Finding Balance with Soisci Porchetta: EMP Podcast 27

“To me, ultimately martial arts means honestly expressing yourself… Now it’s very difficult to do.

It is easy for me to put on a show and be cocky… I can make all kinds of phony things and be blinded by it.

Or I can show you some really fancy movement.

But to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly, now that my friend is very hard to do.”

-Bruce Lee

In this podcast we’ve talked a lot about the process of building an ecology of practices around becoming our most heroic selves.

As I said in the last episode’s description: the things we choose to do require that we invest our time, money, and energy in order to absorb the lessons that are given.

Often times the huge investment that we put into our practice of choice can bias us towards believing that there’s no need for other practices, that our one discipline has it all and is superior to all the rest.

We can tie our egos into the practice to the point where we see ourselves as products of the school in which we train, we are “climbers” we are “karate-ka” we are “bodybuilders”, etc…

This is a sneaky and often devastating trap that can not only cut us off from the myriad benefits of other disciplines, but can actually stifle and smother our individuality and our ability to honestly assess, express and obtain that which we need.

In today’s episode of the Evolve Move Play Podcast, we have the wonderful Soisci Porchetta.

She is joining us to talk about her process of self discovery and transformation and how she’s taking lessons she has learned from her many disciplines and putting them together to help herself and her students find their path of continual growth.

Along the way we’re going to discuss how to determine what students need for improvement, how to find intrinsic sources of motivation and reward, and the role that the ego plays in self transformation.