It's time to get real about the Ido Portal method. Brutally honest, zero BS, in true Ido style.

Ido Portal is easily one of the most brilliant teachers of his generation. He for practical intents and purposes, basically created, refined, and led a field, both to becoming widespread among many of the most dedicated practitioners of movement fields worldwide, and to have gone leaps and bounds beyond what other camps have done.

I’ve noticed over the many years that I’ve been studying with Ido, what you could call an ‘Ido Portal effect’. People who’ve even heard of Ido tend to be a cut above those who haven’t, in terms of skill in movement. People who have trained with Ido are still a cut higher, and people who have trained with Ido long term are a cut even above those- and each of these levels tends to be of a significant magnitude.

It’s hard to imagine one man doing a better job than Ido has done leading the field of movement in technical development.

However, his method has it’s flaws as well, and I believe it’s time to talk about them publicly, so that those of us who were operating under it’s paradigms can start to acknowledge, research, troubleshoot (as a community) these mistakes, and then move beyond them.

For one, Ido can be ruthless. Sure, the ‘cruel tutelage of Ido Portal’ is cool and all that, and it’s a strong force to push many forward, but it’s another thing when, for instance, the students at one of Ido’s most successful affiliated facilities have noticed consistently that their teachers are a lot more ‘mean' after coming back from even a short event or workshop with Ido.

Second, his method operates blind to much of modern research, including in sports science, motor learning, and related areas. Ido seems to have settled for the understanding of sports science he gained from Charles Poliquin, and RIP to Charles, but a lot of his ideas, such as on tempo and time under tension, are outdated, while others, like biosignature, were completely unfounded in the first place.

Some of you will say, if it’s not broke don’t fix it- his method works right? But this is antithetical to both my and Ido’s central beliefs. In fact, It’s the one thing I respect about Ido more than any other- he is constantly evolving and growing, as a mover, as a teacher, and as a person. He taught us the ‘craftsman mentality’ that you should never stop working on your craft and just call it finished- instead continually working to refine and evolve your craft and methods. Easy to say, sure, but Ido’s been doing this, and I’ve personally witnessed the magnitude to which it’s happened. The Ido Portal I met at movement camp in 2019 was Ido 2.0 compared to the Ido Portal I met at movement camp in 2016. This is what I’ll miss the most if he blacklists me from all future events for this video as I fully expect him to.

This brings us to what I believe is the most major flaw in the ido portal method: closed-mindedness. While Ido draws from different teachers and disciplines, he himself is the major source of information in the movement culture, which is indoctrinated that other teachers (who aren't teaching his method) are BS and other methods are garbage. Ido’s movement culture has become simply a vessel for his teachings passed down at his events and workshops, and while Ido is a brilliant guy, one man (even with a few helpers) cannot adequately fuel the development of a complex field.

For those that will ask why I did this video, or “what’s the point?” it’s primarily for this reason. If we want to grow movement, the field that Ido essentially created, both in width (get good information out to the general public) and in depth (develop movement and it’s study further), we need to start collaborating and working together to share our findings and research. I think it’s time, not for a movement culture, but a movement community.

I honestly believe that movement and it’s study are vital to the health and development of humanity, and it’s time that we dedicated practitioners and teachers stop holding one man responsible for its development, even if it’s the one who popularized it.

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