There are times I am a bit shocked by the wonderful connections that I have been blessed to facilitate through my work and the EMP podcast.
The friendship that’s formed between John and Nick is one of the strange and wonderful connections. If you have been following the podcast you’ll definitely be familiar with John Vervaeke Director of Cognitive Science at the University of Toronto, author of Zombies in Western Culture and creator of the YouTube series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, who has become one of my primary mentors.
Nick Winkelman is back for his second appearance and is another of my favorite thinkers, the Author of the Language of Coaching, Director of Science and Performance for Irish Rugby and former Director of Athlete Preparation for the NFL combine at Exos.
I introduced Nick to John’s work during our first interview in May of last year. Since then Nick and John have formed a friendship and ongoing dialogue of their own— one that resonates deeply with the central themes of Evolve Move Play.
Their second interview on John’s channel was the inspiration for this discussion, in particular a discussion they had around shamanism and its relationship to the cognitive science concept of enactedness and Nick’s work around analogies in motor learning.
While that was the starting point, this conversation became a deep dive into the role of embodiment and physical practices in overcoming the meaning crisis, how we scaffold up more integrated selves and better sense making from our physical practices, and how we can bring the sense making conversation down into the body.
I think you guys will get a ton out of this one!
