MovNat AAR

Spent the last two days crawling, hanging, jumping, throwing and running. And learning. It was a good time. K says I have a very specific smile when I'm tired, sore and happy.

I'm aging. And coming off of almost five years of serious leg injuries. Aerobic fitness, weight and functional power are not where I like them to be. Below my comfort zone. Legs healed to the point starting in January I could do something about it. Big headway in a short time, but still a long way to go.

Never been into the fitness community. Don't actually get into communities, period really. Went from doing ranch/homesteading work in adolescence combined with high school sports--Football, basketball and track. Then to the college judo team. Then military. That was a long string of years of good coaches and hard work. Good enough that I got the physical fitness award at both BCT and the Academy.

I have friends into fitness, particularly Myron Cossitt, Kasey Keckeisen, Matt Bellet and the Querencia crew. And I can't even follow their conversations when they get going.

At last year's VioDy Prime, one of the attendees was some French dude named Vic. Vic Verdier. Cool guy. Great physical skills, awareness, and insight. Myron was fan-boying a little on Vic (Myron does that.) After the VioDy seminar, I got an email from Vic casually asking if I'd like to attend one of his seminars. Turns out Vic is a big deal in the fitness community. MovNat.

So last weekend this middle-aged crippled up old jail guard went out to play.
It was a blast. Perfect level of intensity. If you don't hate your physical trainer a bit at the end of a session you need a new physical trainer. Next post will be about principles and cross-overs.

The movements were super basic. Fundamental. At one point we were learning a technique to lift a heavy, odd-shaped item to a shoulder carry and I was puzzled... why would this have to be taught? And I looked around the room. Almost all young (younger than me at least). Almost if not all urbanites, and I realized that probably no one else in the room had spent their childhoods lifting and carrying ninety-pound feed sacks. Or bucking alfalfa bales onto a truck.

Lifting, carrying, climbing, running, crawling, throwing-- all core, fundamental parts of being human. I'm a little weirded out they have to be taught, but some of my kid's friends have never climbed a tree.

Don't think "super-basic" or "fundamental" are in any way downplaying the value. Or the skill of the instructors. Or the thought behind the program itself.  MovNat is either an introduction to or a reminder of who you are as a human animal. Some of us, maybe all of us, need that.

Vic, Stefano and Craig stressed good body mechanics. More emphasis on doing things right than doing things hard. Because there was a concurrent instructor-candidate class, each of us got a private coach as well (Thanks, Kim and Sadie!). Because of the emphasis, I was able to attend with a plethora of old injuries and, though every damn thing is sore, none of the old stuff reinjured. That's rare.

Upshot? Practical. Fun. Intense. Found some weaknesses to work on, some new diagnostic tools. It was a good weekend.