cultures it's like the veil of suppression is is pulled back. Our defenses are way way down in those hours. That's the point. Yeah. These membranes that are surrounding various systems inside of us and models that we are running that are protecting them, this Markov blankets, these filters that can rigidify and don't allow a lot in to simplify things for the model so we can survive, so we can do things. And then when you change, when you go into those times, to those change the scenario radically, you increase your chances of opening up, of recalculating, of allowing the model to recalibrate. And again people nowadays that they use extreme means it doesn't necessarily mean that it works sometimes sometimes you need the micro dosages and a practice around it repetition not a huge event of intensity but a repeating mellow event gentle event I can relate to I started a prayer practice before sleep over two and a half years ago and I'm I'm missed a single night And some nights I fall asleep while I'm praying and wake up and continue and I tell myself that the consistency is like worth something on those nights because I feel sort of badly like my mind's drifting and then you know okay but I haven't missed You know it's all in the if I fall asleep get out of bed and do it and then get back in bed with respect to these micro practices micro dosing as it were I know you're a proponent of meditation we'll talk about how long they meditate. Do you have a practice where you will just stop for a moment or two or a minute or is it for you a meditation practice a long extended thing and how often are you doing that? I think there are advantages to both ends of the spectrum. Because the long meditation thing, the retreats, the strong determination sits, many hours or you know, many days. they definitely load the trampoline and create an effect, but also you become dependent on it. And it's hard later to direct this into other areas of life, which is not often discussed and mentioned in relation to meditation. I didn't start to meditate because I wanted to sit. I wanted to take the state and to apply it into my life. that is a moment where you can integrate. You can take the depth and you can take also very short periods of practice and apply this micro dosages and try to get a change in the defaults of your state and your way of being. Eventually, people ask me why I practice so much is because I'm aiming for 24 hours a day. So if you're practicing eight hours a day or ten hours, the this is the unofficial side of the practice and this micro practices are very helpful for that. A good practice to do is not to take your mind off of something, like a problem that you have to solve. To walk around and try to remember that thing, try to keep it in front of you as much as you can. Which means the only thing you can be blamed for is if you caught yourself not focusing on that and you didn't bring yourself back to the problem at hand then you are to be blamed anything else is fine and that is a very powerful practice we can solve incredibly difficult problems overcome obstacles transform ourselves and we've moved away from such ways of doing and ways of being. It's an unfortunate reality but tap water often contains contaminants and negatively impact our health health. 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In fact, I consider it a welcome addition to my kitchen. It looks great and the water is delicious. You can go to rora.com slash huberman and get an exclusive discount again that's rora ror rrr a dot com slash huberman today's episode is also brought to us by roca i'm excited to share that roca and i recently teamed up to create a new pair of red lens glasses these red lens glasses are meant to be worn in the evening after the sun goes down they filter out short wavelength light that comes from screens and from LED lights which are the most common indoor lighting nowadays i want to emphasize i want to emphasize i want to emphasize i want to emphasize i want to emphasize i want to emphasize i want to emphasize blue blockers. They do filter out blue light, but they filter out a lot more than just blue light. In fact, they filter out the full range of short wavelength light that suppresses the hormone melatonin. By the way, you want melatonin high in the evening and at night. Makes it easy to fall and stay asleep. And those short wavelengths trigger increases in cortisol are great in the early part of the day, but you do not want increases in cortisol in the evening and at night. These roka red lens glasses ensure normal healthy increases that your cortisol levels stay low, which is again what you want in the evening and at night. If you'd like to try R-O-K-A-com, go to R-O-K-A-com and enter the code Huberman to save 20% off your first order. Again, that's R-A-Duhrman. We had R-Duhrman-O-C-C-C-C-Chedson who's one of the like real pioneers of studying the neuroscience of meditation and the neuroscience of meditation and meditation and He said that when people start a meditation practice, traditional sitting meditation, close their eyes, focus on third eye center, breathing, etc, redirect attention, that they see a statistically significant increase in anxiety across that early phase. And in some ways, he said that's a real value of the practice. It's really about stress inoculation, the stress that comes from forcing oneself to sit still. But eventually it does seem to give way if people practice regularly to some other kind of a channel of consciousness that is very useful to apply in the rest of one's life. Sounds like that second channel is the one that you're after. Yeah, this anxiety, this under reduced state in a way, the failure to adjust the membrane, this protective membrane around the model, whatever model it is, if it's the body scheme, if it's the emotional scammer or the conceptual scammer. You're in an under reduced state. So everything bombers you and you're bleeding resources, metabolically, right? And that's anxiety. That's why almost always anxiety over a long duration will turn into depression. You're bleeding resources. So adjusting, simplifying, that's a critical moment. Of course, lowering the bar of the task is a very important tool. And I'm not just talking about the classical sitting meditation. I'm using everything. For me, it's all the same. Tasks with tennis balls, with a stick. I'll use anything because my intention is not to get the success in the specifics, is to get the transformation much deeper. So it's almost irrelevant. I'll use whatever I need to use to get that going. So I think meditation in many ways sometimes becomes too dogmatic in that sense. We've already touched on sort of liminal states, transition from sleep to waking or waking to sleep and trying to just catch oneself and pause in those, like you said, maybe reverse, maybe pause there, hover there. I'm fascinated by this peculiar place we are with science where we know a lot more about sleeping states can describe phase one, phase two. Phase 3, slow wave deep, sleep, REM, sleep, the fraction that you got depending on the night before. Vivid dreams versus non-vivid dreams. We know barely anything scientifically about waking states in comparison to sleeping states. I mean we talk about alpha waves, beta waves, the data waves, but it's very rudimentary. Like right now, I assure you there's no scientific paper that could describe the state that we're in. We could say, oh, these are these are. alpha waves or these, you know, percentage of activity in one brain area or another. I think that the definition of different waking states is going to come into science from outside of science. Someone will study it, but I've been waiting for somebody to say like this is like, are we in stage one of focused attention right now, stage four? Nobody can point to this, which is, should bother people. Like we're really far behind behind. even a descriptive understanding of where we're at. Like I feel calm right now, despite drinking so much caffeine. You're clearly externally calm, I imagine you're internally calm. But what would you describe like your state? How should people start to peel back the layers and get a better understanding of the state they're in? Because I think there's real value to this in waking states. And I don't have a language for it. But you've spent a lot more time thinking about mind-body states than I have. I have. I have. I think there is. I have. I think there is a a mistake or a direction that we took asking who we are, instead of asking what we are, which can really serve this. There is a need of almost a rudimentary map of what is needed, what is needed, what is here, how do I map this? What am I observing even? You can't refine what you can define. verbal definition, but some kind of an internal definition, some kind of a boundary drawn, some kind of a selection, the selected thing, the selected state, the differentiation. Without this, what am I seeing when I look inside? Listen to your body. I don't believe in that. your heart beat or what? What does that mean? It's corrupted. You're too corrupted to listen to your body. Those are the most corrupted people usually. The people are saying listen to your body? Yes. Yes. I think that whole verbiage comes from this notion and the quite pioneering, although I would say somewhat out of date book, the body keeps the score, I think is it was an important book. Best title of any book you could imagine in the psychology. space because it's so catchy. And I want to give proper respect to Bessel for doing that book and it was early, but I think that embedded in people's minds that like experiences we have live as pain discomfort or blockages and that the solutions come from releasing that pain discomfort and blockage. Ergo, if I'm feeling good, things are moving through, I'm making progress. I'm moving away from that historical bad thing and if I'm feeling it again it's still alive and mean it needs to be released that's the kind of premise yeah and there are a lot of data to support that chronic stress can harm the body and so forth so those things those ideas sort of took off but I also agree they sort of they've kind of hit a wall in 20-20 or so we go well what like what do you mean what's in the fascia really like is in the fascia or are we just like talking about fascia and I love that stuff as an exploration but I think we are at a place where we really need to ask better questions. Yeah yeah it's it sounds very corrupted again and we know so much about the framing of things, excitement versus you know very negative states that it's so similar it's so close that it cannot make sense. We cannot work from that place and also working from our likes and dislikes. What do I want to do? We just watch this thing. You just need to do what you want to do. I believe that's the last thing for you to do. Right. You know I was referring to before we came in here we watched two short films. The first one is a one that was put out in 2014 about this guy real life, real life guy, Slo Mo. We'll put a link to it who a guy who essentially gave up his life as a physician and see roller blades very slowly on one down the boardwalk in Pacific Beach, San Diego to touch into what he describes as a mild euphoria and altered state. He's totally sober, clearly very, very smart. And the other film, we'll talk about several times, which hopefully will be out in the not too distant future, so we can all see a beautiful film that's being made about Edo and movement culture called the architecture of practice, correct? The internal architecture. practice, excuse me. Trust me folks, you want to see this when it comes out. It's visually beautiful and content rich. It's spectacular. Thank you. There's something really special there, for sure. But I wrote down actually, play versus discipline. I think for some people it would be helpful to try and operationalize a bit of what we're going to go to today. a fan of like morning routine or this or that but I can imagine walking toward a practice of any kind a workout of any kind making scramble eggs as either I'm gonna approach this from it with a sense of play or I'm going to approach this with a sense of discipline I'm gonna try and find some friction some edges that force me to rewire something now play can help rewire discipline can help rewire but of your waking hours what of time do you spend in kind of a playful explorative state, like kind of keep it light and loose, versus, you know, I know you're also a believer in like there's really value to putting up mental or physical or both corridors so that your system, your whole system improves because at those friction points is where plasticity can be triggered. I think both of these things and also the relation to motivation in both, in both are required scaffold things that we have to use at certain points in time but are not the essential will, that connection to what we don't know nothing about that. We have researched that with discipline or with motivation. But once I motivated myself, I don't need will anymore. And if I discipline myself into doing something, I also hijack the opportunity. Playfulness, it brings a direction and a flavor of something else. A different way to interact with something. How do we start to look at that? What is the basic requirement? I don't want to do this. Without this requirement, I can't research will. Now if I hijack it, if I take the process and I distort it, I use discipline, then again I'm out of the game. Or if I motivate myself, same problem, playfulness try to walk a different path a little bit. the will that many authors and practitioners have looked for because it's so elusive but it's definitely something to cultivate and we've talked about it the last time we met and it brings about so many positive things I think people should first develop discipline and use motivation and also research which is a lot more tricky for people these days. It brings with it incredible benefits. The aesthetic intensities that are missing from our lives, all. Curiosity, this deep sense of curiosity, these things can allow us to totally transform the emotional scammer, which is stuck, rigid. This model of ourselves, that is oftentimes rigidifies all the way to depression, the most tricky situation of all, the total bankruptcy of that budget of those resources. So something like awe, which happens also in psychedelics, isn't this a huge part of the psychedelic thing? What about experiencing all regularly in a directed targeted target? than practiced way. It can be cold showers and hot showers. An experience on the sensory level it can be something that is more related to the environment like sky gazing. Incredible practice. 10 minutes a day. Your eyes cannot grab onto things. So and it can be a very important conceptual awe, reading poetry or certain types of things. So, and it can be a very important conceptual awe, reading poetry or certain types of things. So, and it can be a very important, conceptual or reading poetry or certain types. of stories or literature touches that. So all of this comes along with playfulness, our interaction with things. I treat this as a playful thing. So if I think about it, it's almost always present because it allows me not to rigidify myself in front of the challenge. I'm working with athletes or work in cinema or do some project to work with a government body or a military organization. I'm playfulness allows me to go much further, much deeper. My discipline wouldn't get me there. It got me certain places who got there to that place I discovered that it wasn't me because I used discipline. So it's often living you kind of out, the totality of you. I am very, very intrigued by this play versus discipline. thing so many years spent. I wouldn't say punching the clock but you know there's just things you have to do because experiments have to be done in this time in this way. One can develop a real sense of an ability to push through and to do things and beautiful stuff can come out of what I call chop wood carry water. It's just like phases like okay we're just gonna chop wood carry water. But this play thing is really powerful. I had this experience when I lived in San Diego. My lab started there. And I used to commute really far to work because my home was in an area that I really liked and that I could afford far from campus. And the traffic was just brutal. Anyone that's ever driven in San Diego, these big wide eight-lane freeways. And I like listening music so I would drive. And I remember one morning just being so frustrated with the drive, even though traffic was moving. And I've only had this experience once and I just decided, I'm going to just slalum the car to work to work. And I wasn't speeding, I'm like, slalming the car, I'm listening to music, and I'm like, this is the way to go to work. I can remember this one commute is a real standout experience in my life of like, and I thought, why don't I do this all the time? The old frog crosses the street video game. Right, exactly. Exactly. So I'm just, you know, and I get to work and I do this, and I do the thing. And this was one instance, I don't think I've ever done it again, again, an ordinary experience that I do every single day that usually is kind of like loathe or mildly irritated at traffic. I'm just going to enjoy this experience. I think now that it would be so great to just be able to apply that to all these different little transitions. Oddly enough, I also have flash bulb-like memories of being in Yosemite where I've spent a lot of time. I've hiked a lot of the peaks in Yosemite. I love it. I lived in worked up there when I was in college and I just adore it. You know. You know what I the great vistas and great peas that I had urinating in the woods. I like have like flash bulb memories of like and there's something there I think it's just a calm and relaxation like oh like I'm just a creature peeing in the woods you know and as one does you know when you when you can't just thinking like this is awesome I have the like my life is great it's so weird that these micro experiences that occupy like 10 to 15 seconds or a minute depending on how much water you drink right One commute could grab like real mental real estate in our brain. There's something there and I know people are probably thinking like this is crazy but I think most people would probably describe like kind of odd flash bulb memories that they have of things that are kind of trivial. Did you notice that the quality of those memories? Because you recall them and it has a flavor and a texture and a resolution which is different than other things which sometimes are have been a lot more detailed and it comes and goes but we can become a lot more deliberate about it and it represents a certain presence in that specific scenario of a heightened it's a heightened presence thing why those are questions but playfulness opens the door for that some of my best seats my best meditations were using a playful approach to how you navigate the traffic. You can use it writing your book. I tried that. It was very difficult. I will tell you it's very difficult. Because there's aspects of the book that are very technical. There are aspects that I really want to get, communicate things in a certain way. I definitely tried to relax myself. Cal Newport, who's a sort of a guy who's a big proponent of deep work, staying away from technology to, you know, writing by hand, typewriter, this kind of thing. He said, he said, he said, and I, and I tried, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and I tried this kind of, and He said to approach work with kind of a languid intentionality, relaxed, but with a direction. I tried it. I have to scruff myself and bring myself to it. Even though I want to do it, and I'm just like, after like, like, I imagine I'm like doing this. But that deep belief is already a self-fulfilling prophecy, because you perceive yourself as that person. This is the way for you to do things. But I'm similar. But I've glimpsed something else. Yes, I also, I'm the disciplinary person. I'm a person of great work ethic and this is how I came about. But then I discovered it doesn't matter. Because how you write that book, using that approach, it leaks into your words. And it's a different way of doing things. You're not going to write Don Quixote in this way. So I appreciate that and I also want to say come back to that thing. This scaffold thing, the fact that we have used discipline for such a long time is very positive. We need that. The first thing is to get things done. I'm the practice person, I'm the mad person. You do it or you talk about it. So discipline is very important, but it's similar to the wall in learning to do a handstand. the wall one way where you're all the time pushing yourself off of the wall try to catch your handstand you become reliant on the wall notice what I said you push yourself off of the wall but there is a different approach we can use the wall but pull off of it not quite push ourselves off of it but pull off of it which comes from the other end from our hands from the connection to the ground that does not necessitate the wall So I can pull myself when I feel myself falling forward later on. This is the correct way to use discipline. You should use it as a scaffolding, as a way to get things going like write that book. But inside the process you must make sure you don't lean hard into it. You don't leave everything for it to dictate. And you bring some playfulness, some relaxation, some deep choice. You don't leave everything for it to dictate. And you bring some playfulness, some relaxation, some deep choice. I want to do this. It's so elusive. It's so tiny. Our life didn't leave any room for it anymore. We don't even recognize when we'll come to visit us. And here is the big shocker. It was for me that I discovered. One does not develop the will. The will never gets developed. It's only get exposed. Discipline gets developed. That's what we mistake and will for. We call it will. willpower, etc. But when a child is born with a problem, when you're facing such a situation, discipline might not be enough for you to do what is necessary, or when a child is born normal, and you simply don't feel love for that child. That occurs a lot. What do I do now? Do I discipline myself? I need a different quality. and I need to research it and I need to open up space for it in my life space to practice it because it's not going to come from somewhere else and the practice will not develop it but it will expose an invisible thread it's a sequentiality I always do what I said I'm going to do but not by disciplinary action but by having a beautiful evasive sequence like you moving around the traffic finding your way there You never stopped looking for the best route. It's a very different approach than just pushing the gas pedal forward. Yeah, what's interesting is the traffic example, while trivial, it hopefully describes a process that people could relate to. Not only did I not lose energy from it, but I might have even picked up some energy. Beautiful. And the commute was exactly the same. So there's something in that experience and I'm explaining it beautifully. this distinction between the will, willpower, the expression of the will, and then discipline. Maybe we can define the difference a little bit more so that I can understand when I'm in discipline mode versus exposing willpower. You said you can build discipline, you can't build the will. The will is a fixed unit. But a hidden one, a very elusive one. We can discuss it more and we will expose some things but we will not be successful in a binary fashion. We won't get it. The only way to get even a critical mess with that concept is self-practice, looking for that quality in your life. And I already mentioned that the first requirement is to do things you don't want to do. Which you are also a big believer in a variety of reasons. All of them are not as important as this. Because they go to serve this layer, this corrupted self, this success in this area. It is not important. What is important is you. Not all those things. And will is actually that representation of you. The totality. The harmonious combination of all that you are comes together and hence you can be... reliable. You have a sequence. You found a way you cannot push this forward. You cannot force this. So you need first a situation which you cannot, you don't want to do. So I tell people, here is the first requirement of this new practice, practice of will. You have to wait for a moment you don't want to do the task. So I tell people, not to go to the ice bath now. This is a different process now. This is a different process now. This is a different process. and will get you somewhere else. Come up with a task that only sometimes you don't want to do. It's a crucial difference and wait for that moment. In that moment, catch yourself. And there you have to investigate. There, there is a very fine little game. It comes back to that playfulness that we have to play. Do not force into it. Don't jail break it. Don't push hard into it. Second problem, do not motivate yourself to do it. Don't put any YouTube clips, don't mention slogans. Relax yourself. Essential component. Do not rigidify in front of the task. If you do, lower the bar. Find the task that has this right dosage and build up gradually and slowly. I like to use things like difficult physical postures. like holding your arms out for five minutes. It's enough, just straight arms out. Some people can take it further. Or three minutes, or doing a horse stance, and then wait for a critical moment. When I'm tired, a lot of these things are very useful, so I've grown to practice those things before at the end of the day. When I'm checking out, that is the moment where I bring it about. And then you have to research. and you have to find a thread, a way to get this going again and again and again with this gentle quality, this playfulness, this softness, and slowly increase the bar. What will you discover? Your will is sufficient, is like a mosquito's fart. That's the power of our will. Even incredibly powerful people, because they only use discipline. So their will is totally, they don't know how to identify it, they don't know how to put it in it. They don't know how to identify it, they don't know how to put it. They don't know how to put it. together. So you got to do stuff that is so easy, relatively easy, that you're not interested in doing it. And that's why we don't develop with. So these are some of the discoveries that I had with myself and trying to bring about this quality because like you, I did a lot of stuff with powering through. I think the value of a physical practice is probably obvious to people or more intuitive. Like, okay. for some people exercise, working out, movement practice perhaps. There'll be days when they want to do it. There'll be days when they don't want to do it. If I understand correctly, the idea is to get right up to that edge and then instead of throwing oneself across that threshold or getting enough caffeine in yourself to get across that threshold or doing hyper-cyclic hyperventilation breathing to get all the things to kick up adrenaline. right there, relaxing and almost letting yourself sort of drift across. But am I pushing a little bit? Am I giving myself a nudge like to keep going? Okay, so I don't expect myself to just default into it. Okay, do you still have to do that? I mean, you've been doing movement practice many years. Are there days when you feel that resistance and you have to kind of nudge yourself? Of course. If I don't feel the resistance, I don't have will. I don't develop will and I don't have will and I don't have will. point of will is that it only comes to visit and it's only necessary when there is a resistance. So you see those as opportunities? As well. As well, but this is the trick. But to answer your