Just returned from one month with my teacher Ido Portal in Berlin. Through many containers, we examined timeless themes/lessons…

• developing will, emotional stability, effortless attention.

• going deeper into the life practice, what it means to be a practitioner.

• the relational nature of reality, with a current emphasis on the emergent phenomenon that arises from intelligent arrangement of push and pull, active and passive…

And what were the containers used to distribute these lessons? We studied…

• boxing and wrestling through multiple entry points, providing a meticulous learning process

• acrobatics, where I learned a few new “tricks”, but by far the best gift was a huge upgrade for subsequent development - and it has everything to do with HOW.

• methods for separating the active and passive elements of the body, to create clarity and turn the body into the conduit that it can be.

• dance through various scores, many instructions, learning to listen to the inner “voice” (arguably the most “you” thing about you, and yet the one we are least familiar with…)

• engaging improvisation through the highest mode: listening

• various libraries of movement vocabularies/systems that Ido has developed and refined

• and the “dark arts”… stillness.

And for the first time, lectures in which Ido shared the knowledge he has synthesized from studies across seemingly disparate fields: physiology, psychology, philosophy, biology, spirituality, etc etc etc.

A major takeaway for all - the practice that centers on the body is uniquely suited among all practices for spiritual/personal growth. If your internal/spiritual practices are divorced from physicality, physical scenarios will crack you to pieces. And because we inhabit a body, even the least physical scenario, like arguing with your spouse, is a physical scenario (just watch your cortisol levels and heart rate rise…).