004 Colin Van Ert: My Friend The Grasshopper

Colin Van Ert is a fitness expert and founder of Grasshopper Fitness Training. We speak about fitness, travel, and hear about each others' background stories (my cult story, his capoeira background).

Transcript

Hello.

Today's episode is with my new friend here in Austin,

Colin Van Ert.

Colin is a fitness and movement trainer and the founder of Grasshopper Fitness Nutrition Training.

He's got an awesome movement philosophy that we talk about in this podcast.

And this episode was kind of a mandate in that we recorded it like outside,

Chilling in Barn Springs.

This cold spring in Austin where people hang out and do things like acro yoga and swim and other heavy things.

And yeah,

Like I said,

It's kind of a mandate because we just met and we shared about our backgrounds with each other.

I shared a little bit about my sex cult background.

You shared about his capoeira background.

We talked about movement philosophy and life philosophy and other fun things.

And he's got an awesome little retreat coming up in Costa Rica.

Information for that is in the show notes.

But really cool guy and it's fun hanging out with him and having this great conversation.

So please enjoy episode 004,

Colin Van Ert,

My friend,

The Grasshopper.

You're listening to the Rwanda podcast,

Perpetual Orgasm,

Infinite Play.

Please subscribe on iTunes and enjoy the show.

And away we go.

All right.

Sweet.

We're in Barn Springs.

We're hanging out.

I know.

It's great.

I'm so glad to be here after this morning.

Yeah.

And it's cool to do a podcast and the outdoors,

Which I never would have considered as possible.

Yeah.

I don't know if we're picking up the cicadas in the background.

Yeah.

Those are cicadas.

I hope we are because I love that sound.

Yeah.

It's very cool here.

I love coming here,

Especially after a morning like we had after rolling around and doing some jujitsu.

Yeah.

It's great to come here,

Hop in springs and just veg out on a hot Texas day.

Yeah.

Today actually was like the ideal Austin day because I just moved here and I wanted to do jujitsu.

Like I knew like there's like a couple of things in Austin before I got here.

Barbecue,

My girlfriend,

Jujitsu.

I wanted to train on it before I came here and Barn Springs and like kind of hit it all today.

Yeah,

Man.

That's sweet.

You hit it,

Man.

This is the perfect spring site.

Check,

Check,

Check.

It's not even four o'clock.

How has it been?

How has been the transition coming here to Texas?

It was cool.

I feel like my first couple of weeks here were just like grounding into the home.

Like I didn't leave the house a whole lot.

Like so much to my girlfriend's annoyance.

I was a hermit.

Sure.

Yeah.

I didn't really want to meet anybody.

I didn't really want to go out because I kind of,

I was just,

I built a bunch of furniture in my house.

I set up my home office.

I made that feel good.

And then just like when I met you what a week ago,

A week and a half ago,

Two weeks ago.

I think it was two weeks ago.

Yeah.

That's when I first started like,

All right,

Now it's time for me to like check shit up.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I mean,

I agree with that a hundred percent.

I think it's one of those things where whenever you travel,

There's like certainly this readjustment period and like planting the roots a little bit and finding your base before you go out and like really extend your tentacles and try to meet people,

Get things going.

Yeah.

Cause I actually,

I moved here kind of by accident.

I think I told you I was planning on just being on the road,

Which I have always like idealized.

Like the thing I have a suitcase.

But after a little bit,

It was just like,

This is really stressful because I don't know where I could get work done.

I don't want to record a podcast.

I don't have like a home to go to.

Like I'm always in a different place.

So I needed a home base and that seems to make more sense.

Austin's dope.

I wish it was less hot.

I don't know.

I don't want to complain about the weather.

Well,

I'll also say that you came here like mid summer.

Give it two months,

Two months and it's going to be beautiful.

And you're gonna be like,

I never want to leave this place and then it'll be somewhere next year and you might want to leave again.

Yeah.

Maybe.

Yeah.

But there's also mad cool people here.

So that's cool.

Yeah.

Like I'm glad I met you.

I mean,

It's just people who do the things I like to do.

Exactly.

It's harder to find in New York.

Yeah.

Which is interesting because New York definitely has everything,

But it's all spaced out and I think there's pockets of it everywhere.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Here it's similar.

Here are their pockets.

But those pockets are really close to each other.

Yeah.

And I think also like in New York,

I kind of like just like went along with wherever I was and like I ended up in social circles that were cool.

But like if I could redo it,

I would have wanted to be more into like a martial arts scene and like more hang out with entrepreneurs.

Like all my friends in New York for the most part were nine to five years,

Which is cool,

But our schedules just don't line up.

Right.

Yeah.

It makes it difficult.

I would say that Austin's a great place for you then because it's like,

You know,

I think as many circles as are available to you,

They're available and to you can make the conscious decision of like,

What do I want my life to look like?

Yeah.

What I want it to be.

Yeah.

It's interesting that you were planning to move around and then you got caught up here in Austin right away.

Yeah.

What was the plan before that?

Well,

The plan was,

So I was going to move in with a friend who bought a condo in Brooklyn because I thought I was just going to be in Brooklyn forever.

I love Brooklyn.

I still love Brooklyn,

But I went to Peru for the winter and as soon as I got back,

I was just like,

As soon as I smelled like the New York air,

I was just like,

No part of me wants to be here.

Like I feel like I'm going to like just die early.

And you know,

And all the other stuff is expensive,

Whatever commuting sucks,

Subway,

Whatever.

So I decided I was going to live out of a suitcase and then I was going to know me.

I was just going to just like stop by a bunch of friends,

Places,

Chicks I was talking to,

Like,

You know,

See what happens.

Kind of just have,

You know,

Pinocchio pleasure Island tour.

Absolutely.

But I headed off with my first visit hosts.

She's now my girlfriend.

So that kind of,

Yeah.

Ended the trip.

I mean,

That was,

I mean,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Austin's great place to live,

Man.

I'm super stoked to be here.

And I think if I would've set up a multi-part tour across the country coming here first would have been hard to back it up with anything.

We actually do that before when we were kind of moved down here because we wanted to visit Austin and then visit our other second choice,

Which was Denver.

Cause we have a bunch of people out there.

That's funny.

My second stop was Denver.

And I just,

I went and then two days later I came back.

Yeah.

We were here for four days,

About a year before we actually moved down just to scope things out and see what the vibe was.

And it was amazing.

It was great.

And nothing against Denver,

But we just went there and like,

I don't know,

We were,

Our eyes were already like all over Austin and we were just like totally in love with it already.

So we knew it was going to happen.

So,

And you came here,

You said without a job.

So did you,

Were you planning on building like a personal fitness thing beforehand or?

Yeah.

I mean,

Essentially I knew I was going to come down here and I was going to keep doing fitness because fitness is like really what I'm passionate about.

I like to,

I,

I think it's much deeper for me than simply getting people to like lose weight.

I think there's a lot to just getting people to be in touch with their bodies.

And so it's something I wanted to continue to pursue and also create a life where I can continue to pursue that for myself.

So that was really important.

I didn't necessarily know like how it was going to go down if I was going to start you know,

My own business.

Were you training people in Milwaukee?

Yeah,

I had a,

I had a whole clientele that I was working with.

I was working a lot of floor hours training and I was making a ton of money and I was doing really well.

Ultimately,

The only reason that I left was just because I like,

I don't know,

I'd been there too long.

Milwaukee is a very small town in terms of just mentality.

It's a great place to be and I'm super fortunate for growing up there.

But I knew it was time to get out and like my girlfriend and I had already traveled,

We'd seen different countries,

Different places around the world.

Just knew there was more out there.

The idea of staying in the place that I grew up the rest of my life was something I just couldn't settle with.

Yeah.

That's how I felt about Brooklyn as much as I loved it.

Yeah.

So we knew we were going to come down here.

Didn't know how it was going to happen.

Just assumed that it would.

And I've kind of had that approach with most all things in my life.

If I've loved what I've,

If I've done something from a place of wanting it and just like feeling some of this genuine pull and attraction and it seems right,

I just go for it and assume that I'll figure it out later.

And so far I've landed on my feet.

Were there times,

Cause like,

Yeah,

Like I see a lot of people with that ideal and then they show up to the new city and the first couple of weeks suck and they don't pick up a client.

Did you go through that and how do you deal with that?

Yeah,

Of course.

I mean,

There were a bunch of ups and downs.

There were a lot of times that I like got really discouraged,

But I just kind of knew it,

Know myself.

I've been through a lot intentionally putting myself into it and sort of come to this realization that I thrive under pressure.

So with that mentality,

It's easy for me to look at like difficulty and obstacles and I almost get a little more excited about it in sense of like,

Okay,

Cool.

This is my element.

Like things are getting hard.

This is where like my mind kicks on.

This is where I get the wheels turning.

Yeah.

It was talking about how it's like romantic that phase when you have a cardboard box as a dinner table.

Yeah.

So we had,

We had that,

We had the cardboard box dinner table for like a long time.

Yeah.

I was just listening to a Dorian Yates podcast,

Dorian Yates was on.

He was talking about when he first won,

Like Mr.

UK or something,

Whatever the bodybuilding thing is,

He was still living like with no bed on the floor in a one room studio and stuff.

And like he looks back at that and everyone looks back at once you're rich,

Of course you look back at your poor days with like romance.

I mean,

Hopefully you don't stay there.

Ideally.

Well,

I mean,

I think that's a big part of it.

And I think,

I mean,

I love that though.

Like there's other times that I can look to similar situations.

Like I spent two months training in Brazil to learn Capoeira and I hadn't like going into that situation before I was living in another city in Brazil.

And then my only thought was I was going to move to this one city where this group was,

Where this teacher was.

I was going to train with them.

Do you know you want to do Capoeira before Brazil?

Yeah.

I had already been doing it for five or six years.

So a big part of me going to Brazil in the first place was to kind of foster that and give some more appreciation to it and like see it for real.

So I went down there and then I was going to this new city and I knew people in the city.

I knew the group,

I knew the teacher and I had some connections and I basically kind of like asked like the people I knew if I could go down there and they would set me up with a place to stay.

And they're like,

Yeah,

Sure.

So I'm living in this other city and I don't know,

It's like a month out and I text my people.

I'm like,

Hey,

I'm going to go soon.

Who do I talk to?

Nothing.

And it's like two weeks out.

Hey,

Just checking in,

Like moving two weeks.

Got my plane tickets,

Going to go to the city.

Where am I going?

Nothing.

It was like four or five days before I was supposed to go to this new city and my people that I knew sent me the contact to this guy.

I'm like,

Hey,

What's up?

I'm coming.

I'm going to live with you,

I guess.

It's like,

All right.

So I just messaged him through Facebook.

I showed up one day,

He gave me his address and I showed up and like got to his house and he's mad over the first time.

I do speak Portuguese,

Which was interesting too.

Cause in this place,

Like I was the only,

I was only speaking Portuguese.

So that was its own struggle.

Got there,

Showed up this guy's house.

He had a very small house.

It was essentially two rooms.

One of them was his bedroom.

This other room was like a kitchen kind of thing with a microwave and like a mini fridge that was broken.

And then he's like,

Hey man,

Good to see you.

Super happy that you're here.

How long are you going to be here?

For like a week or two?

I was like,

Uh,

Two months.

You know,

Idea,

But it was totally on the fly.

It worked out.

The person was awesome.

So you slept in the kitchen?

I slept in a cot in the bedroom next to his bed.

It was a little awkward.

Gotcha.

What is cool.

Yeah.

And that was another situation where I just like,

I'll figure it out.

It'll be cool.

And I looked back on it and like,

Was it great at the time sleeping on a cot and like no friends being going like having difficulty getting around trying to do things.

No,

But I look back on it as like one of the best times of my life or super fulfilling and I just grew a lot as a person.

Yeah.

And that simplicity and alone time is really great.

Oh,

It was fantastic.

Especially during the day cause I was by myself.

All I do is wake up and train.

I was studying Portuguese at the time.

I was really adamant about increasing my language skills.

So spent a couple hours each day studying language.

Played my guitar that I bought down there.

And the dude had this little dog who was like my little homie.

His name was Sharifi.

Shout out to Sharifi who ran away.

I don't know.

Wherever you are in the world.

Maybe if you hear this podcast.

He's probably having a good time.

Yeah.

Hopefully.

Hopefully.

That's cool.

How has it been for you since you first made your departure?

What kind of trials and tribulations have you run into?

From New York?

Yeah.

It hasn't been too tough.

I mean,

Like I told you I moved in with my girlfriend right away.

So that was like after the honeymoon period is kind of a shock.

I was like,

Oh shit.

Like I moved in with someone who I met like two months ago.

Or like three months ago at this point.

Like it was real fast.

So that was just like making the decision,

Remaking the decision.

Now,

Not like,

You know,

High on love drugs.

Like yeah,

I do want to actually be here.

Sure.

Not just because,

You know,

I'm following the waves,

You know?

Yeah.

It's like a,

From a logistical standpoint.

Yeah.

And like,

You know,

A lot of things like,

You know,

Her kid and like living in a house and like,

Oh yeah,

I'm not going to just bounce around from city to city.

So that was like,

But other than that,

Like logistically,

It wasn't that difficult because I knew enough people here and I knew enough about Austin that I could just like come here and like be here.

Yeah.

And like,

You know,

I work online now,

So it's cool.

Yeah.

And have you had your online coaching business?

Your what'd you call it?

Life coaching?

Life coaching.

Yeah.

Life coaching.

And I have some online courses.

Yeah.

And that was all set up before you were able to leave?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That I've been doing that for like almost five years now.

I kind of took a pause and went through a phase where I was driving Uber.

I just being a simple person.

Sure.

And that,

That I think I needed because I was kind of going in a weird direction and then I need to get ground.

And then like,

Yeah,

Like a year ago I got back into it and it's been pretty cool.

Yeah.

And I want to talk to you about that because that is something that's really relevant to me and kind of in a direction I've always thought about going.

What was your trajectory in terms of getting to life coaching?

So I guess like seven years ago,

Wait,

What is it?

No,

Six years ago I got laid off from my last real job in New York.

You know,

I was freaking out cause I had like an expensive apartment and all that shit and I was like a year out of college and then I spent a year on unemployment trying to figure out what to do.

I was just like,

I made it,

I made like the very idealistic decision.

I wasn't going to go back to corporate,

But I didn't know what else to do.

I tried blogging,

But it was like,

How the fuck do you make money blogging?

Like I had like a kind of cool site where me and my friend who's a woman,

We were trying to teach pickup advice or break down pickup advice for women,

Which I thought was interesting,

But like I didn't know how to make money at it.

Yeah,

Sure.

Hard thing to monetize.

And then a friend of mine who also got laid off with me from the marketing firm started a social media management company.

So I went on to like be a sales guy.

We didn't,

We made no money for six months.

I was still in unemployment.

And then at a random party I met this guy and closed like a huge contract for us.

But two days before then my partner or like my boss partner quit.

So I had this company,

I was the only person left from the company and we got this huge contract and like,

I didn't know what to do.

So I got,

I hired college kids to do the work for me.

So I had like kind of a four hour work week thing going on for a while,

Which was dope.

And then and then I was just like,

Kind of just like hanging out in the city doing nothing.

Like just,

You know and then I started working for this company OneTaste.

It's all about sexuality and then I became a coach for them and that's how I got into coaching.

And I left two years later.

So that was the birth of your coaching.

Yeah.

Before then during the time that was doing nothing,

I was like writing a lot about personal development and I loved it,

But I also didn't know what to do with it.

Yeah.

I mean,

Was that always something that was your own pursuit?

Yeah.

Like since like 15 I was really like depressed in high school and then like reading like psych,

Self-help books helped myself as they promised and I became kind of,

You know,

Obsessed with it.

And then yeah,

I just wanted to start.

Actually,

You ever watch How I Met Your Mother?

Yeah,

Sometimes.

Yeah.

So like that Barney character has a blog where he types about like all like his exploits and stuff.

So I started doing that in college and some friends and kids in school started following that.

So I loved,

I just,

That's when I got into writing as an adult.

Yeah.

It's really interesting when you put things out there and get any response.

You trying to throw it out into the sea and kind of like wonder what's going to happen.

I remember when I made my first blog post on my new website and,

Wait,

Am I going to look at this?

Yeah.

And then somehow got his way over to a friend of a friend of a friend in London.

It's like,

Holy shit,

This is like overnight just like hopped the pond.

Oh,

Sweet.

Yeah.

It was really cool and very encouraging.

Yeah.

It's weird when people from around the world find your stuff,

But the internet like,

You know.

Yeah.

There is no around the world with the internet.

When I started blogging in college,

This was before Facebook likes,

There's only comments.

And I think,

I mean,

It was kind of weird to just comment on something.

So I would post them on Facebook and get no comments.

So it's like,

Oh,

No one read it.

And that kind of gave me the confidence to keep posting it.

Cause like I figured no one's going to read it.

But really like everyone wrote it,

Read it.

And then like I was posting like things about people in my school,

Assuming no one read it,

Which was like dumb of me in retrospect.

Did you get in trouble with that?

Yeah.

Some people got mad at me.

I was like whatever,

I was sharing my true opinion,

But I think that gave me the balls to just tell the truth about people later because I thought no one could see it.

It's kind of a weird way to get confidence,

But yeah,

It's a little backwards way of like just saying what you want without any repercussion until later you realize that you had repercussion.

It just didn't matter.

Yeah.

So,

So now,

Yeah.

Now I just know that like the better,

The stuff that pisses people off is actually the better stuff.

Like it's the more true stuff.

Well,

It's provocative for sure.

And you know,

Even just provoking people,

It's like valuable.

Yeah.

In a lot of ways.

Yeah.

I've been reading a lot of like,

Um,

Like writers from the fifties and sixties,

A lot of those like real macho,

Like Hemingway type people.

And it's real interesting how they live and how like one,

How writers were idealized before the internet.

Like now who gives a shit?

You can't,

You can name JK Rowling and who else?

Like,

But like,

It's real interesting,

Like how they all had this attitude of like,

You're like a fighter,

Like you're a boxer.

Like you're,

You're,

You're punching people with your words.

Like yeah,

They were bad people.

And very much like,

You know,

The classic ones that we think of,

I don't,

I haven't read a lot of,

Um,

The officers were talking about just,

But just knowing their stories like very much like existentialists,

Like they're going to poke and see what happens and like really play with the world around them.

Yeah.

A lot of them went to war,

Like just to see what war was like,

You know,

Like that's,

I'm still curious about what war is like.

Not that I,

I mean,

Yeah.

Curious,

I guess.

Yeah.

I have some certain fantasies in it.

You got a fan coming your way.

Oh,

Hi Rozzy.

Hey Rozzy.

Rozzy's a child for everyone listening.

Yeah.

Want to sit down and be on our podcast?

You want to say hello to some people?

All right.

I don't think so.

Hey Rozzy,

How are you?

We're talking to people in the future.

All right.

You don't want to mess with that.

Don't touch that.

Yeah.

So you got involved with one taste.

Um,

What was that experience like?

Um,

So I was in a place where I was reading a lot of books about like,

So I was very anti,

I was getting mad at the system.

I was getting mad at like the man.

I was like,

Why do I have to work?

What did they rent?

I was in that whatever.

Maybe I was an entitled millennial.

I don't know.

I just felt like I was who I was and I didn't,

I just wanted to be free and do what I wanted.

Maybe you're just a young person.

Yeah.

So I was reading books like Sex at Dawn and like other books that like were like,

Hey,

As a society,

We kind of fucked up and just like are going away from who we,

I was reading the Primal Blueprint.

Like that's what became a thing.

It's like those two books had a huge impact on me cause they both talked about how humans were before agriculture and how like we connected and how like sexuality was and how food was and how we exercised.

And I'm like,

Wow,

I'm doing none of this living in New York.

So I was trying to,

I was like daydreaming a lot about like what it would be like to live in a utopia where everyone is connected.

Everyone is like free and open with each other.

We all share shit.

It's egalitarian.

And then I came across a cult,

Which was that basically.

And like,

You know,

They were a personal development company up front,

But if you Google them,

The third thing that popped up was cult.

So I knew what I was getting into.

Sure.

But it also seemed like the alternative reality that I always wanted to be in.

Yeah.

Which was like,

Fuck yeah.

I mean,

This is better than doing mushrooms every day.

Like,

Let me just like join this call.

I'm sure there was some like welcoming,

Like just whatever kind of,

Whatever lied on the other side of that door.

Yeah.

I wrote this post about it recently about how in that world,

Everything that was afraid to say and express,

They cherish,

Which is kind of like a manipulation tactic.

Like they validate whatever you say.

So you feel good,

Especially if you're insecure.

Like I was,

But it's what I needed.

Like I need,

Like,

You know,

It's the thing that we all needed from our parents and needed from our upbringing that most of us don't get,

You know,

To different degrees.

So I just felt like,

Oh,

I could be myself.

I could,

I could say,

Ask for what I want.

I could say weird shit.

I could like,

You know,

And then just made me feel powerful for the first time.

So I was like,

Fuck it.

Even if it is a cult,

I'm going to try this thing.

Yeah.

Well,

It truly is empowering.

So let's talk about one taste.

What is it that they do?

Like how do they work with people in terms of like they got,

They're under the guise of self development,

But yeah.

What practices do they have?

Well,

Their main thing is orgasmic meditation,

Which is a,

Which is a legit practice where a man strokes a woman's clitoris for mutual benefit.

The man's,

The woman's benefits her body opens up,

She learns to feel her body and sensitize her pleasure centers,

Which is cool for her,

For everyone.

And then for the man,

It's like you learn to tune into a woman's body and develop her intuition,

Which is also cool.

I didn't really get it at first.

I was into it because Tim Ferriss wrote about it in the four hour body.

It's just like 15 minute orgasm.

Sure.

Whatever.

But I was really sucked in by the community.

Sure.

And how it was this utopia where everyone like loves you.

Like even though,

You know,

It's you know,

Love in quotes perhaps.

But yeah,

So that was their thing.

And then all their classes are like centered around orgasm.

So it was effective.

Yeah.

It's like an effective tool.

Their intro class is like,

You know,

A couple hundred bucks and then you get a lot of benefit from that,

From it legitimately.

But then everything they sell you afterwards is like super expensive and people go into debt and stuff like that.

That's so intense is that it's just one of those things where essentially like you buy in and then you're bought in and then it just keeps going further and further down the rabbit hole.

They keep probably see more.

Yeah.

It's like they show you,

They validate you a lot.

So like you feel your power.

Yeah.

But then to keep feeling it,

You need to keep buying it.

So it's either buy you buy in with money or if you're out of money,

You start working for them or if you're,

You know,

They get you to pay for what you're getting basically.

Yeah,

Sure.

Which is yourself.

What's up?

Who was it?

I mean,

Who was that for?

Like who was coming to one taste and who was doing this practice and who was helping?

It was a lot of people like me.

There's two categories of people.

There was like young people who were kind of directionless,

Like seeker bohemian type people.

And then they're like older people who had a lot of money and like felt like sexually repressed or like they needed something new in their life.

So like the young people with who had no money ended up working for them and the old people end up paying for everything.

Yeah.

Like they got resources that way.

And then while you were in it,

Could you kind of see,

Were you aware of the cultish thing or did you get sucked in a little?

I mean,

I Googled it and there's a bunch of reports about it.

And I was like,

Oh,

I took power influences like psychology class in college.

Like I could see all this shit.

Like I'm too smart for this.

But it really is like looking at LSD and being like,

I know what LSD is like.

It's not going to affect me.

That's stupid.

Like the manipulation tactics work,

Even if you know what's happening.

So like I'm like,

Oh,

They're using reciprocation on me.

But I would still do what they want.

Right.

I mean,

Yeah,

That's the thing about influence and persuasion is that it's all subconscious.

Like I can tell you that I'm manipulating you,

That I'm persuading you right now and you can acknowledge it,

But there's still like underneath the surface is part of it.

That's even affected by it.

Yeah.

And honestly,

That's what sucked me into like,

I love that.

It seems so bad ass to me.

Sure.

Like there's like all these,

Like,

I love mind fucking.

I love the idea of the topic of mind control.

So interesting to me.

So I wanted to like be in it,

You know?

But yeah,

I did have some shell shock.

I moved into the residence.

They had like an urban commune in New York.

They had one at the time.

And it was like,

Shit,

Like they're controlling my whole schedule.

And like,

This is kind of freaky,

But it was also fun.

So like,

It was like summer camp.

I was 24 and there was like all these women around as one of the few guys there.

So like it was fucking paradise.

Like it was great.

Yeah.

But yeah,

I learned a lot there and I'm grateful for the experience.

Yeah,

Sure.

I still,

You know,

I know what it is.

When did you move away from it?

At the end of 2014,

I was I was moving up in like,

They didn't have like official ranks,

But I was moving deeper and deeper and like taking leadership positions.

But like to go to the next level,

I had to commit more.

Yeah.

So like,

I didn't have any more money to give.

So it's like you can you have to like commit more of your life.

And I basically it was just like,

No,

Like,

I want to live my I don't want to spend my whole life doing this.

And then they pushed me out.

Like if you say no,

If they can't get you,

They excommunicate you.

Because that's bad for the reality.

If there's like someone who descends,

It fucks with everyone else's mind control.

So they have to push you out of the group.

So like,

Basically once I was like,

Not in anymore,

They made everyone see me as evil.

And then none of my friends liked me anymore.

So it's like,

Well,

Shit,

Now I gotta leave.

Did you feel really ostracized?

Definitely.

That was like,

Super painful.

Like I'm embarrassed to like,

Say how much I was hurt by it.

But it was just like,

I lived with these people.

I told them my secrets.

These are my best friends.

Yeah.

You know,

I had my own little cult house.

And like,

These are my followers.

Like,

And they all hated me all of a sudden,

Like overnight.

I was just like,

Shit.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I mean,

No reason to feel embarrassed about that.

That's a matter who you are,

What you do.

That's terrible to have.

Yeah,

That you or your community just all of a sudden completely reject you.

Yeah.

But now they think about it like shit like that happens in middle school all the time.

Most girls.

But yeah,

I remember being in middle school one day.

I like I mean,

I was kind of in between two friends groups.

And one day I like sat at the other at the other table at lunch.

And it was like,

Huge.

Yeah,

It's like sitting at the wrong table in prison.

Yeah,

Right.

It was shanks.

Yeah,

I switched gangs.

Yeah,

It was a big drama for a bunch of 12 years old.

Yeah.

Impacts you like people have trauma from middle school over stupid.

I mean,

I still remember it.

So poignant thing in my life.

I mean,

Super.

I mean,

Everything's relative to where you're at what what your life is doing and where you are in time and space.

Yeah.

But it's interesting.

Just to see how you went through that because you originally thought about doing it with the intention of turning to a writing project.

Yeah,

There's different layers to like one,

I genuinely wanted that kind of growth.

Like I was kind of like just like directionless.

I just stopped doing hard drugs.

So I didn't really know what to do.

I had like this void in my life.

But also was like,

I started writing an erotica novel because I was trying to get on the Fifty Shades bandwagon.

This is 2012.

Yeah.

I didn't have any material.

So I was like,

Oh,

If I if I learned some sex stuff,

I'll have a good book to write.

Yeah.

Then my book now is gonna be a memoir.

It's about my experience.

Not like sex tips.

Yeah.

But yeah,

Yeah.

So yeah,

I got a lot out of it.

I'm still like reaping the rewards.

Interesting.

But yeah,

Definitely.

I spent a lot of money.

I got a little fucked up.

Yeah,

I think you can say that for a lot of big.

Yeah,

I guess I guess like any like party phase in your life is the same thing.

Yeah.

You party phase man.

People just their lives follows different trends.

And I mean,

Shit,

Man,

People that go down the jujitsu rabbit hole.

They got they got five different keys.

They went to all the seminars and they're a little fucked up from it.

They're a little obsessive.

Their necks don't work the right way anymore.

Even grad school.

If you think about it,

It's exactly how you spend a lot of time and a lot of money.

You miss out on some things.

Yeah.

That's just whatever you choose to do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What is your coaching business like now?

It's I have a couple clients.

I'm like,

I'm always Yeah,

I have a couple clients.

I I'm trying to meet people through the internet now.

It's on mobile.

When I started,

I was doing everything in person,

Like meeting people in person coaching in person.

But yeah,

Now I do it all online.

And like,

I don't really have a method without people find me.

I think the only thing I've learned is if you put out good stuff on online,

People will reach out to you and yeah,

You help them best they can and some of them will hire you.

Yeah,

That's cool.

So you don't really have much much method to your madness.

Now the book The prosperous coach helped my enrollment style.

I don't even know if it's working for me anymore.

I don't really it wasn't meant for like online enrollment.

It's like you meet someone,

You give them a bunch of free coaching,

You really help them you try to change their life,

And then you ask for money.

So like then it it takes away like the sales pressure.

You don't have to convince them of what you're going to do.

You already serve them.

So I love that.

But with internet stuff,

Giving people free sessions,

I know some getting a lot of free coaching away.

Because I think there's just people on the online who want free shit.

That's not gonna Yeah,

So yeah,

There's a lot of people online that want free shit.

But really,

Man,

I think it's just the fact that there's so many people online,

You forget that anytime you give away free stuff,

It's always good.

Just like,

Give away good things to people.

And it all comes back like,

Yeah,

So one degree or an accident,

Like a one form of energy or another.

Like,

That's what I've found.

And the more that I put myself out there,

The more I'm reminded of like,

Beyond worrying about what I'm getting out of it.

I just should put things out there.

Because as I do that,

Then I get things that I didn't even expect.

And they're better than what I wanted.

Yeah.

Yeah,

That's why I like podcasting too,

Because it's free.

Yeah,

It's free.

And like,

You know,

It's not like we're not trying to force information into anyone.

It's just,

People think about what they think about.

And I think I learned more from listening to podcasts like this than like,

Anything else.

Yeah.

Well,

I mean,

This has been like my preferred form of medium since like,

I don't know,

Since like 18,

19.

Really?

Yeah,

I fell in the deep.

I fell in deep with podcasting.

How old are you now?

27.

Yeah,

I just started listening to podcasts recently.

What did you listen to?

Maybe a year and a half ago.

Joe Rogan's show is my favorite.

I really like Chris Ryan's show,

Tangentially Speaking.

There's a couple others I listen to.

Oh,

Actually,

My favorite is Hardcore History.

Oh,

Yeah.

But he only puts out an episode every like month.

Right.

But it's like a five hour episode.

Yeah,

It takes you,

Yeah.

You're in it for a few days.

I just listened to the one on Persia recently.

Oh,

Yeah.

My goodness.

That was so cool.

They're great.

And it's great.

I love like that you don't have to use your eyes because we stare at screens so much.

Yeah.

You can work out while listening to a podcast.

You can stretch.

Sure.

Walk around.

Yeah,

People got to figure out the ways that they absorb information the best.

Like I've come to the realization or just accepted recently how much like I always listen to digital audio because it's so useful and like I'm always doing things.

It's very hard for me to sit still and get information.

So when I can do a biking on the go with this podcast,

I've just recently gotten into audio books,

Got a library card.

Everyone listening get a fucking library card.

It's free.

It's free.

And you have all the books that I mean,

A lot of the books that are in bookstores.

Yeah.

After I got my library card and I realized how much like how much all the books that I had wanted to listen to or read or whatever for the longest time or immediately available to me for free,

I felt like an idiot.

So I'm really big on that library card right now.

But just been listening to a lot of audio.

And I mean,

Shit,

Since I got that thing a month ago,

I've already gotten into like three books that I wanted to listen to.

And I listen to them better because if my mind is a little bit distracted,

If I have like 10 percent of the distraction that I need,

I can absorb information really,

Really well.

And that's just something I realized about myself.

I think that's something that people need to realize about themselves is like maybe you are the type that needs to sit down and read a book and you just need like quiet space or time.

Yeah.

I still love reading.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I mean,

I love reading hard books because it forces you to be in the moment with a physical object.

But it is like when you're reading,

All you're doing is reading.

Sometimes I stretch while I read,

But like most basically just with the book.

Yeah.

Podcasting can do shit.

Yeah.

I appreciate that,

Especially for the type of lifestyle that people live these days.

Yeah.

Because there's so much information out there and it's just really hard to get all the stuff that you want or could potentially consume if you have to chunk out time.

But I mean,

Podcasting has been great.

It's been like it's turned me on to so many things.

And like,

It brings cooler.

Like,

I think what's great about podcasting is the fact that,

I mean,

We're just having a conversation right now.

Yeah.

You know,

This is like how Ruan and Colin talk.

And it's like,

You can get to know us a little bit.

You can have these people in your life all of a sudden.

Yeah.

Actually,

When I am listening to a conversational podcast,

Like in the car or something,

Every,

If there's a good conversation,

Every few minutes I'll hit pause and then in the car I'll say what I would say if I was in the room with them.

Because like,

You're listening to a conversation,

You have shit to say.

Yeah.

And I'm just like,

Shit,

I'm just like.

You're like,

Guys,

Guys,

One second,

One second,

Let me come in here.

I've had like imaginary conversations with a lot of people I listen to.

Like,

It's like embarrassing how many conversations I've had in my head with like Joe Rogan.

Like if I ever met the guy,

I'd kind of be like,

Oh shit,

I talked to you in my head.

That's weird.

My old friend,

Joe,

How are you?

I mean,

That's how I feel,

Man,

Because I've listened to Joe Rogan since that was the first podcast I got into when I was 18 or 19.

And I feel fucking fortunate to be able to listen to somebody like that who's lived a lot and has come through and is like a very level headed person as he approaches things.

And it's a cool voice to have in your head because,

You know,

Thinking about growing up otherwise you're just kind of at the mercy of the people around you.

And if the people around you aren't that cool,

You're kind of fucked.

Because they're going to influence you in one way or another.

Their thoughts are what you think about.

So it's cool to have that.

It's cool to have access to that and be able to share and like choose the communities,

Choose the conversations that you're partaking in.

Yeah,

That was one thing with social circles in like New York and other places have been like,

It sucks when you have people in your life that you love that you know are like messing with your head.

They're like,

You know,

So like that was a hard thing for me for a long time to reconcile.

Just like there's some people I shouldn't hang out with for my well-being.

Yeah,

But I think that's one realization a lot of people need to have.

And I don't know,

Part of growing up,

Not everyone does it.

That's the thing is like some people kind of,

They don't,

I think people really need to be very selective about their input.

And like if people are really shitty,

Don't let them have that much influence on you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cause our sense of reality is so malleable as I've learned being brainwashed.

Like it's really easy.

Like if like the people you hang out with believe in something,

Even if you think they're idiots,

It's going to warp your sense of reality.

Like even if they're,

Even if they think everything they say is bullshit,

It's,

You can't help it affecting you.

That's just what happens.

It's just what you're looking at.

If you're looking at their bullshit,

Like regardless of if you're looking at it from a logical lens,

You're still looking at this warped thing.

Like your thoughts are going to be warped around it.

I,

Uh,

I think moving and traveling is super important in that regard to just exposure and a lot of different ideas coming at you,

Uh,

Coming down to Austin,

Meeting so many cool people like hanging out at the Springs now.

I've met so many people here that are just like,

Awesome.

They got the same mentality there.

They've traveled here,

They've moved here consciously and it's,

It's very interesting to get exposure to new people.

Yeah.

It's fun being a transplant because in New York,

All I would meet is transplants,

But I was in New Yorker,

So now I'm a transplant story.

Well,

Being a transplant is cool,

Man.

I like,

I think people need to move and change direction and reinvent themselves many times over.

Yeah.

I think it's super important.

So you think you'll have a next phase outside of Austin?

Yeah,

Totally.

Absolutely.

I'm already trying to figure out what that is.

It's not for a long time coming.

I'm very happy here.

It's fertile soil here,

Right?

You can,

You can grow a good garden and you can build a lot of things and the people in the community that I've been looking for all here.

So,

Uh,

I don't need to go anywhere just yet.

Yeah.

I do,

Um,

Have like some serious wanderlust right now and I just want to go travel.

I feel like I haven't experienced a lot of cultures.

Austin's like a very,

It's,

It's very eclectic ideas,

But it's still like a bunch of white people hanging out and doing white people things.

I don't want to go hop down to South America or something like that and just get a change because I think if you're not traveling,

You should definitely consider it and definitely consider doing it for long term because it will get you out of your box.

And at the same time,

Uh,

It's just,

You're switching on a different part of your brain.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cause that's going to affect your sense of reality too.

Yeah,

Exactly.

That's my big thing.

I love travel for the sake of it's,

It's almost like,

It's like a flow hack,

You know,

Like when you're there,

You are waking up parts of your brain that go dormant just because you're so much more in tune with the subtle variations around you,

The subtle differences to the life that you normally live.

Um,

Yeah,

I think it's,

I think it's really powerful and I know that personally I've changed a lot just from being exposed to that,

Like my personality,

Like what I believe and all for the better too.

So,

Uh,

I look to maintain travel a part of my life,

But I'm pretty happy here in Austin for now to be working on things.

Yeah.

I don't know where I'm going to do.

I'm definitely gonna travel a lot in the near future I think.

Well,

I mean I've already planned stuff.

You plan on going anywhere in the near future?

Uh,

Yeah,

Well,

Uh,

We got a project that we're working on,

My friend and oh yeah,

You're going to Costa Rica.

We just got this awesome,

Uh,

Adventure fitness retreat that we're putting together.

It's not like a yoga retreat.

No,

There's going to be some aspects of yoga.

I have an amazing yoga instructor with me,

But what's great about her is that like she just sees yoga as one tool.

She's done it all her life and she's had,

Um,

A relationship with it where she can kind of step away and realize what it is and what it's not.

She's also an amazing trainer.

She's into acrobatics.

She does a functional strength training.

She's very big on the mindfulness piece.

So while we're there,

Uh,

We're going to be doing a little bit of yoga and like giving it to people in terms of what it's useful for.

But then it's going to be us showing people how to get out in nature,

Train if like naturally,

Intuitively,

Um,

Just in their environment around them,

We're going to teach them the basics of a training term called general physical preparedness.

And this is the idea of like expanding all capacities of your fitness and just becoming a more capable human being.

Um,

And then we're just going to try to expose people to some cool beach culture in Costa Rica.

Cool.

Have you been down there?

No.

Okay.

That's just,

You're,

You're going to be learning it while you're,

Yeah,

Well we're going to go down there beforehand and hang out,

Check the scene.

We've got,

Um,

Uh,

The person who runs the resort that is working with us down there and he's going to set everything up for us.

Uh,

So we'll go down there beforehand,

Scope everything out.

Uh,

Our other instructor has been in Costa Rica.

Another instructor has been in Costa Rica.

It will be my first time down there.

Cool.

I'm super stoked.

Sweet.

Yeah.

I,

Uh,

A long time ago I got in with a bunch of people who invested in some land in Costa Rica,

But we never did anything with it.

Yeah.

I mean,

Not a lot.

It was like I put in a couple of hundred bucks I think.

But like,

Yeah,

So we were planning on building a resort there.

Like this is like four years ago now.

Did you go down there?

Nope.

No,

I mean I got us,

I was just broken and then the project halted and it's still there.

We leveled the ground.

That's what we paid for.

Uh,

And then there's like a,

If you find a flat patch of ground in Costa Rica,

The ruon is to thank.

Yeah.

Uh,

Where else have you traveled to?

Um,

I was just in Peru.

Uh,

I did a study abroad in college in Asia,

So I've been in a bunch of Asian countries and my parents,

My mom's from the Philippines,

So I've been there a bunch.

Uh,

We have Thailand,

Indonesia,

Uh,

I've been to Iceland,

But I want to go back to South.

I love Peru.

I want to go back there.

You were there in our winter,

So it was summer down there.

Uh,

Or was it the opposite?

Yeah,

I guess it's the summer.

It's out up in the mountains,

So it was like,

It was a little chilly.

Yeah.

Uh,

But super dope down there.

And uh,

I'm going to Sri Lanka where my dad's from in October for the first time since I was 10 and I,

My youngest cousin's getting married.

I'm just like,

If I don't go to this wedding,

I'm never going to go there again.

I don't,

I'm not connected.

I don't speak the language.

Like,

So I'm like,

I have to go.

Uh,

It's not super convenient for me,

But like it's my last connection to my family.

Uh,

Do you remember what it's like there at all?

Yeah,

I remember loving it.

I mean,

I was a little kid when I was there.

Like I spent the entire time like on my grandpa's property just looking at like,

They have like enormous bugs and I like,

I always really love bugs when I was little.

So I was like spend the entire day following bugs around.

Maybe they weren't even that big.

I was a little kid,

So maybe I just remember them.

Man,

You should get out to West Texas.

Yeah.

Got some big bugs.

Yeah.

In the desert.

I've driven through the desert there once.

I loved it.

It's really cool.

Yeah.

Um,

Like especially we went down to Big Bend last year.

Okay.

Uh,

Which is a huge national park right on the border.

Okay.

Is there,

There's a giant cold spring there?

Uh,

Hot springs.

There are some hot springs there.

Um,

It's right on the Rio Grande and then there's,

It's on the Rio Grande,

But at the same time you have like the Chisos mountains and everything that are there.

So you have huge elevation and cool.

Lots of wildlife.

We went down there.

My girlfriend almost got killed by a mountain lion.

Really?

Yeah.

Like,

Uh,

We were doing a hike and we turned the corner and basically she was ahead of us.

She turned the corner,

Started freaking out,

Like totally frozen.

I didn't know what was going on.

And then there was a mountain lion like six feet from her.

Whoa.

Just totally chilling.

Didn't give a damn about us.

So it was all right.

Kind of just sauntered off and was like,

Oh,

Fuck you guys.

I was going to say if like,

If it wasn't chilling,

How did you guys get out of there?

Yeah.

I mean I started yelling at it and trying to scare it away and kind of just like shook its head and whatever bitch.

How big are they?

Uh,

This one was a smaller one.

So,

Um,

I don't know.

Head to tail,

Like five feet or like,

Let's say like his tail,

It's a long tail,

Right?

So like,

Let's say like head to butt.

It's like,

Yeah,

Like three and a half,

Four feet.

I guess I always imagined them being bigger.

That's a,

That's like they are,

That was an adolescent one.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Yeah.

Uh,

The big ones are big.

Yeah.

Like terrifying.

We told the Rangers about it and they were completely shot because seeing them are super rare.

Uh,

They only have,

They only have about 150 sightings a year,

Which sounds a lot relative to how many days they are,

But it's very little relative to the fact that they have like 400,

000 visitors in a year.

Sounds just like a punk ass kid mountain hanging out on the human side.

He snuck away from home for the night,

Smoke some cigarettes.

Everyone's doing his thing.

Yeah.

I want to check it out.

There's a lot of cool stuff for me to check out.

We've been going on these little day trips like to Pedernales and uh,

We went to Lake Travis yesterday.

That was cool.

It's just like a little,

It's kind of like a hick beach.

Like all the pickup trucks pull up against the lake and then you just jump in.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Yeah,

That's cool man.

I think Austin is cool,

Man.

There's a big hit bohemian hippie vibe here and it offsets like your traditional Texas stereo,

Stereotypical mindset,

What you would think of in that.

So it's cool.

But I,

We had a lot of thoughts about like,

Oh,

Maybe we'll go west coast,

Maybe we'll go Colorado or um,

California.

And I love Texas just cause it has its own character.

Yeah.

It's very distinctly like Southern,

Southern values.

Granted,

I don't want to live outside of Austin.

Yeah.

But I liked that everything outside of Austin exists near Austin,

Like barbecue and like guns and shit.

It's just like cool.

And that's totally in Austin and a part of it too.

Like there is this crazy mixture of all different walks of life here and I appreciate that a lot.

Very happy to have that.

I'm glad that we made the switch down here.

Yeah.

I wonder how that happened.

I guess just like a critical mass of hippies came down here and then everyone else came.

Yeah.

I mean,

I think a lot of it wasn't in tune or in touch with the university.

Oh,

Right.

And a bunch of the professors and like the hippie movement back in the seventies.

Um,

And then maybe it was just like,

Um,

The Oasis where like if you wanted to get your freak on,

You moved to Austin.

Yeah.

I don't know.

But,

Uh,

It's interesting.

Yeah.

I thought about like,

What if you like intentionally gentrify like a really poor city,

Just get like 150 if you're really cool friends,

Y'all move in,

You know,

And then soon like all the cafes or whatever you want,

We'll just pop up to serve you and then boom,

You create a paradise.

Uh,

I mean,

It would suck for everyone who already lived there or maybe they'll give them jobs.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Maybe you're just gonna like assimilate and yeah.

Create something new,

Bring some money in your economy.

I don't know.

But the,

The other thing too is like for me personally,

The fitness scene here is,

Uh,

Booming.

Uh,

I love how healthy people are here.

Yeah.

Everyone's in good shape.

Yeah.

I guess if you're in bad shape,

You just don't go outside because maybe feel bad.

Maybe,

Maybe,

Maybe they're ashamed to being indoors.

I remember going back home from Milwaukee and just spending some time in the Midwest and we went out to bars and just seeing like people and was like,

I mean,

Not in a super judgmental or condescending way.

I'm like,

Oh man,

People are really like out of shape here.

Yeah.

I haven't seen the light of day in a while.

Yeah.

The weirdness is something,

I mean,

Austin has like a lot of my kind of people,

But when I first got here I just got a little shocked and like upset that I wasn't unique anymore.

Oh yeah.

Cause like in New York I'll be the only one,

Like me and Harrison,

Our mutual friend will be the only ones like in the park with their gymnastics rings up and doing shit.

But here everyone's doing like this acro yoga going on everywhere.

Yeah,

Totally.

I had that same issue moving down here where I was,

I was in Milwaukee,

I was doing capoeira and uh,

I was like doing gymnastics strength training and handstands and all this flowy stuff.

I was running around the city doing parkour and I was very much like on the outside doing a bunch of things that a lot of people weren't doing.

So you feel like you have this cool identity that you can cling to come down here and everyone has a cool identity.

Granted,

I realized after I've been here for a while,

Like my identity is still intact.

I'm still kind of weird relative to what other people have going on,

But uh,

It's cool.

There's a bunch of weirdos.

Yeah,

It's nice.

So yeah,

It's like,

It's not fun to be a big fish in a little pond forever.

Yeah.

So now there's a bunch of big fish to hang out with.

A lot of weird fish here.

A lot of weird fish.

Lots of colorful scales.

Yeah.

Um,

What do you like to do when you're training man?

Uh,

Like physically?

Yeah.

Uh,

I don't really have a regimen.

Uh,

It's been a while since I've played like a sport that I actually trained for.

But um,

I had my,

I basically do like the grease screw groove type stuff.

Like at my,

At my house I have the gymnastics rings up and I have a sledgehammer and basically in between phone calls when I'm bored,

I'm like doing a skin,

The cat,

Or I'm playing with the hammer or something,

You know,

And that's basically it.

And then I started doing jujitsu recently and that's about it.

Yeah.

I mean,

I think that's ideal,

Man.

That's perfect.

Uh,

It's just about like a little bit of movement and honestly,

Like as Pavel will say,

It's like all about,

Uh,

Strength is a skill,

You know,

Like approaching those movements not as a standpoint of having to do so many sets and reps and speed and time,

But just like this movement getting better at it slowly.

Yeah.

The biggest thing actually,

And this is a kind of fitness question for you,

Whatever this muscle is,

Uh,

Is there a name for this?

Uh,

I think that's probably,

We're looking at your brachialis muscle.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This like this muscle that wraps around your elbow and inside your elbow.

Uh,

Everything I do that's skill ish,

Like gymnastics rings or like mace type stuff.

Yeah.

This always fatigues immediately and then I can't like go as much as I want.

Do you get,

Um,

A lot of pain there?

I do get pain.

Yeah.

I would say maybe you need to just like slow down a little bit and do a little bit more conditioning for your elbow.

There's like some straight arm exercise that you can do without,

Cause like what happens is like we get into these body weight movements and generally we're probably pretty strong at least from the standpoint of our musculature and like specifically the muscles themselves,

But maybe our tendons and ligaments are not that strong.

So you kind of,

They take a much longer time to condition.

Yeah.

And so once you can do that,

Then you can do all that stuff.

You don't experience pain.

I did the same thing where I got like muscle ups pretty fast.

So I just want to do muscle ups all the time.

Turns out that my joints in my elbow and my wrist and my ligaments and my tendons,

They weren't ready for it.

Yeah.

I heard like it takes 90 days to regrow muscle by 210 for tissue.

That's a bummer.

It is lame.

Then what do you do?

It's just like,

You just go slow.

You just always work on progressions.

Even to this day,

Like after hurting myself,

I realized that the thing that I need to focus on most is I always go back to the progression first.

I don't even spend a lot of time doing the complicated movements that much anymore.

I mostly just focus on the progression and then when I feel good,

I'll do,

I'll like try something new in general.

So what's the progression?

What do you mean by progression?

So like the steps leading up to it.

So for instance,

Like for a muscle up,

Which is this movement where you start in this hanging position,

You do a pull up and then pull your chest over your hands and then press to the top in a dip fashion.

Things that you need to,

Things that are a prerequisite are like having strong wrists so that you can get the hook of your wrist on top of the rings.

Because if you're,

If the ring is here in your palm,

It's not going to happen.

You need the false grip.

Exactly.

You need the false grip pull ups would be one part of that progression.

Another thing that you could do is Russian dips because it chases you.

A Russian dip is where you have,

Let's say your forearms on two boxes next to you or two bars and your body is hanging in between and then you roll over from being on your forearms to being on your wrist.

So you'll make this transition and then you can do a dip.

Gotcha.

So that teaches you the transition.

So like those are the prerequisite moves to the muscle up and then once you have those down,

Then you know eventually you get your muscle up.

That's probably what I should do because like I'll skin the cat on the rings and then my elbows will hurt too much to do it again for a week and then I won't touch it again for a week.

Like I should probably just do that.

Yeah man,

Get those progressions down and then focus on them.

I always say like it was one of these things that I learned from my master in Brazil,

The teacher that I wanted to go train with.

I had like a ride to the airport with him on my way back to the US and like I don't know,

I mean like there's all this language barrier and it's not like we got super tight but he was always super cool to me and really took me under his wing.

He appreciated my discipline and willingness to move down there and spend time and like I was an American but I was willing to live in this like I don't know not so great situation,

Not very comfortable at least.

So I had some time and I just wanted to like get whatever I could out of him,

Squeeze whatever juice from him I could on my way home.

So I just asked him like hey you know you've seen me for two months,

What can I work on?

What do I need to work on?

You know give it to me honestly.

He's like you know honestly like what I'm going to tell you is the same for everybody else.

Just like always work on your basics.

Always work on your basics.

That's the only reason you got good in the first place.

There's no next level.

The next level comes from having a better foundation and like that sticks with me and I've you know after that time I've heard that from so many like strength coaches around the world.

Always go back to your basics and then on the days that you feel really strong or you think you got that new move,

Test yourself.

See if you can push that line just a little bit further.

So with your training philosophy are there is like a set of basics?

Yeah.

Yeah it's there's a lot of basics and it's kind of relative to whatever type of movement you're trying to do.

In terms of you know if we're just talking general strength and general fitness and conditioning,

There's generally certain types of movements that you want to understand.

Movement patterns that I would consider fundamental and I think a lot of people would agree these like simple things.

The ideas of you know bracing your spine,

Being able to hinge at your hips like for a deadlift and keep a neutral spine,

Protecting your back.

Do you have these written down anywhere like in a blog post?

Like all your basic things?

Not yet.

Yeah.

Not yet.

Something we're working on.

Okay.

That'd be a good thing.

I would definitely reference that or like go back to that.

Yeah and that's something we're working on especially as we do all our programming for this retreat we have coming up in Costa Rica.

We're putting all that to paper but I mean a few basic things that I always work on with my clients is we're talking upper body.

We look at pressing and pulling movements in different angles.

We think vertically,

Horizontally,

Very basic.

Lower body we're talking about hip hinging movements,

Leg drive movements.

So leg drive would be your squat and lunges,

Those type of patterns.

When it comes to core work,

Always focusing on anti-extension.

So extension would be like if you see me arch my back right now,

That's extension.

Working against that so bracing into like a hollow body position and holding that's an anti-extension exercise and really good for you.

Anti-extension,

Rotation,

Anti-rotation.

So I mean those are fundamental things like get good at that stuff.

I actually had a conversation with this guy the other day who was like mostly manual laborer in terms of his work.

So he worked at a restaurant,

He worked as a cook,

He worked like stocking or something like that.

All stuff where he was physically moving the whole time.

So you know he had good sense of his body.

He moved well and pretty strong but he didn't work out and he was like intimidated by it and he like he really wanted to deadlift but he was afraid to do it.

I'm like man,

Do it.

Just do it.

Like I don't even like I don't even want to give you too much information.

I just want you to do it and figure it out.

Put this wall up between yourself and fitness because that's what the fitness industry does.

They put up this wall and then they're the gatekeepers of the fitness.

You have to pay them to do it.

You can do it.

So I just told him I'm like man here's three things that you're going to do and this is going to change your life.

Number one,

Look up Pavel Satsoulin.

Number two,

You're going to deadlift.

Number three,

You're going to overhead press.

That's it.

And I gave him that homework and I don't know we'll see.

See if I ever meet him again.

He's like jacked.

It's huge.

Being able to do work with your body is so good for your nervous system I feel like.

Like it just clears your mind and keeps you humble and not crazy.

I think just sitting and working at a computer makes you nuts.

Everybody.

Absolutely.

Well,

I mean there's certain parts of our brain that are specifically designed that well as far as movement goes,

They're the ones that are in charge of it.

These parts of the brain.

Things like the cerebellum.

The issue is though that those same parts that control movement,

They also control certain other parts of your mental processes.

So like for me what's been really interesting to learn is things like people with ADHD,

They oftentimes have issues in their cerebellum which inhibits their ability to stay on task and focus.

But if you can increase the function of your cerebellum through things like movement and complex movement,

That not only works better but it also helps your symptoms of ADHD.

So do you think ADHD is a real thing?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's.

Or is it a movement deficiency or like people are just in the wrong physical like social societal structures?

No.

What I think it is is like it's more or less a imbalance in the brain in terms of for people that have ADHD,

It's generally they have problems with arousal.

So for most people,

They can simply work on tasks because they have a steady flow of dopamine into the reward centers of their brain.

For people with ADHD,

They've generally found that their ability to use dopamine is restricted.

So they're just not interested.

That's why we're bored,

Right?

If we don't have dopamine coming in,

We're really bored.

So people with ADHD,

They need to be inspired.

And when they are really inspired,

They get a flush of dopamine and that's the hyper focus that people talk about and I talk about all the time.

If I'm in the zone,

Get the fuck out of my way because I'm in the zone.

If I'm not into it,

I might be a million miles away in my head.

Yeah.

So that's why something like yoga can make it easier to write afterwards.

Exactly.

Because it brings you into your body,

Bringing yourself into your body just kind of wakes up certain parts of your brain.

Yeah.

I had an educational kinesiologist on my show and she was talking about how when she has a kid with learning disabilities,

She'll have him crawl or her crawl because that helps sync up the hemispheres of the brain.

And a lot of kids who can't keep their eyes on a sentence going left to right is because they didn't crawl as a child and they didn't get to develop that.

Oh,

Interesting.

And that's the hand movement.

Yeah.

I've heard about some research that they did where they had kids doing complex movement patterns and crawling type stuff to improve their symptoms of dyslexia.

And they got amazing results from it.

Yeah.

Crawling also feels really good.

Yeah.

It's awesome.

People should definitely crawl.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think people just need to like really tap into their bodies a little more.

They need to understand that there is no disconnection between the mind and brain.

And it too,

Like there's just certain things.

I'm going through a book right now.

It's called Spark and it's all about brain chemistry and exercise.

And it's really amazing because there's so many things that it talks about.

Who's it by?

Not Dale Archer.

I don't know.

Okay.

I don't remember the author.

Okay.

I can look it up.

I just remember someone told me about the book and I remember writing it down but I forgot.

It's worth checking out.

Let me pull it up right now.

But it's amazing because like certain things that you realize,

It's just like everybody needs to be on this.

Everyone needs to be on their exercise.

John J.

Rady,

MD's author.

And certain things like,

You know,

Like for a long time in psychiatric fields,

The way that they looked at the brain is that there are neurons and then you have them and then they die.

And we never really thought that they could be regenerated.

But now we know that they actually can be regenerated.

We have this thing called neurogenesis.

And it's something that's very hard to achieve.

And one of the best ways to achieve that and create new brain cells is through exercise.

Actually,

Beyond exercise,

It's a very hard thing to do.

So if you're not exercising and you're not getting some type of physical activity,

Like you're literally,

Your brain is deteriorating.

It's interesting that the stereotype is like that nerds don't move their bodies.

Yeah,

I know.

Well,

It is that.

I think maybe it's a thing where like,

People are nerds because they're really into their one thing.

And that's a brainy thing.

But I think we also look at the people that are super,

Super successful.

And they were athletically successful.

And like,

They're really,

Really intelligent as well.

But we don't attribute it just to intelligence.

As opposed to like all of their accomplishments.

Yeah,

When someone's really good looking,

People don't want to think of them as being smart too.

That's too many things.

That's way too much power.

Yeah.

So I always end my podcast this way,

Which is I always try to ask people,

Just for a little advice.

Because the people that I have on here,

Generally,

They've lived a cool enough life that I think it's worth people hearing them talk.

And I just asked them,

You know,

If you could give people two to three things that they could do tomorrow,

Start making improvements and being happier,

Being healthier,

What would you have people do?

All right,

Off the top of my head,

I think like one is an exercise to get my clients a lot,

Especially when they got like a lot of monkey mind things going on,

Which is to spend two hours by yourself,

Not on electronics,

Following your feelings moment to moment,

Which is really hard.

Two hours is a long ass time.

When we think about it,

That's your natural state.

So two hours shouldn't be a big deal in your life.

And like,

When is the last time you spent five minutes just like following your feelings without like,

Input from people or the internet?

So maybe not two hours,

But spend some time by yourself.

Like when I have writer's block,

That's what I do.

And then I feel,

Oh,

Yeah,

Pressure on a couple other things.

Listen to podcasts.

I think I really think you learn more from podcasts.

I think you learn more from stream of consciousness,

Podcasts like this without an agenda than you do from like,

Here's this video that teaches you stuff.

And I'm saying this as someone who makes part of his income by selling those videos.

I hope I'm not harming my future business,

But it really is the truth.

I think you learn a lot.

I'm trying to do more like free media like this.

I think it's actually just as useful.

Maybe not as directly.

We can't promise like a result from listening to us talk for an hour.

I agree with you there because I think that's the way we listen.

I think that's like,

Wow,

Our brain processes.

That's how we learn our mother language when we're kids.

Listen to people talk.

Yeah.

That's all I got.

Those are great.

Follow your feelings.

I can say like a bunch of other cliche stuff.

Follow your bliss.

Quit your job or what?

I don't know.

Maybe if you love your job.

I don't know.

I take that back.

But do what you feel like doing.

Oh,

Yeah.

Actually.

So I was just watching a lot of videos on 100 hundred year olds,

Centenarians.

And like a lot of them,

They ate whatever they wanted.

They're not like vegan or paleo or anything like the gluten,

Whatever.

Like the things that actually seem to lead to happy,

Healthy lives are being around fun people,

Enjoying what you're doing,

Moving your body.

They all worked until they were old and doing what you enjoy.

Like this is one dude who's the he actually lives in Austin.

I want to get him.

I want to get in touch with him.

Hopefully still alive.

Yeah.

How do you get in touch with a hundred year old guy?

He's all 111 last I checked.

Oh,

Man.

He fought in World War Two.

Anyway,

He's been drinking scotch and smoking cigars up until now.

And throughout the video,

He kept saying like,

Yeah,

I go to church because it makes me feel good.

I smoke cigars because it makes me feel good.

I hang out with my lady friends and makes me feel good.

It's like,

Yeah,

I guess if you feel good all the time,

You're not going to die.

Yeah.

And that's a great guide.

Just like follow what feels good.

Yeah.

It doesn't feel good.

Don't do it.

Yeah.

It's probably bad for your body stuff.

Yeah.

Oh man.

Well,

This is super fun.

I'm glad we got to hang out at the Springs and do this first time doing it outdoors in such a beautiful place.

Yeah.

For my folks,

Do you want to mention the details of your,

Your retreat?

Like when it is?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So I mentioned it already,

But we're going to be in Costa Rica from December 9th through the 16th.

We're going to go down there.

I've got some amazing instructor instructors.

It's going to be an entire week of functional fitness training,

A little bit of yoga,

But only to the extent that it's like useful and you can use it as a tool in your life.

So meditation,

We're going to be taking you through the jungle and teaching you how to climb around on trees and move through the environment.

We've got a bunch of cool things like zip lining and surfing,

But mostly we're just going down to this beautiful place called Uvita and like showing you some of the beauty of Costa Rica.

And at the same time,

Creating some space for you to like figure out some tactics to get really,

Really helpful.

So it's going to be happening December 9th through the 16th.

You can find us online.

Our website is vvendoinformaretreat.

Fitness and wherever we post this,

We'll make sure that that link is available.

Sweet.

Yeah.

Easy enough.

Awesome.

And then Ruon,

Where can people find you?

Ruondo.

Com has all my shit.

Cool.

And then we'll post links for everything.

Yeah.

All right.

This has been sweet.

Yeah,

This has been great.

Thanks,

Man.

Yeah.

Thanks for listening.

Don't forget to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.

And if you want to be a part of the virtual audience for future episodes,

Make sure to follow me at crowdcast.

Io slash ruondo.

See you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.

Ai I'm gonna hit it real tall.

Hit it real tall.

Don't stop.

Don't stop.

Don't stop.