After months of trying to find a housesitting opportunity in New York City for the final six months of our masters program in conscious evolution, we’ve decided to go to Salt Lake City instead. While we are there, Beth and I hope to focus like a laser beam on our research. We also plan to develop our programs like my Epic Workout, Beth’s Holifit holistic health coaching, as well as live the Utah outdoor life as much as possible. We feel really positive about this move, though it’s thrilling and frightening to be so who-knows-what-will-happen-next?

From there next Spring, who knows? India to study yoga at the source? Farther west to settle down? We shall see.

Can you feel it?

The holiday has past, the burgers are eaten, and the smoke has pretty-much cleared.
I know my belly is full and so I thought this would be a great time to share three ways I’ve learned from experience to feel better faster after a holiday weekend. Even if you didn’t indulge in eating and activities that might make you feel more sluggish than usual, almost everyone I’ve every worked with can feel the post-holiday blues…

So here’s the challenge and my promise: do these three things on purpose, shaken or stirred,
and you’ll feel lighter, fresher, and more energized within 24 hours.

1. Eat or Drink Green

Your body will clean itself up faster when you give it real nutrients closer to the source (the sun!)
So either eat a lot of fresh or lightly cooked/steamed green foods or mix up a green drink. This could be from your juicer or a powdered option, but I don’t suggest the green odwalla-like smoothies necessarily since they are mostly fruit-sugar, though it’s better than nothing!

2. Drink Lots of Water

Really. I mean way more than you usually drink. Water lubricates, hydrates, and moves waste faster.
Try this: for every meal you eat and every non-H20 drink you take in, set yourself up to feel great by drinking a cup or small bottle of water just before. Drinking more water also helps your body retain less water as there becomes less need for water greed. Be generous!

3. Take A Hike!

Moving your body will not only liven up your blood flow, but it will wake up your nervous system, ignite your immune system, and freshen up your joints. In other words, you’ll feel more alive because you are more alive. So take a nice walk or light jog for an hour and take advantage of the great Boston warmth

I know that whether I’m up or down on a particular day, these three ideas always help give me an edge. Let me know what you do and how you feel. I’d love to hear about your experience.

The other day I coincidentally found Elizabeth Beck, art therapist. Here are the questions I asked, and her response. Thank you Elizabeth.

Hello Ms. Beck,

I found your website looking up a life coaching program, and found your site. I thought it was a great site and a neat coincidence because I’m also doing some web work, and recently did process art few weeks ago with Pamela Hoschstetter as part of my Masters Program for Conscious Evolution. It was my first experience with process art, and really, I had never painted before. Looking at your thesis helped me think about my own, which is looking at the Self-Aware Movement Practice and Transformation/Conscious Evolution. I’m still working out the actual questions to explore, as it seems to become bigger and broader by the moment. Would you have any thoughts on the matter - what part does physical movement practice, and specifically, movement where we bring our conscious attention to task, play in the transformation of consciousness. What are your experiences?

Hi Alex,

When I read your question I couldn’t help but think- what would a Dance/Movement therapist would have to say? In my opinion bringing conscious attention to a task through movement can lead to the transformation of consciousness especially if the movements and conscious attention are practiced/ repeated over time. I feel that repetition and practice is often the key to transformative experiences that involve using the body and its connection to the mind. Many people find the movements involved with Tai Chi and Yoga to be relaxing and eventually transformative. I also found art making and drawing from life to be transformative too, albeit after I had achieved a certain skill level. In these cases, in order to achieve the transformational experience, one often needs to repeatedly pursue the activity on a daily or weekly basis, where one no longer has to concentrate or think what one is doing, but rather, the movements have become somewhat intuitive.

When people discuss creativity, often times the word flow is used to describe the relaxing, pleasurable feeling people get from creative tasks (which often involve movement of some kind), where somehow one doesn’t seem to experience time in the same way and can be, for example, dancing or painting for hours without noticing. It seems to me that when we are in the state of flow we are able to be in the world and in our bodies without judging or thinking…we are able to just do. Perhaps when we are able to act without having our inner speech cluttering our perception, that allows for a transformational experience to occur? Maybe the intensity of the experience or how quickly a transformation in consciousness is achieved would be changed depending on how often you practice? I’m not sure, and I would need to do more research before being able to answer this question as fully as I would like.

Also, I think its worth discussing the fact that a “transformation of consciousness” is a difficult thing to explain. I seem to use it in a way that is analogous to learning something new about the world that somehow I never noticed before. For me, this can be any number of things. For example, a new way for perceiving a situation, a new way of looking at objects and understanding spacial relationships, the realization that I can tense each muscle in my body separately if I concentrate, or being able to perceive colors and shadows with more acuity. Some of these experiences may be strictly developmental in nature (where as you grow up and your brain develops you and would expect that these new perceptions would develop too), where as others may be achievable with training over time.

I think its important to remember that no matter what you may be doing, you may experience a transformation in consciousness, and you would have never been able to guess in advance what you would have learned. I suppose that’s one of the beautiful and mysterious parts of being a human being.

I hope this helps get you on your way to formulating new questions to ask and to be answered. It may be helpful to research topics in perceptual and cognitive psychology, where you may find less subjective ways of approaching this subject.

- Liz

Also, I want to direct you to the Shrink Rap Radio podcast, episode #153. Here’s the link:feed://www.shrinkrapradio.com/feed/

This excellent older video is of me demonstrating a self defense technique against a tackle.
One of the first rules of self defense is: stay off the ground! While sometimes that’s unavoidable, we can redirect the attack in many ways. Here’s one:

This older video is of me demonstrating a self defense technique against a knife attack.
While I don’t practice or teach self defense much, I still encourage people to think realistically about self defense and continue to explore effective and efficient movement of all kinds!

What is Meditation?

Meditation can be thought of as paying attention to what you’re doing, as you’re doing it, and more importantly, choosing to. There are many forms of meditation, many types of instructions. The common theme is choosing to look, choosing to inquire, choosing to pay attention. Meditation is practicing on purpose for a period of time in order to get better at being at purpose all day long. So you…

o Feel calmer now and anytime
o Improve your day and every moment
o Energize all of your relationships
o Transform and complete your yoga practice

Often we can also use meditation techniques to change your state towards a more desirable one. In this way, we can navigate the possibilities in our lives with ore clarity and purpose.

One Minute Meditation

The goal of these instructions is to change your state from where you are, to a deeper place with space between you and your thoughts and emotions. Rather than shutting anything away, allow, and change your focus to your breath.

Close your eyes or keep them open softly

Breathe in slowly and deeply

Hold you breath in gently for a moment

Exhale through the nose slowly and let your body relax

Hold your breath out gently until you are ready to breathe in again

Repeat three to five times

Notice any sensations and changes in your body. How do you feel?

Experience each week

Meditation classes are now offered every Monday evening from 6:30pm to 7:30pm
and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings from 6:30am-6:50am.
All these are held at the Sports Club/LA in Boston and available for members only.

I also work with individuals and groups through workshops and special arrangements.

Special Meditation Requests

I’ll be posting audio meditations soon. In the meantime, contact me and share all your special requests. In other words, tell me what you want, and I will deliver.

I’ve recently updated The Epic Workout, which is progressing very nicely and is receiving phenomenal response from the people who have gone through Epic classes.

Epic has a new logo, which I love, of course. I’ve also been able to articulate the core goal, message, and three main principles of what makes the Epic Workout tick.

http://www.epicworkout.com/2008/about-epic/what-is-epic/

I am beginning to post information about my masters degree here.
Topics of interest include:

• movement
• consciousness
• transformation
• embodiment
• body-mind science and philosophy
• Integral frameworks

I am in the Masters program in Conscious Evolution at The Graduate Institute in Milford, CT.

For my thesis, I am exploring:

What is the relationship between movement, movement practice, and awareness of our movement to the transformation of our individual and collective consciousness?

Now, that’s a very big question to tackle, and I’m working to narrow it down a bit.

Ultimately, I would like to be able to educate and inspire personal trainers, physical therapists, doctors, yogis, and all teachers of movement (who I lovingly call “trainers, teachers, movers and shakers”) in these areas:

• our role working with bodies is bigger and more important that we imagined, and makes a contribution and impact in more ways that we could have thought.
• the process of personal transformation has a level of embodiment, and we can grow or we can stifle growth, depending on movement, practice and awareness.
• all movement is a path, the question is where does it take us?
• what does how I/we move have to do with who I am/We are?

More information will be posted here. Right now I am looking to contact and interview some of the top thinkers and movers, including yogis, athletic coaches, somatic therapists, elite dancers, body workers, and more.

For more on my thesis, visit this permanent page:

http://www.iglecia.com/masters-research-conscious-evolution/

This trailer will enlighten you. Right now.

… are you there yet?

Okay, so it won’t work that fast, but the trailer is quite inspiring.
I cannot wait to see it when it comes to Boston.

http://enlightenupthefilm.com

Filmmaker Kate Churchill is determined to prove that yoga can transform anyone. Her plan: select a subject, immerse him in yoga and follow him until he finds a practice that transforms him. Her subject: Nick Rosen a skeptical, 29 year-old journalist living in New York City. Before he can say OM, Nick finds himself twisted up like a pretzel surrounded by celebrity yogis, true believers, kooks and entrepreneurs. The more he investigates yoga the more contradictions he discovers, straying further from Kate’s plan. They circle the globe talking to mystics, gurus, mad men and saints searching for the true meaning of yoga, encountering things they never could have imagined. They don’t find the answers to their questions, they find much more.

“Enlighten Up!” is slated for its world premiere at the Maui International
Film Festival on June 12. If you are looking for an excuse to go to aloha
land, here it is:

For tickets (I wish I could go)
“Enlighten Up!”
Thursday, June 12th 6:00pm
Castle Theater-Maui Arts & Cultural Center

Order tickets online:
http://www.mauifilmfestival.com/mffw_tickets.php

Phone: 808-572-3456 (FILM)
Open daily 10 am – 6 pm (Hawaii Standard Time)

Watch the Enlighten Up! trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKQw0-IlJiY

Here’s a great contribution to the global efforts to save ourselves from ourselves.
We have met the enemy, and it is us. We can also stop being the enemy.

Go here to go from me to we.

Read about the new logo for this campaign. It’s brilliant.

As transformation happens, we move from I to We. It is fundamentally about shifts towards wholeness. In our lives, in your life, in my life, we see many shifts towards wholeness. No, it’s not new-age hype. Just look at your own experience! So while the Go Green movements are a little sickening - consumerism gone to a new fad, at least people are being educated that we all live on one planet. It’s simply a new edge in the game of evolution, though the stakes are a bit higher than most…

My friend Noel Schroeder is making phenomenal strides, thanks to her great intentions, experience and heart. I highly suggest learning from her website and purchasing her DVD. The idea of noticing is getting more and more noticed!

Notice Your Experience: A Guide to Finding Balance DVD is now a TV star. Noel Schroeder and Claudine Ouellette have been on the road promoting the DVD on various Morning News Shows across the US.

To watch how much the news anchors really like to relax, view the video clips below.

See Noel in Columbus, Ohio
http://www.noticeyourexperience.com/2008/03/07/noels-news-in-columbus-ohio/

Noel and Claudine take on Toledo
http://www.noticeyourexperience.com/2008/03/07/holy-toledo/

Relaxing in Indianapolis
http://www.noticeyourexperience.com/2008/03/13/re-engergizing-the-morning-news/

Noel and Claudine in Rochester, NY
http://www.noticeyourexperience.com/2008/03/19/relaxing-in-rochester/

I was asked recently, during a conversation about whether conscious evolution was a movement and what would happen to religions, what about the fundamentalists? I certainly don’t have an answer, and I don’t think my strengths are necessarily in giving answers. The most important part of finding answers is in asking the right questions.  So how do we think about the fundamentalist Muslims the media tells us to worry about?

Following, then, are straight-thoughts: simple content strung together to evoke your own interpretation and answering abilities:

• how are the qualities of thinking we see in fundamentalist Islam similar to that of fundamentalist Christianity, Judaism, Athieism, and Scientism?
• how do we understand the fundamentalists of any culture/religion from the wiser flavors of the same tradition?
• how can we separate the actions of Islamic terrorists from their historical and modern cultures?
• how can we separate the actions of the fighting groups of the middle east from their perceptions of the West? how can we understand their major points? how can we hear their criticisms within an honest appreciation for our own role in their history, and in fact, the entire history of the world?
• how can we be truthful about the US’s role in all this? (a wonderful resource here is Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins)
• how can we understand “cause and effect” to be more than a simple blame game, and appreciate a vastly complex exchange between cultures over a tremendous amount of historical time?
• how can we separate their perceptions of our actions from our perception of their actions? how can we know if any of these perceptions is correct in any sense of the word?

I think that the point is that the Iraqi situation the world is in, not to mention the many other conflicts and crisis around the planet, cannot just be boiled down to “they are crazy.” We are to blame. They are to blame. There is in fact no us nor is there a they. There is only a we. We have found the enemy and it is us. The ONLY way we can really get past our conflicts in the world, and in our personal individual lives, is to have a hard and long look in the mirror and ask two questions: “how have I contributed to getting us here?” and, “what can I do now?“

Autopoiesis, the Pyramid and Man

As written out by Chris Davia (I would love to know if this is true, as I have not confirmed it from my own online research)

There once was a man in the desert and he was building a pyramid. And when the man had nearly finished God came down from heaven and said ‘What are you doing?.’

And the man replied, ‘I’m building a pyramid’.

And God said, ‘No!’.

The man said, ‘I am, I am! There it is! It’s a beautiful pyramid.

And God said, ‘No!’

The man did not understand.

God said, ‘Come, look through my magic window.’

And so the man looked through God’s magic window and he saw a hundred years go by; a thousand years go by, and gradually his pyramid turn to dust.

And God said to the man ‘You haven’t built a pyramid. You have simply started a process that will one day end in a pile of dust.’

So the man went away and wondered how he might satisfy God. He resolved to start all over again, but this time, he would use only the finest materials; - the best wood and the best stone. And so he sent all over the land for the finest of materials from which to build his pyramid.
And when the man had nearly finished God came down from heaven and said, ‘What are you doing?.’

And the man replied, ‘I am building a pyramid’.

And God said, “No!”.

The man said ‘I am - I am! It is a very beautiful pyramid.there it is!’

And God said ‘No!’.

The man did not understand.

And God said ‘Come, Look through my magic window.’

And when the man looked through God’s magic window he saw a thousand years go by - a million years go by, and gradually his pyramid turned to dust.

And God said to the man ‘You haven’t built a pyramid. You have simply started a process that will one day end in a pile of dust.’

And so again the man went away and wondered how he might satisfy God. He thought and he thought and he thought for many years. And then, one day, he realized something that he had never realised before. He realised that the wood from which he had made his pyramid had its own nature. The wood might warp in the wet weather; it might split in the dry weather. He realised that the nature of wood was the nature of wood and the nature of wood had nothing to do with his pyramid.

And the man also realized that the stone from which he had made his pyramid had its own nature. The stone might splinter in the frost and that it might be eroded by the sandstorm. He realised that the nature of stone was the nature of stone and the nature of stone had nothing to do with his pyramid.

And one by one, the man examined each of the materials from which he had built his pyramid and he realised that each had it’s own nature – a nature that had nothing to do with his pyramid.

And he wondered if it were possible to build a pyramid such that each part of the pyramid owed its’ strength and its’ resilience through time as a direct consequence of its’ relationship to the rest of the pyramid. Such a pyramid would exist and persist because it was a pyramid. Such a pyramid would last until the end of time and thus satisfy God.

But, of course, the man had no idea how to build such a pyramid.

Well, many years went by and one day God was looking over his kingdom. And there, in the desert, He noticed a man sitting all alone. The man was sitting quietly, cross-legged in the sand. And God noticed how still and silent and peaceful the man was. And so God came down from heaven and said to the man – ‘What are you doing?’.

And the man replied, ‘I’m building a pyramid.’

The original article is titled: To Stretch or Not to Stretch? The Answer Is Elastic from the New York Times.

Unfortunately, the article does not provide any substantial information. It’s not their fault, however, because the entire industry suffers from label confusion. Without being clear about what one means by a term like stretching, a writer can pretend to say something without actually saying anything. Like I’m doing, so I’ll change directions right now.

The body is smart. Really smart. Injuries happen when there is a breakdown, such as more force than a joint or muscle tissue can handle. We prevent injuries by staying within safe limits, and if we want to push our limits, we need to expand our capabilities. Most people argue whether or not one should “stretch” to expand our joint’s abilities, usually measured by “range of motion” or ROM. These people are missing the point.

If you want to prep a car to move faster or go on a road trip,  you would want to tune it up, wouldn’t you? Not loosen the bolts…

If you wanted to cook a dinner, you’d turn on the stove to the appropriate temperature, not turn it off…

What most people think of as stretching is actually passive stretching, or lengthening a muscle past it’s normal working length and holding. In fact, that’s a good way to relax, calm the nervous system, and simply feel good. There are lots of benefits to this, but preventing injury is not one of them. The body’s intelligence hides this error.

Yes, muscle tissue needs to be supple, flexible, movable, pliable, etc. Yet they need to be strong and they need to be on. Joints should have the range of motion they need as dictated by the needs of the movement. One way you can test this is by asking your muscles to get you to that ROM. In other words, lift your leg straight up with your hip’s strength. All the passive hamstring stretching in the world will only weaken and destabilize your hip joint if the quads/hip flexors and all the other hip stabilizers aren’t properly strengthened. In other words, most people are doing the wrong thing, at the wrong time, and can’t tell because their body is too smart. It’s like a parent who constantly cleans up after his child’s mess. The child never realizes what he’s doing.

A runner doing a one-legged quad stretch with his foot up to his glute is a great example of a stretch that feels good but has nothing to do with the movement they think they’re preparing for. It’s just that the body is smart and covers up their error. What they’re actually doing is weakening and turning off the propriocepters that the knee and hip needs to adequately handle all the forces they’re about to take on.  The runner would be much better served by turning on muscles, activating them through the needed range of motion, getting blood flow through movement. Again…the body is smart and the passive stretch does feel good.

In sort, to paraphrase Timothy Leary, “tune up, drop in.” How you do it is up to you and becomes just about obvious when you think about the movement you want to train, what the muscles are doing in all directions and what they need to do.

The last Reflexology experience
The Airport
The longest day
The toys in Taipei

2-23 Long Saturday, Reflexology, Airport

An easy day.

2-22 Friday, Funny Fish, Hardys, Mangos

Breakfast at the Warung. Mmmm. We get ripped off.
Spirit Café
Heavy duty reflexology

2-21 Thursday

Breakfast with Bringin the Banyan tree
Horse riding on the beach. Ah-choo!
Sleeping off the allergies. Sniffle…
Photo shoot dinner

2-20 Wednesday, Segara Village, Horses, Dinner Photo Shoot, Spirit Cafe

Alex goes to Pura Segara
Boys go surfing
Off to Sanur!
We move into Segara Village. Nice.
Mango’s

2-19 Tuesday, Melka Morning, Sanur, Mango

Raped by Dolphins
So we go to Seminyak
KuDeTa on the beach

2-18 Monday, Dolphins, Seminyak, KuDeTa