The Future Of Athletics with @thebarefootsprinter Graham Tuttle

At some point, the. One of the things I've been thinking about studying just recently, lots of things about skills. But I came across a horse trainer who is also a specialist in computer programming and has won lots of awards in computer programming. And what's really interesting about thinking about skill development from the computer programming and the horse perspective is there's no prefrontal cortex. There's no reflection on. On self of like, you know, are they looking at me funny because I'm doing this thing? Or does my shirt fit well? Or all that kind of stuff isn't really there for the horse and it's not really there for the robot and where they're trying to solve movement puzzles and problems just the same as we do. One of the really interesting things was about the. The baby horse in the first 30 days will have more movement variability than in the rest of its life. So it comes out and it's able to walk pretty, pretty fast. And then within a couple of days, it's able to gallop and. And then they do a lot of jumps and twisting where they're like, at risk of how they're going to land on the ground. So we, we kind of do that same thing as humans in the first three years. It's a lot longer for us because we're doing the walking on two feet and we're doing a lot more complex stuff and we're kind of born premature relative to other species in a way. But those first 30 days for the horse and the first three years for humans is like huge amounts of movement variability and testing and taking risks and yeah, my boy, today we had the, this, the. The. What's it called? The track, the air track. The kids have been setting it up as a slide, so they. They set it up on an angle and just climb it up and down it. Sometimes they set up super steep. Today it was like, really much flatter than they usually put it. Is the audio still coming through? I think the video's crap itself there. Yeah.

The audio still come true.

Yeah. So they had on pretty flat and then he was. He was sort of crawling and running up and down it, but he's like trying to.

Trying to run.

He's like right on the edge of it. And it's just. It's so much within their instinct to push the limits of what they're capable of doing. He's running down this kind of spongy surface and he can't really run yet, but then he would just, yeah, crumble and dive and. Well, what's interesting about training horses. And what she was talking about is that it's really important with them that they feel safe and that they teach them how to be safe in more different ways. And if they feel like they're. They're safe and they know they can save themselves, then they'll go into more advanced movements like for equestrian. For the, you know, the. The complexity of wanting to be able to move in complex patterns, Some stuff down. See. And so, yeah, it makes you think about, like with teaching adults, with us learning new stuff as. As men, as whether it's acrobatics or juggling is like, how do we make this safer? And then the other big thing was like getting out of the prefrontal cortex. And there was a technique that she was using and her husband's a golf coach as well. Working with older men who want to be good at golf. One of the things that they were doing to stop all the worrying was to hum as they were doing the skill. So this is something you can play around with when you're learning your backflip or pushing ahead with the juggling into five ball. Saying like, even something as simple as humming shuts down a lot of the complex thoughts that happen in the prefrontal cortex and allow us to just do the movement. You're saying that 95% of the movement is coming from the rest of the brain. And we don't really understand and we don't really need to understand what is going on. And so it's much more complex, much more instinctive than we realize. So of the technique was to harm or to sing. Another one was just to have a chat. And yeah, that people were able to progress faster when they just relaxed more into what they're doing, which I've definitely seen a lot with juggling. And you would. You would have seen it if you've maybe with yourself in the early days. But you also learn that as a skill to be less stressed. And then when you're teaching someone new, if you can find a way for them not to think so much about it and just go, you tend to get faster progress and it's more enjoyable as well. So it's sort of slowing down the brain waves. One of the other ways to calm the prefrontal cortex is to do. Do it in a weird way. This is one of the techniques that they're using with the golf as well. They challenge. They get the golfers to challenge each other to do it in a different way. So if you're trying to putt, but you're Facing the other way and you're putting off the other side of your body, then you're less likely to be stressed about how you're doing it because it's too weird to have a preconception of what, what it's meant to look like, what the outcome's meant to be. And so by, by going into more variation, more difference, you take away a lot of that anxiety as well. I've been playing with this with teaching people, juggling and putting a lot more emphasis on one ball and two ball drills because you can do a lot more difference when you do one ball stuff and two ball, you can, you can be spinning around, you can be hopping, you can be, you know, clicking fingers and clapping and all the things because there's enough space because they already have the one ball skill or if they get getting the two ball then that foundation can then be bigger that when you go to the three ball stuff they're already more relaxed and they've got a bigger base as well. So that, that thing of like make it weird so that you don't think you have to do it well. I'm remembering it as like a WW thing. If it's weird, then you don't think you have to do it well and then you actually helps you to do it better versus if you're overly expecting yourself to be good at things. And see this so much with adult learning that it's just, yeah, the anxiety doesn't help and the overthinking doesn't, doesn't help. And one more big one then before we go into discussion is just talking about in robotics how when they try and program movement and they try and program a robot to move really well, they don't come up with very good solutions and they're not very adaptable. So the robot that was rewarded every time it did something that looked more like walking and they kept rewarding it for doing something more and more like walking, end up walking with pretty terrible gait and wasn't very adaptable. The robot that they rewarded for doing something more different, if it was more unique or more novel compared to what they'd done in the past, like that was rewarded. It ended up with a great looking walking pattern. And they did this experiment with a six limbed, six limbed robot that's intended to be like a rescue robot after earthquakes or something, to be able to go into, to fix things and yeah like rescue animals or whatever in high risk situations. I think Graham's jumping in here, so I'll just finish this Story, Graham, if you coming in and then pass over the. Yeah, they were programming. The way they programmed this robot was to have the most movement variability that it could have. And they ran simulations of like breaking one limb or breaking two limbs. And they even asked it to walk with no limbs. And it like flipped itself over on its back and kind of wriggled along in a way that you play around with. With wrestling drills or some of the baseball stuff. So when they actually built the robot and had it move, they can see which programs it's running. So because it's been through this big simulation, it's built this big base of, like, how movement works. Then when they build the robot and they damage it, they can see which parts of the programming are alive and which parts are being used and which parts aren'. And they. They were really shocked by parts of the program that didn't seem to relate to the problem that was being solved were being pulled. Pulled on and used. Which kind of presents loops back to the story of the horse in the first 30 days and jumping all different ways. And in doing what he's doing at the moment, running up and down the air track, it's. It's like the more variability the. They can get in in the first 30 days or three years, they're setting themselves up to be able to solve whatever comes up later in life in the same way that the robot was. But we don't. It's not about like teaching the perfect throwing pattern or the perfect sprinting pattern. It's like the more different ways that he's able to solve throwing and walking, running, then the further it can go later in life. And it's. It's like we've been pushing at this kind of concept quite a lot. And maybe what we'll jump into with Graham today. Yeah, there's a. There's a few big ideas there with taking out the prefrontal cortex from the equation as well. You're talking about. And welcome.

Graham, you doing so running behind. Yeah. Have you talked about safety in that, like, in terms of that safety and control variation?

Touched on a little bit, but. Yeah, tell us a little bit about.

So I actually reached out to Wolfgang and he agreed to do an interview with me at some point. So I don't know when, but hopefully soon. But one of the things I was thinking about is this. So I applied it on this. I'd go out and sprint and it's like the control safety thing is like there's a part of my brain that wants to, like, test it out the first time. And so then the second time, I kind of. And I feel myself easing into a. An intention, so to speak, and the. The weird control, safety thing. So my dad has Parkinson's, and so that's one thing. I'm very specific. I'm always. I don't think it's genetic as much as I think that the desire for control and the habits around that are very inherited. And so that it's interesting to think about this. Like, there's a control variation where, like, the better. I mean, your son, he doesn't have a strong desire for control. He's just going to try it, and he doesn't care how it works. He's just going to do it. And so there's so much about this, like, fear. Like, if you're afraid of getting hurt, you're not going to do the thing, and that creates this need to think and that creates this hesitation. So have you, as you talk on.

That at all, I touched on it just. Yeah, briefly. But the. With the horse training stuff, that if the horse feels like it's going to be safe, then it'll. It'll test into new things and won't put up as much of a fight to learn the skill, but then they have to find a way to teach the horse that it's safe. And one of the examples, I think, was about, like, slanted surfaces, which would help the horse to put more weight on its hind legs, and then because it was practicing putting more weight on its hind legs, then it was more likely to be able to do that same thing when it needed to if some other skill that they were trying to get it to do. A lot of us have been going through the backflip stuff. Graham's been going on the backflip journey as well. It's like, if you. Once you get a few landings in a certain way, and it's like, yeah, okay, that it wasn't perfect, but it's. It's okay. Like, anything that's not a landing on the head is good. Right. And when you're. Yeah, when you're, like, consistently not landing on the head, you're like, okay, well, I could bust a toe or something here, but at least, yeah, there's a safety in that that I think helps to progress.

Yeah, well, so I've also. I think in terms of, like, strength training, so there's a few things I've been playing around with. Is one, one in terms of, like, how do you apply it to strength training? And I've kind of just explained the idea of like, okay, if you treat a set as a rep, meaning a continuous movement. So they've got this, I don't know if you've seen this. It's a, it's like a reverse hyper, but you hang it from a bar. There's this guy Dak or Brady Volmering. It's like, it's like a candy cane hook. You hang off the top of like a pull up bar and it swings like a hyper, reverse hyper machine. And so you can attach something, you could hang it so like I can, you can pull in the swinging motion of the upper body. But if they, if like you're doing something with like continuous movement, you almost like can bring in attention to that and try to maintain that for like it's one thing if you think about a deadlift almost where there's this like you pick it up, you set it down or shop or you throw it like those are like single rep things. But for other types of strength training, like a kettlebell, where it's a continuous movement, I've been treating like a set as a rep. So instead of thinking I have to do a different movement every rep, it's like I'm just going to go in and keep a constant tension. As long as I have tension with this thing, I'm going to call that a, a rep. And that's going to have one idea. So that allows a little bit more volume. So you kind of think about.

For.

A sandbag carry, for example, you know, like, because I was trying to think about like what's the difference between doing a sprint and doing a sandbag carry and doing a set of like sandbag squats. It's like, well, you know, if I can have one intention for a sprint where I'm going to go for 80 meters and I'm going to go like yeah, yeah, yeah, that thing, he's doing it in that, that sense. But he does a lot of these where like it'll stop it. Like it's been so good for impacting the shoulder. This guy is one of my favorites to watch on social media. Yeah, this like the impact and so like you can think about like you're turning away, you're punching that kind of thing. There's something with the impact for the shoulder is just super valuable. But you can do a lot of different things. I really, he's, he's a fascinating dude, but he's one of my favorite people for ideas. But even something like this where, like where he has the barbell and he drops it and catches it, it's like you can kind of think about that as like a different way to get tension. And so thinking about, you know, the geometry and the velocity and the acceleration and the rhythm as different ways you can move, you can start to play around with like lifting in the gym. So like doing a set facing this way and doing the next set facing that way, it could be as simple as just changing your visual, you know, closing one eye or like halfway through and so you can break it up. But when I'm doing a sprint, I'm like, I have one intention for the set. So like whether it's a staccato like right, right leg big, left leg short, it kind of had this staccato galloping type movement or one leg high or any type of thing. It's like I have one intention where I'm in constant tension with it. I think that gives you a little bit more grace to apply it to strength training. The other thing is just keeping the short reps. But like, if you have once, there's lots of ways you do it. But if you expand this idea to like, I need something that keeps me engaged for the set because I think that's probably the most important part is like, if you're going to train, you have to be attentive. And that's what like, you know, okay, last set. If I'm going to repeat to my last set I was facing this way, I'm going to face this way or I'm going to, you know, think about relaxing my fingers. I'm gonna, there's just so many things you can do it move and I think it just, it opens up a lot of space. So anyways, the idea though of like no rep, unattentive, I think that that's, that's really valuable. So I guess this is. You guys been working on it as well. Did Kick you talk about constraint led approach and do you guys talk about that at all? This is one that I'm most interested to talk to him about in terms of, let's just say the, the overlap between the two. If he, I know he's got, he's got some beef with some of these guys. I think he's got beef with the ecological guys. I think those are the people that like took his idea and then they didn't, didn't give him credit or something like that. But I've been thinking about this idea of like a constraint led approach is how you approximate solutions. Because I think the one assumption that he makes that isn' necessarily a given is that you have already a given solution for something. Meaning you take shot, for example, like well what's the idea of a shot? But you want to throw the thing as far as you can. Okay, so if we already have an approximated solution, then we don't need to simplify that. And there we can just apply differential learning to increase the variance of the activity. Where I don't think that's necessarily true is when you aren't certain of the solution, meaning it's just there's so many possibilities. And so you think about being in an ocean, for example, it's like it's not quite certain that the, what the solution is. If I want to learn how to swim, that's a different solution than just trying to survive or body surf or float or stay, you know, tread water. Because there's so many other variance aspects going on. External variants. So what I think the value of constraint led approach is that it cuts down on external variants. And so basically it takes a gallon of water and pours into ice cube trays. Or you could take an ocean and step into a lake that's a step down or into a competition pool or to a small pool. Like those are all ways to take a body of water and put it into a less, more constrained version. And so the idea for me is like in something like jiu jitsu or soccer or very big games where you can have multiple sub games going on and it's not always clear what the most important thing is. For example, if you look at little kids playing soccer, little babies, you know, like five, three to five years old, they don't, they don't, they don't get the game right. They don't understand like there's, there's ways to play the game where like creating space is a sub game. And so I think of constraint led approach for complex things that you take a large game, you break it into small games and then within those small games you apply differential learning. So the way I've been considering it is that a constraint led approach helps you approximate solutions, but differential learning individualizes an outcome. Meaning by doing differential learning you get like, as Keegan was saying, a wide set of variables that then those idea, the individualize my certain movement, my outcome. And so like does that make sense as a, as a, a combination of those two?

I, he brought a lot of the, that like more variation of small sided games. He, he kind of brought that to soccer. And yeah, the England coach now was the first coach that he publicly mentored, but he, he mentored The Barcelona coach, like during their early dynasty in the early 2000s, it. Most of the differential learning stuff for soccer is more. It's all group stuff. They're talking about like structures and games. And I feel like it's a bit disappointing. Like they did some studies with like kicking the ball where they put the plant leg in different positions and stuff like that for their studies. But it seems like the individual side of soccer and, and all the skills could be taken further with more application of the, the individual side to it. But yeah, that, yeah, it seems like they've mostly been focusing on the group side so far.

Yeah. Well, that's the interesting part about when you have. I don't think so this is one of the values of like sport is like I don't think there's anything more differential than an opponent. Meaning like if you and I do something, let's say jiu jitsu or chess or, or even, let's say we have an object machine, it's like tennis and then obviously there's teammates. Like that's inherently differential. And so it's almost, it's almost like the, the differential aspect of it is so ingrained that it, it's like not even. It's, it's. It would be weird to think about it outside of soccer, outside of that meaning to like think of a drill where you're kicking the ball over and over. Like the individual side is interesting to even consider because that's like, it's, it's almost like taking the differential aspect out of soccer is what makes it differential. Does that make like it's like a reverse thing? Does that make sense? Because if you're taking a game that is by definition it's like taking a fish out of the ocean, putting into an aquarium. That is novel to it at first because there's nothing, there's no movement, there's no other. There's just, just nothing else. And so, but that novelty wears off quickly. And so I think that that's the hard part is like, okay, how do we have levels of this? Like, are there levels of. You add the differential aspect and I, I think, you know, maybe there's a level of how much do you need to. For something like kicking? How much individual training do you need before you've run to the point of diminishing returns and you, you, your best bet is to get back into an inherently differential environment. I think that's the hard part about strength training and these self contained disciplines. You know, if you look at like a kettlebell and different ways it's like, at some point you. You're learning, but it's. You're learning relative to a solution that you're not interested in having. Does that make sense? Like, I think about this with the kettlebell swinging. If you. If you want to be heavy. A lot of guys that want to do kettlebells for, like, getting strong and whatever, it's like, they're not as interested in this, like, kettlebell juggling. It's like, it's too light to this. It's like. But that would be the best way for you to, like, use this tool for a stimulus in your brain. Because you almost run into this weird question of, like, okay, if. If differential learning is optimal for eliminating Parkinson's, which you could say is like, a severe desire for control, is there such a thing as, like. Like dementia induced differential or differential learning induced dementia? When everything is different all the time? You know, there's so much diversity. And I think that might. That's an interesting question in terms of, like, is there value of constancy? And then how do you have a relationship between some level of familiarity through constancy and novelty through increased variance? So I don't know. Like, these. These are harder questions, and I think that they're not necessarily obvious because we are all guys that like to train with, you know, sets and reps, and we have our structures. But I think there's a question of, like, what. What do you actually want? You know, like, it's. When you just. When we've been training in the gym for 5, 10, 15, 20 years, going through a season of just novelty and newness is really valuable. You know, it's like, what's. What are we trying to get at? You know, what's our. What's our goal?

Like, yeah, this is. Yeah. And you're welcome to jump in with questions, gentlemen, if you're having ideas and things coming up here, use the chat, use the unmute. And. But yet the. I think a lot about this as well. Like, is this all driving towards building better specialists in specific sports, or is there actually. And this is the idea that that's most. I'm most fond of is like, what if we weren't meant to specialize in basketball or soccer or table tennis, but we're meant to be able to do all three and, you know, do a decathlon and none of it be as good as the specialists, but that that would lead to a more sane existence, more mentally enjoyable, less injuries, and that it's more in line with what babies do? And what, like, Natural, it's more in line with the truth. And in a way like CrossFit is the most successful training system that kind of went viral and it was. It has the steepest learning curve. It has like at least 6 to 12 months where you can't really do the thing properly because you haven't learned all stuff. And maybe that's part of the reason why it went so big and viral was because it's closer to the truth of what we really instinctively should be doing or like doing. So like it hits a primal urge that's there in children. What do you, what do you think about that? Like, because it's. You must comp up against it writing your book of like, is this to make better athletes or is this something completely different?

Yeah, so that I, I've literally. There's something that finishing this last chapter I've kind of come to the conclusion like that's. I call that big ass sport versus little S sport. It's like the return to sport is like return to big ass sport which is like the athleticism to play all, all sport but like little less sport is like your sport, you know. Oh, I want to go back through tennis. That's great. But if in pursuit of tennis you lose your big ass sports skills, you, you've missed the point. And I do think that so much skills. Yeah, sorry, what are those? Yeah, those would be like first off you have your broad athleticism. So meaning you're looking at like can you sprint, jump, throw, roll, curl, carry. But then there's other aspects. So I kind of set this up as five levels of sport. So there's a self contained discipline which would be something like yoga, lifting, running, swimming, cycling, which is basically you are in control of the thing, you never let go and you're just. It's output, it's numbers based on. Then there's a self contained sport or discipline in nature.

Right.

So there's you versus you again but with variance. So you're taking from the treadmill of the trail from swimming in a pool to open water cycling, you know, on a trail. Any number of those versions. Golf arguably the third would be interpersonal sports where it's like you versus me and there's nothing between us other than, you know, it's like a battle of will. So you could look at like fencing, judo, karate, jiu jitsu, you know, most of the martial arts fit in that, which is an interesting middle ground. But basically there's a level of control you have to give up as you're. As I'M interacting with you. It's not all about me. There's interactive sports. So you have a shared object. So you look at something like ping pong, squash, tennis, it's you and me, but we're manipulating an object and the last one is team sports and so it's us versus them. So you know, there's a shared object and then we're working to navigate that with teamwork and communication. And so you see that the inherent in the exposure and SO1. But when you move from, you know, a self contained discipline to moving in nature, you have to, you can't just do full output, you have to reserve and there's an attention variable that is added in that is just not. I mean you can try some different things on a treadmill, but the intention. So being able to focus and direct your attention by being present is. That's a skill that's not there. With a, just a self contained discipline which, with an interpersonal sport you have to be able to react. So there's a reactive, you have to let go of control and you can't always be, you know, there's, there's a reactive novelty that's involved that it's just not there when you're in control of the thing. When you look at interpersonal or sorry, interactive things with a sport, you have to look at different tempos, different paces, different speeds because you have to, you have to put force into a ball. There's accuracy, so there's a bunch of different elements there. And then when there's teammates, there's communication, there's understanding and paying attention to someone else's. So there's all you get into psychological psychology, the language, all these things that if you, if you weren't thinking about sport, you wouldn't consider them to be a valuable skill. You would just be like, oh, these are just things that we do. But like can you talk to another person? Can I read body language? Can I see that Keegan's frustrated or not? Like those are all, you know.

Those are all skills.

And you look at like this recent rise in autism and in some sense it's like, well, what is lost in that? Well, there's an interpersonal connection. And what do we, our society is. I keep going back to this idea of like our gyms are full, but the parks are empty and the playgrounds are empty, the basketball courts and tennis courts and these like community spaces that are open and free are empty. And it's like, well, we've lost this like play and we've lost the communication from that. And so what did you get with the kids of parents who stopped doing things with other parents or people? You get isolated kids and when they don't communicate, they don't communicate. And it's like, I'm not saying that's why there's a higher rates of autism, but it strikes me as sport is an optimal way to develop all of these skills. And so if you think about the full human, you know this like the full human of like not losing your temper, you know, it's like, well, why do you not lose your temper? Well, because your teammates are playing the game. If you get mad and kick the ball too hard, you're gonna lose like just things that you learn really quick and come inherently with sport, all kinds of sports that makes sense.

Do you wonder about like we've talked about this idea of social engineering and it seems to play a pretty big role in a lot of things. The, the team sports are the big ones now and basketball, soccer, baseball, like these are the big money sports. They also seem to be like the best ones in terms of learning to interact with each other and the complexity of movement and all that kind of stuff. I'll read that question to you in a second.

Yeah, thanks. I forgot my readers. It's. It's in the dark room.

Oh good. Have you, have you thought about that of like why and even like 100 meters instead of decathlon. Like where decathlon seems like the, the big one. Like it's.

You would be interested. I think the issue with the decathlon so, so there's two things, one of which is presentation. There's an inherent issue in the watchability of sports. So you could say two things. It's like a one hand. The decathlon would be far more interesting if it was a single day. Like if all these guys went and if you could sit there. But the problem is when do you watch the decathlon? Oh, we have to show up Monday at 3 and then it's like I can't watch the decathlon because I missed the whole thing. But if they. Let's just say they did the decathlon as an example. They pre recorded all the points of the decathlon and then they had the final one was 100 meter sprint. And you get to watch these guys or and women on the day of like let's say they have a vintage at 10 o' clock at PM and at 8 o' clock you see all the competitions from 8 to 9:45 and then right when you live watch the last one. That's gonna be interesting because everyone matters and you can see it's not too late to come back. So that's part of it. The other part of the decathlon is if you kind of know who's winning by the end of it, you know, it's like if, if you get down to the inn and it's close neck and neck, you see these guys. Like there's a story to that, right? So like, you know, I think that's the interesting part is it's not necessarily indictment on the performance of the sport as much as it is on the presentation and our like attention span. So like that's, that's an interesting part. But I do agree with you. I think the bigger sports are better. Like I, I think that if you look at the popularity of the sport, it says something about what it requires to be in that you look at soccer over basketball. Basketball is very interesting, but there is like, you can think of these bigger games as complex combinations of sub games. And so like the game that has the more sub games is fascinating. Football, for example, American football at least is popular here. Same with rugby that like you could see this constant like negotiation of people going on soccer, football and other places. Like there's a skill with your feet, there's a lot of things going on. And I think that's the interesting part is like can you get to know the people? How much does the psychology play into? With baseball I could, you know, you start to know the, there's a lot there. But that's, I think the hard part is when we start to look at like the entertainment value. The 100 meter sprint, I think is it, it's interesting because it's an example of how the external pressure affects what is otherwise an internal discipline. Meaning like sprinting and throwing and jumping. If you look at on paper, who wins should be who wins. And I think that's what happens in most of these things. If you look at like most strength training, most of these things. But it's like we watch because the pressure can make a difference. And so I think it's interesting to see like the interest is almost directly proportionate to the uncertainty of the outcome. Meaning there's less interest in a 5K because it's just less determined by the pressure because you don't feel that as much when you're, you know, four miles deep with 100 meters. It's like there's so much pressure, so much intensity that that's going to have a bigger impact. With soccer there's always a chance the Underdog could win. You know, even mma and even some of these. These sports is like, you can get a guy who, like, there are things that could happen. And I think that's almost like an unspoken aspect of, like, people are interested for the drama and the uncertainty, but the more a game becomes, like, certain, the less people are interested in. In participating and watching. But gambling, yeah, it might be maybe the same equation for participation.

Yeah, betting. Betting is probably a decent part of that as well. You talk about chance of outcome. Noah's asking there, does neuroplasticity, Is it something that definitely has to decrease intuitively, as a kid, you play more with anything that you learn. If we retrain to learn like a kid, could we achieve the same brain elasticity? What do you think?

The same is relative, because I don't know if we're able to measure how much that is, but. And also, I don't think so. I think the question is almost baked in with an assumption that, like, more is better. Like, Keegan's son, for example, will learn things that just aren't as beneficial. Like, there's lots of ways I could. There are lots of ways I could speak to you that just don't make any sense. So it's great for me to develop a linguistic aspect, but there are some things that you figure out that, like, this just works better than others. And so, like, while I can run with my arm straight over my head, it's like, that's just not. That's a solution that is applicable to such a small percentage of problems that it's, you know, it's worth knowing. Like, okay, so what we want is, like, the optimal amount of neuroplasticity relative to our refined solutions. And I think that's. That I think is absolutely on par. So, meaning. Let's just say if a kid has 100% neuroplasticity, because they know nothing else. So, yes, they're going to learn. Like, but would you rather. I don't want to sacrifice the things that I've learned and the skills I've developed in the pursuit of just more openness, you know, I think there's. There's a. What is. Yes. So I think that would be. The real thing is, I mean, Schoalhorn talks about the fact that we're plastic till 90, and you can improve that as much as possible. It might be in modern society where everything is Euclidean geometry, 90 degree angles, and we're kind of like, boxed into this certain perspective that the more neuroplasticity we can get Back the better. But I think there's just a natural limitation of like there are physical laws, there are things that are consistent in our environment and to the extent that you have the system that predicts and organizes that down, that's beneficial for you. So you want to be as plastic and adaptable for novelty as is beneficial, I think is the question. And that is an open ended question of how much. What would you say to that, Keegan?

Yeah, it's, it's different when you learn as a child, you learn more instinctively and it's almost a bit more like the horse where it has to be, it has to be by necessity of some way in the environment where when you're 47 and you decide to learn a backflip like Joe Lame, like he really wants to do it and he's intellectually ready to do whatever and, and there's an advantage to that in a way like the chances of him doing his first backflip in 30 days are probably higher than most 5 year olds or 7 year olds or 10 year olds because they're probably going to have to go through more steps and they just might not want to. Like it's, it's probably harder for them to apply the will to it and sacrifice in some ways. If the skill's less risky and less complex, then yeah, generally the child will learn faster. But even with juggling, for example, like I would probably rather take an adult and see how far they can get in juggling, especially like late teens, early twenties, than a ten or twelve year old because I'm probably going to be able to get more commitment out of them if they've really decided to do it. The quality of practice, focus, even if it is fun and gamified and differential and all that, like you just might not get the same game. I had it recently. There's a young, four boys and, and a young girl, five children. And I played with the boy, he's about 10, maybe played with him in the gym for about 20, maybe 30 minutes, just throwing all the balls at him to him and him throwing him back to me like tennis balls and then all these other balls. It was just a completely random game. He, he, he speaks German as his native language. Hardly any English. I don't speak that much German. We just did it full mute like Charlie Chaplin style, throwing the balls to each other for, for, for half an hour. And he was having a ball and I was having a ball and there was all kinds of like games within the games going on of like throw seven balls in A row and then the other person's like, trying to catch as many as they can and throwing them back and then throwing hard and then throwing soft and. But like. And he, he was getting better. Like, he was clearly getting better. And he could. We could three ball juggle together without having discussed three ball. It was just like what we were doing by me throwing the balls before the other one, you know, but still. And probably he would progress really fast with that. But I wouldn't back him to want to necessarily do that for 30 days in a row in the way that I might be able to get Kevin to come and do that for 30 days in a row and see how far he can progress. You know what I mean?

Well, that's what I think the value of sport is. Like. Like, this is why I think sports are so intuitive, because it's community. There's other people, there's. There's motivation. And like. So I was thinking about this idea of what makes. What makes a game? Like, we were talking about a game, but what makes a game. And so this, some of the Magnum, the children pierce, magical child stuff. I think there's these five M's that go into it. Like, you have a model. So you, in that example, you were modeling him. You were something that was demonstrating it. You have a motivation, he's interested, he wants to do it for whatever reason. That's an essential part. That's intrinsic. There's markers, which is like physical touch points of familiarity. Whereas, like, he understands what a ball is, he understands how to catch it. He's done it before. So, like, he can kind of build onto that with the game. You have to have movement. There's a physical component to it to coordinate the mind and the body. And then there has to be this reversibility, intelligence, which is like this mindset of mentality. And it's like, meaning he has to be able to say that I can drop a ball. You know, I can try to catch the ball this way. I could try. Things mess up and it's okay. Like, I'm not like, you know, it's not like, I'm like, drop an egg and it breaks, it's game over. So you have those five things. You can have a game with anything. And that's where learning happens in the background. And then the question is like, so for example, what you did was a constrained thing. But if you just added that in and you added more variables, that I think is the biggest question that it's hitting is like, how do you reverse the constraint Led Approach, meaning I've approximated a solution to this, which is catch the balls. But, like, what's the next step up the next step up the next. And like, how do you scale to, like, a bigger game? And that's what I think is interesting because there are certain things that I've been, let's say, playing games with that didn't make sense until something clicked of like, oh, I. I'll say. This is a silly example. A year and a half ago, I don't know, two years ago, at this point, I started using my mouse, my left hand, and eating with my left hand. It took months to get to the point, like, I just hold the fork. And then it's one of those things where I was holding a baby and I just intuitively picked up the fork of my left hand and just like a day ago and a day or two ago. And it's one of those things where, like, you don't always understand the context. You're trying to do something until you go, oh, this is the game. And that's. It's. It's really difficult because there's a certain. I was at a gymnastics practice the other day, and they had this thing where you, you, you touch. You go here, and it's overhead to head shoulder out. And it's like, touch. And it's like, you just do this. And literally, I've never done it before, but every single person was like, I can't do it, I hate it. And it was like, I just didn't think about it because I've done. There's like club spinning things with, like, you know, alternating things or whatever is moving your. And it's just things like that where you realize that there is a. There is just an intelligence of your body that comes online. And I mean, I've been doing weird things like looking at the sun with my left eye to get the right cortex, like the right aspect of my brain engaged. Just a lot of little things like that. But it feels like the left side of my body used to be a stranger that was kind of numb and had no connection to it. And now it feels like I actually can with it. For example, if I want to hold this water bottle. Just think about this next time you do anything. How do you do something with your diamond hand or your skilled hand, so to speak? You just intend and it happens. And I've been thinking, it's like, okay, what if you train? You have to train that I'm intending to do this with my left hand and I let my left Hand act, meaning this is coming to a point, I promise. But the way we move is by setting an intention. That's all we do. That's. We set an intention and it unfolds like there might be effort, but ultimately like it's. Especially with skills. I set an intention and it happens. But when we go to do that with a non dominant hand, we have to think. I have to control and move this thing. And I think the first optimal goal, like if you were to think of the point of all of these things is to have full capacity of your body, is like, can I just do things with both sides as I intend and in different circumstances? And it seems silly at first, but there's a. There's an intelligence that comes on. And this is the Rob Gray ability, the affordances, things. There are things that become open to you as options that were not. It's. It's as though you were in a blindfold to a set of variables and options in life before, but now that you have this new connection and ability with your body, there are affordances that are available to you that change, literally change the, the terrain, the context. It's not even that, like, things are just. You see new things. It's like the world is different. Like the way you perceive the world is different. And so this might be good to the point, Keegan, you're talking about is like, you know, you're training for this stuff. It's like you don't know what you don't know. And not only do you don't know, you can't know. Imagine you hurt your back. We've all been in injuries. You hurt your knee, hurt your back, whatever. And it's like there is just. If I told you to get off the ground, find five different ways to get off the ground, 10 different ways. There are, there are dozens of ways you could get up and down off the ground, but if your back hurts, you will not even consider those. Like, it's just. It isn't even an option there. And so I think that's the hard part, is that we don't even know what we don't even know. And we can't even know what we don't even know because of our limitations with our body. And that kid, for example, you're throwing the ball back and forth with him. It's like there's a. You don't know what the game is. And I think that's the humility that I like about differential learning is we don't know what the game is that it applies to. But ultimately this is where I think the, the big ass sport thing comes into play, which is like, if you think of life as the most ultimate game, then you're preparing for life. And like, in what ways are you, you know, awkward, weird, disconnected, uncertain? Can you talk to, you know, for a young boy, can you talk to girls like this? Just there, there are things that the point of sport is to expand you into these bigger and bigger complexes and like to realize that even being nice to somebody, being kind, it's not. Let's just say you want to be set a desire. I want to be kinder to people. Okay, well how do you do that? Well, you tell people, you know, you tell people the truth or you tell people, I want to stop lying. Let me say that I want to stop lying. Well, there's a difference between being blunt with truth and being, you know, just intelligent, intentional how you say it. So like you realize every single rep that you talk to somebody is an opportunity to flex your conversation game. So like, you know, you set an intention. I want to go and see if I can get them to smile. I want to see if I get. And it's like all, all of these things become a game and you start to realize that it's not just your physical training, it's that the skills and the plasticity you learn in that apply to everything. And then if you become like this, we have this weird thing where we think that being the president or leader of a country is almost kind of like nasty politician thing. But like, shouldn't that be the marker of like the most successful individual in that country? You know, it's like being a movie star, stuff like that. It's a. I don't know. I'm not saying that the games as they are, are ideal or worthy of playing, but you know, there's a certain level of. I think one of the things Keegan's done really well is destigmatizing wealth and, and, and financial success for, I don't know, guys who's like being in the gym and recently they really just not making parenting being, being a parent like that. That's like there's a game to play. But like as you play these kind of foundational games, make money, develop a serious romantic relationship, have kids, you know, get in shape, build things like there's a bunch of like, you become like the, the, the ultimate. I don't know the. You play the game of life well and then like if you would expand the set of things at 50, like how many people could build a table, you know, like how many people can play an instrument? How many people could have a conversation with their kid or you know, have a big love to their wife, whatever, like this. It's almost like you get a little bit of this David Dida way of the superior man. If you started accumulating those things in there, it's like there are a lot of games you could play. And if you really think about it, by the time you're 60, you might be lucky if you could get like five years. There's like a game that's appropriate to play from 5 to 10, 10 to 15, 15 to 20, 25 to 30, 35 to 40. And it's like, you know, if you're 50, you want to start jiu jitsu. That might be the game you play because you spend your time doing other things. But it's also like, you know, if you've spent 20 years playing, doing Jiu Jitsu and you're 45, maybe it's time to go learn how to make a wooden table or play an instrument. Like, I don't know. There's just so many other sub development subdomains of like the Game of life that like if you bring the idea of neuroplasticity to this, you think, well I could never do that because I've never done any woodworking and you know, or I've never picked up get an instrument. I'm shocked the amount of improvement I made in guitar in the last eight months. And like I'm actually writing songs now and like playing and creating things. It's like if I, you know, really. But it's the neuroplasticity. If you can learn how to learn when you're a kid and you never forget how to learn, you can become a multi skill like Jose Joseph in the multicolored jacket. It's like you could become someone that has 12 different skills. You're decently good at, you know, 80%. You not be world class but like you're a full life, you're a real. I'm rambling now but like does that, that contact to have any teeth concept.

I like the idea of using the athleticism as the entry point to that and making it a tool for life. And yeah, what you've been talking about with the elements of being able to have teammates, but then also when you try and teach someone to juggle, when you teach someone to juggle, you teach someone to backflip. There's this dance going on of the person's confidence, their energy Their attentiveness, like, and you're playing this game in communication that, yeah, like, it's a beautiful thing and it does have transfer and carry over to other success in life and other things that we can do. And it's not often spoken about through that lens. So, yeah, I really appreciate that. And, and yeah, it should lean towards, you know, that's the leap that I've been attempting to make for a long time of, like, this makes it easier to make money, and this makes it easier to be a husband, and it makes it easier to. And I experience it when someone comes here who's not from my system. Like, there are different species. If they haven't attempted some. Some juggling and some handstands and stuff, it's like, oh, like, this is, you know, it's like you really have to go gently with them because it's, it's like, yeah, it's, it's. Yeah, you could say it's like a mental patient. Like, and, and it's people who have been through a bit of it already and they've done it in their own living room, like, it's so much easier to relate to them and to be able to invite them into things and not be worried, like, is this person going to completely the bed when I offer them to throw the balls to them? You know, like. But, yeah, like, taking it then into, into the music and whatnot. Like, that was. That still is the big end goal of like the nine volumes of genius and having these be places where all of that stuff is happening. But I returned to the new athlete because it's. It sort of seemed like I don't have as much genius in those other volumes. And it's, It's. It's more challenging to try and get a message out with. So, like, I'm, I'm focusing on the athletic thing for at least the next five to 10 years. But the, the big picture of all the geniuses, I think it's going to be more for the grandchildren. I think it's. It's a little bit further in the future.

That's your. And that's fine because that's your on road. That's. That is like the beginning of people just, you know, for me, people, like the feet, they're like, oh, my foot hurts. I'm like, okay, where do this with your toes? You know? But like, that is the beginning of like. And that's what I'm really, really proud about. The book is like, you. You start off in this little small thing, like, all right, the first thing we do is like, you know, like, this is what fascia is. And. But by the end of it, it's like you start to. You move people on this thing. And I think ultimately it's like there's this. It's like Kenny. Kenny Kane, I think his name is a comedian I remember, with a barbell shrug. He was on that for a while, but he doesn't have any social media presence. But he talked about this idea of Sherpas, and it's like, sherpa's a God. You know, you take some ant level one of. Of Everest or whatever it is, and that's like that. You know, that if we all play that, like, we guide people along a path and, you know, it's just.

There's just.

You're on your inroad for people. If you get someone to understand that, like, oh, there's more than a barbell, that's like, monumental because it's like shifting, cracking that first egg. And so, you know, like, that. That's. That's why I think pain is valuable, because pain forces us to open up. So, anyways, but, yeah, like, the athleticism, I think, is the most exciting part.

I was watching you Today with Brian McGinty when he was doing the foot assessments. He spoke about it in the podcast, and I was, like, super curious, and I. I actually asked one of the other Marinovic students, like, you know, he's talking about with that assessment stuff. And then somehow it popped up for me today that it was actually on YouTube as well, and he was assessing your. Your toes. Do you remember the assessing?

Yeah, it still hurt me. You might be a three in one's body. So I don't know how he does this, but he goes and he basically test the resistance. So he gives you an intention and then test how well you can do it. So, like, it was like, pull your toes up or push them away, so there's like an extension flexion. And so, I mean, you could theory he did it with the feet and ankles. I think the feet and ankles are like, a big thing, but you could theoretically do it with like a bicep or something like that. But he. It's. It's completely subjective, meaning there's no written criteria. He just has a feel for it. So that, I think, is always the limiting factor. But he goes and does it, and you. You go and you try and pull, and he gives you a number between 1 and 4. 4 is like world class. Like, oh, my gosh, is unbelievable. One is like, I don't know if I told you the thing yet. Did I tell you how to do it? Let's try it again. And so, but he would make. There's two different distinctions. One is like your physical thing and then there's your intention. So you might have some ability to do well with a physical, but you can't channel it. Like you have a hard time paying attention. So he factored a little bit of that in as well. But I think he might right for like a three and my left foot a one. And I was like, ah, well, I try, I tried. You might be. He might be a one or three in a one's body it would mean like you have a lot of desire, intention to go, but your body is just not connected. That still sticks with me to this day. Years later. He. That was one of those things where I realized like I to that point, that was 20, 23, maybe 24. I had done a lot, a lot of tip raises, a lot of, you know, I had done all the foot stuff for years. I had done a lot of it. And I was like, okay, there is something that I am missing in terms of like connection to my body, especially in this left side that is not just about like getting a standard with strength. And like obviously it would have, you know, my, I could have improved my standard. My left foot was always weaker. But that's when I really, I think at that after that I sort of have some calf strains and some issues my calves. I was like, okay, there's something going on here where like I cannot absorb force. And so that's when I started the single leg hops in the back, bounding. And that was really the big buy into like there's a lot more this athletic skills thing, which is like skipping, hopping, throwing, bouncing, jumping, that I'm spending way too much time in the gym and not nearly enough time on these like impact. I don't have enough impact in developing that. And so that, that's when I, you know, there's a. That was very helpful. But I remember training with him. He was, it was really viable. So anyways, that was. I don't know how much of there is to that other than the fact is like meaning I don't know how much of what you can learn from him. You couldn't learn from having someone bounce in their leg. Like if you can hop on your right foot and be stiff, pop off the ground five times, but you can't do on your left, that's the issue, you know, like it's the same. You can't you don't have the intention in your body to absorb impact. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I think the thing is just the risk that goes with that. And if he's evaluating a new NFL player and then doing that and there's a Sammy Voodoo element to. Most coaches have it in to some degree of like working some voodoo magic on their athletes. Most top coaches have an element of that and you know he's going to tell them they're a one when they come in or they're a two and then he's going to tell them they're a four when they go out.

I felt that 100%. Well, because he would go, okay, so this is. I'm always very aware. So the human garage people who I love, Gary and those guys, there's a level of like he does this thing where he holds all. He goes, did you feel that? I was like, feel what? Like there's that. And I remember with Brian I would watch him because he did at SEMA and seemed to sit right beside me and Insema would pull Mike. But I'm like, I'm watching and seem to bend his knees because it seems real competitive. He's like he was going to get after it and I'm like that, like if I bent my knee a little harder I can get some more effort. But you know, there's this level like in team is just like godlike figure and it's like, wow. Oh yeah. That like there's, there's a lot of. I've noticed that too. It's like when these guys come in, there's a bit of this, like, I want to impress people. I like these people that had me on the podcast and there's a bit of that which always factors in. So I'm very skeptical of any of these things. But I gotta say, the training with Joel Seidman, training with Ben Patrick, training with Brian, like the handful of these guys, when you go to their place and you do a workout with them, the magic is they bring so much attention and energy. They make you feel like you could run through a wall. And that they're the workouts themselves may or may not because they're all three of those were very different style workouts, you know, Siemens 90 degree heavy loaded. Ben Patrick's full range extension opening up all the way. McKenzie's like you just chaos. As fast as you can, you stop. And it's like all three completely different. But all three were incredible. I had such a good like return and experience in all of those. Even Training with Mark Bell, like, just the, you know, it's like in all these different experiences, it's like. But how much of that was just because the coach really, really believed in what they did and just was like, present. It gave you a lot of love and attention, energy. It's like if you respond to that, you could throw me against the wall and I'd get better. And that, I think, is what most people are missing. And they. But the people that can do that best in a session tend to translate that best online in terms like a social media context. And I think that's what really gets people engaged. But yeah, I definitely think there's a lot of voodoo to it.

Did you do much. Is there much about the feet in your, in your book? Is that still. Do you still have a massive foot fetish or you've like completely given up on that?

You know, it's funny because the publisher keeps sending me like, here's a. Here's. They keep sending. They send me a mock up title for it and they send me like a book summary. And it's like, learn the secrets of barefoot running. And I'm like, there's almost zero barefoot running. It's all barefoot, like, everything. I would say that the chapter three, which is the, the pieces. So I've set it up for the pieces, patterns, problems. So this is, this is the, the thing moving forward, which is they're pieces of your body. That's the old way of understanding everything. Like, I have a bad knee, bad foot, bad ankle. My flexor hallucis longus is off. Like, we have pieces. And so I have a chapter that goes through 10 major joints of the body and there's 10 mobilizations for each. One of those. The foot, one of those, the ankle. One of those is lower leg and knee. So I have all the movements from the foot programs just optimized because rather than tell you this is your big toe, these are your distal metatarsals, this is your ankle. I have. You feel it through an exercise. There's 100 mobilizations to go through the body. So I have a bit of that. But quickly, chapter four progresses through the patterns, which is. These are the fascial lines, or I call them tissue chains because they kind of organize them a little differently. The patterns are what. The emergent lines of stress that organize these pieces. And so those are what you see when you're kind of sitting dormant, but they transmit force. And these are the fascial connective tissues that basically wrap the bones. Bones are just chalk sticks Inside of a fascial sausage casing. And muscles are electrosensitive gel inside a fascial sausage casing. But that fascial casing is the same thing. It is continuous. So a tendon doesn't grab onto a bone, it merges. It is a bone, like a bone becomes a tendon. There is no difference between a periosteum and the perimysium. So you see that. And so then those are the patterns, the emergent forms. And then the last one's problems which basically get to the point of like everything you do is problem based movement. Meaning you don't see individual movements, you see an action you want to create in the world. So this is why I think the movements, you know, you can start to. Oh, I like he's got the, the shaking. Yeah. So that this is a great example of something where if you just did eyes, T's and Y's in the gym or with physical therapy, you would do nothing because there's no problem. You're focused on the thing itself. But if you bring in something that moves you so you see someone that's moving or there's like, you have speed, like you're shaking it. There's something, there's, there's interaction. The problems are all about interaction with the environment. I think that's the essential aspect of, of I call it problem based movement is a second person narrative, meaning it's not just you as the person who experiences and it's not just a robot as a person that observes, it's you as the narrator that experiences what's happening. So things like maces working with gravity, working with speed, working with music, rhythm, I think that's a big thing that people have undervalued is the idea of rhythm that happens if you're keeping up with dance in a music. It's like those are problem based movements because they get you out of your head and they get you to respond and interact with the environment. So the pieces, patterns, problems is the progression. So you start off with a very basic overview of like the what, Muscle, bone, ligament, tendon, the nervous system, digestive system, cardiovascular system, respiratory system, lymphatic system. That's like one chapter goes to all the physiology in about 8,000 books, words, major physiology. And that sets you like, this is how the body works. And then I go to pieces. And that's where I get a little.

Bit of the feet.

I start there, but then after that, you know, there are some of the connective tissue. But after that it's basically like I don't want you to think about your feet anymore. I want you to think about that ball over there. And then chapter six is basically your chapter.

The.

The after pieces matter, problems, it pulls that together to say this is return to sport. You have to return to sport if you want to understand how to be a human. And that's where I go through the five. The, the what makes a game? What are the different levels of games? How do you progress from injury to rehab, to training, to return to playing sports, to playing games, to competing in the value of competition in this train, play, compete cycle, which is the practice. The practice is where you, you set a goal, you create a game, you get feedback, go gain feedback, goal, game, enter. You see, this is the practice where you start to expand and it spirals out. And so like, that's the progression of the book. And then chapter seven is just the protocols. Like, this is the program. These are, you know, these are like different resources and things you can do. But the, the book is to move someone who thinks that their toe hurts. The book is the thing that the book is for someone who thinks that I can't play soccer anymore because my, you know, left big toe hurts is to take them from that to like, completely to the point of like, your heart's close to love, you're bitter, and you're comparing about all the things you don't have. And there's just, There's a whole emotional side of that as.

As well.

But like, that is just an possible add on. But like, the idea of like, your body is the way it is for a reason, and that's because of your thoughts, beliefs, identities, roles, attitudes, personalities, behaviors, quirks, ticks, old injuries, memories, fears. Those are as real to you as the tissue deformity. So anyways, it makes sense. But that's. The book is it goes on a journey. So it starts with some of that. But I really, I just have had no use for it. Like, I just don't think that the. It's unfortunate because it's a very ha. It's a very lucrative sales pitch, which is like, oh, your feet hurt? Do this exercise to fix them. It's like, that's great, but it's just not true. It just, it's. It's a step, but it's one step on a road and most people just stop walking. And I'm like, so anyways.

Yep, book sounds super interesting. I really like the, the way you've laid it out and thinking about returning to sport and setting up different types of games. Yeah, it's, it's. It seems more and more insane to strength train in isolation than. Than ever before. It's sort of what I did for a long time. And yeah, gradually been moving more out of it. It seems weirder and weirder if people just want to strength train. Like, it's. It doesn't actually make much sense.

I got guys jiu jitsu, which is. It's always funny. You guys come up to me, hey, man, my knees hurting or my ankle, and I'm like. They're like, well, I'm like, you need more lateral movement. You should do this, this and this. You should go. I tell them all, I gotta go skip. Because for most people, I kind of break these four categories of fitness is like, strengths, strength, endurance, mobility, and then speed. And I, I'd say that the athletic skills we talk about, like, skipping, running, throwing, hopping, jumping, most of that is just including speed into a world where people have none of it. So, like, there's like a fourth macronutrient where people have. They get a lot of protein, a lot of carbs, a lot of fats, but they're missing this, like, fourth one, like water or something like that.

I don't know.

That's probably the best way to think about it, actually, because. Actually, that's a great example of thinking about it because you can look at, like, you know, I don't know what you pick your macronutrient to your strength, speed, mobility. But, like, they love to play the strength games. Powerlifting, you know, strongman bodybuilding, crossfit to a degree. They love to play the endurance conditioning. CrossFit kind of combines these things, the conditioning game, which is like, you know, cycling, swimming, endurance, running. People love to do the mobility stuff, which, you know, yoga, fashion, maneuvers, Pilates, dance partner, stuff like that. But a lot of times we miss the speed, and so there's no intention to the movement. And so the speed is impact, like the vitamin I. And if you don't have any speed in your training, you know, that's what sprinting comes in for. Jumping or like, throwing or any of these things that require movement fast. And so that's like a fourth macronutrient that's missing. But what I realized. So the book was in it, and it was. It's still called Born to Sprint, but I don't know if that's what I'm gonna stick with now that I kind of like, understand what the point of it is. Like, I. For people that if you ever try to write a book, like the book I thought I was gonna write a year ago is not what at all what I ended up like. The book emerged on its own accord and I just was a conduit. Like I, I, I have completely been changed by the ideas that I've written. But that's such a bizarre idea.

What about Born for Sport or Born for Speed? Born for Sport. What it sounds like you've written.

Yeah, which, but that's it. You, I, I don't, I have to have this like an ongoing conversation with the publishers. Like, hey, so they're, they're open, they see what it is. But it's, yeah, the Born for Sport. That might be it. Yeah, that actually might be it. Thanks. Keegan. Keegan. Actually, for people who don't know the barefoot sprinter is Keegan's name. Barefoot sprinter. I can't say your Australian accent, but I got that. If you ever want to get dubbed on social media, someone else has to dub you for. But Keegan is fun. Phenomenal. So anyways, he's giving me the best idea, so. But the point though is that like a lot of what I. Oh shit, my wife's outside, scare me, my baby's naked. The point of it was like I included this idea of like plyometrics and skipping and jumping and bouncing because I just realized most people are missing that. Like there's this, there's this huge area where you can't. The reason you don't want to play a sport is because you don't feel prepared for it. Either there's a skill component that's missing or a physical tissue component. It's one of those two. Because when you start to feel both those come together, sports are the obvious, most fun way to do it. And there's no kid who doesn't like sport or like games. And if you expand the version of a game to mean anything that you can play at, which is just losing your subconscious mind, we are wired for game. So like, okay, there's a skill component, but the problem with the skill component is you can't really train skills if your tissue is lagging underneath. And so that's a very quick thing. But most people, they're missing that fourth macronutrient impact. So let's go and skip and hop and jump and throw. But the problem is in isolation, those are just self contained disciplines. Like if all you do is throw or all you do is sprint, or all you do is jump, you're going to have your own problems. And I think we see that with track athletes is like, maybe not the cathetes. But in isolation they do the same thing over and over and over and over again. Their bodies are show that. So it can't. The answer is not just doing these. These like I call them skills because they require intention. But I don't know if I think sprinting is multi. I. I think we'd have to figure out, I guess maybe the question. Keegan, how would you define a skill? Like, how do you define the word skill?

Yeah, so I, I have the. I use five in the. When you talk about the four macronutrients, like I say skill, speed, stamina, strength, stretch.

So I. Ah, you got the alliteration.

Yeah, I did the S's. But yeah, I, I feel like skill is the one that's the most missed. But then also speed, like for sure. And, and, and if you're talking about the. And I, I love that safety lens of the speed that I think that's one of the things that Renovic system does well is like introducing speed in safe ways. And that machine that he had that does like plyometrics. You can do plyometrics, but your body weight's like 5 kilos because you're thing rather than using your body weight because everyone wants to do plyometrics, but everyone's too heavy for. For the. You know, for what they actually need to do. So. Yeah.

How do you define skill then?

Yeah, I think the skill for me is like whenever any of those other things are not the dominant thing. So if you're doing rope flow, it's not really speed, it's not really stamina, it's not restraint, it's not restretch. And it takes a lot of brain power if you're kicking a soccer ball around. If you're. And I like putting speed training, I like putting like sprint drills into skill as well. And if you're not good at them, then they definitely are skill and eventually they become speed or whatever.

But okay, so how about this? What would you say is skill is movement in context, meaning you can train. Let's just call it stamina, stretch, strength and speed. Out of any context, it's like the same. It's like a thing you do. But a skill requires engagement with something. What do you think about that?

Yeah.

Me. So that's why I was kind of thinking like, if you have a table, those first four speed, stamina, stretch, strength, those kind of are like the base. So the way I kind of presented is like, first you have the injury, which is like this sensation that like wakes you up. Like, oh, God, something happened. Then you go to rehab, which is just basically time to learn about your body. And you progress those movements of rehab into training. And you can go in and get in shape and work out and exercise blindly and work on these things. And there's resistance. And you can get, you know, you can get fast, you can get strong, you can get conditioned and you can get mobile, but you. You can have all those an. Layer skill. So, like, the skill to me seems to be the thing that you layer on. It's.

It's the.

If you think about a table, like, what's. What's required to have dinner? Well, you have to have four legs on the table. But just because you have four legs on the table, there's. That's. That, like, that's just the door in. But what requires skill is using the utensils or like chewing or buying or eating and engaging with the stuff on the table. And so, like, to me, it seems like skill would be the. The way you interface with the world once that table is set. Like, if somebody. Meaning I. I don't think it's. I personally wouldn't say it's fair to put speed. And speed is like, interesting because there is a skill component. The way we implement speed is almost always in a context. But you could blindly, like, Marinovic trains speed outside of any context. You know, you just get in the pool and you just smack. Right. Like, I think there's a bit of. That's why Marinovic looks so weird, because it's like. It's like a fish trying to breathe out of water. It's like, why would the fish. Well, it's the fish trying to breathe, but, like, you know, it's just in the wrong context. I think that's why it looks so weird. But ultimately it's the best way to train speed as a thing, as a macronutrient on its own. But you can't eat dinner if one of the legs of the table is missing. That kid, for example, he's 10. There's. You can't really train and have much if he can't. I don't know if you can play very, very small games, but it's like, that's almost like he's missing because you can bounce the table on two legs, you can balance table on three legs. But it's like, if you really want to train skill and put stress on skill, you have to have a full table. But it's like the table is only the intro to the door because then it's like can you use the utensils? Can you cut with a knife? Can you chew? Can you, like, can you reach and pick up and engage with all these things in an interactive manner? Because if you try to bite the drinking glass, you're not going to have much fun because that wasn't the steak. So I don't know. That's at least the way I've thought about it is like, the way you skill. Because then that leads to the next thing, which is, okay, once you have your foundation of like, four pillars of this, this table, then you return to sport. You don't return the sport like, you train skill as a way of interacting, like, meaning skill. This night, this Buckminster Fuller idea of procession, whereas learning happens in the background where or as children. Pierce talks about, like, you go through the motions of survival. The skill is the way you. Like I would. Skill is a mode of interaction. It's a. It's a relational interface where you use to interact with something. So, like, what does it mean to be skilled? Well, like, for example, do I have the skill of picking up this water bottle? It's like, well, there was the intention and then there was the action. The skill was my ability to connect intention with action. But that skill is like, not a thing. It's like the dao. It's like. It's like this thing that exists in the middle that is. That is there, but it's not something you can do. And so, like, how do you develop a skill? Well, you just intend and act. Intend and act. And this is. Rob Gray talks for perception. Action. Perception, action. And so, like, the skill is like the immersion thing. So it's almost like you can't train a skill. You can just do the action. And by doing the action, the skill is a subconscious expression of your ownership. And so that's the way I've been thinking about it. The reason my next step after fitness is return to sport is. And I spent weeks, weeks writing, rewriting and rewriting and trying to figure out. What I was trying to say is because sport is the training for skill. Because you can't train skill directly. You can just play sport. You can just do things. You can do things, and the skill is the emergent thing that comes from it. And so once you return to sport, you become a participant, which is realizing, like, I'm part of something bigger. Then you do. You play games and you start to set up. I want to learn the skill of dribbling a ball. Well, if my focus is on dribbling the ball, I'll Never get it. But if I'm learning the skill by like keeping the ball away from someone who wants to get it to me, then I learn the skill. And that's when you go games, competition to stress test those skills and practice, which is the routine. You train, play, compete, train, play, compete over and over and over again. And so like that's the skill develops as you set bigger and bigger goals and as you get feedback. You might need to go back to the fitness and work on, yeah, I need a little bit more speed or I need a little bit more strength and like that's fine to go back to that and build up the table. You know, at first you get a little T table and then you eventually go into those massive oak, you know, family of 10 tables. But like I think skill, I don't know. So I'm rambling. But does that. What do you. What has I said with you?

I like the skill work in isolation as well as you're saying you can go back and work on speed and whatnot in isolation. Like if you look at the baby, it's primarily about skills. You know, you're, you're seeing it happening and you're going to keep seeing it happening where they don't care about speed, stamina, strength or stretch. They just get up and work on skills, whatever the. Not meditating or sleeping and well, that's what I would say.

The skill that they're working on is very limited by. Immediately the skill is like, to move and to like, can I do this? But very quickly they're going to realize that like I need to work on things to level up the next skill. Like it's hard to differentiate these moving from like strength versus skill because they don't, they're minor, four months old. They don't have, they don't have any. They're not doing anything. Like they haven't used. They grasp, but it's not. The things that they grasp are reflexes. Like, it's just, they just grab, man, they grab the most ridiculous thing. You'll pick them up and they just like take, they take this with them. I'm gonna grab this. Or like they, there's no, there's no conscious effort. They're just like, it's so fast. It's almost like the skills are already there for them from a reflexive capacity. But it's like what they're working on is control of their body, which to me I find it is hard to differentiate from strength at their level. Like, I don't know, maybe it's maybe it's a semantic thing because I think we're knocking the same door. But I, I, I wonder, I guess here's my question is like, how would you train skills? Like, what does it mean to you to train skill in isolation?

Yeah, so I, I TR, like I've broken into balance, balls and beats. I had, I had five Bs and then I couldn't remember them all, so I changed it to three. Yeah, I love the, but yeah, the, the balance, balls and beats. So balance has simple sort of like linear foot balance of balancing on rails and things like that, that parkour athletes do anito portal and, and then, and just standing on one foot and that kind of thing. And then there's balancing on wheels, which is like on a Swiss ball or on a bike or on a skateboard or on a pipe. And then the, the third balance is like balancing on air, which is being able to refind your spatial awareness to land on a trampoline or do acrobatics or do handstands or so like this is the first B. And then there's balls, which is primarily with the hands and with the feet and then with striking, striking objects, striking balls. Whether you're not.

Your fourth one is buoyancy when you learn to walk on water. Like Jesus.

Yeah, exactly. And then, yeah, beats is that rhythm that you were talking about of. So there's like drumming and things like that in there, but also dancing, just normal kinds of dancing. And then there's sort of like martial arts footwork and yeah, all of these things can be developed in isolation and they do build better athletes. But then I'm kind of looking now for where the games come in and where the fun workouts come in. Like, if you're going to drive this thing to be like CrossFit, I kind of get how to do the strength stuff, but then like the skill needs to sort of like flow into.

So that's why I think, that's what I think it's like everything. You should balance beats and balls. Your focus isn't on the balance, it's on the speed of learning. Happens when you're focused on doing something else and it allows you to do the thing in the background. All of those are relational. For example, if you're trying to balance on a ball, the game is to stay on the ball. It's a small game, but like that's the game and the balance is the thing that allows you to do this. The balance is a means to an end. So it's, to me, it Seems like the thing you're training is to stay on the ball or stay on the beat or to, you know, stay on the beam. Like that's the thing you're trained, that, that's, that that is the intention you have. But balance is the thing that emerges. So like that's a 90 degree offshoot from it. And like that's where I would say is like, that's the, the game. It seems to me that what you're looking for is hiding in plain sight, which is the game is that you've already created the games. You just have to codify them and then give them a name like soccer or water polo or whatever. And it's like if you can find a handful and maybe, maybe the, the question for you is like, what are the nine game? What are the 10 games? Whatever, however you want to do. Like the, the nine. Nine has got alliteration. Once you understand they have that power. Alliteration, you were ready to write a book. The nine new athlete games, like for you, I would think it's like, what are the nine best games? And they may be soccer or rugby, it may be one of them. But like there are. And like create rules, right? Because the game needs rules and like create rules and you know, like an optimal game, like if you couldn't get your kids to play the game, they suck. Like that's, that's what you want to think. That's your litmus test. But it's like for you thinking like if I take, if I, if I were to look at a game that uses my balance, beats balls, buoyancy, ballistics, if I were to use those things and then like repackage them in different ways, you know, what would I call these games? And if you name them, then you can make a game that people can compete against because like all the, the best games you can compete with someone else. And I think that's, that's the. Maybe the interesting thing is like, how do you make it competitive? Maybe the question you're looking for, does that, does that strike for you?

I was just looking up, I found Wolfgang Schulhorn has endorsed a game that's like a mixture of basketball and soccer. I wanted to show, I feel like it's poignant to this conversation. Like it's half basketball. When you go on the other side, you have to kick it. They use this hybrid ball. So it's becoming like the, like a more differential, you know, so your athletes are able to do hands and feet effectively.

Yeah, probably with the footsall, like the I think that's where you get things to catch on is when you make spike ball or. Because, for example, that boy you're talking about, it's like the thing that takes him from like, oh, a fun little workout to like, him getting obsessed. That there's something about that that is inherited to human nature. And the way you win this game is to come up with the game. And if you think that there's. I think what you're looking at is, is a reflection of the fact that if an athlete can play soccer and get injured because of overuse or whatever it is, the game sucks. Like, it's, it's a. It's not the athlete's fault, it's the fault of the game. And I think that's where you would. If I may, if you're trying like the ultimate conceptualization, I think, of what you're getting out of the new athlete is it's, it's not the athlete, it's not the fault of the athlete. It's the fault of the games we play. And it's like if we. It doesn't. You can play different games, but like, the ultimate game would be something that the athlete doesn't get hurt from playing too much of. And I think that's the interesting question is like, is there a game that combines these things?

That's.

That's a worthy question because if you can come up and start to like, conceptualize that and then something emerges from that that I think is, Is self motivating.

Yeah, I think it's probably something a bit like CrossFit, you know, where you have multiple disciplines and they're combined in weird and wonderful ways of sequences, but potentially more team and elements as well, which.

Yeah, to me, it can't be numbers based on like. I think that's the, that's the downfall of CrossFit is the numbers. It's just like it's, it's. It turn. At the highest level. The games are very interesting. They're fascinating to watch what these guys can do because they have a big base of this stuff. But at the lower level, like, well, you have standards and then you just. It evolves into just chasing numbers and weights and it's like. Then it becomes an individual. The reason soccer is interesting is because there's no numbers. Like, yeah, you might count like goals, but like, you could do like, you could play soccer without having, without number. Knowing the numbers. Like, I could say every time you kick at the ball and there I give you an apple and like, oh, that's Cool.

Yeah. One end. One end's basketball, the other end's got two soccer goals.

Yeah, like, that's what I was getting at with this idea of like eating with my left hand. It's like there's a bunch of skills you play, and then all of a sudden context gives your movement meaning. It's like you don't know what you're doing until all of a sudden the context provides meaning to it. Because the question is like, why do I do this? What's the point? It's like, well, you don't know yet, but it's all like, you don't rise to the level of hopes. You follow your training. It's like we follow the level of your skills, your abilities. And it's like that I think is like, that's an interesting. Because maybe the question Keegan is like, how would you differentiate between the word capacity and ability? You know, it's like, is a capacity just a basic strength? Like, you know, strength, fitness or strength, speed, stretch, stamina. And then like is an ability when you layer skill on top of that, like for context. Because I mean, an ability probably needs context to matter. And I think that's the. To me is like, when you mention the word isolation, the, the hidden variable in there is that isolation from what? Well, isolation from context. And I think that's the biggest piece of like, like, what's the point? Is the hidden question. And can you actually do something in isolation? Or is like, can you remove something from context? Or are you just applying into a different context? I think that's what I spent a lot of this chapter five, this problem based movement, spending time thinking there's like, what is context? What is perception? What does it mean to actually have a problem or solve or move in relation to an ecosystem? Because those put sports are fun because they give you a context. Training is not because there is no context. Like, it's. The context is somewhat arbitrary. Even then. It's like the context is. There's still a context. The gym is a context. But the gym, the reason you go to the gym is because you don't think you're big enough or strong enough or fast enough. You think you're too fat, you got to lose five pounds, you want to get stronger. Or like, whatever it is. The gym, the context of the gym, every single, not every, the average gym, if you walked in, the majority of people are insecure, they're awkward, they're uncertain. They feel like even if they have beautiful bodies, they feel like they're not good enough. You Know, they feel like I, you know, they're always comparing themselves. And so can you have fun and play when you feel inadequacy? And that's an interest. That's the context of that. So, like, when you're playing a game, all that matters is you show up, you know, and if you have an optimal game that you can scale the rules, which is why CrossFit scaling does get fun, because the. You can play this game, too. We're going to lower the weights and do that kind of stuff. But to the extent that it's a, you know, I'm stronger than you, therefore I'll be able to pick up more weight, is not a fun game. Like, powerlifting is not a fun game because, you know, whatever. Like, when you roll jiu jitsu with someone who's, like, only going to use their strength and 10 times stronger, like, and you're not. You're not skilled enough to get past that when it's in an uneven match. In jiu jitsu is not fun. If you're stronger than me, but I'm more skilled than you, that's fun. Like, there has to be an equalization in this stuff. And that can't be. You can try to quantify it, but you can't quantify skill. And I think that's the hard part. So it's like, how do you improve your skill? You put it back in. I don't know. So there's something about the context there that is really important, which I think is inherent, but we don't pay attention to it.

Steven wants to jump in there on.

Yeah, yeah, I think, I think you can almost always, like, replace skill with coordination. Like, when you're talking about jiu jitsu, the guy who's more coordinated, his human body is more coordinated, is more skilled. Now it takes more time to learn that skill. Specifics. Like, you're saying it's specific to the different thing, but the guy who's more coordinated will pick up that skill faster. If you have more coordination each time you do a new skill, it's just easier. You can go in even to instruments. It's like, yeah, there's guys who, who know scales, but the guys who have a lot of skill are very coordinated between different patterns in their fingers to play the guitar. Same thing with drumming. And if you want to get super picky of, like, singing, they can coordinate their vocal cords better. Now.

A question for you. How do you define skill as separate from how would you define coordination and how would you define skill? So what would you Differentiate those two as words.

You can have coordination without specifics. Like, skill is specific versus coordination is general. A person who's well coordinated is going to pick up the sport specific skill a lot faster than someone else. So that's, that's. Does that answer or.

Well, but then that gets back to the question of like. Coordination may give you an inroad to skill faster, but it doesn't. Then it's like, okay, then what is. There seems to be like an X of like. Yeah, coordination. If you took skill and said, this is skill is like coordination plus, it's like, well, that still isn't skill. So like, I could be very coordinated. Never have done jiu jitsu before. And so like, that's what I guess is interesting is like even, even being able to play the scales doesn't make you a good musician. And there's like, the skill seems to be the plus P, which is like, I think coordination is a big part of the skill. Like, if you were to look at what you can train in isolation, it would be coordination, but like that plus thing. So how would you, how do you understand that? That plus like, does that make sense, what I'm getting at?

Yeah. And exactly what you said of like, the thing that you can train is the coordination. So in the gym, when you're like, why does juggling. Why. Why are so many professional athletes good at juggling? It's because they're coordinated. And what do they do to get even better? Like, I've been looking into it a lot. You can have like different athletes who can juggle. It's like McLaughlin, the US sprinter, she can like juggle and ride a unicycle at the same time. Um, and she says it coordinates her hands and her feet. But just being able to ride a unicycle and juggle isn't going to make you a good sprinter, but it gives you more coordination, which allows you to become more skillful in the sport. Specific specificality of that. Um, so I think skill becomes very specific, but it's still based around your coordination. So when you're looking at it from the gym perspective, it's. You're training the coordination. The skill becomes what the athlete has to do to transfer that to the competitive nature. Uh, yeah, I would say coordination is less like it. It's hard to measure coordination, but it's what you're training. Um, the skill is what you can measure against somebody else, like who can three ball juggle faster in 10 seconds. That's a skill thing. Now if somebody's More coordinated, they're going to pick that up a lot faster.

So I think that's the. So that that's what would, to me, would differentiate coordination from one of the other. Like the strength, speed, stamina, and stretch. Because, like, you can measure and quantify those, which is why, to me, they seem to fit in a different category of like, basic fitness foundation of let me develop these capacities, these capacities. But then coordination is like, you know, can you eat with chopsticks? Like, that's a coordination thing. And it's like the coordination is like how well you can coordinate your intention with your action. And that is like that to me, blended with skill in a way that is like, okay, maybe it's like the art and science dichotomy for. For example. So coordination would be like the science part, which is okay. If I look at the neuron, the synapses from my brain, that fire when I go down, I'm going to move my hand. Like, that's the coordination. You can measure it. But then there's the taste, there's the art, which is like knowing that this note, like, I can play all the notes, but that note doesn't go with this one. Or, you know, these colors don't mix or this movement doesn't flow. It's like the appropriateness. And I think there's. To me, it's like the coordination. I don't know, they fit in like the umbrella of skill. But the coordination and the context to me is the thing that goes back to. Which is like the specificity of the moment. And so, like, coordination plus context equals skill. And that, to me seems like that would be the optimal way to like, organize those two. But neither of the. Like, you can. You can. You can talk about coordination and say, like, this is the thing I'm doing. But it's like coordination outside of context is pointless. Like, I can do this. This is cool. But it's. There's. There is no point to it. Like, I think if the. If the thing is to do the thing, then it's like. I don't know. Like, that would, to me is like. So anyways, does that make sense like that? What would you think about the idea of a coordination plus context equals skill?

I would say that's accurate. Like, skill is coordination in context. So just rewording it in that sense. But when you look at somebody who can pick up skills really quick, most of the time they're extremely coordinated. They know where their body is in space, proprioception, interoception. And then you can get into those. But that's. I mean, it's, it's not. It's not measurable. But you can even look at the Olympic lifts. It's like, that's a skill base. Somebody who's very coordinated and strong typically can pick those up fairly quickly. As long as they do a little bit of training with it, it's still specific skill. Somebody's never done a snatch, and they're super coordinated in their sport. Like, this is personal experience. Like, I tried to do a snatch for the first time ever, like, two years ago, and I was like, this is the hardest thing in the world. Like, what the heck am I supposed to jump with a bar? Like, this is foreign. And now, like, I have not worked on it much and it's, it's not a. It's not a foreign thing anymore. Um, I don't have weightlifting shoes. I don't do it much. But like, we were snatching when I was in Montenegro and I was like, okay, like, yeah, the bar. The bar goes up as you jump, lands on the top. And it's fine.

For context here, Graham Steven's learned how to five ball juggle. He's learned a bunch of different tricking skills, backflips. And he's been taking on skills like, like very rapidly, especially the last couple of months. And he wrestled a blue belt in jiu jitsu pretty impressively here in Montenegro just last, like two weeks ago as well. Big Icelandic guy. I was a. It was a pretty interesting battle. But yeah, he's been going through this hardcore of like, got a trampoline, he just broken his collarbone, and then he was teaching himself how to do flips, like straight after breaking the collarbone and having it put back together.

Yeah.

So, yeah. What, what, like, having just been through all of that, like, how much are you experiencing this, Stephen, that. The coordination, like your foundational stuff. He's also a drummer and he also played all the sports as a young man. Plays pretty good soccer. Played a bunch.

He is the, the most athletic man. He's the. He's the guy.

He's the guy. Yeah. Yeah, he's. If CrossFit was for actual athletics, he'd be the man. But, like, at 22, he's got, like, a lot, a lot of stuff going on there. A lot of good stuff and a lot of. Lot of. Yeah, but how, how is the coordination? Yeah. So you're noticing a shift even with, like, what you've done in the last couple of months.

Yeah, like the acrobatics was completely foreign to me. In the last like two months. And just like I, I've been talking about the air awareness of it, but it's also unlocked new new strength stuff because I realized like I was missing. I was missing pieces of coordination because the strength wasn't there. And now it's been easy to pick up the skills of the. Easier to pick up different skills of the flips because the coordination came from realizing that the strength like I, I've taken it from the like, I don't know. You've seen some of the posts recently, but I, I've taken apart a lot of the acrobatic stuff and been like, okay, where do I not have any hip range or enough like spinal extension and things like that? How can I train that extensively in the gym taking it to strength. And then when I'm doing the movement I'm like my body just knows how to coordinate itself into the skill. Um, and even like I, I mess around with the differential learning stuff of. Imagine just thinking of the left glute while you're doing a flip or just thinking of the spine flexing like no other thoughts. I'm in changing that thought each time. And then the body figures out the coordination and all the skill. All of a sudden the skill's there. Um, yeah, so that's, that's kind of how I see it. And, and that's why when, when I look at different people too of okay, they're. They're highly skilled in this, but they're really uncoordinated. So I guess like I put in there really quick. It was like skills equal coordination. Not necessarily. But if you spend a ton of time working on one thing, you can become skillful at that. But the best athletes are skillful at a lot of different things, which means that they have coordination, not just sport specific skill. And then the music one is really interesting with that because it like you're not good at music unless you've done music. And that's what I, I sent you the rhythm like Eva. I was trying to take it apart of like how do I teach somebody rhythm without trying to teach them a year's worth of music theory and like teach them how to read all the notes and this and that and it's just coordination. But when you know how to coordinate your four limbs in different patterns, which you learn when you're playing drum set and then disassociation to association, like hit the same, like hit your left hand and your right foot at the same time. Then hit your right hand and your, your right foot at the same time and then go back and forth. Like, that messes up your brain. But then when you get into sports, the same thing is happening when you. You have to make different patterns. And then it's just. It just happens because it's. It's there because your body's coordinated. Like, it knows where each limb is and how to activate all the way through with each time. Does that. That kind of make sense?

Yeah. I think the hard part is that, like, we've tr. We've robbed Peter to pay Paul with the words. Meaning. It's like Keegan, I will call it skill. You call it coordination. And I think coordination is more. Is a better word because it has. It bears a certain skill, is very broad. And then coordination is a subset of that. Coordination has teeth that people are like, oh, yeah, I know what coordinate is. Like, I. You know, I can. I can do this. Like, that's great.

But what.

What I think is. And with the semantics on the top end are valuable because they help people kind of start to break apart. Like, okay, this is. Helps me visualize this. But there. There's always. You're going to get to this, like, asymptotic relationship of, like, I'm going to get close to the thing and it, like, what is that? And I think that's the humility. Even Olympic lifting is a great example of, like, to do lifting half a Lego of the bar, like you. Or you have to switch from extension to flexion. And even in that tiny little, like, gap, there's a relaxation that happens, and there's the coordination is the ability to have tension and relax. And that, to me, seems like there is a distinction between the mindset that can do that and the. The mindset that trains. Like, the mindset that trains is different than the mindset that plays. And I think that is the interesting dichotomy of, like, when you look at coordination, whether you look at skill, whether you look at games and playing, like, all of these things happen. But you can try to force feed somebody into, like, a quantum, meaning we think about the stuff because we're coaches and we're people that are. We want to learn and understand this. And there's. There's a level of that. But it's like, you can't teach a man that which his paycheck depends on understanding. And it's like, it's always impossible, impossible for us to understand that there's something you can't teach somebody they can only experience. Because our paychecks depend on somebody, on teaching people. And I think there's that, which is the piece that seems to be missing in the context of you can't teach somebody rhythm. They have to experience it. And you could try to back in this way to do it, but ultimately it's just give them a music and try to stay on beat. You have to give them something to relate to, that they're motivated to, that they have a model for, that they have connection with, that they have a movement for, and that they are, you know, have the willingness, the mindset to do. And that's. There's only so much you can break down a science before you just lose the thing. So I, I, the drumming is beautiful. That's one thing that, like, just even trying to get my left hand to beat on it's really hard. So I'm impressed. Meaning to encapsulate. I'm, I agree with everything you're saying. The, the question is like, how do we make this a. What. How do we understand this in a mechanism that isn't just changing the word from skill to coordination? Because coordination is something that's good, but if you can't measure it, can't quantify it, and don't know exactly how to, to like, put a finger on it, then it's like, it doesn't necessarily help move the needle forward in, in that sense. Does that make sense?

Yeah, completely. Completely. I'm, I'm trying to work on that currently. Um, I'm like, how do you, how do you, how do you. Can't, at least from what I see so far, is like, it's extremely difficult to measure coordination. Um, I think a lot of what FP is trying to do is teach coordination. Coordination of the body from the whole, whole aspect of it. Yeah, we have a weird way about doing it. Um, and you.

I think they try to teach coordination outside of context, and that's why I think it's looks, it's so weird and like, like the only. Have you ever done work with any of those guys?

Yeah, I had a, I had a session with him with, with Seb once, and he was like, moving me around. But most of the stuff, not that, like, it was foreign because I had never done it, but it picked it up super quick. It was like, okay, yeah, you got to touch your ribs. Like, I know how to do that. You just do this. Okay.

So you felt, you felt what it's like when they're like, do this. I focus on this. I go here, and it's like they're trying to like, micro, Create such micro movements. That you feel all the pieces in between. But it's like the person who could do functional patterns well doesn't need to do functional patterns, is that. That's the thing that they miss. It's like the person who can do functional patterns, it's like, could you just do this in a much more fun, less religious way where you go and say, hey, I'm going to throw the ball to you. You catch with your left hand and throw it back or play drums and just like, you know, whatever. Like all the, Everything you do, if you just had somebody do the things you do, which is, all right, I'm just going to put you in front of a drum set and make it like scale it down so you could just start with this very simple thing. Like, I just. It feels like there's a way that if you just gave someone the kind. Okay, let me say this way. I really like what you said. I think functional patterns is spot on. It's like, it's like Marinovic teaching speed outside of context. I think functional patterns trying to teach coordination outside of context. But it's like, what if you just gave somebody the context and then as a coach guided them into different contexts? Like, the only way you get a super specialized athlete is if, like, nobody's coaching them, nobody is. Like, like, people don't, they've missed the context. Like, you only get super specialized athletes if you get super unnatural context. And maybe our job as a coach is just to see what context someone's missing and introduce them to that. And what if that's enough? Maybe to your point, I think you also said it really well, is there's a. There's a strength component, you know, mobility. There are things you train. And so that's like, you go in, you're like, all right, let me go build this, build my horsepower a little bit more. And you might notice I worked with a kid over the summer. It's a 14 year old, 6 foot 3. He's like a giraffe. And he couldn't. He was just so awkward. It's like, we just gonna have to like, you know, do a push up because you have nothing. You're like a. But that was very quick. His body absorbed that. He got strong quick. But it's like, I think, I guess my, my interest question for you would be like, what do you think about just giving some of the context and then letting them play games to figure it out and then you guiding them to speed along that learning?

Yeah, I'm gonna answer real quick. I have a client that's starting up right now. Um, but the, the biggest thing, I think there's value in taking it out of context because the competitive nature of movement often takes us from worrying about what's actually happening with our body to being in a spot where we're just trying to win. So we, we take mechanical disadvantages to win because it's in a competitive nature. Does that make sense?

I don't think that's the problem though. I think the problem of the desire to win is you chosen the wrong game. So make, make winning. Change the context of what it means to win the game and you will change the outcome. Like to, to me, the competitive nature is the motivating force. That's you. I would never want to take that away from someone. I would just change the game.

Yeah, no, I, I, I, I agree with what you're saying. I'm gonna, I'm gonna start training. I would love to, to continue this. Um, we're, we're already starting late, so I got hopped on late, but thanks, man, it was great. And I do want to continue this. I don't know if there's another call you're going to get on, but figure it out.

Keep going with the conversation. We'll do a book launch thing for sure. Perfect.

Sounds good. I guess.

Keegs, what do you think about that idea of just giving some of the context? I can catch his name, but I really like his perspective. The coordination. He's starting to pick the coordination. Both context.

Like Stephen Cox. He's, he's down in near la. He's really, really man. Yeah. Great athlete. You should definitely catch up for a session at some point. When you're down that way, invite him up your way. He'll go up. But I think he's going to do really, really good things. Like what he's doing with, he works with a lot of older people and now he's taken on this acrobatics journey. And thinking about acrobatics and old people is a great blend for coming up with genius movement solutions and training systems.

Acrobatics and old people. That's, that's a great name.

I think it's an amazing niche and I saw it with the handstands. Like old people get excited. Of like, okay, four years from now you're going to be able to help me do a handstand. Like I'm all in where they get motivated for which is what you're talking about. Of like give a context, give a competitive thing and they'll, they'll work rather than. I remember one of the guys in. In Real Movement, they had a client come in, she was like 160 kilos. And all they spoke about was getting her to be able to a handstand. They didn't speak about fat loss. And she was so excited to work with them because they were the first coaches who ever spoke to her about a performance goal and getting her to do something she was excited to do rather than telling her to shut her mouth and walk on the treadmill, you know, which didn't appeal to her at all. But yeah, the whole context thing, it's there for sure. Making the game smaller, more isolated. Let me stop this making. Making the game more dense for the individual I think is really, really important and overlooked. I think when you talk about like, let's just figure out a way to do it within the game in, in terms of like thinking in the constraints led approach type thing or most. Most athletes and, and most like all of us, we've lacked density of exposure to skill, coordination, context, whatever you want to call it. Where almost every athlete can get exponentially better just by spending time with the wall and the thing they want to do or you know, different beats and the thing they want to do. And just if you look I, I love thinking about like breakdancing and parkour and tricking and how far they've gone through play and experimentation and it's like they've got, they go further and, and the best athletes always lead their own games further by reinventing new games and. And you almost need to play those games on your own to be able to take the whole team game. And I think Messi was doing that as a six year old and that's why he did what he did with basketball and Pistol Pete. You can see what he started doing from a six year old. And you know, they almost always invent. Stefan Holm invented other games around high jump that he played on his own. That made him help to make him the best high jumper ever. I think Jonathan Edwards was kind of doing it to an extent with a triple jump. There's a new guy in the, in the NBA. He's five, eight from Japan. To come out of Japan as a basketball player is tough as it is because it's not a possible nation. He's also extremely short and he's played minutes. He's dominating the G League and he plays a completely different game of basketball. Like it's not the game that all the tall guys play because he's not tall. He, he has to play this crazy passing game that looks like no one else in the league. And I wonder so much about how he developed that game. Like whether he could have developed it in team play to play such a different game or did he have to throw the ball against the wall in all these funky ways. If you watch him, maybe I'll pull it up as well. It's like, but yeah, like, LeBron played a different game. Practice coming out of the corner a lot, playing left hand. LeBron plays all five positions. You know, Jordan was putting as much effort into his golf and baseball as he was his basketball. It's like all the best athletes invent these other different games. Tiger woods took someone on in a driving competition and drove the ball off his knees after the other guy crushed it off the tee. He's like, oh yeah, good shot. And then he drove off his knees and out drove him. It's like, because he just, he always played those other games and he did it during high school and college and then he redefined golf. And it's like that, that's the thing where I think of it as skill and coordination, but you might think of it as inventing other context for learning.

I just wrote down that while you're talking, you throw another C. Words in there. Got it. Alliteration. Context plus coordination plus creativity plus competition. To me that's like if you want the most skilled athlete. It's like, sorry, what is it? What is a game? It's like a game pulls those four Cs out in some capacity and there's a. You start thinking it's like, okay, there's a specific context, there's a coordination, there's. And maybe coordination is just physical ability plus intention, physical capacity plus whatever. And then it's like. But there's a creativity to it. And I think the creativity and the competitiveness are things that you can't. I don't know, there's not. You, you just, you can't. You can't manufacture that. You can't coach desire, as they say.

What do you got? Context, Creativity.

I'm just saying with the Graham, he.

Seems like, like, so you seem pretty intention.

Intentional from the get go of. They're part of being intentional and then extracting out of people what the semiotics.

Were, but alongside the framework of what they're working through.

So is this like a thing that you're trying to puzzle a piece together with your book and that's why it's really on your radar or what's really.

Brought it into fruition for you?

Probably that I'd say the book is kind of an expression of, like, meaning there's something about. Which is, like, probably finishing a minute and just talking with my nerd friends. Sorry, Mom. The. The book is, like. It really forces you to, like, if you. If I said I want you to write a book, and it's like, all right. About what? Whatever you think. Okay. Like, what. What's important to. For people to know. But it's, like, really trying to get specific in terms of, like, how do you articulate this to somebody like that?