weMove Podcast

Thoughts on Sal Masekela Podcast with Chris and James

Community is a big thing, it brings connections and more importantly it is the glue that binds the people together to create something truly special. We talk about Deuce Gym a lot, but it is a place where people are drawn together to share, learn, and experience fitness and the power of community.

It was through Deuce that we met todays guest on the podcast. Sal Masakela. Sal is one of the pioneers in connecting the wider world to the world of action sports through Transworld sport and later the X Games. 

He sums up the power of training to create a way of living and how he is training for life when he moves and we chat about dealing with life changing and inevitable episodes in our lives that lead us to reassessing how we have been in order to become who we are.

There are many parallels in this podcast with others we’ve recorded with  who have experienced the deep connection with movement, transformation and seeking a truth in being themselves.

Welcome to another episode from our Thoughts on series. For those of you who have listened to The Rewire Project episode you might remember that Tony talks about the way to create adaptation in the body in physical, and other ways is to directly stimulate the brain, hence the name Rewire Project. 

Now this doesn’t require a bunch of electrodes into the brain and some Cold War era experiment and that leads us to this episode, way back before weMove became what it is I was introduced to a couple of osteopaths who started to switch me on to working with the body in order to optimise its function. One of the two osteos was and is Troy Bradley, who based in Brighton has worked worked with top flights sports people to give them boosts in performance that almost seem like magic. The sessions I had I experienced the effects of visual acuity practices and restoring connection in the body to our sensory input of hands, feet, eyes and skin. My balance improved, my imbalances and slight twists in the body caused by years of neglect whilst running, climbing and just generally pushing through rather than listening to my body and what it was telling me.

I caught up with Troy at his practice in Brighton and we had a conversation about a few of the topics Chris and I had with Tony in LA the centre of which were that the input we give our brains determines the quality of the output in movement, thought and all areas of our lives. And in turn by improving the quality of the input we can improve our output of all of these.

The sound quality of my voice is a little distant as we only had one mic and it turned into more of a conversation, however the ideas and thoughts Troy gave were too rich to hold back, so you might have to listen a bit closer for my voice but the gold is with Troy.

Thoughts on Jeremy Brook podcast with Chris and James

This week in our Thoughts on podcast we get the low down on the increasingly popular breathwork modality. From the Wim Hof method, BUteyko, Inspirational breathing, pranayama there are many techniques and coaches popping up all over. But what does each one do, are they different and what do you look for when going to a breathwork teacher, a class or wanting to chose the right one for you?

We have been fortunate enough to speak to many breath expert, coaches and teachers and following from @_brianmackenzie podcast “Breath is Life” we contacted our good friend @iamleodaniel the Irish health and breathwork coach who has more experience with using breath to heal debilitating conditions than most and well connected with Brian, Wim etc.

Leo takes us through the differences of the breathing techniques, what to look for to get the most from your experience and also the rarely talked about effects of breathwork which can range from boosting performance to releasing deep held trauma within the body. 

We are all breathing, yet no one has told us how to breath efficiently and get the most out of what we are born with to optimise ourselves every day. We recommend listening to this if you are interested in starting a breathwork practice, boosting performance or wanting to boost your immune system.

This weeks episode is with Jeremy Brook, aka SpineChecker. We are talking health, but not in the way of what to eat to be healthy.

Health is the underlying reason why we move these days, it isn’t so much to escape predators and yet so many people walk around in a sub optimal state of health, hovering just north of being ok with no obvious illness, condition or worse.

Health comes down to a personal philosophy and paradigm. Are you pro active or reactive in your approach to health? Most people are ok with being one step above zero. Our bodies as we are learning more and more tell us exactly what we need to know about how we are running.

Whether we listen, want to listen or take the time to check in with ourselves is another matter. Today we catch up with Jeremy Brook who me met in the tight knit community that is Deuce Gym in LA. 

He goes by the moniker on instagram as Spinechecker and yes he looks after not just the spine but the entire body as a forward thinking chiropractor. And following in the path of the conversations we have had with Tony Molina of the Rewire Project, Lindsey Mathews at Birthfit, there is more to the body than just what we see.

Jeremy sees the body as an interconnected network, where the muscles in our body between 6-800 depending on our make up can be considered 1, whilst our skeletal system floats amongst these and fascia weaves its way through everything. Understanding that the body is a whole changes the way health is approached, nothing is in isolation and everything is connected.

There are many more health wizards we want to speak with to continue the connection of dots for us all to become inquisitive and really get the most out of what we are born with. As Jeremy says we are 100% potential it just needs to be activated.

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