Lessons from the Mountains: Why Movement Heals More Than Medicine

For thousands of years, people have searched for secret cures, the perfect combination of herbs, tonics, or rituals to bring strength and longevity. In ancient China, monks were often seen as the living embodiment of health and spiritual power. People admired the elixirs and herbal medicines they gathered in the mountains, assuming their vitality came from those rare roots and plants.

But I have often wondered if it was something simpler.
Maybe their health came not only from the herbs they consumed, but from the act of searching for them; climbing steep paths, crossing rivers, breathing mountain air, and moving through nature every day. The herbs may have healed, but it was the movement that truly made them strong.

Herbs are not bad, far from it. Nature’s medicine has real value and wisdom. But no herb, no supplement, no tonic can compare to the power of consistent movement. Exercise changes the entire body from the inside out: your lungs, heart, muscles, brain, mood, and even your immune system.

The Foundations of Health (Excluding Nutrition)

For me, true wellness comes from three interconnected elements:

1. Cardio – Expanding your VO₂ max, or your body’s ability to perform intense activity using oxygen efficiently. This builds endurance and resilience.

2. Strength – Weight training or body resistance work to keep bones dense, joints supported, and muscles active.

3. Mind Body Connection – The quiet, restorative side of practice, smoothing neural pathways, regulating tension, and allowing your body to recover.

Tai Chi fits beautifully into that third element. But I think many practitioners miss the full picture. In the past, daily life was cardio and strength work, people farmed, hunted, hauled, and walked everywhere. “Exercise” was not something they scheduled; it was how they survived.

My Own Practice

That is why I combine everything:

• Tai Chi for balance, focus, and internal strength

• Hiking in high elevations to challenge my lungs and heart

• Weightlifting to maintain structure and power

• Weapons training to refine coordination, precision, and the understanding of force

After decades of practice, I no longer need hour-long Tai Chi sessions every day. Instead, I integrate movement throughout life, flowing between stillness and exertion, effort and rest.

You can see my approach on my YouTube channel, where I practice in all kinds of weather and terrain:
Mountain Goat Tai Chi

Living close to high elevation gives me the perfect environment to test and strengthen my VO₂ max naturally. The mountains themselves have become my training ground, and I am convinced that movement, more than anything else, is the most powerful medicine we have.

How a simple vacation turned in the emergency preparedness training

When I planned my October 2025 trip, I thought it would be about recovery and reflection, hiking, tai chi, camping, and seeing parts of the Southwest that I’d always wanted to explore. However, it has evolved into something more: a real-time exercise in adaptability and emergency preparedness.

Earlier this year, after my wife and I divorced following thirty years together, I knew I needed to rebuild parts of myself I’d let go of, responsibility, self-direction, and confidence in making my own decisions. For decades, she handled much of the organization and planning. So I decided this trip would be my own kind of training; not just physical, but logistical and mental.

From Planning to Adaptation

I mapped out everything: routes to Chaco Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, and Acoma Sky City. I planned meals, campsites, fuel stops, and hiking distances. It was as much a test of organization as it was of endurance.

Then the government shut down, closing Chaco and disrupting half the plan. That was my first test: adapt. I pivoted quickly, with a coworker’s help, and rebuilt my route Mount Taylor, Acoma, and the lava fields of El Malpais National Monument.

That’s where the second test arrived Hurricane Priscilla. Moisture fronts, flash flood warnings, and unstable roads covered nearly the entire state of New Mexico. Suddenly, my vacation became a field course in real-world preparedness.

Training in Real Time

Every morning I’d spread out maps and weather updates, marking routes, fuel stops, and potential evacuation options. I studied topography to understand which areas were at risk for flash floods and where I could find high ground or paved exits in case of need.

I started thinking like a responder:

• What’s the safest direction if the roads wash out?
  
  

• How much fuel do I need in reserve?
  
  

• Where’s the nearest shelter or high-ground camping spot?
  
  

• How do I balance safety with still living the experience I came here for?
  
  

It became clear that preparedness isn’t paranoia — it’s awareness. It’s the difference between reacting and responding.

Lessons from the Field

This trip, now four days in, has been a reminder that no training is better than experience. I’ve learned how weather can change plans in an instant and how flexibility is one of the most important survival tools. I’ve learned to slow down and plan carefully, but hold those plans loosely.

Preparedness isn’t just about stockpiling gear; it’s about knowing how to think when things don’t go as expected. It’s the calm that comes from awareness and the confidence that comes from problem-solving under pressure.

At 60, I didn’t expect to be field-testing my own resilience on a “relaxing” solo road trip. But here I am part traveler, part student of circumstance,  learning that true preparedness is both practical and spiritual. It’s knowing how to move when the wind changes and how to stay grounded when everything else is shifting.

Meet Your Inner Accountant: The Hidden System That Manages Your Calories

 

One of the most fascinating and overlooked aspects of the human body is that we all carry around an “inner Accountant.” This isn’t a figure of speech for willpower or discipline. It’s a way to describe the body’s finely tuned energy management system, one that quietly tracks every movement you make, from lifting a grocery bag to bending down to pick up a piece of paper. And believe me, this Accountant is more meticulous than the IRS.

Every action is logged. Every choice is weighed against the energy it will cost. Walk across the room? That comes with a price. Carry a water bottle on a hike? That adds a tiny surcharge. The Accountant is always balancing the books, and most of the time it leans toward caution. Better to save those calories for later, it says. The future is uncertain, and energy might be needed in a moment of crisis—whether that means running from danger, lifting something heavy, or simply surviving another day without food.

This bias toward saving rather than spending has been with us for thousands of years. In the past, when food was scarce and famine was a constant threat, those who stored more energy had a better chance of survival. That’s why the Accountant doesn’t simply aim for balance; it actively prefers a surplus. A body carrying extra calories is like a household with a savings account—it’s prepared for emergencies. You can see this principle play out on survival shows like Alone, where contestants who arrive with extra body fat tend to last longer. Their reserves buy them time when food is scarce and tilt the odds in their favor when hunting or fishing doesn’t pan out.

Seen this way, fat isn’t a flaw. It’s a feature. It’s a built-in survival advantage, one that has carried humans through harsh winters, failed harvests, and long migrations. The trouble is that our modern environment has flipped the script. Food is everywhere, and the threats that once justified hoarding calories are mostly gone. Yet the inner Accountant hasn’t updated its methods. It still nudges us toward surplus, even when we’re already well-fed. That’s why we find ourselves constantly snacking, skipping workouts, or avoiding unnecessary movement. It’s not laziness—it’s biology.

This perspective has important consequences for how we think about health. It removes the blame and shame so often attached to body weight. It reframes fat not as personal failure but as the predictable outcome of a system designed for scarcity, suddenly operating in a world of abundance. Recognizing this doesn’t mean we give up on health; it means we approach it with compassion and strategy. Instead of fighting an imagined weakness of will, we’re negotiating with an ancient survival mechanism that is simply doing its job too well.

The inner Accountant is always there, balancing the books, urging caution, leaning toward saving energy rather than spending it. In the past, that default kept us alive. Today, it complicates our relationship with food and movement. But the first step in working with it is to recognize it. To hear the voice behind the hesitation and understand where it comes from. Once we do, health is no longer a battle against ourselves. It becomes a conversation with a system that has always had our survival in mind.

Changing Paths - The Struggle Between Apollo and Dionysus

 

As soon as I graduated high school, my father suddenly expected me to go to college—a word he had never once mentioned before, nor had he ever shown interest in my grades. It wasn’t surprising that I had my own plan: I wanted to become a professional boxer. That dream lasted until the night I met Rocky Graziano and Jake LaMotta. I had fought in the New York Golden Gloves and had been fighting for the past three years. My whole life was fighting. However, spending just one evening with my boxing heroes was enough to show me that boxing would waste my potential. I admired what they had done for Italian Americans, but their words and outlook turned me off. They were tough, yes, but not high-thinking men. Still, I couldn’t help noting how LaMotta lived well into his 90s in excellent shape, body, and mind.

Realizing boxing wasn’t my path left me scrambling for direction. I was finishing high school with poor grades, working at a grocery store, and feeling like my options were shrinking. But as life often does, it opened unexpected doors. I started revisiting my hippie parents’ music—The Rolling Stones, The Doors—just as punk rock was exploding in my neighborhood. At the same time, I experimented with drugs that expanded my consciousness, and once I had rejected boxing, it was as if my mind suddenly became thirsty for everything I had missed as a poor student. I read voraciously, diving into literature, art, and philosophy.

When my friends started at community college, I tagged along. One visit to the art school there hit me like lightning: this was where I belonged. I applied immediately and was accepted the next semester. In art, I discovered the part of myself I had buried while busy fighting. It was my soul yearning for expression, and I dove in without hesitation.

The lesson I took away from this was the importance of courage. In America today, we glorify Special Forces as the ultimate symbol of courage. At the same time, we’ve systematically devalued artists—sometimes justly, given the excesses of the music industry, but often unfairly. Life is always a tug-of-war between two broad paths: Apollo, the god of order, structure, discipline, and Dionysus, the god of chaos, art, and intoxication. For years, the rock star—Dionysus—was the cultural ideal, until the decadence, drugs, and self-destruction of that image pushed society to swing back toward Apollo: military fitness, warrior order, discipline. That swing isn’t necessarily bad, but America has a habit of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

When times got rough in my own life, I, too, threw myself into Apollo’s camp, becoming a warrior. But eventually I realized that path was intellectually and creatively narrow. My soul kept calling me back to Dionysus. Like many people, I carry both within me—maybe too much of both—and reconciling them isn’t easy.

The punk rock movement was crucial for me. At a time when high school graduation forces you into choices, punk declared that all choices were meaningless, a liberating starting point. From there, I built a framework of meaning by looking to evolution and primitive cultures. What mattered to early humans—art, hunting, family, fighting—must be inherently human. That became my criteria for value. This perspective led me into woodcarving, tai chi, meditation, martial arts, cooking, and nutrition. These became the foundations of the life I’ve built—simple, rooted, and guided through the modern cacophony.

Society often seeks placeholders for meaning. For many, religion fills that role. In America, college has become another placeholder: a socially approved symbol that reassures others you are on the “right path.” Many people don’t want to wrestle with what’s truly valuable—they just want the security of what society values in the moment, and they project that onto you.

But ultimately, life is about balancing expectations: your own and those of others. To survive, you must demonstrate value to those who hold resources, whether in services or goods. Sometimes that’s noble, sometimes it bends toward vice. Either way, the challenge is to carve your own path between Apollo and Dionysus, between survival and expression, between order and chaos. That’s what I learned when I changed paths.

A Conversation With a Taos Pueblo Member That Changed Everything

 

When I first moved to Taos, I thought I was just moving closer to the mountains. I hadn’t grown up camping or hunting—city life had kept me far away from those things. I loved the outdoors, but when it came to animals, I had always drawn a hard line. Killing them? Absolutely not. Eating them? Well, that was different.

At least, I thought it was.

On a construction site in Taos, I worked under a site supervisor from Taos Pueblo. We often talked while we worked—about life, about the land, about traditions. One day, our talk turned to killing animals. I argued fiercely against it, but he didn’t let me off easy. He confronted me directly, "If you were starving and you saw a rabbit, would you kill it?" I said, "No".

“You eat meat, don’t you?” he asked.

The question hung heavy in the air. In that moment, I knew he had me cornered. Either I stopped eating meat altogether or I admitted that I was benefitting from something I didn’t have the stomach to face.

That conversation never left me.

Not long after, in Canada, I found myself with a group of hunters. They handed me a shotgun and welcomed me into their world. When one of them shot a deer and it still moved on the ground, instinct—or maybe courage—pushed me forward. I took out a knife and cut its throat. The others nodded in respect. Then came the ritual: slicing open the chest, taking a bite of the heart. That was my initiation. Read the full story here.

From then on, I understood hunting as more than just pulling a trigger. It was navigation, patience, teamwork, carrying heavy loads, and—most of all—respect for the animal that gave its life. I hunted a bit in Mississippi, got lost in the woods once, and discovered firsthand how steep the learning curve really was.

But whether or not I hunted often, I found my place with hunters. Around the fire, cutting up meat, cooking it, sharing stories—I felt at home. Hunters, I discovered, are grounded people. Skilled, resourceful, and bound together by something old and primal.

For me, hunting became more than a hobby. It became a way of reconnecting with something my DNA seemed to remember—a way of life older than cities, older than stress, older than all the anxieties of modern life. In the act of hunting and cooking, I felt healed, as though I had finally stepped back into rhythm with the world.

And to think, it all started with one conversation, thirty-five years ago, with a man from Taos Pueblo who probably never knew he changed the course of my life.

Walking Through Back Pain: What My Latest Injury Taught Me

 

A few days ago, I tweaked my back trying to pull off a flashy weightlifting move I picked up from a Dagestani wrestler. I was training with one of my employees — who happens to be excellent at proper form — and she’d been giving me pointers all session. But during a break, I spotted a 45-pound plate and thought, “I’ve got to try that technique.” Instead of bracing properly and using what I know, I swung the weight around…and my back gave out.

At 60, this isn’t my first round with back problems. My history with back pain goes all the way back to the 1990s when I worked for a moving company. Years of heavy lifting led to my first real back injury. Later, I thought switching to desk jobs would help, but sitting all day only made things worse. The pain became so severe that surgery seemed like the only option.

Over the years, I’ve tried steroid injections, rest, and every pain-management method you can think of. But interestingly, once I found work that didn’t chain me to a desk, my back improved dramatically. That experience taught me something critical: our bodies aren’t designed to heal through avoidance — they heal through movement.

This latest injury reminded me of that lesson. I haven’t taken a single painkiller (though I did use Tiger Balm once). Instead, I’ve been walking, stretching, and staying as active as I can without pushing too far. I’ve scaled things back, but I haven’t stopped moving. Now, just a few days later, the pain is still there, but I can feel myself turning a corner.

The truth is, you can’t sidestep back pain — you have to walk through it. Too often, people rush into surgery or long-term treatments that may not be necessary. Our bodies are built to recover, as long as we give them the chance.

One story that inspires me is that of Willie Pep, the legendary boxer. After surviving a plane crash, he was back in the ring training within six months. Years later, doctors discovered he had actually fought with a broken back. His body healed because he demanded it to. That’s how the human body works — for millions of years, before modern medicine, survival depended on our ability to repair ourselves.

So that’s where I am today: moving through the pain, trusting the body’s design, and reminding myself that healing isn’t about babying an injury — it’s about giving your body the right conditions to do what it already knows how to do.

Walking every day and the unforgivable algorithm of the universe

I walk slowly through trails many days per week, mainly along the Rio Grande gorge, and in minimal shoes on rocky trails with my dog, who is very much a taskmaster and not one who likes to sit around the house much. She forces me to get outside, and I comply because I understand the algorithm of the universe.  Video of a typical walk

Every time I walk on these uneven, shifting surfaces, I toughen my feet and activate my toes to prepare better for impact with the ground, thereby lessening the impact on my knees. This helps heal my knees, even though the uneven surfaces are challenging on them, but I know how the unforgiving algorithm universe impacts my body. When you understand the algorithm, you slow down your descent into bodily decay. 

We are all on a descent into bodily decay, and that is the algorithm of the universe. However, the speed at which one descends is key. When you engage in something consistently, your body adapts and repairs itself to meet the demands placed on it. Living on the planet requires a physiological organism to meet the demands of life; your mitochondria multiply to increase energetic output and thus consume more glucose. Your heart rate meets the demands, increasing blood flow, and your bones also remodel to accommodate those demands.

Not only does this benefit my physical health, but it also mentally prepares me. While I'm walking, I'm thinking about what needs to be done, but what is essential? What should I give my time to now? 

Conversely, sitting on a couch or playing video games all day, your mind and body scale down since the demand is minimal. Since there's very little demand, your body is like an energetic accountant. It decides it doesn't need to rebuild muscles. It doesn't need to grow more mitochondria, so it won't. Thus, your body decays faster. I wish we didn't talk so much about metabolic health and just focus on activities, especially demanding ones. 

I mean, that's really it. It's not rocket science, and I think that sometimes, especially among health influencers, it gets turned into rocket science. It really isn't rocket science; it's just a simple concept. I know I'm the one using terms like 'allocation resources' and 'unforgiving algorithm,' but it boils down to putting yourself in demanding situations that are slightly uncomfortable often. It doesn't have to be so painful that you want to die, but the key is REPETITION. Repetition is not a once-a-week thing; it should be at least three times a week, four times a week, five times a week, week after week. It might seem overwhelming at first, but take it one day at a time, and your body will have your back, literally.

Kung fu is more than technique and form

The martial arts you typically see in movies, tournaments, and dojos are cosplay. They are theater, which lack the essence. 

The martial arts that I do, the kung fu that I do, are about spiritual growth and living the path of life. Often, we see martial arts portrayed through competition sports demonstrations, where you are dressed in some outfit from some weird era that most likely never even existed. While they can still be done with good intentions, all those things are not the martial arts I practice.

The martial arts I practice are a way of life. Before one gets triggered by the statement about martial arts being a way of life, usually the next thing said is, “We don’t train for fighting.” So let me state unequivocally that martial arts are for fighting, but only because life has fighting in it. The martial arts I practice don’t mean winning fights or having an excellent record. Records are of little concern to me. I would rather have more losses than wins if it meant I had profound wisdom. 

Moreover, people confuse the pursuit of perfect form with the path of wisdom, as if great form is the highest achievement. These people become obsessed with form and are limited spiritually. 

A good example of this I learned was a dojo where I practiced for a few years. They were all obsessed with technical proficiency, without even attempting to marry it to a practical application in self-defense. So it became an obsession with technical proficiency, which somehow was a proxy for spiritual development, and it wasn’t long before they proved that they were spiritually constrained.

While I went on my own and began training during my hikes on the mesas of New Mexico, I often didn't do much of the form, but the spiritual intention and emptying of my mind became the primary practice. So while I did little typical "martial arts" training, I was still heavily and deeply training my intention and working on my heart.

In Chinese martial arts, there is often a desire to write about these different types of concepts like Yi, Shen, and such through forms and practices ad nauseam, and when you read the books, there isn't much in there that applies to life or that discusses the true training of intention. 

Admittedly, it's a complex topic and not easily captured in words, but I do feel the need to try to do that. When I often see "martial artists” wielding a machete and trying to cut brush or a small tree, I see someone who doesn't understand true intention, yet they could win a Wushu competition with a sword or look furious while doing partner training. They don’t have death in their hands. You can see what I am describing in the commitment of the cut when there is resistance. When I watch these people cutting, there is less follow-through as the blade goes through the material. Intention is particularly relevant in handgun training. While handguns are not my focus, when I was training with them, there was this type of trigger pull that, if done without proper intention, the bullet doesn’t hit the target, or if it is feeble, the bullet can actually get jammed or stove-pipe in the port. 

The Tai Chi Classics speaks on this, stating that when you attack, you are to have the viciousness of an eagle grabbing its prey. This is good, but how many dojos do you enter where they take you to that abyss?  Also, can you even recognize what that looks like?

Luckily, I had a grandfather who was very physical and not abusive towards me, but he did get into fights, and his example of viciousness was excellent. He could see something with authority and command, and I often don't see that in training in many martial arts. I'm not picking on one martial art; ironically, Aikido people developed that, but because of a pseudo-moral philosophy, they cannot adapt it to modern applications.

That is why living life, cooking, hiking, playing with animals, and playing rough-and-tumble full-contact games, like football, and even bullies, are essential to developing this intention. How else can you learn this? If not, how to stop a bully when you're younger, as I said before, many, many times, even though I talk about it a lot because it was a trauma I experienced, it also pulled the best out of me. 

Working with young men is also part of martial arts training. When I switched to working in healthcare in 2003, I found this path to be rich in martial wisdom. Battling disease and preventing disease are also part of this path, but often, those things are not included in martial arts training.

The things I'm talking about don't require one specific teacher, per se, and I don't even know if there is one teacher who can teach you all those things. That's why martial arts teachers are overrated. 

Recently, while working in Indian country, I met a couple of wise Native American elders. They are not martial arts instructors, but they convey much of what I'm talking about now, and maybe martial arts is a small part of that, or vice versa. I don't know another name for a teacher on the path of wisdom. I always thought it was martial arts, and then there was also religion. So maybe there's another path without a name that I'm still learning about.

Reading Carlos Castaneda this year has been helpful because he captures much of what I'm talking about. Some things are universally included in martial arts, like wisdom, violence, and working with youth. But some things are exclusively outside the martial arts path, like the chaos of life itself. When training in martial arts, don’t fall for the stereotype we see on TV; explore the parts outside of the controlled arena.