An Introduction To Movement Practice
Movement — it’s such a simple word. If it came across you in text, your cursory gaze would just skip the word. Yet, it suddenly became a very important word to me, over the last year.
It’s not just a word, it’s a growing culture, made increasingly famous by Ido Portal, and a couple of other pioneers in this field, in the past decade. I have started practicing movement towards the end of 2020 and am falling in love with it more and more, with time.
I’m confident many of you are still baffled about what I’m talking about. I’m still not able to exactly put what it means, even to my friends. So, here’s my attempt to clarify things once and for all, and hopefully even motivate some of you.
To put in simple terms, the movement culture is a paradigm shift in physicality, that recognises all kinds of physical practices as movement, erasing the boundaries between all of the different verticals that exist currently like dance, martial arts, athletics, bodybuilding and so on, which also helps erase the difference between health, aesthetics, fitness and art. To give you a little more idea, if you google for movement culture, you’d be looking at a huge array of things ranging from crawling and rolling, to handstands and flips, to juggling and dribbling a couple of balls. Of course, it’s not limited to just these and a true mover would keep exploring various aspects and disciplines of movement according to his interests, never settling at one final place. Here’s an extremely cool video by the Strength Side, if you, like everyone else, are struggling to imagine what movement looks like.
Now, one might say what’s the big deal about this term “MOVEMENT”. To be fair, it’s obvious that anything from nodding your head occasionally to the conversation happening to a seriously complicated dance move like the windmill is movement. I mean, the term movement, according to the laws of english, means all of that. It’s the all-encompassing.
But, all of that being said - as we humans, as a global culture, started investing all of our lives going deeper into specialisations and creating a deeper collective knowledge, we started overlooking these simple generalisations, and we all forgot that be it you’re a dancer, a fighter or something else, you’re a mover first.
Now, the next logical question to ask would be — “Even if this generalisation has been forgotten, what’s the big deal about it? Why even re-introduce it to the world?”
Good question, I must say. Here’s my answer, based on my experience with movement which needs a little more explanation about my life as well.
I was always interested in physicality. I really liked moving heavy things, climbing etc. as long I wasn’t doing it for the sake of fitness. And most of the time, I was consistently fat since I was too lazy to go gym. But, the laziness is not because I just wanted to sit all day but because it was too boring at the gym, since it felt like a lot of repetition and wasn’t exciting enough. But, with this new found perspective of movement, I was suddenly able to look at all of my activities differently. I started moving more. I started being more present, paying more attention to the reactions of my body as I moved, to what movements felt tough or frustrating, to what felt easy and to what felt good and so on. And I fell in love with the idea of moving. Each day, I wake up and look forward to simply moving. I do not need to force myself to go work out. I have a beautiful practice of movement.
Since I was a kid, I had difficulty with sports. I was in a class with a total of 6 people till 7th grade and we didn’t ever play any sports and then when I shifted to a new school with a lot of children and with a good amount of them interested in sports, I saw that nearly all of them were extremely good at one or more sports and I’d have difficulties in playing anything with them as I would consider myself a kid in front of them spoiling their game. This is not just true to sports but to every other field. I’d be afraid to give an interview because I always felt I wasn’t good enough. It’s not just me, but many adults have this issue. We live in a world portraying an image never to look like a fool, but you have to start a fool to become an expert at anything. This fear, and this portrayal of a false image, are inhibiting the really fun process of learning, making it dreadful for many, leading to the plaguing of our society with stress, desperation, dissatisfaction and stagnation.
It’s clearly scary for a software engineer to even dream of becoming a doctor. But, isn’t it easier for him/her to dream of building a career in a sister field, like ML or data-sciences!
This is exactly what the generalisation of movement helps us achieve. Until now, a football player might be embarrassed to try out dancing, but once he recognises that both of those are different sister disciplines of movement and that one’s fundamentally a mover, the perspective it offers that he is just a mover trying to build more skills, trying to become a better mover, suddenly fear has no place in his journey. Now, he’ll be able to learn once again and feel the joy in exploring the unknown. Similarly, someone like me who’s very average at a couple of things like dance or even someone who’s absolutely shit at any kind of physical discipline can just understand the fact that they’re all just movers as well. Some are good, some are bad. And this can help us all grow and be more accepting of people who’re willing to grow and not judge them for how bad they are currently.
For the closing statement, I want to emphasise on the fact that this perspective of movement is truly a paradigm shift. Not only am I much healthier compared to even 4–5 years back considering the fact that I was at my worst mid last year, but many other things changed within me. I eat lesser simply because I don’t like a heavy stomach inhibiting my movement. I sleep well for similar reasons and also because I’ve grown accustomed to listening to my the signals in my body and emotions, a little more, like if I’m groggy or frustrated etc.
Once you realise that so much has changed with a simple change in perspective, it’s impossible to stop that understanding to diffuse into all other aspects of your life. And that led to an intense and drastic transformation of myself, like a a butterfly coming out of a cocoon.
- From being constantly scared or shy about many things, I became someone who gives lesser number of fucks about how people look at him. I’m not scared to be shitty at something, anymore. I was able to confidently try standup comedy at an open mic.
- I am able to openly talk about multiple issues and fears that I was afraid of even sharing with the people who are the closest me. I have become more honest since I don’t see the need to hide my weaknesses anymore.
- I’ve suddenly become a risk-taker. I’m very close to taking a break from my career to try out something else and it’s something I couldn’t even contemplate before.
- I’ve also become more accepting of others perspectives, mistakes and ideas, in general, probably because of the fact that this new perspective, that I never had, had helped me in a lot of ways
So, what I want to say is — It’s never too late to start moving! So, just start.
And here’s how you start. First of all, watch this amazing documentary on Ido Portal and the movement culture. Then, if you’re interested, which you most likely would be, you can explore this thing yourself and find your way or if you need any help, feel free to ping me here.
Alright.. See you folks.. Happy Moving!
