How to Build a Movement Practice
I wrote an ebook awhile back. It’s called The Joy of Movement and you can get it here:
The Joy of Movement
TJOM is about shifting the narrative about how, why, and when we move. Changing from moving within the strict boundaries of “exercise” and beginning to MOVE. In its pages you’ll find sample movements and drills, as well as ideas about how to begin to insert more movement in our daily life. One of the most important concepts (in my opinion) is that of shifting from exercising to engaging in a movement practice. Lucky for you, we’re going to share with you a bit of that chapter here in this blog right now. Enjoy!
CHAPTER 1 - WHAT IS A MOVEMENT PRACTICE?
Let’s first define what constitutes a movement practice and what separates it from an exercise routine. An “exercise routine” is something that is done with little-to-no mindfulness or attention to why we’re doing it. It is obligatory, burdensome, and done only to elicit a result - weight loss, muscle gain, to get sweaty, stave off death, etc. It may elicit positive feelings in the immediate, but its benefits are short-lived, and often comes from a place of shame or self-hatred. It’s usually defined by sets & reps, intervals, and a focus on isolated movements - simple exercises chosen to work single joints, sometime compound (more than one joint at a time) in 1 or 2 planes of movement.
A movement practice is something that brings us up. It is a sustainable, self-paced, self-moderated collection of drills that increase our awareness of and presence in our bodies. There are guidelines and parameters based on the intention of the movement, as opposed to arbitrary, over-arching absolutes of how it “should” be performed. A movement practice is comprised of skill-based practice and exploratory movement - how can I accomplish this task? Climb over something? Get up off the ground? Lift this object? Move around this obstacle?
Movement practice asks questions which your body must figure out. It is physical problem-solving, the end result of which should be a smarter movement brain and a stronger, more capable, more resilient physical body.
Here’s some ways you can transform your exercise routine in to a fulfilling movement practice:
Practice: repetition is a necessary part of progress. The body requires repeated exposure to stimuli in order to adapt. That means it needs to do something a bunch of times before it figures out how to do it well. Example: doing a cartwheel. The first 500 times you do it, it’s gonna suck. You probably won’t even stick it 498 of those times. But once you get that cartwheel, you can do it more and more consistently. Then you can hit it easily. Then you start doing cartwheels left and right. Round-offs, one hand, no hands. Another thousand tries and maybe you can get a handspring. Maybe even a backflip. The process might take years, but now you’re an expert in all things flipping. This is adaptation: the process by which a body figures out effective ways to do a movement. To make it so easy it requires almost no effort. This is grace and style - such intimate familiarity with a movement that it looks (and becomes) effortless. Of course, this translates across all manner of skills, physical or otherwise: the confident stroke of an artist’s brush, or the graceful sweep of a dancer’s foot. The perfect framing of a director’s shot, or the inhumanly fast computation of an equation by a mathematician. We take for granted the thousands of hours these people have spent honing their craft, but it is the magic behind their seemingly supernatural abilities. Effortlessness and skill are the result of practice over time. Repetition with the intention of improvement.
Try different things: I know I just told you to do the same thing a thousand times. But you have to do different things to stimulate your body. It is incredibly adaptable, which is great if you’re trying to learn to do something cool, but not so great when you’re stuck in one position all the time (sitting at a desk is the prime example). So to keep all systems firing, you have to move in lots of ways. Bend, flex, extend, twist, crawl, climb - your body craves movement. Indulge it. Look at a physical task and try to figure out as many ways as possible to do it. Of course, a little bit of anatomy and biomechanical knowledge helps, but don’t go signing up for those PhD courses yet - a few key points we’ll cover later go a long way. Humans have been figuring out ways to accomplish physical tasks for thousands of years, so as long as you don’t go too bananas and listen to your body, you’ll be fine.
Be mindful: think about what you’re doing. Think about how it feels. Be present in whatever movement you’re doing. It’s easy to drift away from your body during exercise, especially if it’s too easy, boring, or feels weird. Stay in the moment. Listen to the feedback your body gives you and act on it. If your hip feels weird when you squat, move your feet around till it feels more natural. If your shoulder hurts when you bring your hand above your head, find a position where it feels better, or only go as far overhead as you can without pain. Meditation often gets pigeon-holed as a stationary activity. Something that is done in stillness and quiet. Movement is a type of meditation, though: it requires our full attention, and has the capacity to clear our mind and connect us to our entire being, when we let it.
Move to become more, not less: more skillful, more graceful, stronger, bigger, just more. Too much of fitness culture is built around becoming less - smaller, thinner, less “flawed.” Be more. Be bigger. Take up more space. Movement, like nutrition, should be about abundance, fulfillment, and happiness. Do things that make you feel good about yourself, and give you more options in life. More ability to do the things you want to do and be the person you want to be.
Start where you are: it’s not a competition (unless you are actually competing in some sort of sport, then it is definitely a competition). Comparing ourselves to others is destructive and perpetuates self-hatred. You don’t need to be at a certain level, or look a certain way to start moving/exercising. Start where you are, and find a path that works for you at your pace, whatever it is. The only way it’s going to work is if it’s right for you. Say you want to do a push-up: you can find the most intricate, complicated push-up program out there, but if it starts with 10 sets of 10 push-ups the first day, it’s not going to work for you if you can’t already do a push-up.
Prioritize skill training over intensity: working hard is easy. I know that sounds backward, but working out until you puke is pretty easy to accomplish. Just do everything as hard and as fast as you possibly can. But why would you do that? Is your goal to puke? Probably not. Going back to the cartwheel analogy: would you flip and spin as hard and as fast as you could until you puked to learn a new trick? Or would you start slow, and only go as fast as you need to in order to learn the skill? The second one makes way more sense, right? Movement practice should have intention behind it - a reason we’re doing what we’re doing. Things we’re trying to accomplish beyond vague goals and arbitrary measurements of “fitness” like weight loss, muscle gain, endurance. All of these things are side effects of actually learning to do stuff. Figure out what makes you excited, and do exercises that help you get there. Common goals we use are things like handstands, monkey bars, deadlifts, push-ups, getting up off the ground - things you can learn, do, and feel accomplished.
If you enjoyed that, please check out TJOM. It’s a quick read with ideas, drills, and general guidelines. Thanks for your support!