I have been studying with one teacher for over a decade. I kept coming for more, even though I did not understand what I was looking for at the beginning. This is not a behaviour that is common in a time when there is nothing sacred left, and information travels faster than light. Why was I able to stay? I am also corruptible like everyone else. Was it the influence of my father, who was a martial arts teacher and a military official? Or was it something else in the environment, or in my genetic makeup? I cannot really tell even today, but I am glad that I stuck around.
Last week, we finished another 2-week intensive in Berlin. I have already lost count of how many I have done. Following the advice from the famous “9 Rules for Students, Teachers, and Life” by Sister Corita Kent, I “try to always be around, come or go to everything” that is within my possibilities. People often ask me if I learn anything new there and whether it makes sense to invest so much time and money into repeatedly coming to the same place. I find this question silly because I cannot imagine a better way to invest my resources. I am not that interested in learning new things, but more so in relearning the things that I think I already know. In today’s world, people are quick to assume that they have understood something by the sheer act of exposure. I, however, am not a believer in that, frankly I find it quite arrogant – assuming that you can understand decades of somebody’s work by a single contact. Or more than that – that you can easily understand the ideas that the best minds of humanity have grappled with for thousands of years. A long time ago, I dropped the assumption that a glimpse into something, however familiar it might seem, gives me a firm grasp of that thing. Conversely, I realize more and more that it is almost impossible to get a firm grasp of anything really, which makes it even more valuable to continue trying. Running towards the unachievable is a way of constructing a perpetual motion machine inside yourself.
Why did I choose this place to stay and not another? Because it is the only place I found where the teacher became the teaching. Ido Portal is a very unique human being. I am always fascinated by his ability to touch deeply every person who crosses his path. He is capable of restructuring and sewing already familiar concepts in a different way every time, leaving no room for assumptions, but sparking a lightning curiosity. Ido embodies the archetype of a teacher; no word is said in vain, and no time is wasted on nonsense. Every event I have attended had a different flavor to it, but there was always a sense that there are so many more layers left untouched that you just cannot afford to abandon digging deeper. Not for the sake of anyone else, but because these layers are covering your true essence and potential. There, you are mapping your life and practice, every time adding new territories and creating a higher definition for existing ones.
During these last 2 weeks of August, our days started at 7:00 a.m. with a somatic practice and went on until 8:00 p.m. We had a shared breakfast, followed by a morning session with Ido, then an evening session with Odelia, and by the end, when everything that could be pulled out of you physically had been exhausted, we sat for another 2 hours of a lecture that wasn’t by any means a walk in the park. We worked on the connectivity of the structure, on ways to address postural distortions, and on bringing the tensegral qualities back into the body. As Moshe Feldenkrais famously said, changing the posture means changing the person, and this is why it is an almost impossible task to accomplish. Ido found ways to effectively communicate and explain the way of doing so and developed an actual process for it that works, which is pretty impressive on its own, but he also found a way to give you a meaning by virtue of which you can have the power to engage with this work daily.
In the physical sessions, we worked on many different tasks that took all possible shapes, approaching from a variety of angles such abilities as controlling emotional states, eliminating reactivity, organizing the body, and developing the capacity to solve motor problems quickly and efficiently. In Odelia’s classes, we covered the hows of groundwork and coordination. The topics in the lectures varied from physiology to philosophy to psychology. We were given mathematical tasks to solve, read and discussed texts by Jorge Luis Borges. It all felt like a never-ending cascade of water falling over your head. Over time I have learned to deeply enjoy this feeling.
The unifying topic of the whole thing, however, was how we can truly take responsibility for ourselves. How, through being engaged with the concept of practice, we can reshape our idea of who we are and deeply transform. The tools that are given to you in this space do actually work, I know it from my own experience. If you are able to take them and recognize all the downfalls of humanity within yourself, if you are willing to engage with crafting your body, mind, and soul day in and day out through a faceless but penetrating practice that leaves no space for rest, you can move mountains, and you can come as close to being a free man as this world allows you to. This freedom is not an interplay of momentary whims of our personalities, the open space of a postmodern “always feeling good” tall tale, but a genuine and deep sense of oneself and unity with everything that surrounds you. If you can make this choice and be truly there to grapple with the eternal questions of life day in and day out, the whole world opens up for you. There is no better place to be, and there is no better thing to engage with.