Success leaves clues…

I remember the first time I went to a ROSS event and was thrown by Scott Sonnon.
I didn’t even know what to do.
My entire life paradigm was shifted in a weird ROSS throw.
I was 19, I had watched some videos and tried to train at home, thought I was a badass, and here was someone who could throw me with ease. All of them – Fabel, Menard, Brackbill – all could – they made it look easy.
I developed the first error of being a student – thinking it’s the teacher, and not what the teacher is doing.
We all fall into the trap of thinking it’s the person that is more special than all of the training that has gone into what the person is doing – cults of personality form, evolution and learning is stunted as the focus goes on that person that is teaching – the focus on the material that person is teaching is lost to the sea of ego like some Roman town.
I had a hard time getting past this type of teacher admiration and getting to material being taught until I was exposed to something so scientific, that it was suddenly revealed to me by Victor Zavgorodnij that if you would just simply apply the science – anyone could do it.
At that time, Scott was training with ROSS and Retuinskih – Retuinskih spent 1978 to 1991 under Kadochnikov, and Victor started along side of him. If these three guys could end up this good – if Mr. Kadochnikov could simply move his shoulder and put you off balance – I needed to look at what got them there – not them.
It hit me…it’s not who the person is teaching, it’s what the person is teaching.
That’s why all of these diagrams and formulas are the ultimate reset. They move us beyond ego – beyond selfishness – beyond personality. Gravity is a better teacher…a sore arm from a lever properly applied is the professor.
Try to give an ego to gravity…good luck!
How many times have you asked, ‘How did he do that?’ and be given an incomplete answer?
As people have seen from Equilibrium and the Wedge – showing someone that their lever is not wrong, but inefficient – that the distance of the lever arm should be increased to give better leverage – the diagrams, the science, teach us…that it is the not the person…it is the material being taught, combined with our willingness to learn.
It is the teacher who is presenting it, guiding you, showing you what you need to do.
It’s why I’m so willing to say that Pramek is not about me – its about what the student does with it.
It’s led me to learn.
How did this person get to this point?
Who are their teachers and how did their teachers teach?
How does their physiology making their movement?
A lot of people that worked with me in 2000 – 2008 ask me now, ‘Damn, you’re totally different than you were back then – it’s like something clicked, you put the pieces together in two years.’
It’s because I did. I simply sat with my books and went out an applied.
When you completely drop off the scene from 2008 – 2011, you spend a lot of time with yourself working through the problems that movement and physics create. I could have made videos, written manuals, done more seminars like I did in FL, Ft. Bliss, and WA. But, Pramek wasn’t ready – so I stayed in Atlanta and failed. You do trial classes, you fail, you fail again, your students don’t get this new way that is as old as Archimedes and Borelli.
You put away all of the ego that you had before and you just bare down on what works, what doesn’t – and answer the question to why on each.

And never forget what you are teaching is going to be used by someone defending their home or family, a soldier in a far off land who thought the room was clear and it wasn’t, an EP professional who is coming out of the elevator when it all goes wrong, an executive getting mugged, a police office who is in a dark backyard.

My goal was never to be ‘the’ teacher – it was to be the conduit for people to figure things out for themselves. I grew up in the DIY (d.o i.t y.ourself) punk culture – where you did everything your self you could, from fix your car with a coke can to make it to a show, to looking up to people like Ian Mackaye that believe in DIY so much that they make their own clothes.
I’m older, still a punk rocker. At it’s core, punk is about you and what you are capable of when all of the restraints are taken off.
Some people are only capable of drugs and tattoos – and some people are capable of creating new music, new art, and new companies that treat their customers with respect and dignity.
I hope Pramek falls into that category.
I leave you with this….
I once asked a flamboyant millionaire I did EP for, and ended up working for for years, ‘How did you get so rich?’
He said, ‘Matt, success leaves clues. In your life, it’s like a crime…don’t look at the crime scene, look for the evidence all around the crime scene.’
Instructors, even me, are not good because they are double jointed, they have some crazy spiritual power, or their hips are different – they worked at it, they learned what was given them, and they stayed at it when 98% of people just walked away and said, ‘I’d rather watch TV.’
When you worship your teachers – you have robbed yourself of finding what YOU can do.
If you’ll look at what was given to them and what they did with it – if you’ll turn off Dancing With The Stars and turn on The Wedge – you’ll see the clues.
You just have to have the DIY attitude – the mystery you are trying to solve will solve itself.
Oh, no sleep and some Ramones helps 🙂