Five years ago, I closed the Open Matt dojo and decided to "wander." It was going to be a deep couple weeks of contemplation and reset. A week in, I decided just to let it all go for five years. On my 50th birthday, I'd return to focused work.

Fun fact: a week into that plan, I got visited by an angel in the form of an excessive amount of electricity into my neck, searing a nerve cluster that would drop me if I so much as tried to put my damn hand in my pocket. So that gave me one perfect reason to sit, meditate, write, and be grateful for the depth you can reach just through being still and breathing.

During that time, I found powerful mentors and was brought into specialized groups I never thought I'd be privileged to be part of—the best of the best. And when I listened to what they had to say, it shocked my business the way life had shocked my neck. I'm a good teacher because I'm an even better student, so I devoted myself to their work. It was soul-sucking. I get it now. 

Almost every one of them taught me the same thing: how to sell my work in a way that made my soul judge me, like I was about to accept lip syncing as art or start wearing five-finger toe shoes. I felt like I was Tron, but the computer I got sucked into wasn't all cool motorcycles and laser fights — I just got sucked into LinkedIn, where the only thing anyone can say is "unlock your true potential, authentic, optimization, be vulnerable, fear of failure, and let's circle back and unpack this massive opportunity."

I lasted longer than I should have, then I left on good terms. But wow, that world of business is not where I belong.

I'm 50 now. I spent the last four months finishing what I've been building, and today it's live.

It's a practice library — not a course. The difference matters.

A course is something you complete and move on from, which is like saying, "Cool, I just earned my breathing certificate online, I can finally stop breathing now." If you're in the market for a course to finish and move on, then this art and practice may not be your thing. 

The practice library is something you return to, the way you've heard a song a thousand times — you don't finish it, you know it.

We filmed the whole rebuild, starting from a body that had atrophied from the jaw to the hip on my right side. Day one, I could barely hold a plank. Day two, hours of pain-free movement. You can see the actual process of reconnecting nerves and rebuilding mobility, joint by joint. It was so fun to start from zero and experience that change.

I took away all the weird hype I was told to use, stripped out all the promises of outcomes, because skill cannot be bought, and I won't promise you that you'll show up and practice. That's your job.

Real devoted practice or longevity doesn't exist in hype — it exists in the quiet. I'm very goofy most of the time, but diminishing or selling practices that are over a thousand years old and have been in my life for forty-five years by telling you they'll do anything for you is beneath you and me. 

You show up, you do the work. There is no back door to the front door, and I don't care what your shaman or biohacker coach tells you. 

I became secretly ashamed as I was being asked to lie about results and sell transformational shortcuts because marketers say, "You want to make money, don't you?" "What are they going to walk away with?"  "What problem are you solving?" It's not about answering those questions; it's about having a place to experience the way you answer them for yourself. That's how I know I don't like installing sheetrock or going to brunch. 

I thought it was just my vanity not wanting to accept the reality that sales and marketing come before art and practice. But my first mentors and heroes came from punk rock. Fugazi taught me to make something, put my heart into it, and invite everyone to the show.

Your practice is the show; the practice library is just ideas. Results happen when you make space in your life to show up to something regularly. That's it. That's the formula. Then I realized I just want to make work I'm stoked about.

This practice library is that.