Rejuvenating Aging and Vitality Through Feelness and Gentle Movement - Mark Firehammer

We make a bold claim that aging doesn't mean inevitable decline as we welcome Mark Firehammer, the inspiring co-creator of Feelness. Mark shares his powerful personal journey of overcoming chronic pain and reclaiming vitality at 60, challenging the typical notions of aging and fitness. Feelness offers a transformative approach that respects the body's desires for pleasure and natural movement, rather than pushing through demanding fitness regimes. Through Mark's insights, we explore how this method stands apart, providing a balanced and fulfilling alternative to conventional workouts while rejuvenating our sensuality, relationships, and overall life perspective.

Discover the secrets to graceful aging through the power of gentle movement and sustainable habits. Drawing from Dan Buettner's documentary "The Secrets of the Blue Zones," we highlight the importance of everyday movement, diet, and social connections in communities with high longevity rates. Learn how simplifying our lives and addressing minor physical discomforts can enhance both our well-being and intimate relationships. By focusing on feelness, we reveal how you can reclaim youthful vitality and intimacy, debunking the myths of unavoidable decline and offering a refreshing outlook on aging.

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Chapters

• 0:08 Feelness
• 8:23 Gentle Movement for Aging Gracefully
• 15:11 Rediscovering Joyful Aging Through Feelness

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Hey there, let's welcome to Principles, and this is a podcast where we dive deep into the intersection of self-discovery, relationships and embracing the life in its all vibrant glory. I'm your host, avik, and today we are busting one of the biggest myths out there, that's, aging means inevitable decline. Yeah, so joining me is the incredible Mark Firehammer, so welcome to the show, mark.

Speaker 2: 0:38

Thanks, avik, I appreciate you having me. This has been an exciting topic.

Speaker 1: 0:41

Yeah, exactly, I love it. Yeah, and so, before we start, I'll quickly love to introduce you to all of our listeners. Dear listeners, mark is the co-creator of Feelness, a revolutionary system that helps people reconnect with their bodies through purposeful movement. So Mark isn't just a creator, but he is a living testament to the power of feelness. So, at 60, he conquered chronic pain and reclaimed his freedom, like proving that aging doesn't mean giving up on the pleasure, vitality or independence. So we'll discuss all about it. So buckle up, because we are diving into how fiendness can transform not just aging, but also sensuality, relationships and the way we move through life. So, ready to reclaim your body and your pleasure, then let's get into it. Welcome to the show again, mark. Thank you, avik. Then let's get into it. Welcome to the show again, mark. Thank you, avik. Yeah, so, mark, like for those who are very unfamiliar, what exactly is feelness? And I mean if you can share, like, what exactly is feelness and how does it differ from the traditional fitness approaches?

Speaker 2: 2:03

Yeah, that's a great question. It kind of sets the stage for understanding why we created it. As you mentioned, I was 60 when I started using our own system. I'm 62 now and in all my years much of which 20 years of which was a musician traveling on the road I began to see the truth in use it or lose it.

Speaker 2: 2:31

As we say here in the United States, that if you don't use your body, you lose your body was the answer to that problem, because the Industrial Revolution, of course, supposedly gave us all these machines to take all physical labor off our hands, only to discover 75, 100 years later that if you don't use the human body and its brilliant design, it starts to fall apart at the seams.

Speaker 2: 3:03

So I began that journey of okay, if I can't find something to help me preserve my physical capacity, because, as an artist, as a man, as a human, as a lover with my partners over the years, if I lose the body, which is the vehicle within which my consciousness is riding for the entire journey of my life, the body is such a gift and faced with only fitness as an alternative and Americanized versions of other things, like yoga, for example. Yoga is great, but the Americans have turned it into just another fitness routine. So I realized, trying and failing and trying and failing, that I was just like billions of other people on the planet that don't like the activities, the hard work, the sweat, the grind. You know, feel the burn. Do you have that saying in India? Avik, feel the burn.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:08

No pain, no gain, that whole concept.

Speaker 1: 4:11

Exactly A hundred. Not a hundred, it's a thousand percent, I would say.

Speaker 2: 4:15

Yes, now, that never resonated with me, especially the things that I learned from my great teachers. They come from your part of the world. Avik J Krishnamurti. What did he write? The Awakening of Intelligence. What was the other one that I loved? Well, of course, deepak Chopra. They taught me that I'm a spiritual being having a physical experience. My spirit, my soul, is riding in this brilliant machine, and it's up to me to be conscious of that machine's needs and make sure that I take care of it, so that this journey that I'm on won't end up just being constant trips to the doctor.

Speaker 1: 4:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:59

I think that's what really sets feelness apart from fitness, is there was no option in the marketplace that I could choose. I tried everything. I tried P90X, I tried going to the gym, running endless miles on the treadmill. Nothing made my body feel better in the holistic way, from head to toe. So feelness, think of feelness as the option that exists on a line. If we're to draw a line on a page, and on the left we put do nothing. And that's what happens when there's no choice. That fits your desire, your pleasure principles, right. As human beings, we are all wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. If you don't like the pain of fitness, you end up on the far left of that spectrum, which is doing nothing.

Speaker 2: 5:46

On the far right of the spectrum is fitness, which is doing everything. Almost all fitness routines focus on a complete transformation of the body. You see these advertisements where it's before and after picture. If it's a guy, he's kind of heavy, overweight and looking sad. And then the photo on the right is the same guy, but in American language he's jacked, ripped and shredded.

Speaker 2: 6:13

And they're selling us this ideal as if you accomplish this, you're going to be, everything's going to be better. You're going to be a better human, better at business, better in your relationships, a better lover, more attracted to others. You're going to be living the dream because you did this. But what they don't tell you is it's an incredible amount of work. Changing matter and energy from one state to another is always an incredible amount of work. And once you do that with fitness and you achieve that body, it's too late to realize. If I want to keep this body, I have to continue for the rest of my life to do this. So it's a bit of a trap, but it's a very profitable trap for the fitness industry. I'm not complaining.

Speaker 2: 6:56

We are ourselves in the fitness business. My partner, Katrina and I have a yoga not a yoga studio Pilates studio. Been there 20 years and that's where the knowledge and wisdom behind feelness comes from, because Katrina is a remarkable facilitator of the restoration of physical function. So, getting back to that line, feelness is on the same line between nothing and everything, but it's down like at 10, 15, 20%. It's close to nothing, because feelness is made to only give you the prescriptions of movement that you need to restore the specific tasks that you have to do all day, every day, for your entire life. You know things like getting out of that first walk to the bathroom, to the curb, to the kitchen, wherever Reaching to a high shelf. For me it's you, a coffee drinker, Avik.

Speaker 2: 7:56

Yes, I love it for me it's reaching for the coffee beans, bending over at the waist. Got to pet the cat, love the cat. Going back to the breakfast table, sitting in a chair for 45 minutes, how's that feel Getting back out of that chair, how'd that feel Getting all the way down to the floor, getting up from the floor again and finally looking over your shoulder like we have lots of cars here in the US. Looking over your shoulder to like we have lots of cars here in the US. Looking over your shoulder to back the car out of the driveway.

Speaker 2: 8:23

Feeling this takes a different approach to body care, because it's about making sure that all of those tasks that when you're young, you never think about it because your body is young and you're really active and you're naturally maintaining its capacities. But as we get older and we have all these responsibilities, those tasks become uncomfortable and we say oof, oof. Or you bend over to pet the cat, oof. And you say to the person that just said that oh, are you okay? And they say, oh, yeah, I'm okay, I'm just getting old, which is tragic because it has nothing to do with age. It has to do with how much were you using that beautiful body that your spirit is riding in. How much were you using it in the 10 to 20 years prior to this moment, when that task first became difficult? So that's what feelness is an alternative that's not uncomfortable, that does what you really want, which is help you to have the habits that give you a comfortable and reliable ride to the epic journey of your life in the body that you've been given yeah, exactly I agree.

Speaker 1: 9:32

And and also, at the same time, uh like for the people, or or the for the skeptics, rather I'd say they say that gentle movement sounds very simple to be effective. So I mean on this, like how do you respond to the critics who think that intense fitness is the only way?

Speaker 2: 9:59

Yeah, that's, it's that's like. I'm glad you brought that up. I hear it all the time and one of the benefits of being associated with a Pilates studio is there's lots of people there that are doing really intense work because they really want the big result, and that's fine, because they're not uncomfortable with the little bit of pain and suffering that comes with that journey. But we also have people side by side in the same room with those people that are seeking the big result. We have 60, 70, 80, even 90-year-old people doing these really gentle movements, and here's the answer that I always give them Do you remember the day you were born? In fact, I'll do it with you. Do you remember the day you were born, avik?

Speaker 1: 10:52

Yeah, I mean, I heard from my parents.

Speaker 2: 10:58

Yes, Okay, but you don't have a recollection of that. It of that entrance into the world from the womb of your mother.

Speaker 1: 11:04

Right.

Speaker 2: 11:06

Every infant comes into this world perfectly formed, assuming they're a healthy child, perfectly formed, but with no capacity whatsoever and without any help at all. All infants, they go through the same developmental movements, which are all very gentle, because, after all, this is an infant. Within one year, that little, perfect body, perfectly formed but helpless, is on his feet or her feet, running like the wind very soon after, of course, much to the chagrin of the parents who have to chase them. So the answer to the question does gentle movement do it? Well, we've all used gentle movement to give ourselves the capacity to move about and explore our world without any weights, without any sweat. Move about and explore our world without any weights, without any sweat, without any, you know, feel the burn, without any of that Feelness, is just a return to doing that again because you've already done it.

Speaker 1: 12:10

Exactly, very true, yeah, lovely. And also like. I mean what to say? Like, how about people? I mean, what about the people who claim that aging does in fact like bring unavoidable limitations? So are we ignoring the biology in this discussion? I mean what?

Speaker 2: 12:38

Yeah, great question. I'm grateful for Don Buhner's documentary. What? Yeah, great question. I'm grateful for Don Buehner's documentary If you haven't seen it or haven't heard of it and the listeners haven't. Do not pass Go. Just go watch this. It's called the Secrets of the Blue Zones. Have you heard of it? Oh, you have heard of it.

Speaker 1: 13:00

I heard, not completely, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:02

Okay, the Secrets of the Blue Zones. This fellow went around the world to five places on this earth where an inordinate percentage of the population is living to 100 years old and beyond, and not only just living but thriving and moving about. And they're living the same life at 100 that they were at 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90. And Mr Buechner found the four common denominators that allowed these human beings they're the same design as the rest of us to accomplish that, and there's more than four. But the four common on all five places on the earth are what you eat right, we are. What we eat. What you put into your body, it changes either for the good or the better. If you eat healthy, your body thrives more. If you eat unhealthy, you have some challenges. So food support. They're surrounded by community and family. There's a mutual love and interdependence on the journey of life. We're here to be in relationship with others, so that's an important one.

Speaker 2: 14:19

The next one was movement of their lifestyle and in Sardinia, for example, they're one of the five zones. It's very hilly terrain, so they're always going up and down really steep hills and that engages the appendages of the body in more extreme angles and keeps the body working. Well. In Okinawa they live on the floor. They don't have the furniture that's 20 inches off the floor, so they're constantly getting up and down and think about this, just like the people who are fitness fanatics. They go to the gym to do squats. The Okinawans do 30, 40 squats a day in the execution of their daily lives. They don't think of it as exercise. This is just what we do, so those movements add up to preserving the function of all the seven different areas of your body that work together as a team.

Speaker 2: 15:11

The last of the four common denominators of the Blue Zones is purpose. They have a reason for living, not just accumulating wealth, like so many of us here in the Western side of the world. It's just this constant pursuit of wealth, much to a detriment of their health, because their sole focus is money, money, money, money, money, possessions, possessions. So is that a good answer to the question? I love it because it doesn't come from me. It comes from a documentary of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that are living on this planet and thriving without strenuous fitness beyond the age of 100.

Speaker 1: 15:53

I really love this. I definitely I'd say I really love this and it is something that is the reason we are also discussing about it, because when we discuss, we get to know a lot more things and it's definitely a kind of add-ons for the listeners. So thanks for sharing.

Speaker 2: 16:13

Yeah, sure yeah, I'm going to watch it again, just because it was so liberating the first time. Katrina and I actually took it so much to heart when we watched it that we you know, we're Westerners. She was born in Wyoming, I was born here in Massachusetts and I inherited and was indoctrinated into a Western lifestyle where we have all this furniture. Our houses are literally full of furniture and the vast majority of each room is only used for one thing the dining room for eating, a bedroom for sleeping, the living room for living. Right. We saw what the Okanans were doing and the joy with which they lived and played with each other. So we started small. We got rid of the bed first no, I'm sorry, we got rid of the bed first. No, I'm sorry, we got rid of the couch and we began the living room experience. Like the Okinawans.

Speaker 2: 17:07

We were already in pretty good shape in January of 2024, because I'd been on my feelness journey since July to the floor you have to work your way down there, but I was already ready to be there and within a couple of weeks we're like, oh my gosh, I could actually sleep here, right. So the difference is the Okinawans taught us in that documentary to find our comfort in our body, not in our furniture. And the American culture will keep selling you a more expensive bed as you get older, saying that the reason why you're uncomfortable is your bed's no good, when the truth of the matter is and it's not even a theory, anecdotally we're experiencing in ourselves. The Okinawans have been doing it for thousands of years our comfort is in our body and when your body is working as it's designed so brilliantly, you'll find your comfort anywhere.

Speaker 2: 18:03

I learned that a lot from my cats. Sometimes they're in positions on the floor. I'm like how can that be comfortable? So I get down on the floor and I do a similar position, and we've been doing it now for 12 months, almost to the day, and there isn't any position that I can't get into today, at 62, that I couldn't at 50 and 40, but I could at 15 and 20. So there's that 20 year gap where my lifestyle caused my body to lose some of its functions, and I said enough is enough, I'm going to figure out a way to bring it back. And so here we are today in 2024.

Speaker 1: 18:44

Wow, that's awesome, I'd say Great. And so like aging is often tied to a kind of decline in the intimacy, so Can fiddliness reignite the connection and pleasure in the relationships.

Speaker 2: 19:04

That's a great question, and I think I have to answer it with kind of another question.

Speaker 1: 19:12

Okay.

Speaker 2: 19:14

If we want to know if that's true or not, does it decline as an inevitability of aging, true or not? Does it decline as an inevitability of aging? We have to remember what it was like, what our bodies felt like when we were intimately free and comfortable, where intimacy and love making with our partners was an amazing, really mind-blowing experience, and hopefully all of us have had those. And then, okay, let's track that forward in time. When did that start to change? For many, they'll be able to say oh, you know, I started to feel that. You know, when I back pain, I get up from my desk at work, back, when you have even minor pain because of the way we're made, your mind is then consumed with that pain Again.

Speaker 2: 20:04

Deepak Chopra taught us that we're spiritual beings having a physical experience. So if we're pleasure seekers, if our egos seek pleasure and avoid pain, and all of a sudden, at 45, 50 years old, 25 years into our marriage, the spark seems to be gone, ask yourself, how do you feel in your relationship with yourself? And if the mind is consumed with even minor pain, that's less energy available for you to look at the wonderful, magical, mystical relationship you have with your partner. And for me it, it, it changed everything back. We feel like children again because we're not thinking so much about I don't know.

Speaker 2: 20:53

Over there in your country, when old people get together let's say 65, 70, 75, here in this country, they'll often just talk about their physical problems. It becomes what they socialize about and imagine that effect. The mind seems to be consumed with this because, in my point of view, my body is the vehicle within which I experience life, including making love to my partner. If that body is so challenged that all I can think is all the procedures I have to do and all the discomfort and all the medicine I'm taking, there's no energy, there's no sexual energy left, because my mechanism is trying to take care of the physical parts of what's going on for me.

Speaker 1: 21:39

Exactly, yeah, great, lovely. To take care of the physical parts of what's going on for me. Exactly, yeah, great, lovely, and also like if listeners could do one thing today to embrace the feelness and combat aging myths, then what that would be? Yeah, that's a great question.

Speaker 2: 21:59

You'll find a lot of people talking about this. It's a little bit of an oversimplification, but you've asked the question. One thing the squat you know the human position of the squat functions comfortably and reliably at any age and most people will find if they're not exercisers over the age of 40, 45, that they can't even get into a squat. And a squat and a real squat is heels remain on the ground but you get all the way down. So you're the back of your thighs, are touching your calves.

Speaker 2: 22:39

And when you look at a child, an infant like our neighbor has had a four-year-old. He was perched up on the kitchen table in a full squat reading a book or playing with his iPad and he looked like a bird squatting there. Comfort, you know, no problem, no complaints, just sitting there squatting. If we can get our squat back, because the squat involves five of the seven areas of the body, you're in way better shape for the future and getting the squat back should be gradual. What I recommend people do is a very firm handhold like a big heavy chair right, I don't have big heavy chairs, so what I would do is I'd put a bar like a towel rod on the wall and just lower yourself down to the point where, oh, I'm starting to feel some discomfort there.

Speaker 1: 23:34

Don't abort.

Speaker 2: 23:35

Stay there just a couple of seconds and then come back out of it. Try it again later, just a little of seconds, and then come back out of it. Try it again later, just a little at a time. I remember just a year ago when I couldn't fully squat for one minute. Now I fully squat every day while I'm learning my languages. I like to learn languages, I use duolingo, so I do 30 minutes at the minimum every morning and I do it in a full squat.

Speaker 2: 24:04

And my partner, katrina, will come in and she says she says look at that squat. You look just like you know, ethan, on the kitchen table in full squat at five years old. And here I'm, 60 plus and my squat is back. Do that and you are on the road to the the next two parts of your body getting in alignment as well. You know the five parts of the body are feet and ankles, lower legs, upper legs, hips, spine, neck and shoulders and then your arms. That's seven parts. The squat takes five, takes the first five. All right, so if you do that, one minute and then two minutes and then five minutes, until squatting is as easy as it was 240 years ago, that's my advice.

Speaker 1: 24:51

That's lovely. That's really, really lovely. I would say that it's a very transformative conversation today, and thank you so much, mark, for showing us that aging doesn't have to be about decline. It it can be a journey into a deep connection, freedom and the pleasure. So, uh, for the listeners, I'd love to mention that if you are inspired to explore feelness or start moving in a way that feels good, then do not wait. Your your body deserves it. So, and also, like life's too short to live in discomfort or disconnection, so do not. And also, I'd say, please do not forget to subscribe, share this episode and leave a review, because it helps us to understand your perspectives and also will help me to come out with different topics and with the expert guests. So I would love to hear your thoughts and stories about reconnecting with your body and rediscovering pleasures at any age. So, until next time, keep thriving, keep moving and also, at the same time, keep feeling. So thank you so much.