Thread by @ErwanLeCorre

What was that ONE opportunity?

It was the O-1 visa - an "extraordinary ability" visa valid for 3 years - I had managed to get prior to move to the US, and that enabled me to come work legally in the country to teach my method, the MovNat method.

Here's the story behind it all..

https://twitter.com/ErwanLeCorre/status/1175531185767927808

I was around 37 - no wife and kids - when I made the decision to fully dedicate myself to reviving ancient ways of physical training and bring it back to the world.

The WORLD...Pay attention to this, because this is really a key point.

I wasn't just thinking "hey let's try to make a living doing what I love." It was much more ambitious than this, and BOLDLY so.

I envisioned that I was going to be the one person to put our most ancient, most natural movement skillset on the map, make it mainstream, worldwide.

That was more than the plan, it was my VISION.

A vision is unlike a dream. Everyone has dreams and dreams about their dreams. A vision is something you never doubt, because you know it's already happened, you see it and you feel it with a clarity no naysayer can ever fathom.

Who am I back then? A solo guy pushing 40, with a very unique background, the mindset of a maverick, but also a guy with zero credentials - no official ones at least - in this field, no connections. I'll let you measure the boldness of my vision.

I'll let you imagine the reactions of family and friends when I shared with them what I was up to. "It's never gonna work", "You're wasting your time" and so on. At least nobody dared to tell to my face "you're DELUSIONAL."

Nonetheless I closed my small company, sold the few things I had and that I didn't need anymore, determined to dedicate myself and work hard. First part of the job was to resume intense physical training, while also studying and writing, all things related to my project.

You've got to understand, back then NOBODY had any clue what "Natural Movement" meant, not the way people understand it today after over a decade of relentlessly promoting the term and concept.

People were asking me: "is that yoga? Is it Tai Chi?"

"What is it???"

So I'm basically aiming at making the whole world become aware of a concept nobody has a freakin' clue about. I am a CRAZY person.

Or...I'm just bold, confident, ambitious about doing something I love that'd also have a great and positive impact in people's lives and the world.

But I'm totally alone and unknown. Where do I start?

I had ALREADY started: in my mind and heart, in my soul. Not focused on the outcome, but on the process. I told myself that all obstacles in my way will be cleared if I was confident to believe so...and so I chose to be.

I knew deep in my spirit that there was a Presence up there, watching me and that I could talk to...and that was my support system, and it gave me additional energy and confidence, I believed we were already creating opportunities for this vision to unfold.

Soon with the help of a friend I filmed a first video - no talking just moving - displaying the radical, half naked, all in nature, barefoot movement training I was doing. The original video was deleted, but it had elements of this one
tinyurl.com/yy8my39p posted years later.

Nope, that original video didn't go viral at all. I guess I got a few hundred views for it and that was it.

It was a sort of a mock-up of the "The Workout The World Forgot" video that'd come 2 years later.

tinyurl.com/zq3fs29

But something happened. I had been in touch with my brother @BarefootTed who back then I didn't know and he just had a blog narrating his barefoot running adventures. This was before the "barefoot running" became a big trend.

I had told him that I was impressed that he was running barefoot, telling him that I was too running but also jumping, climbing, balancing, in short doing all kinds of natural movements in nature barefoot.
Relatively soon after I emailed him a link to the original video...

...which he really loved! Now this: Christopher McDougall @ChrisMcDougall was visiting him the very next day to interview him for his yet to be written novel "BORN TO RUN" which later became the best-seller everyone knows.
tinyurl.com/y2k7zyky

Ted told me Christopher had watched and LOVED the video and was so excited about it that he wanted to write an article about it. I thought to myself that this could for sure be a good opportunity, yet I had no idea what magazine we were talking about.

Some time later I got a phone call from Chris. He told me he'd never seen something like this before and wanted to write an article about it for Men's Health. Sounds great and exciting right?

-"No. I'm not interested."
-What? But...this is for Men's Health mag, it's huge!"
-"Precisely. What I do stands against that world of physical appearance, exercise-machines, all that superficiality. I don't want to compromise what I do before it's even started."

Short silence...

Then Chris told me: "Look, imagine I'm like the Che Guevara of fitness and I want to start a revolution in this industry and that's what you want to do to right? So if you trust me, I promise that I'll fully respect your message."

The convo went on:
-"You'll get a chance to expose a lot of people to a completely new idea about why and how to exercise, that's what you want right?"
-"Do I have your word that you won't write stupid things and discredit what I do?"
-"You got my word."
-"Let's do it then."

BOOM. Some extra perspective and momentum just got added to my vision by the "Universe." But anyone who's ever worked with the media world knows how fickle it is. I wasn't going to let anything get to my head, or rely on anything but first myself. So I just kept working.

It took about another whole year before Chris and I finally met in person for an interview and a photoshoot, in Itacare, Brazil, where I was training, writing about my philosophy and method, teaching some to my BJJ buddies and locals.

Chris and I clicked right away and I appreciated his enthusiasm and passion about anything I could share with him about my work, the history behind it, the training itself, everything, for 3 days.

Chris made sure I was aware that the article could be as small as a half page and no photo....maybe 2 pages and 2-3 photos...maybe NO article at all. There was no way for even him to know, he was just a free-lance journalist at the time.
Several months later...Chris called me.