On the latest episode of the Easton Community Podcast, our host, Mike Tousignant, sits down with Neal Ritter and Gelsey Malferrari, a stand-out family from our Easton Longmont location.

Listen to the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Along with interviews with Easton leaders and insights into our operational processes, one of the best things about this podcast has been expanding its voice into the community and sharing the inspiring stories of those who make up our world.

Together, Neal and Gelsey co-own and run Laughing Coyote Project, a primitive skills-focused school hosted right on the grounds of their Longmont homestead. With a focus on ancestral skills that include everything from hunting and foraging to using steel, antler wood and stone, children of all ages learn how to understand the world around them by trusting their abilities and resources to survive. 

[Easton Students Gelsey Malferrari + Neal Ritter: Primitive Fuel for a Modern Community]

The couple goes down to the Caribbean every year (often bringing a group of students with them) where they embrace tropical survival skills in the jungle as they live in leaf tents, forage on the coast line and practice freediving and spearfishing. 

They also lead teen teen-specific expeditions (next year, southern Utah!) where the kids get a blanket, water bottle, a knife and a bit of food to start as they sleep in caves, fish out of streams and learn to navigate the landscape. These seemingly impossible scenarios end up being so transformative, nobody ever wants to leave.

It only makes sense that among their preference for a primal lifestyle, they also found Jiu Jitsu. The entire family trains, including (or really, starting with) their son, Lutreo, and now their daughter Fianna. Neal and Gelsey, both teachers, have also stepped in to teach kids and adult classes at the Longmont academy, and Gelsey now gives BJJ orientations to new students as well.

Each of their paths took different shapes and stemmed from different core needs, but both hold blue belts today, and Neal also has an orange shirt in Muay Thai.

From a desire to channel a violent nature in a healthy way (as Neal describes, having grown up playing with wooden swords and frequently getting into fights) to a need for creating a foundation of safety and self-empowerment like Gelsey, both roads lead to the mat. 

There are many ways people, or fear, can take away our power. It can come in the form of a  sibling or manifest as false bravado and anger towards a bullying parent. Sometimes, the very need to fight, to prove our toughness, comes from the deep-seeded insecurity that maybe we are not enough. 

These fears tuck themselves away into our deepest shadows and only see the light in moments of duress. When we find a healthy way of working with these energies, however, like through martial arts, not only do they get addressed but completely transformed.

What’s hidden in shadow comes out to the light and, in the safety of a loving community and supportive environment, alchemizes into strength. As we transmute fear into courage, we finally see the larger picture and learn to help others as well. 

That is the power of a sport like Jiu Jitsu, and the reason why day after day and year after year, Gelsey and Neal pack the car with the whole family, after a long day on the farm and teaching, and head to class. They see the way it’s transformed their kids’ lives and the peace and confidence it has given them.

No matter how many other interests they maintain or take on – believe us, it’s a lot – from wrestling (Lutreo) and aerial dance (Fianna) to stonetooling (Neal) and singing or cello (Gelsey), they will always return to the mats.

For the full story, including how Neal and Gelsey started their school, a look at how they spend their day , the importance of creating more spaces for women and so much more, listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts! 

Easton Students Gelsey Malferrari + Neal Ritter: Primitive Fuel For A Modern Community