Curiosity In Motion, Algarve (2026)

16/01/2025

OFFERINGS

Want to:
- Improve your spinal mobility?
- Decrease your back pain?
- Enhance your posture?
- Learn how to better regulate your nervous system?
- Learn about yourself, your spine & nervous system?

I have a bunch of online & in-person options available for you.

Check it out & if you have any questions, reach out! 🙌

09/01/2025

Your brain has a ‘map’ of your spine.
This map is updated and enhanced by movement.
Because the average person doesn’t move their spine as much as we were evolutionarily designed for - the map gets ‘fuzzy’.

Once the map is fuzzy, your brain understands that there is a risk of injury because it can’t control all parts with precision - so it will tighten the muscles around the area to prevent injury. This causes chronic muscle tension.

Because your brain isn’t controlling parts well, it will lead to micro-trauma and eventual injury. This causes back pain.

Because your brain doesn’t know exactly where your spine is - you begin to slump. This causes bad posture.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Back pain is really a brain issue.

The good news? You can enhance your brain’s ‘spine map’, get out of pain and improve your posture with spinal proprioception rehab.

Interested to know more? Reach out!
Get curious!

13/11/2024

Last week, my Nana passed away. She was an incredible woman. She grew up in a small village in southern Portugal, and during the dictatorship, she immigrated to Australia with her three children (the 4th came here in Australia) so they could have a better life.

She never sold her house in Portugal. She kept it, hoping that once the dictatorship ended, her family might have the chance to return and live there again.

The family never moved back, and so the house has been abandoned for 57 years.

At the beginning of this year, I traveled to Portugal with my mum on a mission to restore the house to its former glory, so that my family here in Australia—and our future generations—will have the opportunity to return to Nana’s village, reconnect with their heritage in a deeper way, and meet the family we still have there.

Being in that house allowed me to understand my Nana in ways I never could have before. I lived in the village she grew up in & I repaired the room where she birthed three of her children, including my mum.

My Nana was the best, and her passing has strengthened my resolve to bring this house back to life.

The poem posted here is one that she wrote & this post is in her honor. Love you Nana.

We’ll be heading back to Portugal next month to continue working on the house. I’ll keep you all updated.

21/07/2024

Restoring an Abandoned House in Portugal

Three months ago, I embarked on a journey to restore an abandoned house in a small Portuguese village. It’s not just any house; it is the house where my mother was born and where generations of my family once lived. It was abandoned 57 years ago when my family had to flee the country due to a dictatorship.

It has become my mission to restore this house. I want to create a place where my family and I can reconnect more deeply with our ancestral roots and the Portuguese side of our family. My mission is to restore this house so that future generations of my family can understand their heritage and feel their lineage through the soil and the walls of this house.

It has been a journey, for sure. As someone with little building experience, taking on a project like this has been a mammoth challenge. Luckily, I have family here who have helped me integrate, and friends from around the world who have come to lend a helping hand.

I’ll be writing about these adventures in a blog, which I think is the best platform for it. You can follow along via my Substack account: curiosityinmotion (I’ll post the link in the comments section).

Get curious, my friends!

02/06/2024

Captain of an abandoned ship 😂🙌

What inspires a person with minimal building skills to move to a small Portuguese village and restore a house that’s been abandoned for 60 years?

Well, the first thing to understand is that this isn’t just any house - it’s the house where my mum (.garden ) was born & where generations of my family have lived.
It was abandoned when my family had to flee Portugal during the dictatorship, and now, I’ve come back to restore it to something incredible.

I have a vision in my head or what this place will be - an oasis that my family can come to if they ever want to get to know their roots, as I have, and that the future generations of my family can come to to learn more about their heritage.

I can’t describe the joy that engaging in this project has brought me so far- from meeting a whole other side of my family to learning a bunch of new building skills. Recently, I’ve also had a few friends ( .us ) come to visit me here & lend a hand, it’s been an absolute blast!

I currently find myself the captain of an abandoned ship, but I’m not worried in the slightest, because this place will one day be full of life again.

Do you want to come to Portugal, help out and learn some building skills this July/ December? Get in touch :)

29/05/2024

When the World Court has ruled that war crimes are being committed, and there is a arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister & defense minister, it is no longer a questions of ‘is excessive force being used’ or ‘Is this genocide?’ & ‘this is self-defense’ is no longer an adequate response.

Western politicians are afraid of speaking out for fear of loss of funding & re-election. It is via protest & speaking out that we can create international pressure, eventually national pressure & can hopefully influence a ceasefire & the eventual creation of Palestine as it’s own country, separate to the occupation of Israel.

I see a future of peace, and that begins with the end of Palestinian occupation.

25/05/2024

For the love of reading!

My intention for this page is not only inspire people towards the exploration of their physicality, but more than that, inspire people towards curiosity & a passion for learning ✨

To someone that didn’t know what reading was, it would seem a miracle that you could pick up a few pieces of paper and stare at it for a while and know what was happening on the other side of the world. It would be like magic.

The word ‘magic’ itself is actually in description of people with knowledge, the ‘Magi’ (Zoroastrian high priests from Iran), the word ‘magic’ came about because these Magi were extremely learned and were able to predict seasonal changes based on the stars, amongst other things, & to most that seemed like ‘magic’! ( told me this story, and it’s become one of my favorites)

Recently my good friends .us & have been living with me in Portugal & helping me renovate my family house here. One of the highlights of my days has been all of us sitting & reading together in the mornings!

It doesn’t matter what you read, it is the pursuit of learning that’s where the magic is.

So find a topic that interests you, find a book on it, and reas 10 pages a day. You’ll thank me later.

Get curious ⚡️

29/04/2024

UPGRADE YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM ✨

It is through increasing the coherence of your nervous system that you can live with less effort, less resistance & be able to coordinate your energy towards the pursuit of higher desires (such as being of service) rather than just to survival.
This is the work that I practice, teach & am absolutely passionate about.

There are practices which can help enhance the efficiency & coherence of your nervous system. Here is a brief list of some of my favorite:

1. Movement diversity - playing around with movement & experimenting with new ways of moving helps to enhance your brain’s ‘body map’, thereby establishing a stronger sense of your self.

2. Intersegmental spinal movement training - your spine has the highest density of proprioceptive (body awareness) receptors in your whole body. Through intersegmental spinal movement & awareness training you can increase your global body awareness & the efficiency of your nervous system.

3. Shaking, intuitive dance & TRE - your nervous system discharges tension through tremor/ shaking. We can help discharge stored tension in our nervous system by giving ourselves permission to consciously engage in the process.

4. Therapeutic modalities which work on the nervous system - joint manipulation (such as that seen in chiropractic & osteopathy) is a passive means of enhancing body awareness & movement. Other, gentler modalities such as network chiropractic & (thanks ) work more on nervous system discharge & providing a space for more energy to enter the system. All of them are awesome for your nervous system.

I’ll be teaching a few ‘Awaken Your Spine’ workshops around Europe in the next few months:

May 11th - Lisbon, Portugal
May 19th - Porto, Portugal .yoga.Porto
May 26th - Algarve, Portugal
June 22nd - Oslo, Norway
July 4th - Stockholm, Sweden
& more to come!

Head to my website for more info & FREE online resources.

Get curious 🌿

05/04/2024

For the last couple of years I’ve traveled around the world and provided free treatment in remote communities, to people that wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it.

From isolated, mountain towns in south Mexico, to remote communities on the Amazon river, all the way to an off-the-beaten-track Aboriginal community in Australia.

I believe that we all have a mode of being of service, a unique way that we can help people.
I believe that we reach a higher level of our potential (and of happiness) as human beings, when we find ways to be of service.

I have friends that find their service in spending time with strangers, in volunteering at church/ in their community, friends that donate socks to homeless people (shout out to Andres from ), pick up rubbish from the beach, the list goes on and on.

Me providing bodywork for strangers is no less awesome than the shopkeeper that meets each costumer with love & a smile, or the parent that is mindfully raising their child in a way that will hopefully create a better world.

I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do in this lifetime, who I am, where I’m heading or what the meaning of life is.. I have learnt, however, that being of service seems to add value to our lives in a way that pursuing common desires can’t.

May we take care of one another,
May we look after animals, the planet & the wild places

This photo taken up in Arnhem land by , on a trip with

04/03/2024

Embodiment & Language-ing

1. Become aware of the body
2. Become aware of your body
3. Become aware your physicality

Language is powerful, especially as a facilitator because it is our mode of helping guide another towards an internal experience.

For the last few months I have become specifically interested in the difference between the 3 examples above. Why? Because although they seem the same, the experience of each one is quite different.

When someone tells me to ‘feel into the body’, it creates space between ‘me’ & ‘the body’, as if there was a split between the two.

When someone tells me to ‘feel into my body’, it creates a sense of ownership within me around my body, I may be more than my body, but this is also ‘my body’.

The fault with our modern society is that we’ve created a divide between body and mind, and so even the phrase ‘feel into your body’ can have the effect of keeping people from feeling their head, mind & brain as a part of that.

This is why I’ve started using ‘feel into your physicality’, as it provides ownership & also doesn’t create a divide between body & mind. I first heard this from during a guided meditation by Betsy Polatin and it had the effect of making me feel more integrated - bodymind unit of physicality rather than divided between the two.

This may sound like semantics, but to all of my fellow embodiment facilitators out there - the way we use language will guide people into the experience we intend for them. If we use language that unintentionally created inner division we are setting that experience up. In the same way if we use language that intentionally leads towards feelings of bodymind/ physicality integration, we are setting that experience up.

I’m aware that this is a pretty niche post in terms of those that will find epic value in it. For those that do, you’re awesome & thanks for understanding.

23/02/2024

Last week I taught this movement ‘uddiyana bandha kriya’ to a patient suffering from chronic pain around her diaphragm at the chiropractic clinic I was working at.

I am blessed that my education on the body didn’t begin with university studies, but of in-depth studies of yoga & yogic practices.

I was sponsored to do my yoga teacher training when I was 19 (thank you .phoenix ), and then got completely obsessed with yogic philosophy & practices. I spent the next years deeply devoted to yoga, doing lots of different trainings (my favorite were those with , those trainings changed my life!) and spending a lot of my waking time contemplating yogic philosophy.

It was through this lens that I engaged in my university training as a chiropractor.
My work today is in blending western anatomy & science with eastern yogic philosophy & practices.

I do believe in fate, and for all the good that has come into my life, I hope that it may be so that I can be of greater service to anyone that might need it.

The lady I taught this to had been suffering from pain for weeks/ months. She came back after a week of doing it and said that she has had almost no pain since.

Here’s to East meets West!

05/02/2024

Hi I’m Ryan,
I’m a nerd, and proud of it ⚡️

I want to reclaim the word ‘nerd’ from something seen as undesirable to something that is sexy AF.

I want this page to inspire people to take better care of their bodies & move more & on top of that, I really hope to inspire people to nurture their curiosity & engage in continuous learning.

I hold curiosity & continued education to be two of my highest values & priorities. I am constantly nurturing my curiosity & learning (the most whacked variety of things) & it’s something that I intend to do until I die.

Maybe you already have an awesome fitness routine, my question to you is
‘what are you currently learning?’

I hope that people don’t become so concerned with the aesthetics of their body that they forget about the development of skills, of their mind, and of course, of their character.

Interesting people are generally people that are interested in things (curious people).
I don’t care if that is fabric dying, fire-twirling, philosophy, dungeons & dragons, meditation or induction cooking technology (how does that actually work btw??)

Invest your time & money into learning/ the nurturing of your mind. This could be as simple as reading a book or as extreme as building a tiny house 😅

Is there any random skill that you’ve been thinking about? Any rabbit hole that you’ve been wanting to explore? Learn the skill! Go down the rabbit hole! Research! Find something to geek out on.

Why? Because it’ll make life more interesting, and being a nerd is super sexy. X

Where are my other self-proclaimed nerds at?! Can you guys give me a 🙌
Also, if you know how induction cooking works, please comment that too 😂😅

Curiosity In Motion