This is sort of a spoiler alert: If you plan on attending Tom Brown’s Tracker School at some point in the future and you don’t want any spoilers of the lessons he might impart, read no further. That said, if you’ve ready any of his books (I haven’t, yet) I’d wager there’s nothing surprising here.

One of the main over-arching lessons that Tom tries to impart by the end of the week is essentially one of awareness. Not awareness in the sense of noticing that someone is about to jump out of the bushes or from behind a dumpster to attack you, but a more general and greater sense of connection, appreciation, and consciousness of the world around you.

Through this, he contends, you can actually appreciate more of the the natural (and unnatural) world.

But he actually goes a step further, to argue that reaching a higher level of awareness actually leads to a higher level of consciousness – beyond the base level of physical presence in the world.

Physical presence is fine, if you’re satisfied with sort of the absolute minimum level of living. It’s a passing grade, but it’s a C. At that level you’re reacting and responding, and your knowledge and wisdom is limited to just what you have right in front of your face.

But, through awareness you step up to a higher consciousness. You’re taking in more than what is immediately obvious, and you’re able to utilize inferences and wisdom that you might not be completely conscious of.

Which is interesting, because that’s exactly what we see happen with biofeedback training.

Going through the motions of a training program, following it verbatim isn’t bad, it’s just that it’s the lowest possible level of operating. Your results aren’t going to be as good as they could be, you’re probably going to get hurt more often, and the best you can do is what is presented immediately before you.

But by tapping in to your body’s feedback you can unlock a higher level of interaction and performance. You can utilize feedback you couldn’t possibly be consciously aware of to tune your program. The result is better progress, fewer injuries (because you often stop short of doing the thing your body is subtly signaling isn’t a good idea) and much greater, much deeper, engagement with your own training.

It’s not a coincidence that one of the most common pieces of feedback is of people being surprised at what they’re capable of. Even those who aren’t new to training at all.

If you’re still not using biofeedback here’s two ways to get started: this blog post or this program I sell. Biofeedback is at the core of all of my programs, but Get Stronger Faster is my favorite general overall strength program. Some people can make things work just by reading articles, some people like a clear path to follow.

Either way, if you’re still not using biofeedback you’re playing blindfolded.

As I mentioned, last week I was at a week-long survival class at Tom Brown Jr’s survival and tracking school in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. It was an experience that I won’t soon forget and something that I would recommend to almost everyone, with few exceptions. I’ll have more to write about the experience when I have more time to process and digest, it was possibly the most intense education I’ve ever received in a short 6 days, but for now I have one story to share with you. On the Monday, Tom says that after Friday you’ll never look at the ground the same way again. To be honest with you, I thought it was bullshit, and I was wrong.

But let me tell you a little story to illustrate my point.

On the drive home my buddy Dom Matteo and I were riding with another student from the class who needed a ride back to the train station in Philly. At some point in the hour and a half ride he and Dom got to talking about climbing, something Dom is pretty passionate about.

Dom has built a bouldering cave in his basement and his young kids both climb. Having found another climb, Dom excitedly pulled out his phone to show the other guy, Rob, a video of his 3-year old daughter bouldering.

Upon watching the video, Rob exclaimed “Oh, wow!”

Now, this wasn’t just a random shining on about someone’s kid. Rob was able to see something that a regular person, a non-climber, would never see. He was able to appreciate it in a unique and special way.

This general concept is something I’ve written about before, where skills allow you to appreciate more of the world.

This little kid, barely past speaking age, had performed a complex climbing move most climbers don’t even learn right away. And Rob could spot it, and appreciate it, immediately.

I call this “having eyes.” For example I have eyes for movement. I see mistakes and inefficiencies in my clients that a layman would never see. Conversely, I can see the beauty in an athlete’s unique and highly efficient movement. I also have eyes for dozens of other things I’ve invested time into developing.

Circling back to Tom’s exaggerated promise: I now see the natural world in a way that I never could before.

I’m not joking or exaggerating when I tell you that I can find mouse tracks in the forest.

This in turn gives me greater appreciation for every moment I spend in nature. I literally get more out of it. It’s like seeing everything in color when before I only saw black and white. If I had to invest a week to experience more every time I go hiking for the rest my life it was worth many times the investment.

I don’t know about you, but I want to have eyes for as many things as I possibly can. I want to be able to appreciate as much of the world as I possibly can.

Turns out again and again skills are the key to that end.

Apparently it’s complex physiology week over here, because today instead of discussing neuroendocrinology we’re going to take a quick look at neurophysiology.

The brain is complex far beyond our understanding or comprehension, and any firm declarations about how it works should be met with a pound of skepticism. That said, it can be fun and interesting to look at associations and look at generalities that might be interesting. We do know, in broad strokes, that if you damage or stimulate specific parts of the brain there are pretty clear assocations about what happens. For example, a person with a missing pre-frontal cortex demonstrates completely disinhibited behavior. Basically, they act totally inapproiately and without context to their actions.

The frontal lobe, and specifically the prefrontal cortex, could be described as the area of the brain where we consider our actions, integrate things we’ve learned about the world around us, as well as where much of our empathy stems from. If you’re familiar with the story of Phineas Gage, who took an iron rod through the front of his head, he was not so fun to be around afterwards even though he survived.

Which is interesting, because guess which region of the brain is most active during new skill acquisiton and learning?

You probably guessed it. The prefrontal cortex.

Studies of skill learning have shown that during early stages of learning most of the activity occurs towards the front of the brain.

You can literallly stimulate and develop the empathy part of your brain by learning new skills.

What’s even more interesting is that as you approach later stages of skill learning, the activity in the brain actually moves more towards the back of the brain into the parietal lobes.

This one might be a little more difficult to guess what other functions are associated to that area of the brain so I’ll just tell you: joy and happiness.

Which makes sense. The better you are at a skill, the more joy you are able to derive from it because you don’t have to think so hard in the concscious competence stage, you can just unconciously partake in the activity and enjoy the process.

Learning new skills proves, again, to be damn good for you.

What are you working on?