It will soon be 10 years (October) since we fortuitously discovered Ido Portal‘s work through his “Self-Dominance” video. At the time, he had a blog from which he began to create an incredible resource (even in today’s over-saturated world, one of the best online resources you can turn to is simply an old blog).
We were immediately obsessed. When he began to use the blog to share carefully designed and multi-tiered workouts, we participated religiously. We joined his forum in which we would discuss progress and concepts related to movement (I’ll always prefer a good forum to social media…).
Around this time, Ido came to the U.S., so I (Sean) traveled to Boston to take a few classes. I still laugh in my head that people I knew wouldn’t walk down the street to take this workshop… what gold we were exposed to then, one decade ago, that goes unrivaled by any handbalance workshop you go to anywhere else today.
In Boston, I got a chance to talk more with Ido, discover he loves dirty jokes (“feels good, looks bad”…), and to realize I needed to go much further. So I continued with coaching, and began attending his bigger seminars and events – Upper Body Strength, a week-long Movement Camp in Berlin…
And the snowball continued. For our wedding honeymoon, we melted down all our gifts and used them to travel to Singapore for another Movement Camp. We hosted the first Movement-X in the United States here in Miami.
Eventually, the reality of the situation had to be confronted – we’re clearly not going away, so we might as well get as cozy as possible. We joined Ido’s mentorship program.
Now I get a chance to travel to assist in workshops, we’re meeting with Ido throughout the year, he’s guided us in the opening of our space, and he provides critical feedback for our classes. He’s sharing a vision with us; we’re humbled to work alongside the vanguard.
Every step of the way, he reveals a little more of the big picture – there’s always a slight discomfort, some growing pains, and as we move past them, we see the logical progression. There’s an incredible element of design in Ido’s work, but also in his philosophy – nothing is patched together, there are no seams. Intense, prolonged, and persistent thought was clearly invested in the evolution of a philosophy that continues to grow, swallowing everything in its path.
We don’t trust people easily, especially when it comes to absorbing massive philosophies – but when you meet somebody like Ido who has a track record of 100% success rate guiding you in the right direction… you start to acquire a sense of trust. It might sound monomaniacal, one-sided – we don’t go to other workshops, we don’t spread our attention thin, we don’t take on side projects, we’re not interested in other approaches. Because working inside of this one produced all the results – and all the results in our students as well. Yes, we’re obsessed – for the past decade, and for many more.
