Return Notes
Observations from movement, teaching, and paying attention.
These are notes from the practice. Observations that come up while teaching, training, walking, and moving through ordinary days.
Some are questions. Some are small observations. Most are short.
Read them in any order. Take what's useful, and leave the rest.
What do you notice?
What Do You Notice? — There's a question I keep coming back to when I teach. What do you notice?
Strength Stayed — For years, strength was a big part of my life. I trained seriously and competed in strength sports.
Play Is Not Extra — A lot of adults stop playing.
01 — What Do You Notice?
There's a question I keep coming back to when I teach. What do you notice?
Sometimes I let someone try a movement before I tell them what it's supposed to mean. They move. They feel it. Then I ask.
That doesn't mean I stop coaching. I still cue. I still correct. When someone needs direct instruction, I give it, and people still train hard.
But someone can do exactly what I asked and still be having a different experience than the one I can see from the outside. If I answer everything right away, I can talk over the part they might have found on their own.
So sometimes I wait a moment before the next instruction. Not to hold anything back. Just to leave some room.
What do you notice?
02 — Strength Stayed
For years, strength was a big part of my life. I trained seriously and competed in strength sports. I owned Dakmak Performance Fitness in Baton Rouge and coached people there at very different levels.
Somewhere along the way, I started listening more closely to my own body and to the people I was working with.
I didn't have to throw strength away to notice more.
Heavy training is still training. Effort still matters. What changed is how much I pay attention to while I'm doing it: what I'm feeling, where tension sits, what changes when I relax.
Effort was always familiar. Listening asked for something different.
Strength stayed. My understanding of movement got bigger.
03 — Play Is Not Extra
A lot of adults stop playing.
As kids, walking on sand, dirt, or mud wasn't an exercise. It was just being outside.
The ground changes what there is to notice. Sand asks something different from your feet than a sidewalk does. Dirt and mud ask something else again.
For a lot of adults, play has become a lost art. Days fill up with screens, deadlines, bills, and responsibilities. Relaxing can be hard. Exploring with no goal can feel like wasted time.
I don't think it is. When people are moving and a little less guarded, there's often more room to be curious, and less of a rush to judge an idea or an experience before trying it.
I think there's something worth paying attention to there. Not because every walk through the sand needs to teach you something. Sometimes it's enough to move somewhere different, mess around a little, and see what you notice.
To see where these notes come from, read The Practice.