Thoughts on Brian Mackenzie podcast with Chris and James

This week in thoughts on we are talking Process Or The process as we hear it.

These two words conceal a world of reflection and adaptation in our approach to achieving our goals. In terms of application sport is a great analogy for many of us. The often short-sighted approach to sport is to focus on the outcome exclusively. Winning. Yet this approach will challenge us if chased without respect for how to get there and that is the process. The physical, mental and spiritual approach to realising potential which for a growing number of athletes and movers we speak to is the holy grail by which they measure their performance and progress.

We catch up with Caroline Burckle, swimmer and Olympic medallist in the Beijing 2008 olympics. Olympic medal winning is from the outside the pinnacle and job done for an athlete but as we hear from Caro the way we approach is the key. These conceptual frameworks can often be challenging to grasp, requiring consistent sincere practice to integrate them in our daily lives but when they are there, as with anything practiced in this way they become stronger and stronger.

You can follow Caro @caroburckle and her company Rise @riseathletes an athlete mentoring program connecting the new generation with seasoned pros who guide them forward.

This week we share our conversation with Brian Mackenzie.
Brian is part of a select group of coaches who were involved in the early days of Crossfit and beyond. Brian has dabbled in ultra endurance events and worked with his a wife Erin Cafaro MacKenzie a two time Olympic Gold Medalist in Rowing on preparing for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.More recently he has become heavily involved in the importance of breathing for performance and as a byproduct health. He is working with some of the worlds leading athletes whilst researching and developing protocols to harness the benefits of breathing for boosting performance.
What strikes a chord with Chris and I are the philosophical nature of Brian and others in his position. I am not sure if developing an understanding of the mechanics of breathing and its benefits creates this or simply a matter of time in the game. Most likely both.
Having worked with some of the worlds best to achieve the impossible, Brian has a unique view of the world and takes this approach to his research and coaching.
His interest lies in the principles of performance rather than the dogma of a specific practice, his goal is to understand just what this being (our bodies) are capable of and breathing is a direct measure of this.
As we witness a boom in the number of breathing coaches around the world, it interests us that there are many different methods which people align themselves to and often as is the case with most things, believe their way is the best way. Yet there is no right way, other than following your own path combined with an understanding of the principles and this goes for breath.
When we understand the principles, are open to learn and able to learn and in the same breath unlearn our old ideas, that is freedom and that freedom unlocks our potential. As always this life is a process, and you have to have skin in the game to make the progress you know you can make.
There are some gems in this one, so have your notebooks ready and enjoy.
You can follow Brian @_brianmackenzie and his program @powerspeedendurance

Hey there and welcome to Thoughts On, the short form weMove podcast where we expand on themes from our weekly podcast topic. This time reflecting on our conversation with Lindsey Mathews the founder of BIrthfit here we talke about the Complete Human experience that is birth, how we can support mothers to give birth and transition forward with this next level of strength that women have. 

To get another perspective we asked Sophie Whippy who is experiencing the motherhood transition from all angles as co founder of Londons Stretch Yoga studios, a doula herself and mum to two great young dudes on her experience as a mum, a yoga teacher and a doula. 

There is so much we as a culture have to learn in many areas and certainly as a guy and now a father, I want to understand more about the motherhood transition to share via this platform and increase the conversation amongst women and men about how to celebrate the strength of the human body. 

You can follow sophie on instagram @sophiewhippy and @stretch_london

Thoughts on the Lindsey Matthews podcast with Chris and James

Hey there, welcome to the weMove podcast.

Something a little different but related to the year that we, well I had. This one is about the power of birth, the epic adventure it is and was very timely as I became a dad a 6 weeks before hand. 

Watching my partner give birth to our boy, the lead up to it, the act of it and the post birth or post partum has taken me on a wild ride and that’s just my experience, let alone that of my partner. Truly amazing and as life unfolds we are discovering many practices and people creating support networks for the act of birth and beyond and that leads us today. 

We are in conversation with Lindsey Matthews a doctor of chiropractic, birth doula, NLP practitioner, and strength and conditioning coach and founder of Birthfit. The brainchild of Lindse,y Birthfit is an eco system of all things birth prep and beyond termed by Lindsey and the team as the motherhood transition.

Birthfit is a movement, an approach to birth, a state of readiness and a support team with a mission to cultivate awareness and enhance education throughout the motherhood transition by developing and producing experiences through in person classes, and distance learning so that a woman has the space to make her own informed, intuitively guided choices.

Having been present at the birth of my son and earlier the death of my father, the way we talk about the start and end of our lives is not talked about enough, not in a morbid or icky kind of way. But instead an informed celebration of these two phases of our lives which have profound echoes beyond for the family unit. 

Chris and I are sold on the power of Birthfit having met Lindsey and some of her team who are all powerhouses in their own right and just brilliant people doing super important work. I love this conversation, its different to the last few weeks and at the same time another dot on the journey to a complete human experience.

Follow birthfit at birthfit.com and @birthfit on insta. If you know of any mums and dads to be, this might be useful. Enjoy.

Today in our thoughts on series we pick up on the concept of reflection spoken about in our time with Ron Kauk and a strong theme amongst all those we are meeting. Taking time to look at your past, present and future honestly and without judgement. The latter part being a real challenge as we, that is movers tend to be quite alpha in personality and want to constantly make progress. 

The purpose of reflection is to turn around, look how far we have come and take that forward. So we speak to an ascendant movement specialist Wil Brown. First spotted him on insta as I was working out handstands and things and he was heading to Australia to explore movement culture. Its been great to hang out a few time with Wil, incredibly accomplished already in his early twenties and yet super humble with an enormous appetite to learn. 

NO surprise and also quite surprising for his age, he uses the process of reflection during his coaching sessions and for his personal development to integrate the thoughts and emotions with the physical practice.

You can follow Wil on instagram @wbrown7

Today in our thoughts on we speak to Lindsey Mathews the founder of Birthfit, doctor of chiropractic, doula, NLP practitioner and S&C coach on how she uses reflection to move her ideas and process forward.

We will be speaking to Lindsey next week in our main podcast, and thought it the right time to ask her about her daily reflection process that she posts as her Coffee Talk series on her instagram stories daily. Posing questions and thoughts for others to reflect on to support them in their process.

You can follow Lindsey on instagram @lindsey_k_mathews

Thoughts on the Ron Kauk Podcast with Chris and James

Today we are with the Yosemite climber Ron Kauk. Ron pushed the limits of climbing in Yosemite during the ascendance of the sport and paved the way to some extent of what we see now inspiring climbers of our generation Tommy Caldwell, Alex Honnold to create the next level of what is possible on the soaring granite walls of Yosemite and the wider world.

 Chris and I met Ron 3 years ago by chance. He was giving a talk in Yosemite on the few days we were there and as we sat there listening to his ideas of nature, how it has changed and what climbing has taught him about how to be a complete human we turned to each other and said we have got to spend a bit more time with Ron. WE hung out with him and featured him in Issue 1 alongside the lessons from Yosemite which we learned in our 3 day trip.

Well that was 3 years ago and on our again impromptu stop of in Yosemite we sent him a text to see if he was around for a coffee. He was and we spent the rest of the day talking from daylight to darkness and wished we had recorded it!

There is a shared connection when we talk to Ron, climbing brought us together but it is how he sees the world as a result of climbing, what he has experienced in terms of highs and lows that we hold space for because it is an opportunity to learn and share wisdom from someone who has been up to the top, seen the view, come down and then asked himself what the next step is. For Ron it became a journey of giving back through Sacred Rok the educational program sharing his experience with the younger generations to connect with their inner wisdom. Serving others and giving back being a practice we hear regularly from the people we sit with.

The big takeaway for me is the importance of rites of passage, how we have to pay our dues, work through the levels and the instability that is often a result of hacking our way through the process, becoming our best takes time and practice and the more you practice with purpose the more progress will be made.  Culture, instagram, the media pushes the idea of always being the best and yet rarely talks about what it takes to get there and the stages that the idols pass through in order to achieve their status.

There are so many parallels with the conversations we have had with Jamie Wheal, Tony Molina and Arthur Joseph, Brian Mackenzie and beyond that strengthens the case for the essential principles of being a complete human, mainly that there are steps to take and if you skip the steps you will most likely have to return to take them so best to be fearless and take them as they come.

Enjoy the conversation with Ron, let us know your thoughts and it would be great if you follow us on our youtube channel weMove world and our instagram page @wemovemagazine.