Rewiring Rhythm

 The Conductor

In those early years, I was the nerdy conductor, gripping logic like a baton. With epilepsy tilting my world and meningitis erasing chunks of my past, I craved the illusion of control. Strength training delivered—sets, reps, and programs became my score, each lift a note played precisely.

I tracked every detail, building a fortress of routine to steady my rattled mind. But back then, my conductor was following rhythms from borrowed sheet music—systems that others wrote—giving me focus but not freedom. I craved structure over instinct and sought order against the unknown.

My conductor ruled with rigid authority, yet something deeper was stirring within.

 

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Decades of Discovery

In the years following my 1994 surgery, something strange began to happen. The rigid exercise routines I'd relied on started feeling stale—my rewired brain craved variation, not repetition. Where others saw consistency as king, my adaptive neural circuits whispered for change.

I began experimenting. What if I varied the weight loads based on how my energy felt? What if I switched from dumbbells to resistance bands to change the force curves? What if I adjusted angles and alignment to explore different planes of motion based on the kinetic channeling I was learning to sense?

These weren't calculated decisions. They were curious explorations in the moment. Discoveries made while under pressure.

 

My "spaced-out" brain, missing chunks of its original architecture, was teaching me something profound. Static routines left too much cognitive potential untapped. When you lift the same weight for the same reps at the same tempo, your brain learns the pattern once, then essentially sleeps through the session.

But when I started varying weights, load types, and movement angles based on real-time sensing of force flows, something unexpected happened. My body became a cognitive co-processor. Syncing with these force flows changed everything. Feeling activation patterns. Reading tension signatures. These began triggering bio-rhythmic flow states that crafted new feelings, new thought patterns in ways no neurologist had expected.

Each training session quickly became a symphonic performance. A rhythmic dance of knowledge and instinct. Physical and neurological composition in harmony. Syncing with force flows while training taught my brain new ways to organize feedback, creating pathways that hadn't existed before I engaged deeper with the weight load.


The Musician

The 1994 surgery tweaked the tones of my daily rhythms. Seizures became less frequent, and though prescription meds still clouded my clarity, my capacity for sensing subtle signals began to emerge. My body's feedback slowly altered from random noise into recognizable patterns.

 

A musician awakened within the practice. Where my conductor had imposed external structures, my musician began listening for internal ones—energy ebbs, activation flows, moments when clarity would pierce through brain fog like sunlight through storm clouds. 

Yet something else stirred: my musician learned to act like a sailor, reading the currents both within and beyond me. This sailor sensed not just my internal bio-rhythms, but the external conditions that shaped them—daily stressors, environmental factors, the subtle ways outside circumstances influenced my energy and focus.

They began collaborating in ways that surprised me. The sailor would sense environmental shifts—energy dips, tension patterns, the feel of the weight in my hands—while the musician adapted and shaped my response, creating feedback loops that bridged my conductor's structure with my emerging composer's creativity. This collaboration became the echo chamber where waves of information flowed between sensing and expression.

The weights became instruments. Each lift became a note within a kinetic symphony I was learning to perform. I felt oscillations—force rippling through shoulders, spine, hips—like melodies syncing mind and musculature. This wasn't just exercise; it was expression, a way to "love the load" and shape resistance into something beautiful.

My musician discovered that rhythm could heal what rigidity could not reach, learning to navigate the changing tides of both internal and external conditions. Together, they created waves that expanded far beyond the gym.

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The Composer

Years of practice revealed something unexpected: neither the conductor's control nor the musician's expression was the endpoint. What emerged was composition itself within my biology—a shift from performing predetermined patterns to creating entirely new bio-rhythmic possibilities in real-time.

As a composer, I no longer conduct pre-written training scores or perform routine themes. Instead, I collaborate with resistance itself, generating novel wave patterns that emerge from the intersection of current tensions and available resources. The conductor reads the framework, the musician shapes the expression, and I compose new forces moment by moment—bio-rhythms that didn't exist until I encountered that specific resistance in that specific state.

This is where BASE evolved into BASEWAVES—where the foundational elements of Balancing, Aligning, Sourcing, and Engaging naturally expanded into Wisdom, Adaptation, Variance, Exploration, and Synergy. Not as additional techniques to learn, but as emergent qualities that arise when strength's foundation becomes embodied.

My training became a form of somatic creativity, generating novel patterns rather than optimizing existing ones. Each session became composition—waves of bio-rhythmic expression created through the art of listening, refining, and responding to what wants to emerge.​

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When Broken Becomes Beautiful

My brain's forced adaptation revealed something that intact minds rarely discover: the templates we think we need often become the cages that limit us. 

Where I once tried to resurrect old patterns, I learned early on to compose fresh possibilities from whatever conditions the present moment provided.

This shift changed everything. No longer was I trying to get back to who I was before the surgeries. Instead, I was discovering who I could become through collaboration with my altered neurology. Each session became an experiment in real-time composition—syncing with force flows, adapting to resistance, letting intensity emerge from authentic internal signals rather than external triggers.

My journey with strength training began as a means to support my brain's recovery. But, over time, what revealed itself is the untapped potential for any brain.

 

The catalysts within my workouts that became essential for my recovery—constantly changing weights, load types, and movement angles based on syncing with force flows—turns out to be how all nervous systems learn and grow best. We've just been training them to sleep through static routines instead of awakening their full cognitive capacity.

My conductor provides an internal structure to strive for. My musician brings resonance and expression. But my composer creates entirely new symphonies, a way to "love the load" and blend it, shape it on a much deeper level.

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BASEWAVES

From this interplay of conductor, musician, and composer—guided by the sailor's environmental sensing that emerged along the way—converged into BASEWAVES: a fluid framework to sync my body and mind.

During each session, I dance with an interlaced trio—tension, attention, intention—coiling science and soul across three overlapping symphonies:
 

• Metabolism: I fuel my body's orchestra with sound nutrition, along with a keen eye on my cognitive, digestive, sleep, and recovery cycles—adapting as my energy ebbs and flows. By exploring how these rhythms blend together, I've learned tactful ways to "fuel my fires." 

 

• Muscle: This energy, this "fuel" is how I "source my force" while lifting with the waves, my power cresting in smooth, bold reps, then receding as my strength dwindles. I perceive my muscle fibers as echo chambers, with each rep channeling waves of creative tensions within, throughout, and beyond my kinetic chain.

 

• Metaphor: Training with these bio-rhythms becomes cognitive enhancement—using my body's endorphin cycles and neural signaling to trigger a deeper listening state. This "loving the load" mindset often weaves new neural pathways into my "spaced-out" brain circuits, slowly improving my memory, creativity, and imagination under pressure.

 

BASEWAVES isn't a system I passively follow—it's a capacity I engage and continuously refine. It's my composer's craft, merging my conductor's structure with my musician's instinct into a symphony of strength, force, and wonder.