A boxed life

Andrea’s routine: it’s 07.00. Puts off the alarm with a sloppy arm. Time to wake up. She carries herself to the toilet with half-closed eyes before looking at her phone: 30 minutes of passive staring at things she doesn’t really care about before the mechanism of choice triggers in her.

It’s 07.30 when she stands up from the toilet placing her free arm on her legs, dead, out of the long immobility. She drinks a coffee and brushes her teeth before getting out of the apartment.

After having boringly walked her heavy body towards the elevator, she repeated the same number of grey steps to reach her car. She drove to work, hoping that the hands of her clock will move faster than yesterday.
For lunch: same place every day, eating something that she knows it’s unhealthy, but she’ll fix it next week. Then, back to work until 5 pm.

Finally free? …mmmh…No.

It’s Tuesday, one of the two days in which she has the opportunity to go to the gym. Damn. Well, it is what it is, let’s do this other fatigue, she thinks, anyway my life is fatigue and suffering.

She briefly touches the soil of her house to take everything she needs to go to the gym. Once Andrea gets there she changes into the newest Naiky sporting wear and proceeds into the main hall just saying a brief hello to the bored guy at the reception. She picks her schedule and jumps on top of the treadmill. Damn, 20 minutes of running, and she is not even seeing too much progress, well, she’ll think about this next week, now she is definitely too stressed to take care of it. Fortunately, on the big screens, there’s the newest episode of Fell Chicken. Thanks Gordolo RamSemen for that, now this will make a big difference.

She gets off the roulading apparatus, she pulls and pushes a couple of machines, feels a bit of pump in the glutes and she is off. After a quick shower she is wondering what to do, so she remembers of Alina’s invitation to drink something in the center of the city. Why not, she goes and drinks a couple of Mojitos to then smoke a cigarette with friends. I mean she doesn’t really like it, but what else can she do, everyone around her does it – poor girl.

Done so, she goes back home, has a quick takeaway dinner to then watch a movie. It’s 01.30 when she enters her bed. Damn it’s late. It’s not before the clock touches the 02.00 than her eyes shut.

Well, what was the point of this?

Andrea has a really bad disease; she has what I call a “boxed life”. In pills, a life that became completely detached from development and discovery; a life in which you know exactly what tomorrow will bring. The routine that she has built up during the years is so strong that she can easily act like a robot and let her shallow-self live it for her.
She doesn’t need to solve many problems as they are already being solved by the strategy she laid out for herself:

– Her job? Her boss will take care of it, she only needs to keep her head down and do exactly what is commanded.
– Her interests? The TV will take care of it.
– Her scope? Her parents said she must become a secretary and that is what happened.
– Her friends? They keep changing, they are the ones that come and go from place to place.

The same goes with her body development. Her trainer will take care of it. Right?

I deeply disagree with this behavior, and I believe this is the root of a profound long-term depression.

It could be worst for sure, she could also have a boyfriend/girlfriend she doesn’t want to stay with. Fortunately, she did not get to that stage, YET.

Responsibility is out of the door, she doesn’t live her own life. Successes and failures are on someone else’s head. The level of risks she takes is critically low, and the chaos and unknown she faces are non-existent.

She is a spectator, not a participant for her OWN life.

Her capacity to then act, when needed, disappears like a bubble of soap. She becomes a serial procrastinator that will only wake up when dead or other serious events will eventually wake her up from the life-coma.

Where is the adventure? Where is the exploration? Where is play? It is lost, into childhood memories and slowly fading at an increasingly fast rate.

*

Your body: a shell to abuse or a creature to use? The obstacles to engaging in a mature physical practice.

Imagine a world where people go out buildering the city, balance on rails on the way back from work, living an active life. A world where people would stay curious and ready to face authentic experiences. What an incredible place to be. Everyone would act with purpose, engaging in all sort of physical activities, rather than living a grey polluted life, both for the environment and for the body.

When taking care of a physical practice, there is a difference when using the body as a passive instrument or as a tool that can reshape us.

But what are the obstacles to engagement than? Let’s see some.

– Conformism: doing what others do, without critical thinking, questions or doubts. Why the car rather than the bike? Why a teacher rather than another? Why a supermarket rather than the farmer? Why a fitness approach rather than a movement perspective? Why the local gym rather than one that is 50 km away?
The most informed and better choices never come easy, but the effect that they can have on anyone’s life is just huge.

– Laziness: as lack of decision making, the perception of not being able to do things. The procrastination. The fluctuation into a comfortable state of existence. Why are you doing nothing? Do you have a solid justification for your everyday otium?

– Local life: as lack of travels and exploration of new places, stimuli, macro-organisms, and communities. Why are you staying in the same place all your life? Do you know what is out there?

– De-responsibilization: The act of giving justification for what we do to someone else. Who is responsible for what you do? Why do you act as you act? Do you feel like you chose to be where you are or someone else (or something else) made the choice for you?

– Detachment: Living a plain existence, completely far from the physicality. The development of a body of any kind. A life that is lacking voluntary risks taking and personal development. How many times do you expose yourself to your weaknesses and fears?

– Poor Visualization: In terms of perceived options. how do we use what we have? How many things are available already?

And so on; the list is still partial.

Certainly, being aware of them it is already a starting point, but it is not enough. How can we move from there into creating actual solutions to these problems that can filter inside us and be understood? Next week I’ll post some antidotes to these venoms.

Stay on board and hold on tight – we are getting into the storm,
Marcello.

Balancing: Corollaries of the manifesto

Ascent:

If you know me, you know I have a thing towards nice gadgets. I totally love them, and I do not plan to hide it. I do not cover myself up like a late baroque fetishist, but I use some.

They help me keep in my daily life in order, they save some time and they make my hours lighter.

I use a small chalk bag to carry everything I might need with me, I have a basic pair of shoes that can serve me in any situation, I wear comfortable clothes that often can be used both to train and to casually exist into different situations. When traveling I have a satellite bag that can come out of my backpack in case I need to drop the bigger luggage somewhere. When training I do not look for water, I have a big bag of many liters in capacity to become a camel myself.

Now the core of the matter. All these elements came out of the necessities I have encountered along the way, not the other way around. Therefore, this is a bottom-up approach, the practical theorists’ one.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have people like the preppers. They prepare for things that they have not lived. They think they are going to need certain things and they build from there. They do not actually know the specific needs that every situation will ask for, because they have no actual experience of them. The second approach is the top-down approach, that starts from an idea and from there it creates a practice.

Between the two ways of living my life, I prefer the first one, especially for the most relevant things that I do. I am a believer in field testing and from there investigation and development.
And I have had many confirmations of this in my life by many high level (in commitment, experience, and understanding) practitioners.

Now transfer this concept into a practice of balance. One can either go out and start to look around into space and from there create something out of practice or start thinking: what can I create in order to balance on it? And from there the Bosu and all the dark companies.

Ascending from an element up, descending from a concept down. Very different processes.

Availability:

On those busy evenings, one hilarious thing happens in many cities around the world. The treadmill runners are released. As if they were possessed by the Adédjé spirit or bitten by la Tarantula Siciliana, people of all ages suddenly fill the gyms. Usually, this comes with the realization that they need to take care of their bodies. Hence, they start a race against their lipids. You can see them all from the crystal-clear façade of big buildings running in a line and in a frustrating loop leading them nowhere. The valorous alleys are the unmissable perfect ultimate model cushioned shoes, the fancy gloves, the perfect matching outfit and last but not least the headbands against sweating.

What happens if all the elements are not in place? I.e. the treadmills are full, the gym is closed, the clothes are yet to be washed, the shoes are broken etc. – The only solution is “I’ll do it tomorrow”. Let me tell you, this sentence is already the root of the very end of your physical development.

“Cuttlefish bones” was writing E. Montale in regard to his poetry. It was a hymn to minimalism, an invitation to strip it down to the bone.

Did you want to go for a run? Go run. Nothing more, nothing less. Before thinking about it, get out, so it with what you have, it will be more than enough.

From here my view of using what is there, to never have the problem of not having something. A million of excuses are out of the windows and it all comes down to personal accountability.
You do not want to go out practicing on a floor? It’s on you. The soil will always be there, waiting for your soft body to interact with it.

On the other hand, a slackliner that is traveling and doesn’t have a slackline will sit on the sofa forgetting to be a practitioner. A skater without a skate becomes a hero without the costume. A juggler without …well you know where this is going.

Wherever I have been in the world, I scouted a bit and I found bars, I found walls, I found floors.

Applicability:

So, let’s start from this question. What is the purpose of your practice?

Let’s create a fictional character for this: Johanna.

Now imagine J. wants to train her balance. However, she’s a thoughtful creature so she doesn’t rush onto the Bosu without any research. She wants to get some evidence-based perspectives, so she goes through the literature.

After some hours of research and many disappointing findings later, Hoppa: a beautiful systematic review pops out. Damn, she rushes into it “…A total of 2395 articles were evaluated, yet only 50 studies met the inclusion criteria” wow, that’s kinda bad but still a lot of articles to draw conclusion from, she continues excited “The main aim of this review was to identify a training protocol based on most commonly used interventions that led to improvements in balance”.

Good she goes through the methods for inclusion into the study, she reads the influences of different balance practices for different sports, she goes through the exercises used.
The findings suggest that “8 weeks, with a frequency of two training sessions per week, and a single training session of 45 min” appears to be the minimum requirement of time to produce substantial changes in a body in terms of both static and dynamic balance acquisition.

Everything is absolutely rocking.

Until the very bitter moment in the end: “…it may be very difficult to establish one model of training that would be appropriate for each sports discipline, including its characteristics and demands […] No gold standard is apparent in this field”.

And suddenly she realizes, balance, likewise many other abilities, is specific. Also, she figured out by looking at the studies that almost exercise if applied correctly will produce a positive outcome in the exercise itself and with some near transfer to similar activities both in the scenario and in the skill.

But the question is yet to be answered: What is the purpose of your practice?

She is a bit confused now. A lot of methods work, which one should she use?

Please, Johanna, step aside, I’ll take it with my two cents.

Personally, I want to be able to apply my learnings to open as many possibilities as possible in future practices.

Training like this you will be able to do something that you couldn’t do before and then apply it in an open scenario. You will suddenly have developed some skills to take out of your deck of cards at any moment when exploring an area everywhere in the world.

Put it like this: the mean of practice becomes the tool, and the tool supports the mean.

(If not clear, re-read the last paragraph a couple of times).

Now some last words from a practitioner to the real practitioners out there.

I am going deeper and deeper down this road, but not because I did not experiment with others.

My philosophy comes from reflections that have started on the field, not the other way around. And slowly I have refined them to arrive at these conclusions. I have experimented with many but stayed with this one because I found it convenient, empowering, liberating.

This is my view, your honor,
Marcello.

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A balancing manifesto

Why would people choose to use a Bosu ball to work on balance?

It’s a real question, not a rhetorical one.

The answer (when is a good one) that I often get is:

“To develop leg stability and work the intrinsic musculature of my foot”

Well, to me this answer is wrong. Not because it is a bad answer in general, it might even be correct from a very pragmatic point of view but because it doesn’t address the core of the matter.

More specifically this question is asking the reason to pick an exercise (over another). Therefore, it is primarily a philosophical one.

One could then reformulate the answer and say:

A. “Because I like the portability of the object, in my view the capacity to bring the gear with me at all times it is more relevant the gear itself. Minimalism is my way of life. ”

To which I answer: A million other things are portable. Why specifically this one and not another basic proprioceptive board or another object?

B. “Because it’s versatile, I can use it with different populations, for different reasons”

To which I answer: Versatility is a state of mind, you can be versatile by balancing on a bumper plate, or on a line. An object in itself doesn’t possess connotations of any sort.

C. “Because it’s cheap” – ah, no wait, nobody says this because it’s NOT.

D. “Because the experts told me…”

To which I answer: who is this expert’s opinion? Does that person have a philosophy you comprehend and share? Does that person have any economic advantage in proposing that methodology? Did that person offer other options for you to choose from?

E. “Because they are highly available”

To which I shortly answer: Well, I do not like that answer, because it is false. It is definitely not the most available thing out there.

…but this availability is an interesting factor, isn’t it? Well, we’ll get back to it in a second.

Look let me tell you, no answer that has ever been given to me regarding this blue ball convinced me completely. Not even at 40%. Bosu is an instrument invented to make money, from people who do not practice balance for people who do not practice balance, in any form. It is a twisted conjecture of modern fitness. Period.

Similarly to the Bosu, an infinite number of gym ornaments are being produced with no specific purpose but that of making money by selling them. Cool, now that we are orbiting around the same planet, let’s move on.

Back with the availability view; I asked myself, what do people have available at most times, everywhere, with minimal effort to look for and that:

– can be found everywhere, in any city in the world, with minimal scouting.
– can be built with basic and simple material if needed.
– can be durable yet cheap.
– can produce a real scenario for development.
– can be versatile to produce as many options as possible.

And from here the view: bars, railings, poles, rails, lines, edges, gates, spikes.
These are the elements I train my balance on. When it comes to the root of a practice, awareness, and clarity is needed.

All the material in terms of progressions, regressions, set/reps and methodologies to increase balance via this philosophy will be delivered in details to my live and online students. However, if you follow my socials you’ll pick up a thing or two.

Bottom line: forget about the newest fitness tool you’re seeing on TV and use the ever-present ones. Stop thinking about making your body stronger and make it more intelligent instead. Throw away those Bosu balls people, stand on bars.
Not to mention, I just saved you over 150 €.

You’re welcome,
M.

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I see people every day boringly walking the roads or navigating into traffic, totally ignoring all the scenarios surrounding them. Leaving to die infinite possibilities for one’s development.

Environmental Practices: What is this about?

“We open our eyes, see the beauty of the day, marvel at the insignificant, rejoice in the mundane, and allow every moment to be full of meaning. When we are scared we know we exist. Life, previously taken for granted, becomes the most cherished treasure”.

The Bodivoodoo, on a crusade against a modern overprotectist society. (1)

With “Environmental Practices” I refer to all movement practices developed in a relationship with space, whether that’s in a city or in a natural setting. We live in a space, whether we want it or not. We can choose to ignore it, or we can use it to grow. 

Buildering walls, traversing pipes, walking pavements, rolling on floors, flowing on concrete blocks, brachiating on trees, standing on high poles, biking through traffic, balancing on rails and chains, squeezing through fences and so on are all scenarios of the interaction.

In order to do that it is essential to extrapolate a new meaning to the surroundings, removing labels and social conditioning. Things are just as they are: we can deconstruct their reason to be and then, we can add a new meaning to their existence.

“You must walk around rails rather than on them”.

Fixed descriptors of reality are used to build stability in society, however, stability kills challenge and if you kill challenge, good luck with that, it will be like killing the ultimate essence of being human. Get back to tabula rasa.

The reality, if faceless, becomes plastic, allowing creation and dynamicity rather than passivity and dogma.

The façade of a supermarket becomes a climbing gym, the cramped roads full of traffic become the pulsating veins of a macro-organism.
Pipes carrying gas and water on the side of hotels are a web to sit to watch the life silently passing by; the manholes to the sewers are portals to another dimension full of mysteries underneath the cities.

In my research, I have extrapolated elements coming from different fields to then connect them together, with the aim of maintaining the same alchemy of old disciplines, projected into their contemporary shape.

Motives to dive into the environment:

Many people (in extremely recent and documented history) realized the power of interacting with the city.

The main drivers that started these actions have been many through time. Since I have no intention to bore you, oh modern reader, I’ll go through some, just to get my point across.

In Parkour/ADD the Yamakasi at the end of the 80’ were using suburban complexes as a place for discovery, self-expression and search for personal identity (2). They realized that games, challenges, and problems to solve within a given space, could lead to their inner development. Thus, helping to build antifragile bodies and unbreakable minds. In pills, it gave them the motive to wake up every day to face the reality, creating a system of values to help them face life.

In the same period, Don Jean Habrey, founder of Combat Vital was looking for an un-domestication of modernity (3). He was convinced that an open mind towards experiments with the surroundings, refusing comfort and routines will lead to a deeper and more meaningful and aware existence. Adventuring in an “alive” city is a starting point and it constitutes an infinite source of energy.

Bradley Garret in his book’s “Explore Everything” (mixing words from the Situationist International leader Guy Debord and Peter, an explorer), gave one of the best definitions I have heard regarding Urban Exploration (4).

“It is at the same time a subversive response to the late capitalism that encourages spectatorship over participation and just a bit of fucking with people’s heads to help them understand how much they are missing every day”. 

This silent revolution has started many years ago and it’s not going to stop. Digging to find more information, I realized it was everywhere: from the Cave Clan in Australia (1986) to the Diggers of the Underground Planet in Russia (1990). In the USA, from the LTV squad in Brooklyn, NYC (1989) to the San Francisco Suicide Club (1977). In Europe, from the Berlin Underground Association in Germany to the Urban Experiment in Paris. And the list goes on and on, but I will touch upon it in a future article.

Why were they doing it? Well, reading through their manifesto one thing appears clear: because the environment is THERE. And the option to go figure out that space, simply exists. And yes, that is enough to make people take the chance to explore.

What to expect

I am going to release every week a piece both of a story and a practical session that can be added to all these practices in order to understand them and open the eyes towards a more creative use of the environment. We will explore risk and responsibility, tools for experimentation and an introduction to many practical methods for development.

Urban Adventure, Urban Exploration, Elevator surfing, Drifting, Urban Bike riding, Infiltration, Buildering, are just some among the long list.

Facing the deepest fears, exploring the darkest alleys, climbing without a way down, balancing in a world of almosts, ultimately becomes a venture into our own selves.

Get ready and see you next week,
Marcello.

References:

1. It’s a secret.

2. Angels, J. (2016). Breaking the Jump (1st ed.). London: Aurum Press.

3. Habrey, D. (1986). Combat Vital (1st ed.). Paris: Robert Laffont.

4. Garrett, B. (2014). Explore everything (1st ed.). London: Verso.

*Pic By Andy Day in a photoshoot for ParkourWave

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Let me picture the situation for you. I am in my room at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London. The new moon is completely covered by the clouds, the sky is dark, not a single star around.
The silence is almost absolute and palpable. I can hear the sound of my heart pumping synchronizing with my breath.

No wind.

Flat? No. There is so much energy, it gives me goosebumps. A deep quiet before the storm.

Such situation triggers a primal instinct of awareness, readiness, and sharpness of thought.

It feels as if the Universe itself was hitting a “dead center” (and this is one of the stronger that I have ever felt in my life).

A “Dead center” is not dead; no pull in any direction is felt because at the middle point pulls from all directions balance each other. To the sensitive eye, the balance of the middle point is alive with tension. Think of a rope that is motionless while two men of equal strength are pulling it in opposite directions. It is still, but it is loaded with energy.

Throughout this book, it must be kept in mind that every visual pattern is dynamic. Just as a living organism cannot be described by its anatomy, so the essence of a visual experience cannot be expressed by inches of size and distance, degrees of angle, or wave lengths of hue.
These static measurements define only the “stimulus”, that is, the message sent to the eye by the physical world. But the life of a percept – its expression and meaning – derives entirely from the activity of the kind of forces that have been described. Any line drawn on a sheet of paper, or the simplest form modeled from a piece of clay, is like a rock thrown into a pond. It upsets repose, it mobilizes space. Seeing is the perception of action.”

(Arnheim, 1960)

Consider me not a religious man, nor a fatalist, not a believer of the supernatural whatsoever. But in these moments, something unique happens.
I listen in silence and with a blurred focus, zooming in and I can almost sense a small “fetus of thoughts” taking shape from the deep stages of consciousness that are normally impossible to access.

It is a sum of pieces collected along the way, that never get to the highest hierarchy of thoughts, but constantly intertwine to produce daily decision making. Anything we crossed our path on, is registered and it remains somewhere in the big data storage somewhere in the body.

This sixth sense, printing a solution from nowhere in particular highly fascinates me and I believe, it is not less trustable than any other. It is scary, and it creates confusion because it’s hard to grasp and it is not that easily manageable.

Yet, quantifying this unquantifiable is not a good idea. This thing is meant to remain subtle to function correctly.

Like one of those puzzle that don’t make any sense if you look at them from close. A Seurat pointillism at its finest.

It seems appropriate the parallelism with the “Theory of the Dérive (Drift)” (1956) by Guy Debord. A voluntary loss of orientation, opening to new scenarios.

Get in the flow, and get yourself dragged into the cracks of the world.
Incredible wonders await (or the worst nightmares) – in both cases it is highly worth it. I am going to jump in first.

“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere in particular”
“So why do you want to go?”
“I hear it is calling me!”
“What is calling?”
“I have the feeling I will never know, but I will never stop searching for it”.

Until next time,
Marcello.

Reference

Arnheim, R. (1960). Art and visual perception (1st ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press.

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