A space to feel, to spark, and to meet.

Wilder Mountain Dojo helps people on that road see those rhythms, and choose which ones to keep.

Wilder Mountain Dojo is an inner-growth venture for people who have decided to set out after their own dream and are living through changes of place, work and way of life. It offers body-and-mind care, tools for a practice you can sustain, and a community where support can flow both ways. It was founded and is led by Youyang Yu, an artist, educator and community organiser living between China, the UK and the US.

To life pioneers, content creators and community leaders out on the road: what we want to support is a way of chasing a dream that still leaves room for your life.

Wilder Mountain is not only somewhere to step away when a dream wears you out. It is also where the wish to make things comes back, and where imagination, skills, work and relationships get room to grow. The way to a dream begins by embracing the present: we arrive along the way. Think of it as micro-dosing your dream, to prevent a self-sabotaging burnout.

We keep our heads down doing the work, and we keep explaining to others what we are doing. All that self-examination and self-proving wears us out, as if we first had to become someone complete, certain and fully explainable before we were allowed to start the life we actually want. But being reliable on stage and in chaos backstage can both be true.

When instability, the pressure to improve and a heavy workload arrive together, finding time to rest becomes difficult in itself. Even when exhaustion forces us to stop, we may still feel that we should work harder, become more efficient and optimise ourselves into someone good enough. Rest can become the next task to complete.

We will begin by coming back to the body: first moving and playing together to arrive in the present, then settling into meditation and feeling how the body is right now, noticing the patterns of action we keep repeating, and drawing what the body feels. We will also try imagining the self as a collective continually changing through time, allowing who you are now to form an alliance with yourself at different stages of life: understanding the self who worked so hard in the past, caring for present needs, and leaving some room for the future self.

A rhythm of rest and work can become a promise kept between allies. Practice begins with a small, real action: acknowledging the body’s limits, protecting a little time to rest, or expressing a need. Through listening and responding together, we practise bringing those needs into relationships, exploring how to receive support, offer support and build reciprocity.

Back to the body. I open with a short talk on coming back to the body and noticing the patterns of action we keep repeating. Then we move together with Baduanjin, a gentle traditional qigong exercise, and settle into mindful breathing to feel how the body is right now.

Draw what you feel. With Chinese ink and brushes, we draw together on one long sheet of paper. No sketching, and nothing has to look good.

Co-create cards. Everyone makes two cards: a pattern of action you keep repeating and don't like, and one you like, a repeated action that supports you and the people around you across time.

Share. In circles of three or four, we share our cards and what we noticed. Speak if you want to, listen if you'd rather. I close by thanking everyone who joined this co-creation.

In every session I will invite you to make two pattern cards of your own: one for a pattern of action you keep repeating and don't like, and one for a repeated action you like, one that supports you and the people around you over time. We close by sitting together and sharing our cards and what we noticed. The workshop is complete in itself: you don't need to become a user of any tool, contribute anything public, or join a later collaboration for it to count, and you don't have to explain any drawing. If you like, you can leave a card in Wilder Mountain Dojo's growing deck for the next person on the road.

Dreams can stay big. We want to start from one real room, so that the road towards them slowly grows places that can hold a life.

One ink self-reflection painting workshop has taken place during Watson’s in-person immersive. Talks and exchanges at the CYC community in Dali are another part of the wider practice. Basecamp is the next invitation to gather.

For my love, I moved between two continents several times. My life has been constantly rearranged by things I have no control over: visas, waiting lists, distance.

These past few years I've been researching AI, organising communities, and coming back to the body, looking for the things I want to keep returning to. I call this journey of arriving home on the road Wilder Mountain Dojo.

In a 2023 invitation to share nomadic narratives, “wild mountains” named the layered landscapes encountered through a life of movement. A dojo was imagined as a place of practice: a rehearsal room for expression, a group for autobiographical creation, and a shared narrative space. Belonging could grow through participation.

First, let a room become real. Then the mountain has room to grow.