Thoughts on Movement

Massage and movement are intertwined in my mind. Massage breaks down barriers that limits our moving potential. If we don't move and move often massage will unfortunately be reduced to only a way of treating symptoms. So I try to encourage everyone I see to move their bodies more. So here are some thoughts on moving.

Movement is crucial to health. While it's not the only thing we should be concerned about, we should be wary of ignoring how our body moves. Evolution gifted us with arms that bend and rotate in many different directions. At the end of these arms are hands that are capable of fixing watches, playing the violin, or defending ourselves in a number of violent ways. Natural selection has genetically sculpted us legs that can run, jump, kick and skip. There are endless parkour videos on youtube showing us ( often illegal and almost always extremely dangerous) fun stuff human bodies can do. It is almost a giving that we are under using our bodies, that we are not pushing ourselves to the very edges of our capabilities. This is good news. It means there is a major component of our lifestyle that we have the ability to improve upon. With that improvement will come many benefits mental as well as physical.

Navigating the differing schools of movement can be overwhelming. There are sports, Cross Fit, yoga pilates, martial arts Tai ch and endless other ways people have mapped out how we can manipulate our bodies. All these categories can be further broken down into different factions as well. There no right answer as to what methods of motion are better. Each has there own advantages and caveats. Whatever we choose should be something we are enthusiastic about though. Whatever movement we do is better than the movement we only think about.

I like to offer, based on my own practice and what I perceive in others, two important and overlooked concepts when it comes to getting the greatest gain out of whatever movement practice we choose.

1 Diversity of movement

2 The precision of movement.

So first let's break down movement diversity. Life is or at least has the potential to be uncertain... Most of us probably wo n’t have any Jackie Chan moments, but we will all be giving unexpected physical test from time to time. Maybe we might have to move something heavy, or dodge a random projectile. We don’t know how future circumstances will ask us to move, so we should b prepared for as many movements as possible. So many injuries occur not because we are doing something strenuous but because we are doing something we have no practice for.

As we consciously increase the movement in our lives, we should be exploring and pushing against our range of motion. We should play with finding ways to make movements more challenging. Conversely, we also should break down movements that are too complex for our current abilities. For example, if we want to do a handstand but can’t we can work on our core strength, flexibility, and triceps and traps, which are all needed to do this exercise. Even if we never get around to a headstand we will have benefited from working on these accessory motions.

Secondly, we should always be honing our precision when moving. Whatever we are doing we should be mindful of our biomechanics. Are we slumped over, is our spine straight, is our core supported, are we straining at the neck. Too often I find people hurt themselves from exercise when they tune out their bodies precisely when we should be most attentive of it. It all too common for many movement teachers to have the bad idea that we need to push through past our limitations which only result in learning poor form. We should be striving to perfect our form. As good as its to scrape away at our limitations, we must acknowledge when we are compromising our structural integrity only to fulfill an ideal that we are not yet ready for.

I’m a firm proponent that much of the benefits from exercise lies not within the burning of calories but in the development of neuromuscular connections that are ever more refined. Lucky for us perfect form is an idea that we can never attain so we have can always improve. As we challenge ourselves in performing new action while bringing our attention to all the fine details, we will develop the innate natural wisdom of how to move our bodies with ease and grace.