Recently, I had an absolutely awesome chat with Erwan Le Corre, the founder of “MovNat.” MovNat is an unconventional school of physical training emphasizing a broader understanding of human movement and health. The point of all this is of course to improve strength, mobility, agility, and just about every physical performance attribute you can think of. Throughout the interview, though, we went far beyond physical performance, and started to tackle some of the big questions about modern lifestyles, happiness, and the future of human wellbeing.

Erwan is not your everyday human, and his program is not your everyday gym routine. He and his unique methodology have been featured in Men’s Health and Outside magazine to name just a couple. I really enjoyed this interview, and I found Erwan’s insights to be both provoking and inspiring. I hope you will, too.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The basis behind Erwan's training methodology, MovNat, and how his biography lead him to develop it
• The many sports that Erwan is trained in, and how he has taken elements from each of them
• The concept of “Paleo Fitness” and how it is analogous to Paleo nutrition
• Erwan's beliefs that physical competency is a basic right for everyone, just like reading and writing
• Sedentary, idle lifestyles, and how they affect our bodies negatively
• How modern man's physical fitness compares (or does not compare) to our paleolithic ancestors
• The flaws in modern exercise philosophy, and how it affects everything from our bodies to our brain function
• The two differentiating aspects that make movement beneficial for the brain and for the body
• Exercise that forces you to adapt to the environment, and how it leads to mindfulness and presence
• What a typical MovNat workout might look like, and what equipment (if any) is required
• Erwan's approach to diet and nutrition, and how it fits into a more holistic philosophy of life and health
• Thoughts on the dangers of modern technology, including living in metropolitan cities
• Erwan's opinions on how technology can and should be used for our health, vs. how it's being used today
• The power nature has to uplift and restore balance to our emotional state
• Erwan's thoughts on motivation, goals, and productivity in the context of who you are (spoiler: lifestyle design!)
• Some thoughts on balancing aspirations and dreams vs. presence and mindfulness

Our Favorite Quotes:

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• MovNat – Natural Movement Fitness
• Michael Pollan and his books, specifically In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

As promised, some videos of Erwan in his natural element (heh, get it?!)

Transcript:

Introduction: Welcome to the becoming superhuman podcast, where we interview extraordinary people to bring you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now, here's your host, Jonathan Levi.

Jonathan Levi: Greetings boys and girls. This is your host, Jonathan Levi. And today. I'm excited to be diving into our first of many podcasts, exploring physical health and human performance. My guest today is Erwan Le Corre, the founder of MovNat. MovNat is an unconventional school of physical training, emphasizing a broader understanding of human movement and of health.

The point of all this is, of course, to improve strength, but also mobility agility. And just about every physical performance attribute, you can think of. Throughout the interview though, we go far beyond physical performance and we start to tackle some of the big questions about modern lifestyles, happiness, and the future of human wellbeing as a whole. Erwan Is not your everyday human and his fitness philosophy is not your everyday gym routine.

He and his unique methodology have been featured in men's health and outside magazine. Just to name a couple, I really enjoyed this interview. And I found Erwan's insights to be both thought-provoking and inspiring. And for this reason, I'm very excited to introduce you to Mr. Erwan Le Corre.

Erwan. Thank you for joining us today. Welcome to the Becoming SuperHuman podcast and thank you so much for making the time for us.

Erwan Le Corre: For sure. Jonathan thank you for having me on your show.

Jonathan Levi: It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Let me tell you, I was watching a bunch of your videos in preparation for this and just thinking how much fun it looks like you're having.

I mean, you're climbing up trees, jumping off rocks, lifting stuff, throwing stuff, you know, it really looks like a really fun methodology, and I'm so excited to learn more about it today.

Erwan Le Corre: Not that I do every day. Right. But yeah, certainly it's a fun kind of tough,

Jonathan Levi: definitely. And it looks like a lot more fun than sitting in the gym and

Erwan Le Corre: doing bench press.

Yeah. You know, nothing beats nature. So this movement, I call it the movement behavior that is natural and, uh, it's a universal thing. So yeah, we've created. So many varieties of physical training, physical exercise programs and methodology, but originally, we had one program and that program was to move how nature intends us to that's it.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah, definitely. And I don't think nature intended us to do, you know, chest flies and all kinds of unnatural movements like bicep curls.

Erwan Le Corre: Yeah, well, it's also part of a human culture movement, coater. It's a cultural thing. And if it's sometimes a scientific thing and you know, humans, correct methods, the love to create methods, but the love to systematize what they do.

They love to be creative and that's the beauty of it. But at some point, it's also the things we invent have us go away from the original approach from once they're already naturally biologically evolutionarily, and sometimes there's more loss to it than gain, I believe, but

Jonathan Levi:  that's something that I experienced myself. I mean, I wrote a blog post recently talking about how from 15 years of age I was doing what I thought was a healthy gym routine lifting weights. You know, doing all the kind of exercises that I thought were improving my body and having chronic pain in my knees, chronic pain in my shoulders, things that, you know, a healthy 20-year-old.

Should not have. And it came to my attention that it was because my workout was garbage and I was doing exactly, like you said, more harm than help

Erwan Le Corre: By nature, we are driven to embrace, uh, approaches, behaviors that others, that most people do. So basically, uh, most of the fitness industry currently is still based on.

Muscle isolation, uh, you know, the dichotomy between a cardio and strands and this kind of what I actually call a very old-school approach to fitness. And at the same time, it's very new school and the sense that, um, you know, compared to the scope of, um, you know, human evolution. How many centuries and millenniums we spend as a species in nature, moving naturally in complex environments with natural movements.

And then the history of fitness, the recent history of fitness makes stuff like that. You know, like training in a gym with machines and isolating muscles and make it something I actually extremely new is a complete novelty, but at the same time, I believe it's soon going to become old-school. I think we're on the verge of being returned to more practical, more natural approach to physical training.

Jonathan Levi: I hope you're right. I think that's a massive trend. And I think you're actually at the forefront of it. Uh, you're the founder, as I told my audience at the beginning of the podcast, you're the founder. Of a movement called MovNat, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and also what is MovNat?

Erwan Le Corre: Sure. So, I, I'm almost 44 years old and, uh, I was born in France and raised in France. Luckily, um, where I grew up, we had woods just nearby with lots of big rocks, big boulders. And not only that environment was available, that this natural environment was about the ride there, but. My dad took me there, pushed me to countries to jump from rock, to rock, to crawl and balance and do all these things in a very spontaneous way, in a very nonsystematic way.

He didn't have a problem. They just had an instinct that I had to do that the same way he did when he was a kid. So, I basically grew up not doing much sports, you know, like kids could do tennis or. Soccer football and stuff like that. I basically played in the woods, like moved into woods and, uh, that's my bringing in.

When I went to school, um, the physical education there did not convince me at all, uh, say I would learn to play volleyball. And, uh, that was fun though. It was okay, but I didn't like the rules. I didn't like the having to stop and resume the game all the time. Uh, you know, what I did on my own in the woods was much more exciting, much more fun, much more challenging, you know, running up and down the Hills and.

Doing these things to me that was real freedom though, was pure excitement and nothing that I did in school in terms of being compared to that excitement and that satisfaction. And later on, uh, I did start to, you know, do judo, uh, lots of karate, um, you know, some swimming and then, um, That I've learned a lot through the variety of specialized sports, uh, including, uh, long-distance draft on Brazilian jujitsu.

Uh, only big that each team rock climbing trial run in a lot of practical, practical sports action, sports, officialize sports, but with practical benefit, and I did learn the value of a specialized approach, but I also learned. That it was not satisfying in the sense that the completeness of physical competency was missing in all of these different sports.

And I wanted to go back to a more complete approach to my physical training. So long story short, I discover that ancient methods. Have existed before where people would train all these different natural movement skills, practical movement skills, you know, climbing, running, jumping with altogether, not as special at sports, not as competition sports, but as an overall approach to your physical and mental training.

So that you're ready for the physical demands of the real life. And this. To me was fascinating because that's what I did. And that's what I loved and realized that, and it wasn't missing in today's fitness industry, sports industry, and, uh, decided that it would be my, my mission and my vision to bring this back to popularity, to mainstream awareness and practice for the benefit of people.

And, uh, you know, I decided to fully commit and dedicate myself. To bringing this back to the world and, um, I'm making it happen actually. And I'm not the only one. Maybe I'm not the only one, but, um, I'm definitely there doing it and I'm really enjoying it.

Jonathan Levi: So, would it be fair to say then that it seems that MovNat is a very naturally inspired it's about thinking about how your body is evolved to be used and what it excels at doing, and what is natural for it?

It almost sounds like. MovNat is to fitness. What the paleo diet is to nutrition. Would you say that's fair?

Erwan Le Corre: Yeah, no, that is fair. Um, actually, um, I'm going to tell you what I really think is that I think that MovNat, that is the real paleo fitness because it's not about, uh, Just putting your five fingers on and doing hand handstand against a tree and save, invest bellow fitness.

It's about actually moving naturally means the complete range of evolutionarily natural movement skills that we practice. We always seek an adaptability, a practicality of the movements. We do adaptability of the movements, what we do. And that is to me authentically evolutionary, not trying to mimic ancestors that, you know, we can only assume what they used to do.

We are actually looking at fiscal training and competency and preparedness that actually works in the real-life, uh, in the world of today. And that can be nature that can be in, uh, in, uh, artificial or urban environments. Doesn't matter, uh, the needs when it comes to, um, potentially challenging or, you know, vinyl situations, the movement requirements.

Are strictly the same. You still need to sprint or run long, or you still need to climb. You still need maybe to lift and carry somebody. You still need to do all of these things. So you see, it's not about replicating some, you know, so-called ancestral principles that actually. Understanding that the necessity of the real-life has not really changed when you make it look like it's all optional to move today.

People, people could just sit and stand, walk a few steps to the next, sit and do that all day. And a lot of people do that. And a lot of people can't operate their body in practical ways, and they're not even embarrassed about it. But the society and the vision and the competency and vision for every individual is to be equipped with this fundamental, real-life practical competency, physical competency that they can use and rely on for a lifetime.

And I like to live in a, in a society where I know that everybody has such equipment famous VC, and it’s sort of like, uh, you want to live in a world where everybody at least can read and write, you know, of course, right? So, it's part of a, a universal education in whichever language, but at least you can read and write.

You can communicate, share information, learn from each other. I believe that this physical competency I'm talking about. Is equally important. He's equally part of universal education and knowledge that everybody should possess.

Jonathan Levi: I love that. And that makes me think of two different things. One is that I love the fact that the goal of MovNat, is more to be a well-rounded properly equipped human being rather than to look good at the beach, which I think is a lot of traditional gym behavior.

You can't really justify why you would do bicep curls or. Bench press there's. It's not really a usable movement.

Erwan Le Corre: Well, no, absolutely. You can easily, uh, Jonathan, sorry. Uh, uh, uh, you can actually very easily justify why you would do that because you have cosmetics expectation. Exactly. You want your body to good, or to look a certain way, you know, like a cover magazine, fitness magazine or something like that.

And. In some ways, I would say that there is nothing wrong in wanting your body to look good. And that's probably also an evolutionary drive because when your buddy looks good and people pay attention and, uh, you know, you were, um, I don't know, more attractive, uh, uh, more successful, more popular in some ways that's an evolutionary thing.

So is the approach that's maybe it's not from a biological standpoint of, let's say you are a human animal, you need your body to move well. And in ways that are conducive to better survival, not just better reproduction. No, but just their survival in the first place, that's very evolutionary. You don't need to add, run the lion.

You need to add, run all over people in, you know, that's a little, a cruel image, but, um, so we have created this whole fitness industry that's in them for, for the most part, not all of it, but for the most part, is still based on telling people that they need to look good. Yes. And to go through completely artificial movements and program to get to that goal.

But yeah, it's not profoundly satisfying. Oh, you're

Jonathan Levi: going to be broken. You're going to be in the situation where you can't move your hips and your knees hurt all the time. And you know, your shoulders are rolled forward. It speaking from experience, I mean, it took me. 26 years to figure out that I wasn't standing up straight.

I wasn't getting up. You know, when I get up in the morning out of bed, I wasn't using my knees correctly. It's a shame that the human body doesn't come with the owner's manual and we all have these really, really unhealthy movement patterns. And you see just the most amazing things. I mean, I met a woman.

In actually a yoga retreat in India, and we were talking about different kinds of injuries. We were hoping to overcome. She told me, you know, one-day last year, I was dancing in my kitchen while I was cooking. And I went up onto my toes and I felt a pop in the back of my leg. And I said, what pop? She said, my Achilles tendon tore.

I said you're telling me that you were dancing around. You went up on your toes on one foot. And your Achilles tendon tore. Yep. So, six months recovery surgery, the whole deal. That's not the normal state of the human body. It's certainly not.

Erwan Le Corre: Well, no. Yeah. Your Achilles tendon are supposed to be screamed as strong actually.

But yeah, the problem is that. Okay. And that's not to try to if people are time in any way, but the observation is that most people are physically idle their entire life. Exactly. So every day, what is it that they do? Okay. So, the rest at night on a bed, they wake up, they stand. They go sit somewhere in the kitchen to have a breakfast.

And then, you know, a few more steps get dressed, everything probably commutes in a bus and a train and in a car to go to work. So this, and then they get in that cubicle and then they sit for hours and work hours a day seating or sitting in a, working from home. And then when it's finally time to, you know, in the evening to do something else, when then they go on the couch and watch TV, or, you know, do more Facebook, do more, uh, social media than in the seat, and then find if they go to bed.

All right. So in terms of movement, frequency, and volume, it's very, very. And, you know, there's no volume of movement or little volume of movement earlier. Intensity of movement, a little frequency of movement. And there's also very little variety of movement. Our movement behaviors today are extremely poor.

It's a movement impulse coverage. Lifestyle and behavior that we collectively have embraced. And that is costing us because biologically we haven't changed in our biology, our, our DNA, our cells, you know, our memory, our body expect us still to move a lot every day in very, very diverse ways. I mean, you look at a hundred governors.

We, which we all used to be at one point of our history. And, uh, you know, it's walking a lot every day, Love walking on uneven terrains, uh, with the barefoot or with minimal shoes and then they kneel and then they do sit, but they sit in plenty of different ways and, uh, you know, and they probably are gonna climb a little or they're going to jump maybe a little, they're going to balance a little bit in that crawl a little, uh, we're going to lift and carry stuff.

We're going to do all these movements. In so many varied ways. And so, they have bodies that are strong, coordinated, balanced, and compare to them we're really completely, I'm sorry. We've degenerated. Right. Right. And that's a, it has nothing to do with, you know, whatever your background is, where are you born?

What's your skin color, your age, your gender. It doesn't matter. It's a universal issue. And even the people who exercise. That's good, but most of the time it's going to be the three hours a week model. Okay. Exercise an hour, three times a week. Okay. Well, it's better than nothing, but Hey medicine at the moment, lifestyle, the bulk of your wake time, you're still seating or still doing nothing.

And that still hurts you. And when you exist size, you're probably going to do something like, you know, a bit of cardio on the elliptical and then some strength trend in trying to isolate body parts, trying to isolate muscles in the body does not work in isolation. So you're not even moving, you're exercising.

That's completely different. Do you treat an approach your body as you, if you were a machine of some sort with that needs a bit of maintenance? And so, no wonder that people lose a lot of the mobility, they'll lose a lot of their bone density that lose there's so many functions, including the functions of your organs at every physiological level.

This efficiency in movement is a deficiency in body function, physiological function in brain function. In brain function because we have a body so that we can, move, but we have a brain so that we can move to. So, the primary function of the brain is a movement complex movement within complex requirements. Now you remove a behavior that is movement than you remove.

You have a deficit in brain function, and that's for whoever is interested in creativity and productivity, you know, even from, uh, you know, work a business perspective, you'd there be. Starting moving and moving in natural ways that are again, complex adaptable, because that's going to boost your brain function and that's going to carry over to every aspect of your life.

Jonathan Levi: Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the things I teach my students is if you really, really want to solidify your learning and we teach, you know, accelerated learning. Move get out there, even if you're just going to go for a run, but ideally, you know, you're doing yoga, you're moving, you're getting two different positions and you're exercising strength because the endorphins and just getting your body moving, we'll get the brain at its optimal level of performance.

Erwan Le Corre: Right. Exactly. Any type of physical effort, physical exertion, and then any type of movement is good for you. Okay. But it's especially good. When two aspects are present, one is the frequency. You don't want to have like a beautiful. Session of complex movement and, you know, grateful brain function. But basically, you do that once a week or okay.

While you're there, do that five times a day for five or 10 minutes every day. And it's going to be much more productive, much more beneficial to brain function than a weekly or bi-weekly session. Yeah. And then, yeah, you have intensity high intensity. That's going to be great for a human growth hormone and the endorphin stuff.

I mean, everything, all these hormones were our emotions. So much of our, of what we are. Even it mentally has to do with hormones and therefore have to do with overall lifestyle, including, of course, movement and diet and all of it. Right. And that's the second aspect is complexity and adaptability. So for instance, dancing and then yoga, or, you know, especially more dancing than yoga activity, but they are it's about complex movement

But at the same time, a complex movement that does not interact with the environment except for, you know, a flat floor. Now, when you interact with the environment in adaptable ways, and that's the natural movement that I'm talking about. It's not just the mindfulness that matters and the mindfulness as the body-mind connection, which is still beautiful and so important.

And so, uh, it is present in mindful practices to just dance such as yoga, such as statin. And that's a beautiful thing, but when you move naturally, you need to connect the mind to the body. To the environment and that's in my opinion, a `higher level of mindfulness because you're dealing with an environment.

And, you know, variables in term of height, distance, angles, surfaces, unstable surfaces, slippery surfaces, you know, changing surfaces and your body in your brain. Needs to do so many calculations, so many adjustments so that the body follows in the way that is effective and efficient through that environment.

Now, let me tell you about contrary to what a lot of people still think. We're not in that military, uh, obstacle course, you know, brute strength configuration anymore. Not at all. We are in a highly mindful situation where. If you are not paying attention at the highest degree, you're going to lose an efficiency and potentially you're going to lose ineffectiveness means you can full, for instance, the movement may fail.

So we have a direct here direct way. To assess the effectiveness and efficiency of movement. You can judge the good form of yoga pause, but you know, but it's for, okay. It looks good news and a good position and hand is in good position. And you were trying to replicate a predesigned predefined form that has been established maybe thousands of years ago by, by somebody basically.

And you're trying to do exactly replicate exactly the same poses. Okay. Well, when you climbing the tree, when you're jumping over the fence, when you're lifting and carrying that load, uh, and you may fail. It's just, you know, spontaneous, it's basically basic it's uneven. Well, actually it is extremely evolved because it's adaptable.

So high levels of mindfulness here required.

Jonathan Levi: Absolutely. So, I want to come back to mindfulness. I'm glad you brought it up, but first I'm dying of curiosity. What is a traditional kind of not traditional, but what does a MovNat workout look like?

Erwan Le Corre: You want to envision people who are going through a variety of movements.

Um, and we have all these natural movement skills. So, we're talking about that crawling and crawling, uh, include sitting. Kneeling and then walking and then transition, getting up and down from standing positions to the ground and vice versa. And then you have balancing jumping, running climbing, you have relative skills, you lift and carry stuff, you throw and catch stuff.

So, all these movements are natural in the sense that they are practical, they could be used in, natural environments or in real-life situations. And there are adaptable to context tool. Demands and variables. So the context is made of, again, the environment where you are that's, that can be different.

So when you climb, you're not always climbing the same one way, you know, because you're not always climbing the same stuff. And, um, adaptable to the situations. Do you have time or are you in a state of urgency? Is it safe or is there a level of danger and stuff like that?

Jonathan Levi: Incredible. So is there any kind of equipment that is needed for this kind of workout or is it an outdoor or is it always changing?

I get the sense that it's always very varied and changing and responding to whatever environment is available to you and your students.

Erwan Le Corre: All right. So, all of that is possible. The primary goal is to embrace that movement behavior that is natural to all human beings. Nobody does day cheap. You got to learn to achieve.

And then you've got your shoes to do it, to practice it. And again, it's a wonderful internal energy practice, but you go anywhere in the world and people know what running means. They know what jumping means. They know what climbing means. They know what lifting and carrying means. They may not do it, or they may not do it every day and they may not do it very well.

Because maybe their lifestyle, their personal practice does not really take care of these skills, but it's, these are universal skills that we all did at least when we were kids now MovNat is the method is the system for the practice of these natural movements. Which I called natural movement.

And a method means that it's designed to improve ourselves to improve where we would do naturally in the sense of spontaneously and to make it better, to make it more effective and more efficient. That's what systems or methods are designed for. So it's not about being a jackass, going to words and jump around and.

And, you know, a sprain, an ankle and then be like, okay, well I'm too old. This is not for me. I'm going to get back to my desk and my couch and watch TV. It's about providing to everyone regardless of background. And then current physical condition. The means to get started with such practice such movements in a way that is safe in a way that is progressive.

And in a way that teaches, that makes you learn good positions, good form, efficient movement, a little technique. It's a little like a martial art. You know, anybody could go, go in the street and start a fight. And we all at least may defend ourselves in some ways, but that does not make us good fighters or martial artists.

So the martial artist is the person who mindfully, systematically learns and trains techniques to be a good fighter and to usually never have to use their skills. Yeah. So moving as the same approach, first, you establish that foundation of quality movement through learning techniques. You can run better, you can jump better, you can lift and carry better if you learn the techniques.

And then based on that, you are getting to bring your strength and conditioning. A higher level of strength, endurance speed, all these different qualities. Absolutely. So different. Yeah. Then going to the global gym, trying to target you as you know, your leg day and then arm day. And you know, that's how conventionally we were used to train, you know, two days in my leg, I'm training my legs.

Tomorrow I'll do my upper body. Well, what's telling you move your butt, move your whole body every day because your whole unit, your whole person and you and from movements, uh, you know, the muscles are not the finality. The muscles are the means. They're the tools that muscles and the joints and the bones and, you know, team elites about.

Improving your quality of life, having a better experience of who you are acquiring higher levels of self-esteem of self-love of self-worth. But, and from movement, you can really experience a lot of that. You can really self-empower.

Jonathan Levi: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I imagine that at your level of fitness and you mentioned proper diet and consistency before I imagine you probably have some kind of strong opinions on diet and nutrition, what do you eat and what do you recommend that your students eat?

Erwan Le Corre: Every aspect of your life matters? Every aspect of your life. You can assess mindfully and mindfully improve. So we tend to approach who we are and what we do in a very compartmentalized way. So there's the word compartment and the leisure compartment. There's the diet compartment. And then there's the fitness compartment. And then there is the health compartment, and then there is the law of compartment. And then there's the social or lesson. This is delusional because we fragment ourselves every day, but we're not fragmented. We're a whole, so yeah, of course, what you eat matters because everything matters everything because of what we're looking for.

That we are conscious of it or not our high levels of energy. Right. It's all about energy because we're all made of energy. And when we feel depressed, that's lower levels of energy. When we drink an energy drink is because we expect that it's going to, you know, give us higher levels of energy. Yeah.

Everything we do alters in a good way or not this quality of energies and levels of energy. So yeah, food, obviously what you eat. Um, but I like to say that everybody's on a diet. Yeah, because even the people who say, yeah, I don't care. I would eat anything.

Jonathan Levi: That's a dietary choice.

Erwan Le Corre: Cause that's a dietary choice.

And actually, as a matter of fact, the people who say that are usually the people read a lot of junk food and would not eat actual fruits or veggies because, uh, yeah. Well, that's a diet. You were selective. We're all selective. Everybody's selective about everything, foodwise, same thing. So ask yourself, why do you want to be selective?

Well, it's because you want satisfaction, so you can be satisfied with what you eat because of the taste. And you can be satisfied with what you eat. Not only because of attention, but because of the nutrition and how we impact your health, your levels of energy. And also what I recommend is. Because there are so many schools of diet and nutrition and, you know, people that will tell you people that are vegan and they're like completely different.

And then there are the people who try to calculate how many, you know, their calorie intake and stuff like that. Well, what I believe most importantly, eat food that is unprocessed, fresh as possible. That is organic grass-fed non-GMO means the quality of the produce is super, super important. So she was right and, uh, eat food that you cook, right?

Not prepared, processed food. Eat. As much as you can, food that you cook and eat as much as you can food. That is how the, in the sense of its clean, it's not polluted by pesticides and all types of crap. You know, it's fresh, it's local as much as possible. So if you could do that, then that's gonna really improve your health.

Absolutely. If you want to eat meat, eat meat. If you don't want to eat meat, then don't eat meat, find proteins in the, you know, and then different way. And if it works for you then fine, but you see, there's a huge difference between an industrial milk. That's heavily processed in the milk. That's local and raw and grass-fed and stuff like that.

Okay. So there's a huge difference between a food that has been grown locally without pesticides and with lots of care. From the people who grow up the land and live on the land and fruits that have been grown, uh, artificially and you know, indoors and that are, you know, heavily contaminated by pollutants.

So that's, my recommendation is not so much about that specific diet. Uh, you know, you can be vegan or paleo based on absolutely crappy.

Yeah. I think that's completely fair. And I think a lot of people do that.

So it doesn't matter if you're going to be eating meat or vegetarian or vegan or eat more carbs or more fat, but what you put in your body, make sure it's of the highest quality.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah, it reminds me actually of Michael Poland's book. He wrote this book called an Eater's manifesto. And in the end, he summarizes it up as three statements, which are, eat food, not too much, mostly plants. And the whole chapter about eating food is essentially what you're saying. The things that most people put in their mouth, the white bread, you pick up the milk that you eat, the cheese that's been processed, the lunch meat.

It's not food. It's a food-like product. And I think that's a really, really interesting thing because you really can't trust most

packaged foods.

Erwan Le Corre: Exactly. When you pay attention, when you're mindful in your life, you start to get a sense of how input. What about input is alters your levels of energy and ultimately who you are, how you think, how you perform, how you look, how you feel.

And so, movement is an input. Food is an input thought. Emotion is an input. Relationships are input. What you read, what you watch. All of that is an input. The good news is that you can choose. You can be very selective with what input you shoot. And when you look more, when you tend more towards nature, what's natural.

Then it's very likely that you're going to be healthy or why, because we have this amazing ability. That's beautiful. We humans as a whole to reinvent ourselves culturally. Socially, professionally, your style, your beard, your, your C's, you know, your clothing, you know, whatever. Okay. Where you live, the people you hang out with, we can reinvent ourselves at all these levels.

There's one aspect that we cannot really reinvent ourselves. It's our biology. It's our nature. And I know there's that whole, you know, biohacking thing going on, but the truth is that they're not reinventing anything.

They, they are just. We learn in rediscovering that nature, the freaking rules, and the just kind of, you know, come up with some scientific validation for it.

But things that end should, you mentioned you have been doing forever and we've just lost in the process of civilization and industrialization and greater levels of technology in our lives. So that's all it is so we can reinvent ourselves. Biologically, whenever we try to do that, we have to pay a price.

You want to live in a city because it's fun because there's more, uh, you know, museums and distractions and stuff. Good. You're going to pay a price. Why? Well, because you are going to breathe air. That is a polluted, because you're getting to be constantly stimulated, which is not natural, but artificial type of stimulation, which is not natural noises all the time.

People you don't know all the time, constant agitation, constant technologies, uh, you know, microwaves, uh, an EFM waste stuff. It's all over. And so, yeah, you're going to enjoy that urban life. But your body biologically, you will pay a price. You're not going to move a lot. You're not getting to, you always get to look at walls.

You're always never going to see a horizon or read to look at the sky and look at the change of light natural light. And you're never going to see anymore. You're never going to enjoy silence. You're never going to smell the earth after rain and all these things, right. And all these things that are not optional to your biology.

They're not optional. It doesn't matter. We think we've evolved and civilized and we are, but we're still not free from ours or nature, our biological nature. And, uh, for people interested in transcendence and single singularity and stuff like that, I'm telling you, this is you'll go nowhere. There's a design.

Doesn't matter. Where it comes from, there's the biological design for us. We can find technologies for instance, medical technologies that are going to heal us. And that's beautiful. But if you don't pay attention to your lifestyle, it doesn't matter how advanced medical technologies are. My friend, you're still in a state of survival.

So how about that? How about a new type of humanism? But it's not about dominating nature and abusing nature anymore, but that would be about the very wise you use of our brilliant technologies very wisely, but while also returning to more natural ways of life so that we don't spend our energy and time.

Trying to use these technologies to compensate for the damages that they create in our case, in our minds.

Jonathan Levi: What are a few different things, changes that you foresee that could be really impactful? I mean, you mentioned living in cities is probably something that we should try to shy away. What are some other adjustments that you would like to see happening, uh, in kind of our cultural evolution?

Erwan Le Corre: Again, a greater return to natural lifeways

Jonathan Levi: and movement, better diet

Erwan Le Corre: living closer to the earth, connecting more to nature, taking the time to put your smartphone away so that you actually look at the sky it's moving in the sky and the rain and the tree and the movement of the branches, uh, you know, uh, push it by a slight breeze of when all these things.

On Facebook or YouTube that shows you the beauty of nature, but to actually be there. Yeah. Actually, enjoy it for real. I mean, how much virtually too do people need? What's a very, our only goal is that. In that quest or virtual worlds, people are constantly seeking greater sense of realness in the virtual world.

Well, what about you freaking connect with nature and with reality itself.

Jonathan Levi: It's funny you say that because one of my goals for this year is to spend a minimum of three to four days every month, just in nature. And I've been kind of working towards it and going on hiking trips. And I've seen just this, exactly what you said, this huge impact in my mindfulness and my mood is better.

And it's much more than just the vitamin D, but, uh, one thing that I've noticed, and you talked a lot about agility and uneven surface. I was hiking in South Africa a few weeks ago, and at some point, I was wearing these. You know, traditional kind of hiking shoes with a flat bottom and all kinds of rubber and everything.

And my feet were miserable and I decided I was going to hike up the mountain completely barefoot, and it was just a rush of endorphins and it felt so good to have kind of dirt between my toes. And it was this completely uplifting feeling that I certainly don't get living in a city year-round.

Erwan Le Corre: You had a nature experience, uh, that was like an epiphany, the recharging, your body releasing some of the, uh, because nature does that. But new releases, you have, you know, some energy charge, emotional charges, uh, it's so accurate. It's so sophisticated and so deep that you don't even want to try to put that into a conceptual knowledge with curves on a screen and stuff like that.

You want to fully. Enjoy the intuition because intuition is that very ancient form of intelligence. We're all endowed with. And, but that we took not everybody nurtures it, but when we, when you, do you have experiences like the one that you've described and all that a lot happens, we've had you intentionally doing anything.

Just be just be there and that on environment, because that environment is, you know, I start a romantic idea. We're made of nature. Every cell in our body is made of nature. All the minerals, all the, everything. And, uh, our body cannot function outside of this earth environment with gravity and with the sun and the air, all of that.

So, when you mess up with that environment, you mess up with yourself.

Jonathan Levi: Absolutely.

Erwan Le Corre: I'm not just talking about the environmental destruction and stuff like that. When you mess up with the environment and in term of, Oh, you know, where you live and you know what, you breathe, what you drink, what you eat, what do you hear?

All these things and how you behave physically and mentally, all this. Is your environment and you can choose that environment to be better to improve? And that's always on natural basis. So maybe a lot of people are going to think, yeah, I don't have time. I don't have, you know, I have work. I have to study.

I wish this was a reality. Well, okay. Maybe set your priorities right to begin with. And secondly, if you could not make it happen night, you can always organize yourself to systematically progressively in everyday gonna make steps in the direction where you want to be. And if that direction means that you're a person who he's successful professionally or, you know, business-wise, and that's great, but he's also a person who's successful at, uh, how levels, energy, you know, personal energy levels, enjoyment, happiness.

Love, all these things. You can organize yourself to design the life you want, the way you want. And it starts now.

Jonathan Levi: And it's a choice

Erwan Le Corre: And it's a choice. And so there are strategies and a movement is one of the strategies and, uh, nutrition is one of the strategies and, uh, living more or spending more time in nature is one of the strategies.

It's part of the same strategy activity, because yeah if you enjoy science and, uh, being in a lab all day, your whole life and that's your, and makes you happy, then it's great. You don't have, you don't have to change anything. But in case you realize how much nature matters to you and to actually all of us, give it a shot, go there, move more, move naturally.

Be natural, eat more natural food. Spend time to reflect on the importance of these perceptions and behaviors that are ultimately going to make you a much better person, a much healthier, more satisfied, happier person. Because if you are that person, then you do contribute. But if you're a healthy person depressed, you may contribute in other ways.

But yeah know, this world really needs people or freaking happy and healthy and just full of life.

Jonathan Levi: Absolutely. So I have to ask Erwan, you're a very, very busy man. You're working on a book. I saw you do DVDs. You consult, you obviously teach workshops and you're very busy spreading your movement. So I'm very curious.

How do you motivate yourself?

Erwan Le Corre: I don't, you know, I don't because listen, when what you do is an extension of who you are. It's a manifestation of your psyche of your mood, your spirit, and then it's effortless. So it's easy because you just, you love what you do because it's, again, it's, it's an expression of who you are as a person, what you believe in what you like to do.

And that's what I've created for myself. I'm not even telling you, Hey, I'm lucky I can do that. I'm not lucky. I just created it. The same way, Jenna, then you created it. So it's about design it's about your own design. So when you are in that place, where again, what you do is aligned with who you are. Then everything is flawless and it is just fluent flow full if I may say, right.

So if you don't know who you are, figure out first, so when you can do something that's aligned with who you are and then you'll be happy. And then motivation is easy because it's just, everything is natural. Sometimes you need motivation most important. Most of the time you did motivation, even Wednesday, you like what you do, you enjoy what you do.

It's, it's a natural thing for you to do what you do, but sometimes you have timelines or deadlines and then your, then that's when you have to work harder. And that's when you have to motivate yourself more. So in order to avoid that, I prefer to choose like sliding timelines. Instead of they have like super strict deadlines.

Right, because that's when you start to stress yourself out because you have a deadline to meet and then you're not paying attention anymore to signals of fatigue or frustration, or, you know, how do you approach time is, are important in life. Absolutely. When you want to do too much, too soon, too fast.

That's when you self. Stress, and it's good to be motivated. It's good to be organized. It's good to even have, you know, sometimes deadlines, but if it ends up stressing you out and then you don't even know how to motivate yourself and you burn yourself out, then your self-defeating your purpose, which ultimately I believe is happiness and satisfaction

You create constant dissatisfaction in your life. Does it matter, reading that like you achieve that or that thing at a special date or a specific date or a specific amount of time, you can tend towards that? But if it does not happen, is that really, really, really important? Don't you have a whole full lifetime from the view to enjoy the process.

Oh, the creative and productive. Do you also have to add up to that distress of even achievement, uh, in a specific, uh, timeline? I, I personally, I don't think so. I'm really straying away from these.

Jonathan Levi: Interesting. So it sounds, I mean, you've mentioned mindfulness a number of times, but it sounds a lot like a message of mindfulness and acceptance.

And, uh, and a little bit of kind of compassion for yourself and compassion for where you are and what you want to be doing.

Erwan Le Corre: Best. Um, yeah, compassion because dissatisfaction and frustration, lower your energy levels, absolutely energy levels. You are less creative and less productive.

Jonathan Levi: Absolutely.

Erwan Le Corre: And when you wanted to be an achiever, you want to be creative, you want to be productive.

So do you want to keep your energy levels at a high level?

Jonathan Levi: Of course.

Erwan Le Corre: Right. So if you create deadlines and timelines that are maybe not realistic or just, you know, too challenging any that can be good. People do very well under stress, but it's good to have a the timeline, uh, sometimes, you know, you can really beat a great asset in your motivation, but again, if it creates more dissatisfaction and frustration and stress than motivation, then you know, it's a matter of balance.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. It's where do you draw the line?

Erwan Le Corre: Exactly. And compassion for yourself too. Yes, indeed. Because Hey, LTE, Maley, the reward, whatever it is, the reward. If it is for yourself. So, yeah, you're going to put time and effort in achieving something. But is a deal means that you are getting to give so much of yourself and have to sacrifice your happiness on a daily basis for a delayed reward?

Jonathan Levi: Right?

I went through yeah, really interesting kind of experience where I encountered mindfulness and it kind of hit me like. Seven tons of bricks. And it hit me at a time in my life. It was very goal-driven and very goal-oriented and it hit me and kind of disoriented me for quite some time. And I struggled with this idea of how do I simultaneously maintain presence and acceptance and be happy with my current surroundings and exactly like you said, interact with my environment positively while at the same time, having aspirations and having dreams.

And it was something that challenged me for a long time until I realized that it really matters what the nature and intention of your aspirations and dreams are. If your aspirations and dreams are, I would like to get to this deadline, and then I will be happy. You're inevitably going to be miserable until that point.

But if it becomes, I'm working from a place of passion and joy and enjoying your surroundings and enjoying your environment. With the eventual outcome and hope that you reach a certain destination, say, you know, building a family or building a company. And if you're operating from that place of acceptance and peace, really, then you're much more likely to kind of a be successful, but be, be happy.

Erwan Le Corre: Exactly. And I think you put it beautifully and that's what it is. Exactly.

Jonathan Levi: So I think it's interesting that you know, I wanted to interview you because a lot of the things you do, I think in today's context are considered SuperHuman and to watch some of the YouTube videos and I'll make sure to post them.

In the notes here, but I think a lot of people would consider what you do to be superhuman. And your message is. Hey, this is what it really means to be your average human. You should be able to move like this.

Erwan Le Corre: What's your broom and what's average.

Jonathan Levi: That's true.

Erwan Le Corre: I think that we are by evolutionary biologically or even divine design.

We have an amazing opportunity to participate in this creation in this amazing world we live in this earth, this universe. All the beauty that is in it, all the magic that is in it. And it starts with seeing that beauty, seeing that magic outside of us, and then to notice that it exists within so we can live beautifully.

By practicing who we are beautifully, you know, with our thoughts, with our emotions, with our intentions, with our goals, with our actions, in every aspect of what we do at every moment we were life. Uh, that's what I believe in.

Jonathan Levi: And I'm so thankful that you took the time to share it with us because I think, you know, we started off on the note of physical fitness, but really, we started to understand a lot more of your life approach and your life philosophy.

Erwan Le Corre: Yeah, well, you know, we could stick to the physical only we could stick to the fitness only, but that would be a compartment. Right. So yeah, we can talk about, I could talk to you about techniques that we use and you know, how we train and yeah, that was great.

But I like to always bring the conversation back to where it really starts and where it really is. Yeah. Movement is part of this process and continuum, but. But ultimately, it's about this one-shot we have at life. And this amazing opportunity is incredible privilege. We have to be alive and our ability by choice to live the highest we can, you know, internally, to begin with, to create beautiful lives for ourselves.

And it's so much about our perception so much about how we operate our minds. Absolutely.

Jonathan Levi: I love that as a message.

Erwan Le Corre: MovNat is a, it's a physical expression of my spirit and it's a spiritual experience of my body.

Jonathan Levi: Amazing. So Erwan and I don't want to take too much of your time, but I'm sure our audience would like to read a lot more and learn about what you're doing.

How can people get in touch with you? Get engaged with you? Where would you want people to check out? Tell us more.

Erwan Le Corre: Simply go to the website, MovNat.com, M O V N A T. dot com and that was we're on Facebook. So, you know, Twitter and stuff like that. And then not that we were home to people to spend too much time there, but of course the world we'll live in.

And if you start with some inspiration from us and it leads you to actually spend less time in the virtual world and more time in the real world, which is you, your mind, your body, and nature. Then it's a beautiful thing, then we've done. We've been successful at what we do.

Jonathan Levi: Incredible, incredible. So we'll post that in the notes and we'll go ahead and also include some of the amazing videos that I found on YouTube.

So I want to thank you again for making the time. It was such a pleasure chatting with you and I look forward to keeping in touch.

Erwan Le Corre: Yeah. And it was my pleasure, Jonathan, that, yeah, it was a real pleasure.

Jonathan Levi: Excellent. We'll take care and have a good day.

Erwan Le Corre: You too, everybody. Thank you.

Closing: Thanks for tuning in to the Becoming SuperHuman Podcast for more great skills and strategies, or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit www.becomingasuperhuman.com/podcast.

We'll see you next time.