What is Movement?
What is Movement?
Movement is a way to get from one position to another. It is also a form of expression. A way to communicate. Convey ideas of any sort. We express emotions through our movements. Whether authentically artistic or sarcastically comedic, our movements stimulate the senses and tell a story. Movement sometimes sounds funny, feels weird, looks happy, smells gross, and tastes alive! The realization that movement itself is a form of expression, will add awareness to your life. In thinking about how you currently move, take a moment to consider how your movement habits interact with the world around you and tell your life’s story. Are you usually moving your body in a loose, free, open manner? Are you stiff, rigid, closed off to collaboration? We often go through life rarely considering our body language as a complete life story.
We were born with unlimited potential for expression diversity. It only takes a little while for babies to learn to understand the spoken word. A little longer to speak it themselves. Tone of voice variation and the meaning of different pitches comes quickly. We instinctively express ourselves early on in life. Eye movements, body language, hand gestures, singing, crying, laughing, and shouting all convey ideas that we quickly relate to.
As coordination improves, we open up more potential for bodily movement expression. Then we go to school and are forced to sit most of the day. So we play sports to get our energy out and express ourselves on the court or field. Then we specialize. We choose one or a few sports or martial arts or dance or some other exercise and we get better at that. Other movements get put on the back burner. Specialization has consequences. Humans are built for learning, adapting, improving. Were we born to be generalists, not specialists? We know our bodies thrive on a variety of activities, not just one discipline for our whole lives.
A couple key points:
- The human body is capable of more potential for expression than we have yet discovered.
- Overuse injuries are common in the U.S.
In a world that values specialization, we continue to seek Specialized solutions to problems whose root cause is too much specialization. Do we really need surgery or "corrective exercise"? What if we fully understand that movement is a form of expression and our daily actions reflect a quest for continuing variations in our movements? Can you move in all the ways you need to? Are you challenging yourself daily?
It probably sounds like I don't love specialists. But I do. I love musicians who have specialized in jazz or classical music. Music is a language, an audio platform of expression. Instruments are the vehicles. A beginning player spends a lot of time on making sure they play the right notes, but a great musician enhances their ability to express themselves through their instrument by way of using tone, pitch, space, dynamics, articulation, vibrato, staccato, legato, effects, and other skills and variables. Playing the correct notes is a tiny portion of being a great musician. Even specialists generalize to certain degrees.
It's apparent that many of the best specialists have generalist backgrounds, and understand the value of diversity. Some of the best athletes in the world played multiple sports and had diverse backgrounds before and after they specialized. I have a deep respect for someone who has gone way far into their field of study to uncover new discoveries and break records. The world needs specialists. I also have deep respect for those adults who completely veered off their narrow trajectory and chose an entirely new career path, only to perform better than expected by utilizing their diverse experience as a huge strength in the new endeavor. The world needs people who aren't afraid to be generalists too. Teams need generalists to find outside the box solutions to specialist problems.
In many cultures, people speak multiple languages. If you live in Switzerland, for example, you are close to Austria, France, Germany, and Italy. It could be useful to understand the different languages/Dialects spoken in said Countries. In the same way, if you get to use this human body of yours for an entire lifetime, it would be useful to obtain a huge movement expression vocabulary for when you'll have to wash a lot of dishes, process laundry, walk far, sit often, bend and lift, crawl on the ground, reach arms overhead, twist and reach, dance, play with your grandkids…you get the idea.
Aging adults in the U.S. often become set in their ways. Instead of continuing to increase their movement vocabulary they go through life doing the same things over and over. Remember #2: We know that overuse injuries are common in the U.S. The obvious solution is to move differently. There's a reason many endurance athletes that desire to continue to compete choose triathlons. Cross training is proven to be effective. To run, bike, and swim not only provides 3 different disciplines to compete in, it also provides a lower chance of injury than only running for the same period of time. I'm not saying running is bad. Humans were born to run, but how to make that a fun reality into old age is a topic for another blog post.
Let's consider a desk job. We've all heard by now that sitting for long periods of time is bad. Studies have shown people who sit for more than 6 hours a day have a lower life expectancy…and people who sit for less than 3 hours a day are more likely to thrive.
So what can you do? Get a standing desk? Just going from sitting to standing, back and forth all day might help for awhile, but you're still missing out on learning a new language. It's like moving to the United States but being unwilling to learn English. You're limiting your potential of rich expression and communication with your environment and it's inhabitants!
When learning a new language it's helpful to know more than one way to convey the same idea. Sometimes it's more formal. Sometimes it's casual. Depends on the circumstances and who you're talking with, and other factors.
What's up, how's it going, what's shakin', wuz new, etc…
With movement, it's a way more rich, varied, experience. I can think of at least 20 different ways to get from a seated position on a chair, to a standing position. And the cool thing is, there's really no right or wrong way to do it. Variety is fun. Some methods require more strength or mobility than others. Don't discount what a luxury it is to have some time and energy to train your body for movement!
Who is this guy? He wants me to train to learn new ways of getting out of a chair? Why not think of it, instead, as enriching your movement vocabulary? Ideally, you will build up your vocabulary in the long run, rather than resort to the same movements over and over, and end up with overuse injuries. Even learning 1 new movement per week allows you to explore 52 new movements in a year. That's 520 new movements in the next 10 years!
"Specialists learn more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing." -unknown
David Epstein, Author of "Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World" writes,
"The Challenge we all face is how to maintain the benefits of breadth, diverse experience, interdisciplinary thinking, and delayed concentration in a world that increasingly incentivizes, even demands, hyper specialization. While it is undoubtedly true that there are areas that require individuals with…precocity and clarity of purpose, as complexity increases, as technology spins the world into vaster webs of interconnected systems in which each individual only sees a small part, we also need more…people who start broad and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives while they progress."
Applying this philosophy to movement and exercise makes it exciting to get out of bed in the morning! What new movements will you unlock and show me? I'm excited and curious! Let's explore together.