Adaptation

After a day or a week of performing a task, it’s not too surprising to see some improvement in performance of the selfsame task. But that improvement isn’t the real deal - all that happened was familiarization.

This is the same phenomenon as the “practice effect” that haunts researchers - the tests they use are often enough to produce improvements on the tests themselves, but without a change in the true trait of interest (the thing the test was supposed to point at - for example, using an IQ test to measure intelligence, or a computer test to quantify “memory”).

You see a better score on the test not because you actually improved in some fundamental way, but because you are familiarized with the task. And if you simply wait a short period of time, maybe a few hours or days, the familiarization effect is dissipated. This is important from two angles - one, the task is not the trait, and also, that there is a spectrum of adaptation. Let us deal with the latter. 

Spectrum of Adaptation

A heuristic that might be useful for conceptualizing the spectrum of adaptations is the range of biological actions that organisms manifest in response to environmental changes from A) homeo-/allo- stasis through B) acclimatization to C) true adaptation (evolution). 

Allostasis is the organism maintaining/returning to homeostasis - maintaining a normal range of fluctuation within a specific environment, by rapid and short-term responses. In the biological sphere that this most literally refers to, these effects are mediated by the nervous and endocrine systems.

For example, when I run, the the body releases hormones that break apart stored glucose so as to maintain metabolism (which is driven regulated by pH levels, a major factor in homeostasis). 

But we can use allostasis to understand the practice effect: a psychological readiness for the task, because the task is anticipated. Sit me in front of a computer test, and my fingers prime to type. Tell me to expect a math question, and I shift, in an intuitive fashion, to a mental mode ready to calculate. It’s not that before and after the state of readiness, that I am different in a fundamental way.

Acclimatization points at reversible but more lasting changes in response to changes of environment (and not only typical changes WITHIN the environment). The changes revert when the environment reverts. In the most literal sense, we acclimate to temperature, light, pressure, etc, and for durations however long the environment is changed.

But we can also be said to acclimate to psycho-social factors, for example, from the shift from a rural to an urban environment (or vice versa). This biological phenomenon allows us to explore new environments. For example, I move to the mountains where oxygen pressure is reduced, so my body increases red blood cell count allowing me to improve oxygen transport.

In terms of the familiarization effect, if I perform a task sufficient times, something inside of me changes to be better prepared for subsequent exposures to the task. But remove me from the environment, and the effect is lost. In a way, I cannot be said to have truly changed. 

The most long-lasting of changes are genetic in nature, in the form of evolution. If a group of organisms is placed in a new environment over generations, those that have acclimated the best will be naturally selected for, and through principles of inheritance and evolution, the next generation will have a greater proportion and magnitude of such traits. These traits in the newer generations will be much more hard-coded than any of the acclimatization-type effects. 

We can further boil down the three coordinates in the seemingly linear spectrum of adaptation as follows

• Allostasis - factors within the environment changed, but the environment is fundamentally the same. 

• Acclimatization - the environment itself changed, but not permanently, producing reversible effects. 

• Growth - the environment changed permanently, and created survival pressure that drove genetic change in the species, such that more long-term changes occurred. 

There is a gray area between acclimatization and evolution… and the adaptation I want is THERE (let cultural evolution take responsibility for improving the practice of future generations!). As I go into a practice, I want it to change me, so that I can move along to the next step in my evolution, but not lose what I gained. I neither intend to revert to my prior environment nor stay in the current. So what can I take with me?

If I was looking ahead, hopefully I anticipated what traits I would wish to have further down the line, as my environment changed… and for the unpredictable changes, hopefully I found some traits that prepared me for chaos as well. So an intelligence is required as I chart my course.

But I must also consider - I shouldn’t want any overly-permanent change… again, looking down the line, I must expect that any adaptation now could hurt me eventually, in some other environment. Hence species go extinct… (and yet, neither should I toe the water too carefully, in fear)

So there is something beyond acclimatization that I want: put me in the new environment, let me transform, and let me take the transformation with me to the next environment. Thus I can continue to grow, to evolve. 

10 Years With Ido Portal

It will soon be 10 years (October) since we fortuitously discovered Ido Portal's work through his "Self-Dominance" video.  At the time, he had a blog from which he began to create an incredible resource (even in today's over-saturated world, one of the best online resources you can turn to is simply an old blog).

We were immediately obsessed. When he began to use the blog to share carefully designed and multi-tiered workouts, we participated religiously. We joined his forum in which we would discuss progress and concepts related to movement (I'll always prefer a good forum to social media…).

Around this time, Ido came to the U.S., so I (Sean) traveled to Boston to take a few classes. What gold we were exposed to then, one decade ago, that goes unrivaled by any handbalance workshop you go to anywhere else today.

In Boston, I got a chance to talk more with Ido, discover he loves dirty jokes ("feels good, looks bad"…), and to realize I needed to go much further. So I continued with coaching, and began attending his bigger seminars and events - Upper Body Strength, a week-long Movement Camp in Berlin…

And the snowball continued. For our wedding honeymoon, we melted down all our gifts and used them to travel to Singapore for another Movement Camp. We hosted the first Movement-X in the United States here in Miami.

Eventually, the reality of the situation had to be confronted - we're clearly not going away, so we might as well get as cozy as possible. We joined Ido's mentorship program.Now I get a chance to travel to assist in workshops, we're meeting with Ido throughout the year, he's guided us in the opening of our space, and he provides critical feedback for our classes. He's sharing a vision with us; we're humbled to work alongside the vanguard.

Every step of the way, he reveals a little more of the big picture - there's always a slight discomfort, some growing pains, and as we move past them, we see the logical progression. There's an incredible element of design in Ido's work, but also in his philosophy - nothing is patched together, there are no seams. Intense, prolonged, and persistent thought was clearly invested in the evolution of a philosophy that continues to grow, swallowing everything in its path.

Ido Portal Mentorship

"Movility" (beyond "Position-fetishism")

(Disclaimer: the term "movility" here is used tongue in cheek, and is definitely not intended as a lexical solution.)

Evolution doesn’t stop as you go from flexibility to mobility.

The ability to actually move into, out of and around a position, not just in one or two scenarios but within a variety of scenarios, from a variety of other positions, across a variety of speeds, etc, is a higher level yet (shall we say… “movility”).

This perspective is less about the position itself, and more about what it connects to. You don’t get there by hyper-focusing on the element itself, by sitting and precisely articulating a single joint or pattern over and over… instead, you need to actually connect the pieces, and with variety.

You need to attack the position not as a "bridge" (a stretch of territory between two other territories), or as an "island", but as a flexible "nexus", capable of closing and opening in any direction, at any time, for any purpose. In a way, this de-emphasizes the position, and puts the attention on the system as a whole.

This is uncomfortable for us. We're so attentive to the party tricks that we've become accustomed to looking for the obvious, and what's more obvious than a snapshot in time? What's easier to see than the position held? To see the contortionist achieve a position and hold it just long enough that our eyes can digest the most easily digestible of movement characteristics, and then move on, before the banality of position-fetishism rises to the surface of our consciousness.

The higher level is to blend...

not just to toss some ingredients together into a salad, but to homogenize a mixture, so that nothing seems separate. By destroying the acting philosophy of the party trick, and instead looking after the quality of the connectiveness. Here, we don't see contortionism, but instead breakdancers, capoeiristas and traceurs. (But as Guatarri/Deleuze point out regarding any evolved form, these are quick to calcify and devolve).

While mobility work can be great for addressing weak links, often the weak link (from the perspective of the big picture) isn't the mobility itself, but the connecting of the pieces. Because this sits one-plus conceptual level(s) above mobility work, it's a bit more complex and ends up neglected - there are too many gray zones. It's easy to create one or two connections to a position, but how do we OWN the position- connecting it to everything else?

This idea means we need to go beyond the muscular and connective tissue components; it's not enough to think in terms of the chassis here. Instead, we go to the wet-ware - the basal ganglia and cerebellum, to the movement pattern processing functions, where context defines what we look for, and what opportunities we can carve out from the scenario.

And then, when you've gotten to this layer, it's necessary to make the jump again. To integrate one level above…

This kind of approach shows up in a movement practice, but NOT in a mobility practice. Don’t get stuck combining a “mobility” practice and a “strength” practice and an “acrobatic” practice… Become the unified field phenomenon - evolve into a movement practice.

The Pain Map ebook is up!

What if we didn’t see our pain as an antagonistic villain, but as a teacher and friend; not as an enemy to be avoided, but a partner in crime? This article provides a map for reshaping our relationship to pain. It is a map providing you reference points within a complex territory. The goal is not that you walk away with some information you can store in your back pocket for trivia night, but that you have the understanding for thinking critically and deeply about pain & injury, for knowing what kinds of questions to ask inside of this territory.

Download the ebook "Pain Map: A Mindbody Perspective"

Pain Map by Sean Nicolle is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Map drawn with Gravit Designer (www.designer.io). Thank you!

Interviewed by "Back | Pain | Movement"

Sean was recently interviewed by “Back | Pain | Movement” (Simon Schmidt) - talking about pain, movement, psychology, democratizing science, observations from our movement community and teaching in Miami, and personal own background (bulk of the pain discussion comes up at the end - around 38:50).

Link: .iTunesShoutEngine

For those intrigued by pain, we’re almost done with the pain map/resource that will provide the blueprint for changing the relationship to pain