Herman Chauw: Hi Coach Murdock, thank you for agreeing to have this interview. Could you tell us a bit about your background.
Ryan Murdock: http://www.ryanmurdock.com/murdock-bio.htm
HC: How long have you been a travel writer and what interests you in this profession?
RM: I guess I started writing seriously in about 2000, while living in Tokyo. But I’ve always written, even as a kid. I like travel literature because it can be so many things — autobiography, memoir, anthropology, prose poetry, cultural critique, history, etc. And the best combines elements of each. Writing about travel suits me because I’m only really good at writing about myself.
HC: Other than being a travel writer and the Rmax seminars, what is your schedule like? Do you teach physical training to clients?
RM: I do have a few clients that I work with several times a year, but these days I’m mainly focused on ebooks and on building our Inside Access program at BodyweightCoach.com
HC: How many countries have you been to and how often do you travel? How many days a month are you away from home? And out of these how many days are spent actually travelling, ie on flights, transit, trains, buses etc.?
RM: I think 45 countries so far. Work travel tends to come all at once, with long gaps in between. This year has been about a trip a month, but mostly to the US. Last year I was home all summer working on projects, and then did 3 trips on 3 continents in 2 months (UK/Germany, Japan, Syria). I have no idea how much is spent in transit. But as a rule I prefer to travel slow, especially if I’m on my own. Moving around less, hanging around more.
HC: How much of your travels are to uninhabited places or wilderness?
RM: As much as possible, but it’s been a while since I did an expedition style trip to someplace really remote. The past couple years have involved a lot of travel to Europe and the Middle East. I’m plotting a couple cool journeys off the map that I hope to do in 2011 or early 2012 depending on my BodyweightCoach.com production schedule.
HC: How and why do you choose these destinations? Which are your favourite destinations?
RM: I get curious about something, or start researching a country, or come up with an angle, and I call my publisher to see if he’s interested in setting something up. Occasionally they call me if they have a trip coming up that I might be interested in.
Re: favourites, I guess I like somewhat desolate landscapes. Desert places. Empty places like Mongolia. Places I don’t know very much about. (I’m not at all interested in all-inclusive places or “vacation destinations”) Mongolia is one of the coolest places I’ve ever been because to me Mongolia represents freedom, wandering, self-contained sufficiency, and I identified strongly with the rugged and independent people there. I’m also drawn in some strange way to the landscape and culture of the Mediterranean. There’s something about the stony white islands set in a translucent sea, that magical quality of the light, the wine and olives and strong hard cheese, and the slow pace of life there. It felt like going home in a sense.
HC: How often do you have to cross time zones and how do you deal with jet lag?
RM: I’ve found that melatonin helps me adjust to a new time zone a little faster. Other than that, the usual advice about sucking it up and staying awake until it’s time to sleep at the local destination holds true. I’m really good at staying awake for long stretches of time, I guess that helps.
HC: How long do you stay at each destination?
RM: Depends on the nature of the trip. Biz trips can be as short as a weekend. Magazine assignments are anywhere from a couple weeks to a month. When traveling on my own and covering a lot of ground, I found that 3 to 4 months was an ideal length of time - 6 months was a bit too much. By 6 months I seem to fall back into the same sort of patterns I took to the road in order to break. Then it’s time for a sedentary period of reading, writing, that sorta thing. Of course, the answer could just as easily be hopping a plane to a completely different type of country than the one you’re in.
HC: And what do you do at every destination other than writing? I mean are you paid to do other things like taking photographs or something?
RM: I’ve had some of my photos published, but normally just by default (because there was nothing else lol). On mag trips I usually travel with a photographer. I know several writers who do all their own stuff, and I guess you can do an okay job at both - the writing and the photography - but I don’t think you’ll ever get really great at both. It requires two different types of eye. My photographer is seeing the world in terms of frames, breaking up the view, looking at light and colours and things like that. But I can’t see those things because I’m sitting back trying to soak up the feel of a place, the poetic view. Thinking about my own past in the context of this place, and trying to feel out the next move, the next opportunity, the next thread of experience that The Road is always presenting if only you’re patient enough to wait for it. I couldn’t do that if I was always thinking about taking a pile of photos.
HC: In between destinations, do you get to go home or do you do any travelling on your own?
RM: Yeah, I’m home a lot. I’m a bit of a workaholic, I don’t go outta the house for a week or two at a time, and I don’t know very much about the city I live in. But when I do go out of the house it’s usually to someplace like Cairo rather than down the street. Yes, I sometimes extend a trip to do stuff on my own after the job is finished. I’m always able to stay longer on my own dime if I want.
HC: Do you travel alone?
RM: Yes, if I’m not on a magazine trip then I prefer to travel alone. Traveling with other people filters your experience through their eyes. The trip ends up being about them rather than that place, because you’re more concerned with the dynamic that’s happening between you. Being alone gives you space, and silence to look both outside yourself and deep within. It also forces you to be completely self-reliant — that’s important when you’re an introvert like me. Traveling alone forces me to balance my nature, to step outside my normal comfort zones.
HC: I know that you do TACFIT Commando on your travels, but is that all you do? I mean do you bring along with you any training equipment (eg Clubbells) at all?
HC: How long have you been a travel writer and what interests you in this profession?
RM: I guess I started writing seriously in about 2000, while living in Tokyo. But I’ve always written, even as a kid. I like travel literature because it can be so many things — autobiography, memoir, anthropology, prose poetry, cultural critique, history, etc. And the best combines elements of each. Writing about travel suits me because I’m only really good at writing about myself.
HC: Other than being a travel writer and the Rmax seminars, what is your schedule like? Do you teach physical training to clients?
RM: I do have a few clients that I work with several times a year, but these days I’m mainly focused on ebooks and on building our Inside Access program at BodyweightCoach.com
HC: How many countries have you been to and how often do you travel? How many days a month are you away from home? And out of these how many days are spent actually travelling, ie on flights, transit, trains, buses etc.?
RM: I think 45 countries so far. Work travel tends to come all at once, with long gaps in between. This year has been about a trip a month, but mostly to the US. Last year I was home all summer working on projects, and then did 3 trips on 3 continents in 2 months (UK/Germany, Japan, Syria). I have no idea how much is spent in transit. But as a rule I prefer to travel slow, especially if I’m on my own. Moving around less, hanging around more.
HC: How much of your travels are to uninhabited places or wilderness?
RM: As much as possible, but it’s been a while since I did an expedition style trip to someplace really remote. The past couple years have involved a lot of travel to Europe and the Middle East. I’m plotting a couple cool journeys off the map that I hope to do in 2011 or early 2012 depending on my BodyweightCoach.com production schedule.
HC: How and why do you choose these destinations? Which are your favourite destinations?
RM: I get curious about something, or start researching a country, or come up with an angle, and I call my publisher to see if he’s interested in setting something up. Occasionally they call me if they have a trip coming up that I might be interested in.
Re: favourites, I guess I like somewhat desolate landscapes. Desert places. Empty places like Mongolia. Places I don’t know very much about. (I’m not at all interested in all-inclusive places or “vacation destinations”) Mongolia is one of the coolest places I’ve ever been because to me Mongolia represents freedom, wandering, self-contained sufficiency, and I identified strongly with the rugged and independent people there. I’m also drawn in some strange way to the landscape and culture of the Mediterranean. There’s something about the stony white islands set in a translucent sea, that magical quality of the light, the wine and olives and strong hard cheese, and the slow pace of life there. It felt like going home in a sense.
HC: How often do you have to cross time zones and how do you deal with jet lag?
RM: I’ve found that melatonin helps me adjust to a new time zone a little faster. Other than that, the usual advice about sucking it up and staying awake until it’s time to sleep at the local destination holds true. I’m really good at staying awake for long stretches of time, I guess that helps.
HC: How long do you stay at each destination?
RM: Depends on the nature of the trip. Biz trips can be as short as a weekend. Magazine assignments are anywhere from a couple weeks to a month. When traveling on my own and covering a lot of ground, I found that 3 to 4 months was an ideal length of time - 6 months was a bit too much. By 6 months I seem to fall back into the same sort of patterns I took to the road in order to break. Then it’s time for a sedentary period of reading, writing, that sorta thing. Of course, the answer could just as easily be hopping a plane to a completely different type of country than the one you’re in.
HC: And what do you do at every destination other than writing? I mean are you paid to do other things like taking photographs or something?
RM: I’ve had some of my photos published, but normally just by default (because there was nothing else lol). On mag trips I usually travel with a photographer. I know several writers who do all their own stuff, and I guess you can do an okay job at both - the writing and the photography - but I don’t think you’ll ever get really great at both. It requires two different types of eye. My photographer is seeing the world in terms of frames, breaking up the view, looking at light and colours and things like that. But I can’t see those things because I’m sitting back trying to soak up the feel of a place, the poetic view. Thinking about my own past in the context of this place, and trying to feel out the next move, the next opportunity, the next thread of experience that The Road is always presenting if only you’re patient enough to wait for it. I couldn’t do that if I was always thinking about taking a pile of photos.
HC: In between destinations, do you get to go home or do you do any travelling on your own?
RM: Yeah, I’m home a lot. I’m a bit of a workaholic, I don’t go outta the house for a week or two at a time, and I don’t know very much about the city I live in. But when I do go out of the house it’s usually to someplace like Cairo rather than down the street. Yes, I sometimes extend a trip to do stuff on my own after the job is finished. I’m always able to stay longer on my own dime if I want.
HC: Do you travel alone?
RM: Yes, if I’m not on a magazine trip then I prefer to travel alone. Traveling with other people filters your experience through their eyes. The trip ends up being about them rather than that place, because you’re more concerned with the dynamic that’s happening between you. Being alone gives you space, and silence to look both outside yourself and deep within. It also forces you to be completely self-reliant — that’s important when you’re an introvert like me. Traveling alone forces me to balance my nature, to step outside my normal comfort zones.
HC: I know that you do TACFIT Commando on your travels, but is that all you do? I mean do you bring along with you any training equipment (eg Clubbells) at all?
RM: No, space is at a premium so I stick with bodyweight training. I bring a Gymboss timer but that’s about it.
HC: Do you use hotel gyms or any gyms in the local town if you had the chance to?
RM: No. I tried a hotel gym a couple times but it was just too depressing. I can get a better training session in my own hotel room, and in a fraction of the time.
HC: What is in your backpack? Do you bring your own food and/or cooking equipment?
RM: Depends on the type of trip. On expeditions, yeah, I carry food, a Whisperlite stove, water filter, all that stuff. We have to be completely self sufficient because there’s nothing else out there. But on trips to more civilized places, your best bet is to go to the spots where people who live there eat. The food’s much better. And who wants to travel halfway around the world to eat the same stuff you eat at home?
HC: How heavy is your backpack? Do you use it as a sandbag/medicine ball for training?
RM: Depends on the trip. It can get pretty heavy on expedition trips — I think the worst was 60-lbs or so, but on that trip we were being supplied by air and our food drops were 5 or 6 days apart. The first few days after restocking were tough. In other places, I try to travel light. It’s amazing how little you actually need in order to get by. And if you do need something, you can always find it there. No, I never used my pack for training on the road. After trudging around with it for days, that’s the last thing I want to pick up lol.
HC: Do you schedule your training using 4x7 in your travels? How much does your travels affect the perfect 4 formula?
RM: No, I don’t normally stick to a schedule. Training on the road is a bit like sleep - you’ve gotta get some when you can. It also depends on the type of trip. If I’m doing an expedition type thing, then that would be my “on season” so I would only do joint mobility each day, and maybe a bit of yoga/stretching for active recovery if tension is piling up. In that case the demands of the trip are what I was training for, so that’s the actual workout. If it’s a press trip or business trip and I’m staying in a hotel, I use bodyweight training to exercise in my room. At minimum I always do a top to bottom mobility session once a day. Recovery is the most important thing when putting in long work days out there (especially when my work day involves climbing around ruins or crossing deserts on a camel) - I focus on high intensity stuff and making gains when I’m back home.
HC: How often do you get to touch your Clubbells? How do you keep your finesse to handle the Clubbells?
RM: For the past couple years I’ve been using TACFIT extensively, which of course includes a lot of Clubbell stuff, so I’m pretty well always using them for something when I’m home. I also cycle dedicated Clubbell training through a couple times per year.
HC: Have you ever been in a situation whereby you have to rely upon your fitness (fighting, running, obstacles crossing etc.) for survival?
RM: Yes, several times. The martial arts training helps. I have a pretty good sense of how much I can handle, and I know when I might be in over my head. It taught me strategy, craftiness, never to give too much away (i.e. put on the naïve face and bumble through rather than confront; hide certain skills and only reveal them suddenly if needed), and it also gave me the ability to fight my way out when necessary - and it’s been necessary on a few occasions. That sort of training changes the way you carry yourself. Assailants are looking for a victim, an easy mark to take advantage of, and they assume you’ll roll over because you’re alone. But when you flip that switch and “turn it on” they sense your willingness and your ability to fight, and they almost always walk the other way. That’s been my experience at least.
As for the physical discomforts of travel – the aches and pains, the endless monotony of waiting, the illnesses — it helps with that too. My early martial arts training taught me a lot, I guess because it was so brutal. The beatings we took and that we gave each other as a part of the day to day training were worse than anything I would encounter out there. It has a lot to do with mental toughness. And the fitness side plays into this too. You know that you’ve been in tough situations before and have gotten through, so there’s every reason to believe you’ll get through again. And you come to realize that pain is just pain (within reason, of course!) – you gain the ability to distinguish pain (discomfort) from injury.
HC: Other than the physical challenges of travelling, what mental challenges do you face and how do you deal with them?
RM: The physical can be a grind, but for me the greatest challenge has always been the mental. I’m an introvert, but on the road you have to force yourself to be an extrovert – to talk to people, to ask the way, to fight back sometimes against those who would take advantage of you. Travel forces me to balance my nature. Whenever I feel my world closing in too much I know it’s time to go off again. It’s always painful at first; that never seems to change. I get excited to research a trip in theory, but as the final days count down the last thing I want to do is to go, to break out of the comfortable routine I’ve built. Of course when that plane glides in, when I get that first whiff of diesel smoke from third world streets, curiosity and enthusiasm take over and there’s no place I’d rather be.
HC: Have you served in the military or tactical occupation?
RM: No. I have a lot of respect for the jobs those folks do and the skills they develop. But I have a fundamental problem with the military that would disqualify me from such a career. I hate getting up early, and I hate getting yelled at.
HC: Did you face any opposition when promoting TACFIT to the tactical community?
RM: Just the usual resistance or skepticism when offering something new. It helped when actual tactical operators started buying the program, working with it, and then talking about it online. The fact that those guys raved about it lent TACFIT a lot of credibility. It’s the same when we go in to do a seminar or workshop - as soon as these guys try it you see the lights coming on as they realize how applicable it is to the demands of their jobs.
HC: Could you give us some information on future TACFIT releases?
RM: TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz (www.kettlebelltactical.com) is coming out in a couple weeks - it might be out by the time you publish this interview. After that, we’re going to launch TACFIT Mass Assault properly. That program was only offered as part of a promo and later alongside TACFIT Commando during a product launch. We’re releasing it publicly, with new components added (we added a second section that doubles the size). I think that will be out about a month after the kettlebell program.
HC: Thanks again Coach Murdock for taking the time to answer these questions.
For more stories on Ryan's travels, visit Ryan's blog Ryan Murdock's Road Wisdom.
This interview was first published in RMAX Magazine. Click here to download it: RMAX Magazine 8.5.
HC: Do you use hotel gyms or any gyms in the local town if you had the chance to?
RM: No. I tried a hotel gym a couple times but it was just too depressing. I can get a better training session in my own hotel room, and in a fraction of the time.
HC: What is in your backpack? Do you bring your own food and/or cooking equipment?
RM: Depends on the type of trip. On expeditions, yeah, I carry food, a Whisperlite stove, water filter, all that stuff. We have to be completely self sufficient because there’s nothing else out there. But on trips to more civilized places, your best bet is to go to the spots where people who live there eat. The food’s much better. And who wants to travel halfway around the world to eat the same stuff you eat at home?
HC: How heavy is your backpack? Do you use it as a sandbag/medicine ball for training?
RM: Depends on the trip. It can get pretty heavy on expedition trips — I think the worst was 60-lbs or so, but on that trip we were being supplied by air and our food drops were 5 or 6 days apart. The first few days after restocking were tough. In other places, I try to travel light. It’s amazing how little you actually need in order to get by. And if you do need something, you can always find it there. No, I never used my pack for training on the road. After trudging around with it for days, that’s the last thing I want to pick up lol.
HC: Do you schedule your training using 4x7 in your travels? How much does your travels affect the perfect 4 formula?
RM: No, I don’t normally stick to a schedule. Training on the road is a bit like sleep - you’ve gotta get some when you can. It also depends on the type of trip. If I’m doing an expedition type thing, then that would be my “on season” so I would only do joint mobility each day, and maybe a bit of yoga/stretching for active recovery if tension is piling up. In that case the demands of the trip are what I was training for, so that’s the actual workout. If it’s a press trip or business trip and I’m staying in a hotel, I use bodyweight training to exercise in my room. At minimum I always do a top to bottom mobility session once a day. Recovery is the most important thing when putting in long work days out there (especially when my work day involves climbing around ruins or crossing deserts on a camel) - I focus on high intensity stuff and making gains when I’m back home.
HC: How often do you get to touch your Clubbells? How do you keep your finesse to handle the Clubbells?
RM: For the past couple years I’ve been using TACFIT extensively, which of course includes a lot of Clubbell stuff, so I’m pretty well always using them for something when I’m home. I also cycle dedicated Clubbell training through a couple times per year.
HC: Have you ever been in a situation whereby you have to rely upon your fitness (fighting, running, obstacles crossing etc.) for survival?
RM: Yes, several times. The martial arts training helps. I have a pretty good sense of how much I can handle, and I know when I might be in over my head. It taught me strategy, craftiness, never to give too much away (i.e. put on the naïve face and bumble through rather than confront; hide certain skills and only reveal them suddenly if needed), and it also gave me the ability to fight my way out when necessary - and it’s been necessary on a few occasions. That sort of training changes the way you carry yourself. Assailants are looking for a victim, an easy mark to take advantage of, and they assume you’ll roll over because you’re alone. But when you flip that switch and “turn it on” they sense your willingness and your ability to fight, and they almost always walk the other way. That’s been my experience at least.
As for the physical discomforts of travel – the aches and pains, the endless monotony of waiting, the illnesses — it helps with that too. My early martial arts training taught me a lot, I guess because it was so brutal. The beatings we took and that we gave each other as a part of the day to day training were worse than anything I would encounter out there. It has a lot to do with mental toughness. And the fitness side plays into this too. You know that you’ve been in tough situations before and have gotten through, so there’s every reason to believe you’ll get through again. And you come to realize that pain is just pain (within reason, of course!) – you gain the ability to distinguish pain (discomfort) from injury.
HC: Other than the physical challenges of travelling, what mental challenges do you face and how do you deal with them?
RM: The physical can be a grind, but for me the greatest challenge has always been the mental. I’m an introvert, but on the road you have to force yourself to be an extrovert – to talk to people, to ask the way, to fight back sometimes against those who would take advantage of you. Travel forces me to balance my nature. Whenever I feel my world closing in too much I know it’s time to go off again. It’s always painful at first; that never seems to change. I get excited to research a trip in theory, but as the final days count down the last thing I want to do is to go, to break out of the comfortable routine I’ve built. Of course when that plane glides in, when I get that first whiff of diesel smoke from third world streets, curiosity and enthusiasm take over and there’s no place I’d rather be.
HC: Have you served in the military or tactical occupation?
RM: No. I have a lot of respect for the jobs those folks do and the skills they develop. But I have a fundamental problem with the military that would disqualify me from such a career. I hate getting up early, and I hate getting yelled at.
HC: Did you face any opposition when promoting TACFIT to the tactical community?
RM: Just the usual resistance or skepticism when offering something new. It helped when actual tactical operators started buying the program, working with it, and then talking about it online. The fact that those guys raved about it lent TACFIT a lot of credibility. It’s the same when we go in to do a seminar or workshop - as soon as these guys try it you see the lights coming on as they realize how applicable it is to the demands of their jobs.
HC: Could you give us some information on future TACFIT releases?
RM: TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz (www.kettlebelltactical.com) is coming out in a couple weeks - it might be out by the time you publish this interview. After that, we’re going to launch TACFIT Mass Assault properly. That program was only offered as part of a promo and later alongside TACFIT Commando during a product launch. We’re releasing it publicly, with new components added (we added a second section that doubles the size). I think that will be out about a month after the kettlebell program.
HC: Thanks again Coach Murdock for taking the time to answer these questions.
For more stories on Ryan's travels, visit Ryan's blog Ryan Murdock's Road Wisdom.
This interview was first published in RMAX Magazine. Click here to download it: RMAX Magazine 8.5.
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