The Practice of Natural Movement Read online

  The Meaning of Naturalness

  Theodosius Dobzhansky, a famous geneticist, once stated “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” Biology is the study of living organisms, divided into specialized fields covering their morphology, physiology, anatomy, behavior, origin, and distribution. As living beings, our human morphology, physiology, and anatomy are elements of our biology that come from our common past as an animal species. Likewise, human movement behavior, comprising our fundamental movement reflexes, movement aptitudes, and movement needs, is a component of our biology so significant that it greatly affects our physiological functions, physical appearance as humans, and—originally at least—our chances of survival. As such, Natural Movement is the outcome of evolution or, in other words, of life and survival in nature over an extended period of time. Socially, culturally, and creatively influenced movement behaviors certainly add a superficial layer of movement diversity to the overall human movement repertoire, but they neither constitute the foundation of human movement behavior nor are they a fully satisfactory substitute.

  If we’re looking for a method of exercise that would be relevant to our biology, we need to look into the collective movement past of our species. In other words, the primary principle that qualifies a physical activity as “natural” is to be evolutionarily natural; simply put, it should be the natural outcome of evolution. In this regard, a lack of relevance to evolution would be a lack of relevance to naturalness. To paraphrase Dobzhansky, we could say that “Nothing natural makes sense except in the light of evolution.” Evolution is the foundation of naturalness and as such is a foundational principle of Natural Movement.

  Indeed, what is natural movement to a tiger, eagle, or dolphin? It is to be moving like a wild tiger, eagle, or dolphin moves in nature, right? Where do the movement patterns and skills they use come from? From the evolution of their very own species. To become and stay optimally fit to life or survival in nature, tigers don’t need to do burpees, jumping jacks, or crunches, use exercise machines, or dissociate strength drills from mobility drills (which isn’t to say that humans cannot benefit from these methods). They just need to move like tigers do. They need to practice “Tiger Natural Movement” behavior. Tigers don’t need to do the “crocodile,” “crab,” or “bear” crawl do they? They move like a tiger because they have evolved to be tigers, not some other animal species, and they don’t need to imitate other species to figure out what is their own movement naturalness.

  Animals’ natural movement aptitudes are specific to the species they belong to, and they have been doing these movements forever, which explains why tigers can’t fly high in the sky, why eagles can’t swim across oceans, and why dolphins are in real trouble when trying to climb up trees. We may minimize, dismiss, and neglect our biology, yet a person can’t biologically reinvent him- or herself. If we decide to adopt or conserve the most biologically inadequate lifestyle, we must prepare for a fight we’ll lose. Whereas we can alter human rules, we can’t alter natural laws. Nobody fools biology; we only fool ourselves. Biology: Either you’re with it or against it.

  Modern fitness programs that stem from concepts, theories, conventions, or even creativity but not from millions of years of human natural physical activity in the wild are not the outcome of evolution; they’re the outcome of concepts, theories, conventions, or creativity. They might involve elements of naturalness, but they are not what I define as Natural Movement. It should be hopefully understood that questioning naturalness is in no way, shape, or form a denial of the intrinsic value or benefits of different physical practices; it simply means that you can’t call them “natural” or “Natural Movement.” I elaborate even more on this idea when I discuss other principles.

  To be relevant to the notion of evolution-based naturalness, you must be able to trace the origin of the movement aptitudes practiced within such a program to our most ancient past—not 1,000 years ago, and not even 10,000 years ago; you have to go back 100,000 or millions of years ago.

  Since the time of our early Homo ancestors, we’ve amassed close to three million years of experience in Natural Movement skills. Not bad, is it? Some movements have been practiced for so long that they have shaped our very anatomy, morphology, and physiology, but they’ve also influenced fundamental behaviors, reflexes, and even our brain structure and psychology. This significant difference in time frame proportionally makes even a 5,000-year-old “ancient” practice almost look like it’s the latest craze. Natural Movement has been a fitness “fad” since the dawn of humankind.

  Being “fit” is the prerequisite to any physical activity, but it is actually maintaining physical activity that builds up the fitness you need for physical activity. You don’t need to be “fit” for Natural Movement; you need Natural Movement to become and stay fit. Movement is the prerequisite. Trust me, you are not going to “die” if you engage in Natural Movement practice; it might actually revive you beyond expectations.

  Exercising should not be a task, a chore, a punishment, or a coping mechanism. It should be liberating, energizing, and empowering, which it can be if the approach, modality, equipment, and facilities would evolve toward more naturalness rather than toward artificiality and technology. We have almost reached a point where people are under the impression that sports and fitness systems are the origin of our movements, whereas it actually is our evolutionarily natural movements that make all sports and fitness practice possible.

  Sport and exercise are not the reason why you can move naturally; moving naturally is the reason why you can do sports and exercise. Nonetheless, it is not at the gym but rather on the sports fields that some elements of Natural Movement find their most direct and relevant expression. Walking, running, jumping, balancing, climbing, throwing, catching, or lifting are Natural Movement skills commonly used in regulated sports. I explain why these skills are not considered to be “Natural Movement” as stand-alone physical training when I discuss principle 6, "Unspecialized."

  It isn’t politically correct to state that our modern society is overall physically degenerated, even when it is clearly so. Just look at the alarming health statistics, which are trending further away from health.

  How has modern comfort become so incredibly stressful and ill-adapted to our evolutionary background? A society with increasing medical technology yet declining health is still a society that merely survives. Living healthily is not just a biological necessity or a simple individual option anymore. It is a personal and social duty.

  Before beginning a program of physical inactivity, see your doctor. Sedentary living is abnormal and dangerous to your health.”

  —Frank Forencich

  Physical activity has well-documented health benefits, and any type of physical activity is better than complete physical idleness. But that is a backward statement. It should read, “Chronic physical idleness has well-documented health consequences.”

  To temporarily alleviate, or even mask, physical and mental deficiency or suffering that has been caused by the mismatch between our ancestral and modern lifeways, we humans have invented a variety of coping mechanisms, and fitness training in its modern and most conventional forms is one of them. We are losing physical function not because we don’t know conditioning drills or corrective exercise, and not even because we don’t participate in sports, but because our lives lack the Natural Movement behavior we need.

  The solution to the adverse health effects of poor lifestyle behaviors isn’t more medication and medical technology; it’s better behaviors, starting with, or at least including, how we move. The cause of most physical dysfunctions is movement behavior, but the solution to most physical dysfunctions also is movement behavior. Within us, there is an ancestral memory of movement that longs to be reawakened. We modern humans can learn to master again the ancient biotechnology that our bodies represent.

  Although a truly natural approach to fitness comes from an evolutionary perspective, a true “evolutionary fi
tness” approach should involve practicing the full range of human movement skills that are evolutionarily natural. Evolution and biology should determine what you train, whereas observation, experimentation, and optionally science should determine how you train. Natural Movement is to fitness what organic and wild is to food.

  But if getting people to move naturally was as simple as telling them to “go climb a tree” then millions would be at it already. Of course, the solution is not in a radical refusal of modern comforts and conveniences, in a “re-enactment” of the caveman lifestyle, or in a “primitive,” brutish way of exercising. The repackaging of a selection of so-called “functional,” conventional drills, even when wrapped with a trendy evolutionary rationale and primal-sounding name, is also irrelevant and gimmicky. Our evolutionary movement and physical potential is not an unevolved, outdated phenomenon that should stay stuck in the past. It’s still natural and relevant to us. Natural Movement has always been and will always be a timeless biological necessity. What we need is a well-thought-out, effective, systematic fitness method based on and involving the training of all evolutionarily natural movement aptitudes that also judiciously draws from exercise science to devise the most effective programs. Natural Movement is timeless, yet it has been ignored from modern fitness for way too long.

  Natural Movement has always been and will always be a timeless biological necessity.”

  —Erwan Le Corre

  2

  Instinctual

  “The very essence of instinct is that it’s followed independently of reason.”

  —Charles Darwin

  Through evolution, biological features—including Natural Movement behavior and abilities—are transmitted from generation to generation within a given species. Evolution in that sense is not something that happened a long time ago; it is an ongoing process from the past to the present time, and you are part of it.

  Do you remember the very first moment when you started moving? You probably can’t because it was at such an early stage in your life. (As a matter of fact, you already moved to some extent in your mother’s womb before you were born.) Experts call the early stage of a child’s motor development the “developmental stage,” and it involves not just the physiological aspects of a child’s physical growth but also his or her fundamental motor skills, ability to move around, and ability to manipulate the environment. This is the early development stage of our Natural Movement. The acquisition of movement skills is so important to your future life and survival ability that your movement-development journey begins before you can even form a thought or articulate a word. Because it is a foundational component of your biological survival agenda, Natural Movement is a powerful, evolutionary drive that is an instinctual, innate behavior.

  For this reason, infants start moving naturally without the need for any instruction or even visual demonstration. They follow a species-specific developmental sequence and hierarchy of movement patterns that takes place almost totally similarly in every child. It is species-specific because it has to do with the evolutionary make up and movement aptitudes of our human species: You won’t see young children consistently flapping their arms as young birds instinctively do with their wings as a preparation for flying. Flying is part of the Natural Movement of most birds, but it’s not part of Natural Movement for humans. Kids may later pretend they are birds for fun, but at the stage I’m talking about they are not pretending to move like other animals, and they’re not “pretending” to move like humans, either; they’re just instinctively starting to move like humans.

  There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.”

  —Jalal ad-Din Rumi

  During the first months of their lives and before they can even walk, infants learn to keep their heads erect when they’re upright, to roll from the side to their backs, to raise their positions with their arms when lying on their bellies, to grasp objects with their hands and arms, to sit alone, to crawl on their knees and hands, and then to pull themselves to a standing position and so forth until they can walk on their own. While many parents pride themselves on thinking that they “taught” their children to walk, the truth is that they merely assisted them. As for the acquisition of all those other diverse ground movement patterns during the child’s first months, it definitely took place without any intervention from the parents, and those movements are not necessarily less complex or difficult to acquire than walking. I’m not saying that verbal instruction or visual example cannot play a part in a child’s movement development at a later stage, but at that very early stage they are superfluous.

  I’m also not saying that children and adults could unveil their whole Natural Movement potential solely through instinct without any kind of guidance. For instance, whereas the most basic grappling, kicking, or punching patterns are innate in young children, one must learn and drill techniques to channel, enhance, and extend a basic instinctive ability to fight into an advanced fighting capability and skill.

  Don’t you dare underestimate the power of your own instinct.”

  —Barbara Corcoran

  Even at that later stage and while learning techniques through self-teaching or someone’s instruction, instinct—or a genetic program that is deeply rooted in our brains and cellular memory—keeps playing a major role in the continuous development of greater movement skills. Similarly, despite their total lack of conceptual or scientific knowledge relating to the proper ways to exercise or become fit, our ancestors were unquestionably physically strong, agile, capable, and resistant enough to survive some of the harshest circumstances of wild life. In other words, if modern fitness equipment and methods of exercise had been necessary for early human beings to develop themselves physically, and if we had had to wait until science had defined the laws of and programs for optimal physical development, our ancestors wouldn’t have survived, and we wouldn’t be here today to discuss the subject. Furthermore, we still would have to send fitness experts—along with exercise equipment—to some the most remote areas of the planet to instruct hunter-gatherer tribes in how to be “in shape” so they can survive.

  Over the years, I have taught many fitness coaches who spend their time indoors, doing muscle-isolation exercises and working on fitness machines, and although their muscles have looked good on paper, their ability to run, jump, balance, climb, and so forth in natural environments were questionable at best. Mainstream fitness and Natural Movement are not the same at all; they don’t have the same purpose or method, and they logically produce incredibly different results. Instinct, necessity, observation, common sense, practice, and real-world experience was all our ancestors had to work with, and it is all that the millions of people who still live close to nature have as well. Their physical development took place organically, symbiotically, experientially—in other words, naturally. It worked thousands of years ago, and it still works quite well.

  Would you ever imagine that young children would spontaneously do segmental, mechanistic, simplistic, repetitive exercise drills such as biceps curls or “crunches” to get fit and start their physical development as prerequisite strength training and conditioning before they could perform actual natural movements? Of course not. That’s because such a conventional approach to physical fitness is in no way a part of our instinctual, natural process for movement and physical development. No science-based training protocol could replace, or even improve, the evolutionary “program” that is naturally built in to all of us. Instead, children develop the full range of human Natural Movement aptitudes through instinctual practice. It is a drive so strong they cannot resist, and it pushes them to be moving almost continuously during their wake time, even when adults around them aren’t remotely as physically active in terms of variety, frequency, volume, intensity, or complexity of activity. Although adults mostly sit on elevated surfaces without much movement or variety in their positions, young children sit on the floor in many different ways, always transitioning and constantly in motion; they won’t sto
p crawling, rolling, turning, twisting, pushing, pulling, reaching, grasping, throwing, and manipulating, even before they can kneel, stand up, walk, balance, run, jump, climb, and so on. Do not mistake my meaning: Ground movements are not “simple” movements. They are sophisticated patterns and skills that many adults are surprised to discover that they need to remember how to do properly. However, children are still able to do complex ground movements because of their instinctive drive to move.

  Young children, fortunately, have no concept of social convention or other restrictions that might inhibit their instinctive exuberance for movement. Any environment presents itself as an opportunity to explore, practice, and develop their innate movement abilities. It is not something children consciously plan to do at a certain time, in a certain place, in a certain way, and for a certain outcome (or to show off on social media). It is a subconscious impulse—a pure expression of who they are as young human animals. They cannot help it: They are growing!

  Deep inside of them, children know that they must move to grow strong, and any environmental context will do, whether it’s an outdoor, natural space or an indoor, man-made, artificial one. Children crawl under a table like they crawl under a fallen tree or climb on top of a couch like they climb on top of a small boulder. They don’t expect and don’t really need a special place to express their instinctual movement agenda; they practice opportunistically. Although adults and experts are quick to label such activity as “creative,” in fact it’s a tremendously pragmatic and practical approach. Children explore nearly limitless variations of movements, most of which are fundamentally useful and others that might look “crazy” to the reasonable grown-up who has culturally and socially formatted movement behaviors. Are children really creating new movements, or are they simply replicating the movements that every other child of their age is doing somewhere else on the planet, and that generation after generation of young children have also done since the dawn of mankind?