Social media is filled with people promising that returning to an earlier state of human existence will have physical and mental benefits. Whether it鈥檚 eating raw organ meat, getting into sourdough starter, or moving like primates, you don鈥檛 have to scroll around much to see what I鈥檓 talking about. Some of these influencers have been publicly discredited; while others have started movements and begun on the social media brands they鈥檝e built. Obviously, there鈥檚 no one-size-fits-all profile that could ever capture the diversity of these individual people, but I did wonder what talking to one of them might be like.
So I talked to a primal movement influencer, 35-year-old Victor Manuel Fleites Escobar, the 鈥楾arzan鈥 behind the million-follower Instagram account. If you鈥檝e seen any of Escobar鈥檚 videos, you might assume our conversation focused primarily on the ins and outs of tree climbing or the subtleties of primate locomotion. After all, individual videos on his account showing Fleites Escobar climbing trees and running on all fours have hundreds of thousands of views. One post, for example, promises his ability to teach gorilla, orangutan, and gibbon skills鈥攁ll of which have three levels鈥攆or interested participants. shows Fleites Escobar using his big and second toes to grip a rope as he propels himself forcefully upward with the caption 鈥淵es it hurts 馃槀馃Χ, but it can also take more than half of your body weight while going up 馃敟.鈥
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It鈥檚 no secret that Fleites Escobar appears to be in incredible physical shape (watch any of the aforementioned Instagram reels if you don鈥檛 believe me), but his movement and physical fitness seem to spring from a desire to live in a more a more intuitive, embodied way鈥攐ne that addresses how his body is feeling鈥攖han they do from a specific desire to see fitness gains.
Fleites Escobar joined our conversation virtually from a sunny Barcelona apartment. We ranged across topics鈥攆rom the philosophy behind Tarzan movement to his own daily habits, and I was struck by our repeated return to the themes of observation, openness, and play, which are at the core of the animal philosophy he鈥檚 been developing.
Do you want to live鈥攁nd look鈥攍ike Tarzan?
Well, according to Fleites Escobar, that鈥檚 a journey that begins within.
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An Interview with the Creator of the Tarzan Movement
OUTSIDE: How did this journey start for you? What brought you to primal movement?
FLEITES ESCOBAR: Earlier you mentioned that you feel like we are bringing people outside鈥 As a matter of fact, I’m doing the opposite. I’m trying to bring people inside where there’s a whole universe. For me, the fundamentals start with your own understanding with your own body. How do I deal with thing? How do I feel with myself? [When I asked myself those questions], I was able to validate the things that open my heart, the things that felt more natural to my animal background. That was my journey into the trees, into silence, into doing nothing.
Are there specific part of modern life that made you want to turn inward? Or is it just the general contradictions, stresses, and artifices that we all face everyday?
It’s not just modern life. You can trace 鈥榤odern life鈥 back a long way because even agriculture was modern for people at a different time. So I trace modernity all the way back to where humans moved away from having natural demands put on them by the environment. Animals have natural demands in their day to day that shape their lifestyles and keep their bodies in shape. It鈥檚 like kids.
How so? Your website mentions the value of play a lot. Is that where being kid-like comes in?
I feel like for many kids they are just constantly learning. In the park, if you allow them to run free, they take their shoes off, then they run and find some friend, and eventually they play with whatever they have. They have trees, they go up in the tree. They have balls, they play with balls. It doesn’t matter. What is constant is the way they are learning. The learning process there is not targeting a certain goal.
OK, so being present, open, and playful are as important as looking inward. How do you recommend a person cultivates this practice amid the hustle and bustle of everyday life?
I don’t think you can grab so much. You鈥檙e going to grab the perfume of the flower. You鈥檙e going to see it closely. You’re going to remember this smell, and it’s going to have an impact of your life. But it鈥檚 not going to be enough because we have to go to the root of the tree, the root of the problem. People should begin by looking beyond the physical aspect of this primal movement practice by being courageous enough to observe every single day, to recognize the things that they don’t really resonate with inside themselves, and take action. They need to ask themselves: what are these things that are fundamentally important for me because they keep the balance of the animal and the human together?
Introspect, observe, play, I鈥檓 getting it. What does a typical day look like for you?
I don鈥檛 think there is a routine. I wake up with some coffee. I like to read. I go for a walk to the beach. And then I do some work. I see my friend who manages the social media. We talk a little bit about work. Then we go for breakfast. Then at some point lunch, and then we go to do something outside like going to the park and hanging around with people or going to the forest and spending a few hours climbing trees. I can also go many days without doing any climbing and just feel like being quiet. When I feel inspired, when I feel motivated, I go out and I do things.
I have the feeling like I live for the day more than for the week or the year. But there are certain things that really take more than just following the flow, and I do take care of them. You have to pay your bills.
Is there anything else you鈥檇 want readers to know?
Fear is something that limits most humans. I feel we are all exist in houses. The perception of the human with fear is that the ceiling doesn’t move. That鈥檚 all. So they move around in the house horizontally all the time. Once in a while, when you have the courage to check the ceiling and observe it, it actually moves and you discover another floor.
I鈥檓 not going to lie. I went into my conversation with Fleites Escobar somewhat cynical. As a student of history, I know that our species tends to be drawn to ways of being that seem or feel more natural or simple just because they鈥檙e something from the past. I鈥檓 skeptical of ideas that fall prey to the naturalistic fallacy, which is the idea that just because something occurs in nature, that means it鈥檚 better or right.
Even though I carried my skepticism with me as I chatted with Fleites Escobar, I had a recurrent thought as he walked me through his way of being: naturalistic fallacy or not, this person is taking the time to scrutinize their interiority and the way they interface with the world, and they鈥檙e not afraid to be outside-the-box in their approach to feeling good and helping others do the same. I like the idea that openness, play, and directly addressing fear can help us unlimit our potentials. I don鈥檛 know if I鈥檒l be scaling any trees soon, but I can certainly question the things I鈥檓 holding onto that aren鈥檛 serving me and try to experience more daily joy.