Aprenticeship with Juan Rueda
I’d like to share a little update on recent changes in my personal and professional life, mainly because of its influence on my practice, direction, and above all, my teachings. It’s no secret that I studied Ido Portal method for over 8 years, taught as a part of Pohyb je život under the wings of my dear mentor Petra Růžička for over 6 years, and not so long ago (end of April / May 2023) I received an offer to become part of Marcella Pallozo’s international team and start teaching abroad.
Man means, Life changes
Everything seemed clear, from April 2023, together with my Australian colleague Brady Schulze, we got an opportunity to participate in the research and preparation of new materials for the following school year and the final event of the year – Intensive 2023 in Heilbronn.
In parallel, in May 2023, I’ve met Juan Rueda for the first time during his workshop in Prague, and things started shifting once again. I have been in touch with Juan since autumn 2021. After the month-long Intensive in Berlin with Ido and his team, I had a very strong urge to contact him. Since our first conversation my life has not been the same. He helped me to find ground through the midst of a major transitional time and provided guidance in the inner spheres, where my considerable renaissance began.
I knew that Juan was preparing a 9-week Intensive in Melbourne, which didn’t align with my original plans and departure to Italy. After the assistance in Heilbronn I got an opportunity to visit Juan in Munich for two days and I knew I have to go. We had a great discussion with Marcello, and with his support and understanding, I’ve put my original plans and set out into the world with my backpack once again.
Australia vol. 3 and intensive Intensive
Flying to Melbourne was different from my previous study journeys. I was not pursuing new materials nor experience – I needed to clarify whether my intuition was correct and also in which direction my next steps would lead.
9 weeks, 8 hours of physical and mental hard work a day, 6 days a week. The overall themes were based on the universal principles applied across physical, mental, and emotional layers tested and experienced through a variety of disciplines, martial arts, and general movement practice. Enhanced by a daily dose of discussions I’ve got to see a wider perspective of my pursuits, my actions, and where I wanna be placed. I’ve talked extensively about the experience here and probably will do another summary in English soon.
From the fifth week onward, I began to spend more time with Juan and his family literally as an apprentice – more practice, discussing teachings, its layers and orientation, observing him healing, sitting still and whenever his schedule allowed, my ” tutoring” in internal arts begun. It felt like a new layer of my practice has opened, wearing novice shoes once again. No place I’d rather be.
Projekt KHORA
Khora, Χώρα – Realizing the potential to contain everything within you, through the process of removing everything that is not true.
Long story short, Juan took me as his apprentice, I’ve became his Uchi Deshi and I’ll be teaching, studying and assisting under the KHORA project in the world and in the Czech Republic. For my existing students, almost nothing changes apart from slight adjustments in the orientation and content of the teaching and its focus along with the expansion of services – more information about this soon in an upcoming article.
My practice has never been only about the physical aspect and skills, but rather a kind of a container, a way to learn, know and develop oneself, making the best out of the time I’ve been given. Each one of my teachers helped me to find a specific piece or put together a larger part of the “Life puzzle” – some helped with a small, yet crucial one that lead me to another. Others helped compose a whole section and got me to where I am now. For that and everything I’ve recieved I’ll never cease to be grateful and I’ll continue doing my best to pay tribute to them through my actions.
It’s always a challenge to put into words something that lies beyond them. I feel honored and very gratuful to continue my journey learning and sharing as much as I can under the wings of a dear teacher, a role model of a practitioner, but above all a precious human being who is further on the similar path reminding me of the birds eye view – from which place, what and how I actually compose and operate.