Reflections: On Japan, Movement Autonomy & Community

Feb 21 2024 • 26 mins

This is the companion REFLECTIONS transmission for the conversation Patrick Oancia had with Ryan Hurst, one of the founders of GMB Fitness. To get insights from the conversation and deepen your understanding, listen to the original episode first. You can listen to that ⁠here⁠.

In this Reflection, co-developer of the Baseworks Method, Asia Shcherbakova, unpacks Ryan's immersive approach to movement practice and his journey from gymnastics to martial arts. She also explores the synergies and differences between GMB Fitness and the Baseworks method providing valuable insights and correlations. You can get the show notes, associated links, and show transcript for this episode ⁠here.

About Ryan:

Ryan co-founded GMB fitness in 2010 with partners Andy Fossett and Jarlo Ilano and acts as the head coach and program director for the method. Since 2010 GMB has facilitated the delivery of its programming to over 100,000 students in over 100 countries. Among the thousands who have benefited from their programming, they’ve trained Olympians, world-class martial artists, and FBI Hostage Rescue Teams at Quantico. Ryan also holds black belts in Kendo, Judo, and Shorinji Kempo, a purple belt in BJJ, and came from a background as a competitive gymnast. Ryan has devoted his life to coaching others in strength and movement but always lets his philosophy of “training for a healthy life” lead the way. He’s married with two children and has lived in Japan for over 25 years.

About Asia Shcherbakova:

Asia is a co-developer of the Baseworks Method and a published neuroscientist studying the pro-cognitive effects of medium-chain triglycerides. Asia’s role as Baseworks co-developer is both to map the method applications onto known neurobiological mechanisms in order to improve the method’s efficacy, and to “translate” the pioneering applications in order to map them back onto common categories in exercise physiology, other movement practices and everyday life.

Baseworks Transmission

These Baseworks Transmission conversations look at both the concrete and abstract realizations that emerge from a commitment to any kind of practice or pursuit to achieve life goals. The ideas get unpacked from their subjectivity, and the outcome of each transmission sets out to discover critical feature patterns and construct common recognition categories of physical and introspective experiences.

Transmission Reflections is a format that allows us to reflect on what was discussed during the Transmission Conversations, digest it, and perhaps even generate a new perspective on what unfolded during the talk.

The On Japan, Movement Autonomy & Community conversation was recorded on July 6, 2022 To listen to the audio version or read this companion reflection instead, please visit here.