Category: Video

Travel Hacking 101: How I Flew To Brazil for $5

02/25/2013

The Brain Grenade

Last fall I brain-grenaded all my facebook friends when I posted the above screenshot of my $5 airline ticket from New York to São Paulo, Brazil. The comment I attached to it was :

"Shout out to my man @Erik for putting me on Travel Hacking!"

Within the hour, the post received 50 likes and 20 comments ranging from the heavily Caps-Locked: "OMG WTF!!! PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT TRAVEL HACKING!!", to the bitterly sardonic: "I hate you...fml."

Of course a strong response was to be expected. As a friend of mine so aptly put it to me the other day:

Everyone wants to travel, but nobody can afford it.

Of course, world travel is most definitely achievable if it's important enough to you. I personally would never let money get between me and a destination that I am aching to visit. But I represent the minority; most people let expensive airfare deter then from going the places that they want to go.

Good news is, it's not only possible to both have your cake and eat it...you can even bump yourself up to first class for free and eat even more cake!

I teamed up with a friend to put together a comprehensive course showing you how to Travel Hack and book absurdly cheap international airfare the way I do. We're offering a discount on the course and 2 private consultations to help you travel hack your next trip.

Read on to learn more about the offer and how I hopped the equator for $5.

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My Portuguese Man-Crush on Seu Jorge: An Essay on Finding Your Foreign Language Spirit Guide and Identity

11/09/2012

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Me mimicking my Brazilian Spirit Guide

Have you ever seen or heard something for the first time that deeply resounded within your being? It's as if you had a vague notion of something that ought to exist, and the moment you find out that it does, all you can think is:

Oh my God...yes...EXACTLY!

That was the feeling I had my second week ever in Brazil, when a girl I had just met shared the above video on my facebook wall with this note:

E aí Idahosa td blza?
Acho que cê vai curtir isso.
Hey Idahosa how is everything?
I think you'll like this

After a quick Google translate search of the word "curtir," I pressed the play button with low expectations. The thumbnail had some dude in a white suit playing guitar by himself, and at the time I wasn't a big fan of live one person, one-instrument shows (Oh how things have changed...)

By the end of the five minute video, I was completely blown away. But it only took 15 seconds for me to know one thing for certain - Seu Jorge was going to be my Brazilian Spirit Guide.

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New Explanation Video for the Flow Series!

09/07/2012

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Whenever I meet people and they ask me what I do, I find it hard to explain in a sentence. That's because NO ONE ELSE does what I do (...yet). I can't simply say "I'm a Flow-Coach" and expect no follow-up questions. So I created this short video to explain the process as clearly and succinctly as possible.

I'm trying to create a new model for sound education. Language is all about sound, but everyone focuses on everything but the sound. The system I use enables everyone to bring their focus back to the most important step of the language-acquisition process - mastering the sound.

Fortunately, the technology is out there for us to do some serious virtual education for training people's sound perception and motor skills, whether its for music or language. At the same time, the technology allows educators to be more profitable and have a wider impact. I honestly think this will be the next big thing in Sound education.

Maybe some years down the line when someone asks me what I do, my answer of "I'm a Flow-Coach" will get me a simple nod of understanding and no follow-up questions.

Until then, keep on Flowin'

If you're a music or language educator, be sure to sign up for The New Sound Educators League newsletter to learn more about how to create a small virtual business like mine for yourself.

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Idahosa Ness Raps First Full Verse of French Rap - Soul Pleurer

06/19/2012

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My personal approach to language learning is really quite simple.

First, I familiarize myself with the sound and articulation of each of the component sounds (phonemes) of the language.
Then, I use Rhythmic Phonetic Training teach myself the lyrics of rap songs to develop my mastery of the Flow of that language and hone my mimicry skills.
Next, I immerse myself in the place that speaks the language and learn through mimicry.

In future videos, I will show you exactly this last step of mimicry actually goes down in practice. I will also discuss how I went about the first step of familiarizing myself with the component sounds of French.

For now, we'll focus on step 2 - teaching myself how to rap songs without understanding the lyrics. In this video, I teach myself the song "Soul Pleurer" ("Soul Cry") by the Old School French Rap group from Montreal - Dubmatique.

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Evidence That One Can Indeed Learn to Rap in a Second Language

02/08/2012

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I'm putting this video up mainly for two reasons:

To show that one can indeed sing complex rap lyrics in an adulthood-acquired second language.
To show how memorizing song and rap lyrics is infinitely more fun than memorizing flash cards and conjugation charts.

Aside from being more fun than these more "traditional" (my euphemism for "ineffective") ways of studying language, these activities are superior for many other reason, including but not limited to...