The practice of natural.., p.18
The Practice of Natural Movement, page 18
Practical Cooperation
As you begin your Natural Movement practice, find people you can primarily cooperate with and benefit from. Learn from, share with, and train with these people, both in the sense of training next to each other and working together to achieve tasks none of you could achieve alone. Physically participate and interact with one another and with the same goal in mind. It doesn’t matter who’s best; what matters is how good you can become individually and as a group and how the group can improve its collective performance. Even from a situational intelligence perspective, when positive synergy occurs, the constructive interaction of two or more people often produces solutions and improved strategies superior to what each individual could have come up with if they had been working alone.
Of course, you do not have to always train cooperatively every time you practice with others. The cooperative principle neither implies the dismissal of individuality nor minimizes the importance of self-empowerment in any way. Even within a group, the real source of self-confidence is within you, and only your rigorous self-discipline and personal will can make you stronger.
Yet practicing cooperatively definitely is rewarding and beneficial. You’ll learn from others as much as they might learn from you, and you might learn new things together. You’ll learn to trust others and find that you can rely on them as much as they will realize they can rely on you. That mutual reliance is the goal. We could call it reciprocal altruism.
Nothing is more empowering than when you become inspiring to yourself—except maybe knowing that you can be useful to others. We’re not more than others; we’re more with others. “Stronger together” is not a political and gimmicky motto; it’s a timeless reality that concerns us all. The pursuit of fitness without the spiritual drive to better yourself as a person and be able to help others in time of need may not be a meaningless endeavor, but it’s not as meaningful and noble as the alternative.
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.”
—Arthur Ashe
Friendly competition can be an effective additional source of motivation and fun from time to time. Competition can be the simulation of adverse circumstances that demand a physical response from you and that otherwise wouldn’t exist.
However, rivalry, or competition, is not the only way—or even the most effective way—to get motivated. One of my primary motivations has been thinking of how I want to develop and maintain an ability to physically help my loved ones, friends, or even strangers in time of need. As a matter of fact, I have put such real-world physical competency and preparedness to use by rescuing near-drowning people on three occasions. My response in those situations wasn’t anything special: I knew what to do, I knew what I was capable of doing, and I had trained for it with intention. Lives are saved every day by both professionals and regular people, and most often the rescues are successful thanks to the cooperation of several people who work with one another to achieve a result.
I believe everyone should be physically trained to help others. This type of training should be a mandatory part of authentic, healthy physical education programs in every school. As expressed in principle 5, “Vital,” there is no guarantee that you will ever be in a situation that demands your physical capability to such an extreme, but you should still be prepared in the event that you do need those physical skills.
Muscle size has never impressed me, but I certainly look up to those who possess useful physical capability, a strong mind, and a big heart, regardless of muscle mass. I won’t miss the opportunity to express my admiration and gratitude to all the people out there—firefighters, paramedics, rescuers, police officers, military—who at any point will put themselves in danger to save others’ lives. Even if some of them may be competitive by nature, they don’t behave like individualistic superheroes but as trained, cooperative team members.
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
—William James
I also want to thank the mentor I have never met, Georges Hébert, whose writings inspired me to perpetuate this philosophy of cooperation. Hébert’s motto was “Be strong to be useful”—both to oneself and to others. He was referring to helpfulness through cooperation and mutual assistance. Utility is for objects like tools; helpfulness is for conscious beings. Helpfulness requires your intention.
ABOUT MOVNAT
MovNat is both a practice and a coaching method for Natural Movement that enables broad, fast, and safe progress. Following are the goals MovNat:
• To educate and build real-world physical capability in people so that in a time of need they will be able to help themselves and others
• To develop, restore and maintain health, vitality, and well-being through the consistent practice of Natural Movement
• To support self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-respect.
• To develop respect for and connectedness with nature
Visit movnat.com for certifications and workshops, online coaching, or information about a licensed gym or certified trainer near you. Visit naturalmovement.com for online courses and insights into the Natural Movement lifestyle.
2
Movement Efficiency Principles
“Learning is an experience. Everything else is just information.”
—Albert Einstein
Among the twelve Natural Movement principles, principle 10, “Efficient,” gives us compelling insights on what efficiency is and why it matters so much. In this part, I want to share with you how movement efficiency works, which will lead us into the discussion in Part 3, practice efficiency.
It is my observation that masterful world-class movement practitioners and athletes might not have much scientific knowledge of movement, whereas world-level exercise scientists might move very poorly. My point is that experiential knowledge and conceptual knowledge of movement are two different animals, and they can exist independently. (The knowledge of teaching movement is yet another skill altogether.) However, there are universal principles that not only can be applied to human motion but that have conditioned fundamental aspects of it. The skillful use of the body can’t be achieved without the skillful application—either conscious or unconscious—of the movement efficiency principles after they have been learned spontaneously or through teaching.
I strongly believe that acquiring a basic conceptual knowledge of the fundamentals of movement efficiency should be a fast and simple endeavor rather than a long and overcomplicated intellectual pursuit. My assumption is that, even though we are cerebral and intelligent people, our main goal is to learn just enough to gain a basic, effective understanding of how and why techniques work. We want to avoid having to go through a bunch of scientific intricacies that would have little to no carryover toward a better movement practice or performance.
It is better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot.”
—Anatole France
In short, we first need the fundamental conceptual knowledge that supports greater levels of experiential understanding—that is, knowing how to move well through our sensations. Ultimately, we need not for our brain to think of what efficient movement is but for our nervous system to remember how the efficient movement feels so we can reproduce the experience without thought. Principle 11, “Mindful,” taught us that we must move mindfully, which is different than reasoning about how we move.
Therefore, some simplified notions of movement efficiency in this part work hand in hand with “perception drills,” which enable a physical experience and awareness that generates a symbiotic mental and physical understanding of these principles. Mindful movement practice doesn’t mean thinking of everything you know about movement or analyzing every aspect of your performance as you move; it’s quietly paying close attention to what matters the most at a given moment. Simplicity in movement practice entails mastering the hidden complexity of movement without adding complication in your mind and movement. Of course, it is up to each of us to pursue advanced education related to the diverse fields—physics, biomechanics, kinematics, kinetics, kinesiology, and so on—of the conceptual side of movement study.
Keep in mind that the notions in this part don’t conform to subjective conventions, dogma, or traditions that one must strictly respect. They are rational and reliable principles that you’re free to apply as you wish and that you can personally verify through motion. As a result, you’ll have an experiential basis for knowing that the principles work instead of being left with an assumption or mere belief.
The Formation of Technique
A technique is a movement pattern that makes movement more than effective; it makes it efficient also. Simply put, a technique is a movement strategy for a particular movement goal. By producing efficiency, the use of technique provides the three essential outcomes we’re seeking: greater performance, greater energy conservation, and greater safety.
A movement pattern becomes a technique not only because it’s efficient but also because the specific variables that ensure its efficiency can be strictly identified, explained, taught, learned, and—most important—applied and reproduced. Wild animals use technique without having conceptual awareness of it because intellectual understanding of it is superfluous; technique is built-in. Humans, on the other hand, can learn more efficient movements through the acquisition of technique.
Every technique involves a specific pattern of breathing, position, sequence, timing, tension, and relaxation. The first, most fundamental pillar of technique is breathing, and naturally it is the first technique I address in this part. Breathing is THE technique that supports all other techniques. Once you understand that breathing has a technique for efficiency, understanding that you can use technique to improve basically any movement becomes a no-brainer.
The end-goal of technique is optimally using the kinetic energy we produce—our physical effort—for the practical goal behind our movement. Of course, no technique—even the best one—completely conserves all the energy produced by the body; energy losses are inevitable. But the better the technique is executed, the less energy is dispersed and wasted.
It might seem that not every movement you do relies on a “technique.” However, like breathing, even the simplest movement can benefit from improved technique if you’re not currently doing it spontaneously with natural efficiency. Even what we call “gross” motor skills, which represent most of Natural Movement, can be improved to very fine levels of perception, accuracy, and control. This explains why untrained, out-of-shape individuals might look utterly stiff doing a basic transition from kneeling to standing with a poor movement pattern—holding their breath and having a rounded back, wobbly knees, and overall imbalance and stiffness—whereas other people could look both smooth and strong doing the exact same movement. If you belong to the first category, then learning the elements of breathing and position, sequence and timing, and tension and relaxation and physiologically adapting in the process could be considered working on technique.
When we think of movement skills, one of the first words to come to mind is coordination. But what exactly do we coordinate? We could naturally think of the diverse body parts (including joints and muscles) that need to integrate into full movement patterns and how these parts demand impeccable organization to work synergistically. However, joints and muscles are body tissues that function only after the central nervous system has activated and organized them. So, to achieve coordination, movement effectiveness, and—ideally—movement efficiency, the nervous system needs to ensure the coordination of position and breathing, movement sequence and timing, and tension and relaxation. (The illustration shows how these three components interact.) These principles are commonly shared by all techniques regardless of the movement skill. Now on to the efficiency principles!
13
Breathing
“And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.”
—Black Elk
Breathing is a natural movement. It doesn’t involve the motion of your body through space; it’s an internal movement your body needs to do from the moment you are born to the moment you die. Most of us take it for granted, but if you talk to anyone with breathing issues, they will tell you that they would give anything to be able to breathe easily.
Breathing is the control of ventilation and the set of physiological mechanisms involved in generating the physical movement of air into the lungs (inhalation) and out of them (exhalation), which is also known as gas exchange. Breathing is responsible for cellular respiration, which is the biochemical process that allows oxygen from outside air to be transported to the cells in the body. The cells use the oxygen and leave the carbon dioxide, which is transported back outside the body. (I describe cellular respiration in more detail later in this chapter.)
Fortunately, breathing happens unconsciously through the autonomic nervous system. However, the automatic nature of breathing makes it easy to assume that it does not have to be questioned, which makes it a component of movement efficiency that is too often overlooked. Very few people are aware that they can consciously train to develop an ability to control how they ventilate and improve the efficiency of their breathing patterns even when they are not thinking about it. However, breathing is movement skill—even though it’s internal rather than external—which means that it’s like other natural movements in that it can be methodically and mindfully trained.
The benefits and potency of mindful, controlled breathing has been known and practiced throughout history and throughout the world. You can reprogram, improve, and master the pattern of breathing, strengthen the respiratory system, and transform cellular respiration. Aside from supporting greater levels of health and vitality, breath control used in movement practice supports energy systems, relaxation, mental clarity, alertness or calmness, recovery, and even coordination. Needless to say, breathing well is great for your quality of life, but controlling breathing in motion supports greater levels of performance, and without it a crucial aspect of your movement competency is missing.
So, what can go wrong with the most natural movement of all—breathing? Before I tell you anything, do these two quick self-assessments while breathing exactly the way you normally do. Don’t take extra big breaths because that would defeat the point of this self-assessment:
• Count how many breath cycles (one inhalation and one exhalation) you do within one minute.
• Place one hand on your chest and the other one on your abdomen just below your sternum. Just breathe as you normally do and feel what part (or parts) is moving or moving first. How much does it move? What direction does it move? Are you reflexively breathing through your nose or mouth?
For now, just remember what you have observed about your current breathing so you can compare it with the patterns I describe and/or recommend later.
Inefficient Breathing
Chest breathing is a breathing pattern that is done through the upper chest and respiratory muscles. It is what we all do when effort becomes very intense and we’re breathing hard with our chests expanding to a much greater amplitude than when we’re at rest. The problem is that we might chest breathe superficially (with a small amplitude) even when we’re not doing any physical effort. When we chest breathe, our bellies are pulled inward and only our upper chests expand as we inhale. Clavicular breathing—which also normally occurs only with high intensity efforts—is even worse; in that case, only the collarbone and shoulders rise while the rest of the thorax remains motionless. With such shallow breathing, only a small amount of air flows, and it reaches only the upper lobes of our lungs, where less blood flow occurs. The result of this shallow breathing is poor oxygen absorption by the blood, and an oxygen deficit for the tissues that need it.
Consequently, over-breathing ensues. If we over-breathe (also known as hyperventilating), we continuously breathe through the upper chest with short, small, rapid breaths. It’s an unconscious compensatory attempt to keep the body properly oxygenated. A person who chest breathes will always end up over-breathing.
The breathing pattern that combines chest breathing and over-breathing is deemed “normal” only because most people are accustomed to it; however, it’s an inefficient way to breathe. It feels weak, it’s neither relaxed nor relaxing, and it’s very unsatisfying. You might not even be able to breathe deeply when you want to. If you look at a person lying down with closed eyes who is breathing shallowly in this way, it is very likely that the person is actually neither relaxed nor asleep; the person is probably anxious about something and unable to fall asleep.
A normal, healthy breathing rate should be, on average, 12 to 14 breaths (that is one inhalation and one exhalation) per minute. Although trained individuals can use less than 8 breaths a minute, most people can take up to 20 breaths or more per minute. A person who takes 10 breaths per minute breathes about 15,000 breaths a day. With 20 breaths per minute, the person is breathing 30,000 breaths each day.
With more breaths, a significantly greater volume of oxygen than is needed by the body is taken in, which paradoxically impairs proper oxygenation while accelerating oxidative damage and aging. Physical signs that accompany over-breathing are breathing through the mouth, regularly sighing, or regularly needing to take large breaths.
