Coach Ted discusses the parallels between muscular and mental or emotional expressions of geometry in lift mechanics.
Muscular and Mental Geometry
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Muscular and Mental Geometry
Season 4/Episode 26
April 4, 2022
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
This is the Ted O'Neill Program where we explore the science and philosophies for performance optimization, and the elevation of the human experience from the mind of Ted O'Neill with Jon Leon Guerrero.
0:37 Jon
I just want to remind our listeners that this is a podcast about seeing something heavy and picking it up.
2:28 Ted
This is going to get really heavy. So, Robert Lawler is—he's an author of several of his books that I'm going to be reading some passages from the book Sacred Geometry, philosophy, and practice today and throughout the course of this week. And again, that title isn't what you might think.
I know a lot of people hear the term “sacred geometry” now, in the metaphysical community, in the consciousness community, and have a certain—it has a certain innuendo to it; you know, here's these shapes and here's these things and all this. This isn't that at all. This isn't about pretty pictures, and flowers and whatnot. This is about something that is meant—how would we even describe this? It's the underpinnings of everything in the physical reality.
3:11 Jon
This is subject matter about pretty pictures in the way that our physical training is the comic book ad for the Atlas thing where the kid gets sand kicked in his face. Yeah.
3:22 Ted
Okay, so let's go with that. So, you know, I've talked previously about the origin story of Paraphysical training. And for those who are unfamiliar with Diablo Barbell, we were the underground of the underground, one of the most hardcore powerlifting gyms in the world, period. Relentless, often lawless, etcetera. And over the years, I began to look for new methods and new mathematics to continue to further our elevation for our athletes and our lifters, and this ultimately led into a deeper exploration into adjunct science fields that go beyond just physical training and exercise science and kinesiology.
We start looking into epigenetics, and quantum mechanics, and cellular biology, and neuroscience, and all these associated fields. And what I started to find is there was some interrelation between all these things that oftentimes weren't acknowledged or talked about, yet dead in the center of that conversation. I was observing this on the training floor, some of these different phenomena that we talk about in the natural world arrest theories, are as concepts in these greater sciences we were seeing, playing out right in front of us.
So, I've talked in the past about how the Paraphysial Training discipline, the 90/10 rule, came about through observation and knowing there had to be more going on than just a physical phenomenon. In other words, when someone gets really squeezed, how do they react or respond? Because those are different things.
But really, prior to that, to the 90/10 realization, the very idea of form or for our purposes, let's say it differently: to say structure of the lift itself, as performed by the individual, really stuck out to me. If there was or is an optimal or ideal structure, or movement pattern, then my question began to become—why was it harder for some to replicate that pattern than others? And we see this all the time, as people clearly come in at different levels of development. It's so obvious that as coaches we can just start teaching it one way: “This is what it is.” And then you have those—they get it, so they move on to the next level. And then you have those that don't.
So typically, the coach is just stuck with saying the same things over and over. “You got to do this, you got to do this,” and it's still not happening yet. Nothing's changing anywhere.
So, the ways that this is traditionally addressed, and one of the things that I got from a phone conversation from Louie Simmons, probably nearly 30 years ago, was—he said to me, “The muscle dictates the groove of the exercise or the movement.” So, in other words, where you're weak and where you're strong is going to determine how you perform things. And that's all well and good because we can address imbalances with corrective exercises, and that's a known thing, right; if your hamstrings are strong then we can use diagnostics to determine that. If your lats are weak, or if your triceps are subpar, if your hips aren't up to up to speed for doing a wide stance squat, all of these things kind of present a certain way in the physical, and then the coach's playbook presumably would know what special exercises to assign and how to use volume, and time, and retention requirements, and all these different ways of programming, to now implement this to fix that.
One of the things I was becoming a greater and greater believer in as I delved deeper into other sciences was—I really began to look at the body as the end product of our mental and emotional states. I say that because I would begin to recognize certain movement patterns were associated with certain character traits. And you can see people with similar character traits, or you can call them maybe character flaws in some cases, if they were struggling. Sure, they would demonstrate many of the same things. And there are obviously other ways to look at this too. Like certain lifestyle practices, like if someone is on a computer all day, right? And they're hunched over, and then this rounded back position, then they typically present a certain way if they've not done any training.
But what about just in the mental and emotional space? In other words, if the way we think and the way we feel largely determines our personal reality—yes—then what effect does that have in the physical reality, in terms of our actual body?
8:01 Jon
You're describing a physical action that is observable, that ties back to a lifestyle, that ties back to a method of behavior. So somebody who presents a certain way in the way that they do a lift is indicative of that guy spends a lot of time behind the computer and in some cases, not all, but in some cases, the fact that that guy is bound to that computer screen may be that, that that person has a lack of confidence to have physical contact with people.
8:38 Ted
Yeah, because that's the next level of division, because it's not particularly uncommon, because we hear lifestyle is part of, from a coaching perspective, of things you want to change with someone who's new. You have to change your lifestyle. That's a known thing, to a certain degree. So, we can assign certain things in the physical. But the step two you're going to do now is one step farther.
And that's what I'm alluding to, because that's what I begin to really see. Because you can take someone out of the computer job, and assign corrective exercises—but then maybe watch what their next set of decisions become, in terms of how they're operating and how they're living. So then you see how they got that particular job again—we're using that roughly as a case. I mean, that's pretty much—almost everyone today works on a computer at some level, but we're using a broad generalization. But if how we think, and the way that we then react or respond emotionally, creates in large part what we would call our personality—and this is something that Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about quite a bit, so if I'm using language that sounds similar, that's why—then for me, there had to be something else. Because then that is obviously going to affect the body, and then you can continue to change your circumstances. But the body wasn't changing. Along those same lines. And so even sometimes in the case of corrective exercise, or a change in nutrition, not much in the new happened.
10:04 Jon
Yep. Well, I've witnessed some of these corrections in, you know, some of my training peers, and I've witnessed your correction methodic in and again, broad generalizations, but the way that that person is lifting that means that they are very timid. Yeah—
10:23 Ted
You can, you can smell that one. You don't even need your eyes to see that one sometimes.
10:28 Jon
Yep. And so, it's the timid that you have to fix, not the body. We're going to have to do a bunch of exercises because that person spends too much time sitting in front of their computer—but there's a way for that, and that why is always going to be the problem, even if we correct the computer.
10:44 Ted
Well, it all ultimately ties back to self-beliefs, which is what we have at great lengths. We have a separate adjunct curriculum when it comes down to Emotional Sobriety training, because that's going to go all the way and blueprint for you a set of precise and clear-cut directions on how to change your belief system. By changing your emotional states.
I've often said—it's a lot less separate than I initially said. And this is, this is kind of where we're going. So, I frequently said the body is the physical embodiment, or we can say the end product, of our collective thoughts, feelings, beliefs, emotions, mental constructs, personal paradigms, experiences, etc., etc., etc. So, if we can accept that as fact, then my next question begins to become: what would happen if, in addition or concurrently to assigning special exercises and traditional things in the physical to affect the imbalances, what if we made an effort to change our minds?
So in other words, was the movement pattern symptomatic of an internal belief system? And this is something that—once you can see it that way, you cannot unsee, once you can look at the space between the space and begin to understand the old saying, “The way you do one thing is the way you do all things.”
0:37 Jon
I just want to remind our listeners that this is a podcast about seeing something heavy and picking it up.
2:28 Ted
This is going to get really heavy. So, Robert Lawler is—he's an author of several of his books that I'm going to be reading some passages from the book Sacred Geometry, philosophy, and practice today and throughout the course of this week. And again, that title isn't what you might think.
I know a lot of people hear the term “sacred geometry” now, in the metaphysical community, in the consciousness community, and have a certain—it has a certain innuendo to it; you know, here's these shapes and here's these things and all this. This isn't that at all. This isn't about pretty pictures, and flowers and whatnot. This is about something that is meant—how would we even describe this? It's the underpinnings of everything in the physical reality.
3:11 Jon
This is subject matter about pretty pictures in the way that our physical training is the comic book ad for the Atlas thing where the kid gets sand kicked in his face. Yeah.
3:22 Ted
Okay, so let's go with that. So, you know, I've talked previously about the origin story of Paraphysical training. And for those who are unfamiliar with Diablo Barbell, we were the underground of the underground, one of the most hardcore powerlifting gyms in the world, period. Relentless, often lawless, etcetera. And over the years, I began to look for new methods and new mathematics to continue to further our elevation for our athletes and our lifters, and this ultimately led into a deeper exploration into adjunct science fields that go beyond just physical training and exercise science and kinesiology.
We start looking into epigenetics, and quantum mechanics, and cellular biology, and neuroscience, and all these associated fields. And what I started to find is there was some interrelation between all these things that oftentimes weren't acknowledged or talked about, yet dead in the center of that conversation. I was observing this on the training floor, some of these different phenomena that we talk about in the natural world arrest theories, are as concepts in these greater sciences we were seeing, playing out right in front of us.
So, I've talked in the past about how the Paraphysial Training discipline, the 90/10 rule, came about through observation and knowing there had to be more going on than just a physical phenomenon. In other words, when someone gets really squeezed, how do they react or respond? Because those are different things.
But really, prior to that, to the 90/10 realization, the very idea of form or for our purposes, let's say it differently: to say structure of the lift itself, as performed by the individual, really stuck out to me. If there was or is an optimal or ideal structure, or movement pattern, then my question began to become—why was it harder for some to replicate that pattern than others? And we see this all the time, as people clearly come in at different levels of development. It's so obvious that as coaches we can just start teaching it one way: “This is what it is.” And then you have those—they get it, so they move on to the next level. And then you have those that don't.
So typically, the coach is just stuck with saying the same things over and over. “You got to do this, you got to do this,” and it's still not happening yet. Nothing's changing anywhere.
So, the ways that this is traditionally addressed, and one of the things that I got from a phone conversation from Louie Simmons, probably nearly 30 years ago, was—he said to me, “The muscle dictates the groove of the exercise or the movement.” So, in other words, where you're weak and where you're strong is going to determine how you perform things. And that's all well and good because we can address imbalances with corrective exercises, and that's a known thing, right; if your hamstrings are strong then we can use diagnostics to determine that. If your lats are weak, or if your triceps are subpar, if your hips aren't up to up to speed for doing a wide stance squat, all of these things kind of present a certain way in the physical, and then the coach's playbook presumably would know what special exercises to assign and how to use volume, and time, and retention requirements, and all these different ways of programming, to now implement this to fix that.
One of the things I was becoming a greater and greater believer in as I delved deeper into other sciences was—I really began to look at the body as the end product of our mental and emotional states. I say that because I would begin to recognize certain movement patterns were associated with certain character traits. And you can see people with similar character traits, or you can call them maybe character flaws in some cases, if they were struggling. Sure, they would demonstrate many of the same things. And there are obviously other ways to look at this too. Like certain lifestyle practices, like if someone is on a computer all day, right? And they're hunched over, and then this rounded back position, then they typically present a certain way if they've not done any training.
But what about just in the mental and emotional space? In other words, if the way we think and the way we feel largely determines our personal reality—yes—then what effect does that have in the physical reality, in terms of our actual body?
8:01 Jon
You're describing a physical action that is observable, that ties back to a lifestyle, that ties back to a method of behavior. So somebody who presents a certain way in the way that they do a lift is indicative of that guy spends a lot of time behind the computer and in some cases, not all, but in some cases, the fact that that guy is bound to that computer screen may be that, that that person has a lack of confidence to have physical contact with people.
8:38 Ted
Yeah, because that's the next level of division, because it's not particularly uncommon, because we hear lifestyle is part of, from a coaching perspective, of things you want to change with someone who's new. You have to change your lifestyle. That's a known thing, to a certain degree. So, we can assign certain things in the physical. But the step two you're going to do now is one step farther.
And that's what I'm alluding to, because that's what I begin to really see. Because you can take someone out of the computer job, and assign corrective exercises—but then maybe watch what their next set of decisions become, in terms of how they're operating and how they're living. So then you see how they got that particular job again—we're using that roughly as a case. I mean, that's pretty much—almost everyone today works on a computer at some level, but we're using a broad generalization. But if how we think, and the way that we then react or respond emotionally, creates in large part what we would call our personality—and this is something that Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about quite a bit, so if I'm using language that sounds similar, that's why—then for me, there had to be something else. Because then that is obviously going to affect the body, and then you can continue to change your circumstances. But the body wasn't changing. Along those same lines. And so even sometimes in the case of corrective exercise, or a change in nutrition, not much in the new happened.
10:04 Jon
Yep. Well, I've witnessed some of these corrections in, you know, some of my training peers, and I've witnessed your correction methodic in and again, broad generalizations, but the way that that person is lifting that means that they are very timid. Yeah—
10:23 Ted
You can, you can smell that one. You don't even need your eyes to see that one sometimes.
10:28 Jon
Yep. And so, it's the timid that you have to fix, not the body. We're going to have to do a bunch of exercises because that person spends too much time sitting in front of their computer—but there's a way for that, and that why is always going to be the problem, even if we correct the computer.
10:44 Ted
Well, it all ultimately ties back to self-beliefs, which is what we have at great lengths. We have a separate adjunct curriculum when it comes down to Emotional Sobriety training, because that's going to go all the way and blueprint for you a set of precise and clear-cut directions on how to change your belief system. By changing your emotional states.
I've often said—it's a lot less separate than I initially said. And this is, this is kind of where we're going. So, I frequently said the body is the physical embodiment, or we can say the end product, of our collective thoughts, feelings, beliefs, emotions, mental constructs, personal paradigms, experiences, etc., etc., etc. So, if we can accept that as fact, then my next question begins to become: what would happen if, in addition or concurrently to assigning special exercises and traditional things in the physical to affect the imbalances, what if we made an effort to change our minds?
So in other words, was the movement pattern symptomatic of an internal belief system? And this is something that—once you can see it that way, you cannot unsee, once you can look at the space between the space and begin to understand the old saying, “The way you do one thing is the way you do all things.”
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