Movers Mindset

The Movers Mindset project includes a podcast and has its own website.

TK: Tantra, authenticity, and eye contact →

Published April 29, 2020  ·  All posts on Apr 29  ·  

TK: Tantra, authenticity, and eye contact

What role does tantra, authenticity, and interpersonal communication play in enhancing personal growth and human connection?

TK openly discusses her experiences with tantra, explaining what it is, what it means to her, and how it relates to her goals with Lovecraft Collective. She shares her thoughts on the power of eye contact, radical honesty, and interpersonal communication. TK delves into her love of climbing, her relationship with movement, sexuality, and how the two are connected.

There’s something kind of magical that happens when you— We’re making eye contact right now, and it’s kind of silly, but if we allowed ourselves to continue to make eye contact…

~ TK (19:39)

The conversation explores the multifaceted nature of tantra, diving into its definition and its applications in fostering human connection and holistic healing. It highlights the significance of balancing energy, exploring pleasure, and integrating movement practices such as climbing and parkour into a fuller, more embodied experience of life. TK shares personal anecdotes that underline the importance of understanding and addressing sexuality as a fundamental part of being human.

The discussion also dips into the profound power of eye contact, vulnerability, and radical honesty as transformative tools in interpersonal relationships. Insights into TK’s movement background, including climbing and parkour, provide a glimpse into how physical activities intertwine with personal development and creativity.

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Tension →

Published April 25, 2020  ·  All posts on Apr 25  ·  ,

I’ve been thinking about ways to create more opportunity for engagement among the people who are following the work of the Movers Mindset project. We’ve reached a point where we’re creating plenty of content and sharing ideas—but currently almost entirely in the broadcast direction. We’ve a considerable collection of people who are passively consuming.

Meanwhile, every time I manage to engage with someone [in this context of Movers Mindset], it’s an energizing exchange of ideas about movement, movement’s place in society, and sometimes even philosophy in general.

The whole project is intentionally aimed at people who are becoming, or already are, reflective. Such people tend to have made the growth step beyond low-value interaction and engagement and are increasingly aware of how they engage and expend their time especially online. I suppose the key is to simply engage with them one by one, until that becomes untenable for me.

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On podcasting →

Published March 31, 2020  ·  All posts on Mar 31  ·  , ,

The short version of this story is simply: I’m simply curious. I try things. I make mistakes. I ask questions.

My podcasting journey began with the Movers Mindset project, which grew from conversations I started having as part of my personal journey rediscovering movement. Started in 2015, at first it was just a web site that shared others’ writing. But as I travelled, I kept finding myself in cool conversations until one day someone said, “you should have recorded that. I’d listen to that podcast.” Excited, but with no clue how much work it would be, I kicked off the Movers Mindset podcast at the start of 2017. For the first dozen episodes I did far too much of the work myself, until I wised up and started finding a few incredible people to share my new passion.

By this point I was devouring anything I could about interviewing. I smashed through thousands of podcast episodes in the process of wondering, “how does everyone else do it?” Podcasts, books, online courses… Everywhere I turned I found something new to work on in my own journey.

In the fall of 2018 I had about 30 interviews published on the podcast. I was getting comfortable travelling by plane, train and automobile, being invited into people’s lives to capture the Movers Mindset interviews. I was invited to the North American Art of Retreat, a Parkour leadership retreat, in the Cascade mountains outside of Seattle. There I did a series of interviews with the event’s presenters and organizers, and handed those recordings off for Art of Retreat to create their own podcast.

When 2019 rolled around, on a whim, I jumped into an Akimbo course called The Podcast Fellowship. I wanted to search for unknown-unknowns, to rethink everything I had done so far, and much about the Movers Mindset podcast changed in this period. To my surprise, I was invited back to be part of a small group of alumni who assist the coaches for the 4th, (and then the 5th, and 6th) running of the course. It’s mind-bogglingly inspiring and energizing to hang out daily with hundreds of people who share your passion. I even tried to summarize the fun of it in The Journey.

Meanwhile, the Movers Mindset episode numbers kept climbing and I’ve been branching out to interview more challenging guests; challenging for me as I’m forced to converse and discuss topics I know less and less about, but which none the less intrigue me endlessly. In the fall of 2019, this time with help from some of the Movers Mindset team, I was invited back to Art of Retreat. There, we did a second series of interviews for Art of Retreat’s podcast.

If you want to see a more up-to-date listing of what I’ve done in the podcasting space, see my Podchaser creator page.

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Big changes for 2020 →

Published February 9, 2020  ·  All posts on Feb 9  ·  ,

For the past 5 years, I’ve been passionately working on a project called Movers Mindset. I’ve been particular about keeping it separate from “me”—in the sense that I would think, “is this idea something I want to put into Movers Mindset or on my blog?” (It sounds weird, I know—why didn’t you tell me years ago?) This led me to wind up with multiple “outlets”; this blog, public Movers Mindset web site and the Forum. As part of my continued efforts to simplify, we’ve taken down the Movers Mindset public web site.

* We didnt literally turn it off, but it’s just a static page about the project, and it powers the technology to make the podcast work. There’ll be nothing new posted there, and everything that was there will slowly appear in the Forum.

The entire Movers Mindset project grew from conversations I started having as part of my personal journey rediscovering movement. The project started late in 2015, under a different name, and it was initially simply a web site that shared others’ writing. The project grew, and in 2017 I started a companion podcast involving a team of people. In 2019 I created the Movers Mindset Forum. I’ve worked extremely hard, but none of this would have been possible without so much help from so many people.

The Movers Mindset Forum

Everything Movers Mindset does, everything we create, all the people who work on the project for fair pay—  Everything is made possible by people who value what we create and support our work by joining the Forum.

If you’re already a Forum member, thank you for your support.

If you do join the forum, you instantly gain access to everything. I hope you will consider supporting our work. To learn more, see  Welcome! Join the Movers Mindset Forum .

A note about “access to everything”: I’ve a tremendous amount of stuff to repost into the Forum. I’ll be chipping away at it, but it will take months as I work through it. If there’s something in particular you’re looking for, let me know.

Podcast

The Movers Mindset podcast is available wherever you normally listen to podcasts. Just search for movers mindset and you should be set. You can also find a listing of the podcast episodes in the Movers Mindset Forum. See the topics tagged “podcast “.

The public topics for each episode have only the show summary. Forum members can see the members-only Podcasts category where everything else is actually posted.

Thank you!

I hope you find my blog, the Forum, or the podcast interesting. Please consider sharing if you do.

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Nobody cares →

Published January 21, 2020  ·  All posts on Jan 21  ·  ,

Nobody cares. Do it yourself.

~ Hugh MacLeod

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This is a terrific splash of cold water. I interpret this not as a pessimistic, “people suck.” But rather, a catalyst to, “simply start.”

Nobody cares in the same way one cares about one’s own projects and ideas. Obviously nobody cares like that! But why do we—ok fine yes I’m projecting my behavior onto you… Why do we look outward for the external validation? Certainly, the real world is the ultimate arbiter of truth. (As opposed to one’s thoughts.) But no amount of external data is going to create or destroy your true passion. If you have a project that you cannot put down because you’re passionate about it to the extent that it consumes your life, then whether or not you have external validation is irrelevant.

Do the thing. Make the art. It doesn’t matter that nobody cares. Do it yourself.

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No smiles →

Published January 16, 2020  ·  All posts on Jan 16  ·  

We left feeling sorry for the whole thing. The people who worked at the theater weren’t trained to know how to deal with the problem. They probably weren’t empowered to do anything about it anyway. The technical staff apparently doesn’t work on the premises. The guy at the box office wanted to help, but wasn’t granted the power to do anything. And the manager, who was last in the line of misery, to have to manually, and slowly, process dozens of refunds on his own. No smiles entered the picture.

~ Jason Fried, from I went to see a movie, and instead I saw the future

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This is a delightful anecdote which highlights a key element of what we are doing in the Movers Mindset project. We are trying to stay closely engaged with the people we are serving. In order to do that, we can’t use fractured communications mediums (like Instagram direct-messaging, Facebook messenger, and so on) — there’s simply no way I would be able to interact with a meaningful number of people if I had to check a dozen different communication mediums every day. Generally, this is referred to as the Network Effect; the value of the network increases dramatically (non-linearly that is) as the number of people in it increases. So my maintaining (I don’t do this, but if I did…) my participation in many different networks would be needed to reach people.

Instead, I have focused on creating a functioning space where people of like mind can gather and communicate. The challenge is not that the network needs to reach a certain size to be “useful.” No, already one person there can interact with another person and get the full value out of that interaction.

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The Movers Mindset Forum →

Published January 15, 2020  ·  All posts on Jan 15  ·  

What is the Forum?

The goal of the forum is to facilitate self-improvement. In the forum we focus on movement as a mastery practice and highlight the processes of discovery and reflection. The forum provides the opportunity to interact with and learn from podcast guests, athletes, experts, and like-minded others.

https://forum.moversmindset.com/

Why the change?

We used to call it “the Movers Mindset community” site. There are some key reasons why we feel “forum” is a better word choice:

It removes confusion…

While it’s not confusing to us on the team, there was a lot of confusion from everyone else who encountered Movers Mindset. I had to really pay attention before I realized this. People heard us say, “the movers mindset community,” and they were thinking, “the collection of people who are interested in Movers Mindset.” They were thinking community as in: The skate-boarding community. The parkour community.

When we said, “join the Movers Mindset community,” people’s first instinct was that we meant for them to become  interested in Movers Mindset, follow us on Instagram, or start listening to the podcast. None of that entices people to join a for-pay, members-only thing. Oops.

The word “forum” does not carry the same context as “community”; when people hear, “the Movers Mindset Forum,” or, “join the Movers Mindset Forum,” it stands out. Even if it stands out only because they don’t know what it is, that’s better than them thinking they know what it is, and having the wrong idea.

Forums are old-school…

If by “old-school” you mean more considered, slower paced, and higher information density, then we’ll take that baggage because that’s exactly what the Movers Mindset Forum is meant to be. The work before us now is marketing the forum as interesting and useful, rather than a dusty old forum not worthy of attention. We think by stating a clear goal for the Forum and by stating what the Forum provides people, that it creates a meaningful opportunity that people will consider.

It’s simply shorter…

I know this seems trivial, but it adds up over time. “Forum” is just that much shorter to have to include in URLs, and it’s two syllables shorter to say.

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US Parkour Association (part 4 of 4): Competition, certifications, and a request →

Published December 25, 2019  ·  All posts on Dec 25  ·  

US Parkour Association (part 4 of 4): Competition, certifications, and a request

What role should a national governing body play in shaping the growth and development of Parkour?

Collaboration among diverse voices is shaping the future of Parkour through the USPK.

This episode explores the US Parkour Association’s (USPK) efforts to address competition, coaching certifications, and international pressures. The association adopts a neutral stance on competition, aiming to serve as a platform for diverse practices while prioritizing safety and sustainability. It acknowledges the varied opinions within the Parkour community and strives to ensure competitions reflect the values of the discipline.

Coaching certifications are another key topic, with USPK focusing on establishing standards rather than creating its own certifications. This approach aims to ensure that certifications emphasize safety, best practices, and legitimacy. Additionally, the conversation highlights the challenges of globalization and external organizations attempting to influence Parkour, stressing the importance of maintaining the sport’s cultural roots through active community involvement.

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Tyson Cecka: Obstacles, artistry, and depression →

Published December 18, 2019  ·  All posts on Dec 18  ·  

Tyson Cecka: Obstacles, artistry, and depression

What drives the creation and refinement of spaces and objects for parkour, and how do personal and communal experiences influence this process?

Tyson Cecka unpacks his design process, how he began to build parkour obstacles, and where he finds inspiration. He discusses his current plans and goals, and explains why he doesn’t consider himself a great artist or creator. Tyson shares his experiences with depression, how it’s affected his life, and how he’s working through it.

Failure should be a lesson. If you’re doing your trials correctly, every failure would be a lesson that you could then apply going forward.

~ Tyson Cecka (5:12)

This conversation centers on the intersection of creativity, movement, and mental resilience. Tyson discusses how his initial interest in parkour evolved into designing and building obstacles, driven by necessity and a desire to refine and optimize solutions for movement challenges. He explains how his creations are deeply informed by observing others and learning from failures.

The discussion also taps into broader themes of community influence, personal struggles with depression, and the balance between maintaining control over spaces and embracing organic creativity. Tyson reflects on the importance of spaces that allow for exploration and adaptation while highlighting the iterative process that shapes his work and life philosophy.

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Someone has to be the first guinea pig →

Published December 17, 2019  ·  All posts on Dec 17  ·  ,

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series The interviews from my perspective

Adam McClellan / Episode 1

The story behind episode one is challenging. How much do we want to know? How much do we want to share about the birth of the podcast? That all plays into Episode One. I picked Adam as the first guest because I wanted a guinea pig. I had bought a Zoom recorder and some microphones and cables. There’s a guy who did our audio editing for the first two years, and I had sent him some test audio files just to verify that when I press “Record” it does what we think it does.

I had been training with Adam for years, so I approached him and said, “Hey, I’m thinking about starting a podcast. You want to sit down and have a conversation?” In hindsight, I now realize it takes a lot of chutzpah to actually say, “Okay, I’ll sit down with microphones,” but he was totally up for it. I said, “I need a guinea pig. I’m going to screw it up, and I want you to just be game for a radical F-up.” And, sure enough, now I realize the zeroth rule of podcasting is always press “Record” and then double-check that you’ve actually pressed “Record.” These days we actually have a system, because sometimes it still happens. The person who sits in and listens actually takes notes and uses the time codes from the recorder. So you have to actually look at the recorder, and if the timer isn’t running, we know that I haven’t pressed “Record.”

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