By Erwan Le Corre, MovNat Founder
“How long before you realize your body is the technology you need to connect to the most?”
Not just when you’re scratching where it’s itchy.
Not just when you’re grabbing food because your belly makes funky noises.
Not just when your rear and legs feel numb because you’ve been sitting for hours without moving.
Not just when you have a headache because you’re stressing out all day.
Not just because you need to move from one seat to the next.
Not just because you’re brushing your teeth.
Not just because you’ve got to make that perfect face before you click for a selfie.
Not just because you’ve got to pick up that pair of glasses from the floor.
Not just because you’ve got to put those cans on the shelves.
Not just because the remote control is one foot too far away.
Not just because that bulb needs to be changed.
Not just because nobody’s going to put your shoes on or open that door for you.
Look, if you pay attention, it looks like there’s actually a ton of movement happening throughout the day. And for the most part, it’s done to handle small, practical tasks of daily life. You have to do those movements yourself since nobody’s going to do them for you.
In short: You can’t outsource your movement.
Unless, wait…many of our ancestral movement behaviors have already been outsourced, haven’t they? We don’t need to climb trees, jump over obstacles, crawl or hike for miles to procure or produce food any longer. While we cannot outsource all of our movements, many of them have already been outsourced. All those necessary, yet petty, movements we do in a day aren’t really the movements that make us optimally functional nor physically able, or strong, adaptable and resilient.
For instance, when is the last time you got down to sit directly on the floor and then got back up? You see, in a healthy, truly functional movement lifestyle, this should be a daily occurrence. It should happen several times a day, not once in a blue moon. If you are having trouble deep squatting, getting to the floor and back up effortlessly, look no further: you’ve been outsourcing way too many of your natural movements for way too long – and you’ve lost significant amounts of function in the process.
So, instead of trying to always move less, it’s time to think of all the ways you could move more, better, and differently.
Instead of only looking for the new apps, you could finally learn to operate the countless “movement pattern apps” stored in your brain and cellular memory by a long line of people before you who, unlike us today, didn’t have the faux luxury of not having to physically exert themselves to make a living.
Everything real in this world has its faux version.
You know, faux gold, faux diamonds, faux leather, faux whatever. Chronic physical idleness is one of those faux luxuries. You aren’t privileged when you have stopped moving, you are actually suffering from culturally-imposed movement poverty. That’s right. It’s a form of prejudice to your body, which is a prejudice to yourself. It’s a prejudice most modern humans inflict on themselves without even being aware of it.
Sitting on a couch watching shows for hours in one’s free time, day after day, is that luxury? In the past, at a time when people had to work really hard physically to make a living, it would have been a true privilege reserved to a few. But today? Today, this kind of privilege is granted to almost anyone who wants it.
When everyone can easily have what was once the privilege of a few, it has clearly ceased to be a privilege; it is simply a common, cultural reality. Nowadays, lifestyle wealth is found in mastering health and you can’t be truly healthy if you don’t move in significant ways; the one who is physically idle is physiologically poor. Except this isn’t a condition that has been totally “imposed” on you, but one that you have consciously or unconsciously accepted.
If you value health, you can’t dismiss the importance of movement in your life. You have to actually make a transition from a movement-poor to a movement-wealthy lifestyle happen. Compared to conventional programs, the wealth of movement variety involved in Natural Movement is literally mind-blowing. Yet all it takes to get started is to learn a few techniques and movement variations and to commit to find a few minutes every day to practice them. Deep squat, deep knee bend, foot-hand crawl, kneeling, get ups, hangs, the list goes on.
As you begin to move the way your body is designed, the higher levels of health and vitality that you will rapidly generate in your life will be mind-blowing. You will quickly realize that those hours spent physically idle every day for years never made you physiologically rich, they actually made you physiologically and even neurologically poor, robbing your vital energy day after day. Whereas, your Natural Movement practice will make your life energetically exuberant. This is true luxury, because a daily movement practice will bring lifestyle wealth to you, the kind of steady vitality that even the financially wealthy yet physically idle do not possess nor enjoy.
Today, skipping all the movements that made us grow strong, capable, joyful and physically thrive as young kids is a misguided kind of comfort. In fact, by neglecting all these movements, we diminish our physical comfort zone by the day. If you can come to such realization, know that the antidote isn’t some kind of high intensity, hyper brutal workout, but the progressive reintroduction of a greater variety and frequency of Natural Movement behavior in your life.
I wrote a whole book about Natural Movement to inspire, motivate and educate, based on the world-renowned MovNat method and curriculum. It’s THE how-to guide. Get yourself a copy and start changing your life to become physically capable and you will become movement WEALTHY before you know it. ~ Erwan
