The Universal Operating System for Humanity: The Neurochemical Aspect

By Monya Gorelik

This article presents a potentially revolutionary shift in the theory and practice of physical training. It proposes that the training plateau is not only a mechanical or technical problem, but also a neurochemical one. From the ISAI perspective, this changes the very logic of training: instead of relying on endless novelty and artificial exercise variation, training can be reorganized around the inborn reward mechanisms of yawning, pandiculation, and Natural Movement.

Key Terms Used in This Article

Natural Movement means movement organized according to inborn biological patterns rather than according to mechanically imposed exercises, external choreography, or muscular forcing.

ISAI means the Israeli Science and Art of Integrity — a system developed by Monya Gorelik for recovering, training, and applying Natural Movement.

ISAI includes three main parts:

Evolutionary Fractal Biomechanics — Kinegenesis: the theoretical foundation of ISAI. It studies the origin, organization, and development of Natural Movement as a living biomechanical system.

Formless Flow: the science and art of practical training for the recovery of Natural Movement.

ISAI Martial Arts: the martial application of Kinegenesis and Formless Flow.

Inborn Movement Patterns, abbreviated as IMP, are instinctive movement programs already present in the human organism. In this article, the most important examples are pandiculation and yawning.

Pandiculation is the natural wave-like action of tensing, expanding, contracting, and releasing the body, often appearing after sleep, rest, fatigue, or immobility.

Yawning is not treated here merely as a respiratory action, but as a whole-body inborn pattern involving the mouth, glottis, chest, shoulders, spine, nervous system, and emotional state.

Physical Coloring, from the Russian term Окраска, means the internal psycho-physical quality that “colors” a movement. In this article, it refers especially to the colored movement of the chest, shoulders, mouth, and glottis that evokes yawning- and pandiculation-like action.

Pleasure Flash means a short, intense psycho-physical experience of pleasure, release, clarity, and reduced internal friction. In ISAI, it is evoked through Physical Coloring that awakens yawning- and pandiculation-like action.

Search Activity is a concept described by V. S. Rotenberg and V. V. Arshavsky. It means active behavior in a situation of uncertainty, with constant feedback between action and outcome. In training, Search Activity appears when the practitioner searches for better coordination, balance, timing, force, rhythm, relaxation, and control.

Standardisation means that a learned movement becomes more stable, familiar, and predictable. According to N. A. Bernstein, movement is not literal repetition, but “repetition without repetition”: each action is slightly different because the organism must solve the motor problem again under changing internal and external conditions. Nevertheless, training can become standardised, and this standardisation can reduce the reward of discovery.

Plateau means the stage in training where progress slows or stops, emotional involvement decreases, and the practitioner often needs constant changes in the training program in order to continue progressing.

Positive Transfer of Training means that one exercise improves performance in another future action or skill.

Negative Transfer of Training means that one exercise harms or disturbs performance in another future action or skill.

Quasimetric Contraction means high-intensity muscle activation with very small, slow, naturally variable movement, including increasing and decreasing waves of tension. It is close to isometric contraction, but it is not fully static.

Oft-Nano Training means very short training pulses repeated many times during the day. “Nano” refers to the very short duration of each training act, and “oft” means that these short acts are repeated frequently.

NON Training, or Natural Oft-Nano Training, means training based directly on naturally evoked pandiculation and yawning.

ON Training, or Oft-Nano Training, means artificially created quasimetric exercises designed for a specific physical activity, sport, or martial purpose, but built on the basis of NON Training.

Still Point means a naturally appearing moment at the peak of the breathing cycle, after inhalation or exhalation, where the urge to breathe temporarily quiets down. It is not forced breath-holding.

Axial Wave means the wave-like organization of movement through the body, especially through the spine, torso, and limbs. In ISAI, the axial wave is one of the main expressions of Natural Movement.

PIR, or Post-Isometric Relaxation, means the relaxation response that appears immediately after isometric or quasimetric contraction. In ISAI, PIR is used to remove unnecessary internal tension and reset the nervous-muscular state.

MDR, or Maximum Dynamic Relaxation, means the maximum relaxation relevant to the current situation and to the purpose of the organism. It is not limpness. It is optimal living tonus.

Global Training means a state in which formal training and ordinary daily movement are no longer separated. Daily activity and training positively influence each other because both are based on IMP and Natural Movement.

Neurochemical and endocrine correlates means the probable involvement of neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, hormones, neuropeptides, growth factors, vascular regulation, autonomic regulation, and other biological processes in a psycho-physical event.

The ISAI state is understood here as the result of the mutual action of several neurochemical, endocrine, autonomic, and biomechanical processes. No single chemical alone creates the state. Rather, the state emerges from their coordinated interaction.

 

1. The Anatomy of the Plateau: From Search Activity to Standardisation

In traditional training, the plateau is not only a muscular or technical problem. It is also a psycho-neurochemical problem.

When a new artificial exercise is learned, it may function as Search Activity. The practitioner enters a situation of uncertainty. He searches for better coordination, balance, timing, power, rhythm, relaxation, and control. He receives feedback from the body and from the result of the action.

At this stage, the exercise is not merely a physical task. It is an investigation.

This investigation may create a neurochemical reward connected with novelty, discovery, feedback, successful adaptation, and the feeling of progress. Dopamine is especially relevant here because it participates in reward, motivation, novelty, learning, and prediction-error mechanisms.

However, this reward is unstable.

When the exercise becomes familiar, uncertainty decreases. According to N. A. Bernstein, movement is not literal repetition. It is “repetition without repetition.” Each movement is slightly different because the organism must solve the motor problem again under changing internal and external conditions.

Nevertheless, the training process can become standardised.

The practitioner may continue to perform the exercise correctly. The movement may still contain small biological variations. But the living reward of discovery becomes weaker. The action becomes familiar, predictable, and emotionally less charged.

This is one of the hidden causes of the plateau.

The practitioner does not necessarily lose technical ability. He loses the neurochemical reward of search and discovery.

If he continues only through discipline, willpower, or forced effort, the process may shift from reward-driven learning to stress-driven effort. This does not mean that the disappearance of dopamine reward automatically produces cortisol in a simple mechanical way. The real process is more complex.

A safer formulation is this: when the reward of Search Activity decreases, and the person continues through frustration, pressure, or lack of meaning, the stress system may become more dominant. In this situation, the body may rely more on forced effort than on living investigation.

As a result, progress in exercise performance may slow or stop. Emotional involvement drops. The practitioner feels the need for constant and periodic changes in the training program.

This leads to another serious problem: not every new exercise is useful.

Some exercises have a positive influence on future activity. Others, even if they look almost identical, may have a negative influence on the specific future purpose. These influences are known as Positive and Negative Transfer of Training.

Therefore, the plateau creates a double problem.

First, the old exercise loses the reward of Search Activity.

Second, the attempt to escape the plateau by constantly adding new exercises makes the training program more complicated. It requires a high level of knowledge, skill, and experience to include exercises with Positive Transfer of Training and avoid exercises with Negative Transfer of Training.

ISAI proposes another solution.

The solution is not simply to invent more and more exercises.

The solution is to replace dependence on Search Activity reward with the inborn reward of yawning and pandiculation.

 

2. The ISAI Solution: Physical Coloring and Inborn Reward

ISAI does not depend mainly on endless novelty or on the constant creation of new Search Activity.

Instead, ISAI returns to Inborn Movement Patterns, especially yawning and pandiculation. These patterns contain their own built-in reward. They do not need to be constantly replaced by new exercises in order to remain alive.

The practical bridge to these patterns is Physical Coloring.

The term Physical Coloring is connected with the Russian theatrical concept Окраска, especially as developed by Michael Chekhov. In acting, Coloring means that a physical action is performed with a specific inner quality. The actor does not try to manufacture emotion directly from memory. Instead, the emotional state is born from the quality of the action itself.

In ISAI, this principle is transferred from theatrical expression to Natural Movement.

The internal state is not artificially imagined. It is born from the physical organization of the action.

More precisely, ISAI uses colored movement of the chest, shoulders, mouth, and glottis in order to evoke yawning- and pandiculation-like action. The practitioner does not mechanically imitate a yawn or a stretch. He organizes the physical conditions that allow the yawn-like and pandiculation-like pattern to appear.

This is a crucial distinction.

ISAI does not say: “Pretend to yawn.”

It says: organize the body so that the inborn yawning-pandiculation mechanism is evoked.

When this happens correctly, the Pleasure Flash appears: a short psycho-physical event of release, clarity, pleasure, and reduction of internal friction.

The important difference is this:

Traditional training often tries to create motivation through discipline or novelty.

ISAI creates motivation by evoking the reward already built into the organism.

 

3. From Search Activity Reward to IMP-Based Reward

In ordinary artificial training, the learning of a new exercise may produce Search Activity reward.

The practitioner investigates. He discovers. He corrects. He adapts. The exercise is alive because the result is not fully known in advance.

But after standardisation, the reward of discovery decreases.

Ordinary training often tries to solve this problem by adding more exercises, more variation, more complexity, and more external stimulation. This may temporarily restore Search Activity, but it also increases the danger of Negative Transfer of Training.

ISAI solves the problem differently.

It does not primarily try to reopen Search Activity inside the same artificial movement. Instead, it uses Physical Coloring to evoke the inborn reward of yawning and pandiculation.

This changes the entire logic of training.

Ordinary artificial training depends on novelty.

ISAI depends on the biological reward of returning to the source code of Natural Movement.

This does not mean that Search Activity disappears completely from ISAI.

It means that Search Activity is not the main engine of ISAI strength development.

The main engine is the inborn reward of IMP, especially yawning and pandiculation, evoked through Physical Coloring.

Search Activity remains useful mainly in the dynamic refinement of movement, where the practitioner deletes unnecessary tension, removes blocks, restores the Axial Wave, and returns action to Natural Movement.

 

4. Power Work and Dynamic Work

In ISAI, the principle of IMP-based reward has two different expressions: power-development work and dynamic training.

In power-development work, especially during Quasimetric and Oft-Nano exercises, the practitioner does not primarily analyze the movement by asking many corrective questions. The goal is to evoke the colored yawning- and pandiculation-based state and use it for intense structural stimulation.

In this phase, the practitioner is not mainly searching.

He is evoking.

He uses the colored action of the chest, shoulders, mouth, and glottis to awaken the yawning-pandiculation mechanism. Then he applies this state through high-intensity quasimetric activation.

The purpose is strength, structural density, and morphological adaptation.

Dynamic training has a different emphasis.

In dynamic training, especially when unnecessary tension must be removed, the practitioner may use a more investigative process. Here Search Activity becomes relevant. The practitioner discovers where the movement is blocked, where unnecessary tension appears, where the Axial Wave disappears, where the breath forces the movement, and where the action becomes artificial instead of natural.

Therefore, Search Activity is not rejected.

It is placed in its correct role.

For ISAI strength development, the main mechanism is IMP-based reward.

For dynamic refinement, Search Activity helps delete unnecessary tension and restore Natural Movement.

 

5. The Source Code: Yawning and Pandiculation

The biological source code of this process is IMP: Inborn Movement Patterns.

The main IMP discussed here are yawning and pandiculation.

Pandiculation is an instinctive, wave-like tensing and releasing of the myofascial system. It appears naturally in humans and animals. It is often seen after rest, sleep, immobility, or fatigue.

Yawning is usually treated as a simple respiratory or fatigue-related action. But from the ISAI perspective, yawning is a whole-body event. It involves the mouth, glottis, chest, shoulders, spine, diaphragm, nervous system, and emotional state.

In ISAI, the practitioner does not merely perform a stretch.

He evokes the inborn pattern.

Yawning and pandiculation can occur after both inhalation and exhalation. At the peak of these cycles, there may be a short moment in which the urge to breathe temporarily disappears. In ISAI, this is called the Still Point.

The Still Point is not breath-holding by force. It is a naturally appearing pause in which respiratory effort becomes quiet.

In this pause, the organism may experience the Pleasure Flash with less interference from forced breathing.

This is one of the central differences between ISAI and ordinary exercise.

The purpose is not to add effort.

The purpose is to remove noise and evoke the inborn reward of Natural Movement.

 

6. The Mechanism: Quasimetric Contraction and Power

To develop structural strength and absolute power without systemic exhaustion, ISAI uses Quasimetric Contraction.

Quasimetric Contraction is high-intensity activation with small, slow, naturally variable movement. The tension rises and falls in a wave-like way. This is the type of contraction found in pandiculation.

It is different from ordinary isometric contraction because it is not completely static.

It is different from ordinary dynamic exercise because the external movement may be very small.

It is different from ordinary stretching because the body is not passively lengthened. It actively contracts, opens, releases, and reorganizes itself.

This is the basis of the Oft-Nano principle.

Instead of long exhausting sessions, ISAI uses very short training pulses many times during the day. The intensity of the contraction can vary according to the condition of the practitioner.

NON Training is the natural form of this process. It consists of pandiculation and yawning strength exercises. These are quasimetrics naturally evoked by IMP.

ON Training is the artificial form. It consists of specifically created quasimetric exercises for a particular physical activity, sport, or martial purpose. But ON Training must remain based on NON Training.

This distinction is very important.

If ON Training is separated from NON Training, it can become another artificial system of exercises.

If ON Training remains rooted in NON Training, it becomes a precise extension of Natural Movement.

 

7. Structural Adaptation: From Stimulation to Morphology

The long-term goal of ISAI training is not only better performance. It is morphological transformation.

Morphology means the structural form and quality of the body: density, elasticity, posture, strength, responsiveness, and the ability to transmit force without unnecessary blocks.

Pandiculation is not merely a reset mechanism. It is also a natural quasimetric action: the body contracts, expands, and releases in a wave-like pattern of changing tension. In animals, this action appears to help maintain functional readiness, myofascial integrity, and the ability to express strength immediately after rest. From the ISAI perspective, repeated pandiculation-like quasimetric stimulation may be one of the natural biological roots of the astonishing strength seen in animals.

In ordinary strength training, adaptation is usually explained through hypertrophy, meaning the growth of existing muscle fibers. ISAI also considers another possible mechanism: hyperplasia, meaning an increase in the number of muscle fibers.

Some animal studies suggest that certain forms of mechanical overload may increase muscle fiber number. However, in humans, exercise-induced hyperplasia is not a fully established explanation for training adaptation. Therefore, in this article, ISAI treats hyperplasia as a possible but not yet proven mechanism — a working hypothesis rather than a confirmed fact.

A more complete formulation is this: frequent high-intensity stimulation may support long-term structural adaptation through several mechanisms, including neural adaptation, connective-tissue adaptation, hypertrophy, repair processes, and possibly hyperplasia.

IGF-1 is especially relevant here because it participates in skeletal muscle growth, regeneration, and satellite-cell-related repair mechanisms.

From the ISAI perspective, the practical point is not the name of one mechanism. The practical point is that repeated short, intense, naturally organized stimulation can gradually change the physical quality of the body.

The body becomes denser, stronger, more elastic, more integrated, and more available for spontaneous action.

 

8. The Neurochemical Cascade: Mutual Action, Not One Chemical

The Pleasure Flash should not be described as the result of one neurotransmitter.

It is better to understand it as a psycho-physical event with probable neurochemical and endocrine correlates.

This means that the event may involve neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, neuropeptides, hormones, growth factors, vascular regulation, autonomic regulation, and hypothalamic-brainstem mechanisms.

The ISAI state is understood here as the result of the mutual action of several neurochemical, endocrine, autonomic, and biomechanical processes. No single chemical alone creates the state. Rather, the state emerges from their coordinated interaction.

Yawning research is especially relevant here because yawning is connected with hypothalamic-brainstem mechanisms, dopamine, oxytocin, nitric oxide, ACTH-related pathways, and autonomic regulation.

At the present stage, it is more precise to describe this mechanism not as a simple one-to-one stimulation of a single brain center, but as a whole-body functional organization that evokes yawning- and pandiculation-like patterns and may engage neurophysiological mechanisms related to arousal, reward, release, safety regulation, autonomic balance, and structural adaptation.

Probable Neurochemical and Endocrine Correlates

Stage	Candidate Mediator	More Accurate Biological Role	Subjective ISAI Training Result
Opening / Arousal	Nitric Oxide, dopamine, acetylcholine-related pathways	May support arousal, vascular regulation, and yawning-related hypothalamic-brainstem activity.	The “Open Tap” / Awake Body
Motor Pleasure / Release	β-Endorphin and other endogenous opioids	May support analgesia, pleasure, and reduction of internal friction after strong contraction-release cycles.	Pleasure Flash / Zero Friction
Reward / IMP-Based Satisfaction	Dopamine and reward-related pathways	May participate in motivation, reward, and the satisfaction connected with successful evocation of inborn movement patterns.	Euphoric Clarity / Motivation
Safety / Down-Regulation	Oxytocin-related pathways and parasympathetic shift	May participate in the feeling of safety, trust, and reduced anxiety during the Still Point.	Inner Safety / Dissolution of Anxiety
Structural Adaptation	IGF-1 and repair pathways	Supports long-term muscular repair, adaptation, and possible morphological change.	Morphology / Structural Density

This table is intentionally written as a model of probable correlates, not as a list of proven one-to-one causes.

The Pleasure Flash is not “dopamine.”

It is not “endorphin.”

It is not “oxytocin.”

It is the subjective experience of a whole-body state in which movement, breath, tension, release, arousal, reward, safety, and structural organization become synchronized.

 

9. Stability of State: PIR and MDR

A temporary Pleasure Flash is not enough.

The deeper goal of ISAI is to stabilize a new functional baseline.

This is done through PIR and MDR.

PIR means Post-Isometric Relaxation. It is the relaxation response that appears immediately after isometric or quasimetric contraction. After strong activation, the nervous system can release unnecessary tone and reset muscle length.

In ISAI practice, PIR becomes more than a short local relaxation. With experience, the duration and depth of PIR may increase. The nervous system remains “clean” for longer periods. Internal noise decreases. The body becomes more available for spontaneous movement.

MDR means Maximum Dynamic Relaxation.

MDR is not passive relaxation. It is not limpness. It is not weakness.

MDR is the maximum relaxation relevant to the current action, current environment, and current purpose of the organism.

A fighter, dancer, worker, or ordinary person walking in the street does not need absolute relaxation. He needs the exact amount of tonus required for the situation — and no more.

Through Oft-Nano practice, Quasimetric Contraction, PIR, and Natural Movement, MDR gradually becomes the body’s new baseline.

This means that the organism no longer starts from effort.

It starts from readiness.

 

10. Global Training: When Life and Training Become One

Global Training means that training and ordinary daily activity are no longer separated.

In ordinary training, the person trains in special sessions and then returns to daily movement that may contradict the training.

In ISAI, the goal is different.

Training is based on IMP and Natural Movement. Daily activity also gradually returns to IMP and Natural Movement. When both influence each other positively, training and life become one undivided process.

Walking, standing, sitting, lifting, turning, speaking, breathing, reacting, and even resting can become part of the same global training field.

This solves one of the main problems of traditional exercise.

The person no longer needs to wait for the next training session in order to improve.

Life itself becomes training.

But this is possible only if daily movement is not based on stiffness, collapse, forced posture, or mechanical repetition.

It must be reorganized through Natural Movement.

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11. The Reality Test: High-Speed Chaos

The final test of any movement system is not slow demonstration.

The final test is high-speed chaos.

Traditional training often collapses under stress because choreography is too slow. A learned pattern may work in a predictable environment, but under speed, contact, surprise, and emotional pressure, the body cannot always wait for conscious control.

In this situation, ISAI relies on IMP, Physical Coloring, Pleasure Flash, Quasimetric strength, PIR, and MDR.

The body does not move only with the speed of learned thought.

It moves closer to the speed of instinct.

This does not mean that technique is unnecessary.

It means that technique must be rooted in deeper biological organization.

If the technique contradicts Natural Movement, it may collapse under stress.

If the technique grows from Natural Movement, it can survive chaos.

 

12. Conclusion: From Search Reward to Inborn Reward

The Universal Operating System for Humanity is a process of subtraction.

It does not begin by adding more and more exercises.

It begins by removing what blocks the inborn system.

The plateau appears when Search Activity reward decreases, when artificial exercises become standardised, when emotional reward drops, and when the practitioner continues through forced effort. In this state, training may shift from living investigation to mechanical standardisation and from reward-driven movement to stress-driven effort.

Ordinary training often responds by adding new exercises. This may temporarily restore Search Activity, but it also creates the danger of Negative Transfer of Training.

ISAI solves the problem differently.

It does not depend mainly on endless novelty.

It returns to the source code of Natural Movement: IMP, especially yawning and pandiculation.

Through Physical Coloring, the practitioner uses the chest, shoulders, mouth, and glottis to evoke yawning- and pandiculation-like action. This evokes the Pleasure Flash: a short psycho-physical event of release, clarity, pleasure, and reduced internal friction.

Through Quasimetric Contraction and Oft-Nano practice, this state becomes a tool for intense structural stimulation.

Through NON Training and ON Training, inborn movement is connected with specific functional skills.

Through PIR and MDR, the body stabilizes a new baseline of readiness.

Through Global Training, daily life and formal practice become one process.

The Pleasure Flash is not merely a pleasant sensation. It is a sign that the organism has temporarily reduced internal friction and returned to a more integrated state.

Repeated correctly, this process may lead not only to better movement, but to morphological transformation: a body that is stronger, freer, denser, more elastic, more emotionally alive, and more available for spontaneous action.

The result is not forced performance.

The result is unobstructed strength and flow.