What is a Movement Practice?

A movement practice is an integrated system of movements that help one become acquainted with themselves, mind and body. This can look like going mountain biking on the weekend and training at your local gym during the week. Or running ultra-marathons, sky-diving, or summiting the tallest mountains in the world.

But what we have come to realise through science, coaches and experience is that we crave complexity. Things can be complex in two ways; 1. They are new to us and we need to spend a lot of resources learning and becoming familiar with them. 2. We have specialised in something to such a degree that we can hone in on the details to such a degree because we have largely automated the general skills of that something that we can focus on more layers. E.g. Playing guitar - it’s hard to play chords in the beginning because you have to remember where all of your fingers go, and then actually have to place them on the fretboard with the correct timing and co-ordination. But when you get really good at chords, they become boring, so you add a melody intertwined into the chords. Watch Tommy Emmanuel Classical Gas for some inspiration and to clarify what I mean.

So when we learn anything we can learn something to a degree where we are happy to pick it up and play it over and over again without much or any practise. It is a hobby. We enjoy the level of skill because it allows to express something. However, we also have reflexes like walking, standing, sitting, reaching and manipulation that surpass our conscious attention because they have been practised so many times that it’s an automated motor pattern. How often do you think about the shape of your hand when reaching for a glass to fill up with water, that you also have to organise your other hand to shape around the tap… movement is everywhere. So?

We know when we see graceful and elegant movement. It moves something inside of us, inspires us to want to try it or it seems effortless. This isn’t a a coincidence, it isn’t talent. It’s a system of systems that have been practised with proper intention, and proper attention, that the person is free within their movements. This sounds very idealic and aspirational, but think about how someone moves who doesn’t move very much. It’s clunky, looks off, something is jarring about it. We don’t need to learn what this looks like, it’s obvious. We wouldn’t have evolved or survived for the amount of time we did had such a breakdown in movement that is prominent in today’s societies.

We can practice movement in this fashion. We can train our attention towards interoception and proprioception, externally and internally to improve the quality of our movements. Think about when you sat down to watch a 3 hour movie and stood up, your body already adapted to that situation. It’s scarily efficient at that. You loose the ability to regulate your blood pressure if you lie down for 24-48 hours straight. Rest is death. Movement is life.

Training starts to look different when you look at it this way. Movement training is different from just moving. Yes you are moving all of the time, but it’s the difference between quality. If I listen to pop music for 15 years, I’ll loose the ability to hear details in more complicated music like Jazz. This leads to a break down in appreciation and craftsman ship in culture. Look at post-modern art and classical art. Youtube and now Tik Tok. Everything is becoming superficial and captivating rather than making you work for understanding and appreciation of the detail. We are becoming addicted to “sugary” substances eg. music, art, education, entertainment, exercise etc etc.

How many times I've heard, “I don’t like doing what I’m not good at” or “I just want to go to the gym to switch off”. Well unfortunately, every time you “switch off”, you are engraining poor movement quality, lack of attention and connection to yourself and your body. There’s only one thing that you HAVE to have in order to live (As we currently understand) and that’s a body. So what exactly are you switching off? We aren’t a mind and a body we are both all of the time. Yes even when we sleep. When we enter REM sleep our brain paralyses our body to avoid us re-enacting our dreams. Yet we still have to breath and move our eyes, and maintain physiological process to stay alive.

We are interconnected with ourselves. What you do is what you get. You complain and play victim your physiology will start to reflect this, you get angry and your body expresses the fight, flight or freeze response. You walk through nature and calm down, your peripheral vision expands and your sense of smell and hearing increases.

What this should tell you is that you are a bunch of habits and processes that are more intricate than you can manage consciously. So why should we expect ourselves to function optimally by going running and doing some bicep curls for 10 years? Or worse becoming a couch potato.

We train our ability to adapt. We learn movements and exercises that will give us a general capacity. This general capacity is far greater than lifting a certain weight. It’s a capable body to do anything, climb, jump, swing, invert, run, crawl, backbend and anything else you can think of. This general capacity gives us the ability to then expand into expression and physical intelligence.

If any of this speaks deeply to you, please reach out and we can start your movement journey now.