Introduction to Psychophysical Training

Here's what you get:

• New program: "Introduction to Psychophysical Training"
• 3 x one-to-one sessions via Zoom; 60 mins per session.
• Unlimited email followup and video Q&As with me.
• Free bonus: "Psychophysical Reading" – a new technique for integrating the parts of your brain in 2 pages a day.
• Choose a price that fits your circumstances: $400, $300 or $200 – plus your local sales tax/VAT.

What is Psychophysical Training?

"You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body."
– Juvenal, Roman poet

Integrating physical training with cognitive training is the key to "a healthy mind in a healthy body." Thinking while moving, moving while thinking.

Psychophysical Training is not any 'fitness program' or 'brain training' or 'movement practice' in the ordinary sense. It's a new, practical discipline that explains and trains how to Think-In-Action.

Nowadays most people train their mind and body at separate times. Yet, if we look at human history it's clear that our most powerful actions are always a combination of motor skills + quick wits in real time:

e.g. Toolmaking, Group Hunting, Speech, Art, Fighting, Dancing, War Strategy, Inventions, Writing, Religious Rituals, Medieval Craftsmanship, Spiritual Practices, Surgery, the Experimental Method, Technologies etc

The kind of action that coordinates the energies of body and mind in a dynamic environment. The kind of intelligent physical behavior that make us different from animals.

You can't just repeat the same movements on autopilot if you want to survive - and thrive. You don't always have time to think then move. You need to be thinking IN action.

But until now this skill-of-skills has only been trained informally and by happenstance within these other, limited, modalities.

What makes Psychophysical Training different? We intentionally train "thinking in action" in a formal and explicit way.

What happens during a 1 to 1 session?

You get 3x one-to-one sessions in this introduction to psychophysical training. This can ONLY be taught on a one to one basis.

You won't be mindlessly repeating the same movements like reps at the gym. You won't be sitting around passively thinking like a game of chess or using a brain change app. You also won't be calmly sensing and feeling you body like in somatic therapy or embodiment practices.

During the first meeting I will direct you through a series of movement prompts to test how well you can physically figure out the best way to complete the task.

You'll be: thinking on your feet, solving problems, experimenting with new movements, having a workout, learning a skill, self-regulating your emotions, breaking through habits, and training your conscious will.

All combined into one psychophysical activity you can learn online with just a webcam and a few simple tools.

What will this work do for me?

Combining cognitive training with physical training does things for the brain and body you can't get by training them separately.

We're looking for general results which "spill over" and transfer to as many specific skills as possible. We're not downloading a new app, we're updating your operating system :)

Example 1: General Cognitive Enhancement

Research shows that most chess skills and brain training apps don't help you with other cognitive tasks. What does work? Adding in a physical component to cognitive training ensures a skills transfer over to other tasks (even purely cognitive ones.)

"A novel approach to cognitive training based on complex motor activities. In a randomized controlled design, participants were assigned to one of three conditions:

(a) aerobic exercise, (b) working memory training, or (c) designed sport — an intervention specifically tailored to include both physical and cognitive demands [spatial ability and working memory demands while concurrently requiring sustained physical activity.]

After training for eight weeks, the designed sport group showed the largest gains in ALL cognitive measures." – David Moreau

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Example 2: Mastery of Physical Performance

Contrary to popular belief, real experts (10 yrs deliberate practice with desire to improve) don't actually "just-do-it" and it's not true that thinking interferes with performance.

“Cognition-in-Action: For experts, when all is going well, optimal or near optimal performance frequently employs some of the following conscious mental processes:

Self-Reflective Thinking, Planning, Predicting, Deliberation, Attention to or Monitoring of their Actions, Conceptualizing their Actions, Control, Trying, Effort, Having a Sense of the Self, and Acting for a Reason.

Moreover, such mental processes do not necessarily or even generally interfere with expert performance, and should not generally be avoided by experts.” – Barbera Montero

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Example 3: Neurogenesis & Brain Plasticity

In some new stroke rehabilitation methods, patients regain cognitive and physical skills much better and faster when both are trained simultaneously using immersive video games

"You're making high amplitude movements, so it's a workout, you're having to become more and more skilled as your opponent's get smarter, and you have to be thinking all the time because you have to strategize...

So it's more like a sport, you're doing cardiovascular exercise, you're becoming skilled and you're having to think, and it's all very immersive...

You need to do something which is beautiful, social and emotional, in other words it makes a difference if you're doing something that has that aesthetic and social quality" – John Krakauer

The magic happens when you are thinking, moving and feeling all at the same time.

Before I explain how it works during a 1 to 1 session, you need to understand what the real problem is with the traditional approaches I've outlined above.

But aren't I already training like this?

Some things feel like you're integrating physical training with cognitive training – in truth, this is not the case:

Level 1: We all know regular exercise helps you think more clearly, but these effects are indirect only. Reading books between sets at the gym?! – This is not quite it either, in fact this is still training both modalities separately - first your mind, and then your body.

Level 2: Going for a walk to come up with ideas or dictating notes into your phone? Better but still not integrated – even when walking, our thoughts remain unrelated to movement. In truly psychophysical training you can't think about something else at the same time.

Level 3: We begin to integrate thinking and moving into our activtities: fighting, dancing, parkour, eastern spiritual practices, natural movement, music etc. The magic happens while you're still consciously figuring out the movements in real time. This is not simply a case of drilling the completed solution.

Level 4: What makes psychophysical training different is we train this capacity for "thinking-in-action" and "self-experimenting" in a formal and explicit way. You can easily train on your own at home without special equipment or a specific environment.

In psychophysical training we get the benefits of levels 1-4 all at once.

Why haven't I heard of this before?

For the Romans, mind and body were considered to be in unity. It was just a question of health. Modern western culture has split mind from body, theory from practice, and words from actions.

When western educators took up the Roman motto of "a healthy mind in a healthy body" they fell prey to training mind and body at separate times. Intellectual education and physical education became separate fields.

Even the economic system plays out this mind-body split. First manual workers for the factories (all body, no mind), and then knowledge workers for the offices (all mind, no body!)

The man who is merely physical, or intellectual, is easy to control and manipulate. The man who integrates his ideas with his actions is dangerous - a rebel.

Why should I start now?

The younger you are when you start this work the better. Your brain and body will integrate more easily as your habits aren't as deep yet, and the results can compound over a longer time.

That said, older people can be more motivated to change. As stated above, the integration of cognitive and physical training is crucial in the new stroke recovery methods, which suggests this method is key to keeping your brain healthy into old age.

Why should I trust you, Kevin?

I've experimented with a mass of methods for decades – ancient and modern, mainstream and esoteric, western and eastern. This psychophysical training is the only thing I've found that integrates cognitive training and physical training at the level of your "operating system."

I haven't invented anything. All I've done is synthesize the ideas and techniques of smart people, from a bunch of different fields, and presented it in a new, highly practical and useable way.

You'll learn all my sources and influences as you proceed through the 1 to 1 sessions.

How does it work?

These sessions are based on what I call Psychophysical Puzzles.

If you think about it 'physical training' is a kind of simple puzzle. How do I run a mile in under 4 minutes? Deadlift 400 pounds? These types of training itself are still mostly on the physical side. You might think about the movements a little bit first, and then rinse and repeat the same motion unthinkingly.

On the other hand, 'cognitive training' puzzles are a very simple kind of physical activity. Moving pieces on a chessboard, clicking buttons with your thumbs. But the training is still mostly mental. You're thinking a lot, while only doing a few small, simple movements.

Psychophysical Puzzles combine these cognitive and physical efforts into one balanced activity. Thinking while moving, and moving while thinking. Combining motor skills + quick wit in the same action.

These are open-ended puzzles, 'infinite games', designed to give you practical results, and to be fun and interesting.

Since this is a new method of learning for most people we start with something easily accessible to everyone, posture, how you hold yourself. I’ll guide you through a series of techniques that will help you gain better control over your posture, first by actively thinking about how you hold yourself and over time it will become more reflexive.

Our goal is not only to improve your posture, but to use posture as the gateway for using these techniques in a broader context that will extend to emotional regulation, focus, and self-discipline: More control and agency over all aspects of your life.

We start with something simple so that the Psychophysical method of learning can be developed and applied in all aspects of improvement.”

How do I get started?

Here's how to book your place:

1. Choose a price that fits your circumstances. No questions asked. The price is either $400, $300 or $200– plus your local sales tax/vat.
2. After payment I'll be in touch within 24 hours to arrange your first 1 to 1 session. *If you haven't heard from me email: kevindmackay [at] gmail [dot] com
3. We'll meet on Zoom for one hour. Please wear light-coloured clothes and have good lighting in the room!

How do I know if this is for me?

You already know if you're the psychophysical type of person.

So if you want to train for a healthy mind in a healthy body in a non-dualistic way, the way ancient man did – without larping as a Roman – then this is for you.

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