When you were born, you were pure. Your mobility and flexibility were as good as
they would ever be, and your software (your brain) only had a matter of time
before it developed into a powerhouse to launch your hardware (your body) into
a fully-functioning, strong and supple Soft Machine. You would start this path by laying on your
back and stomach, gazing at the world above and below you and using each of
your five senses to make sense of the endlessly stimulating environment that
surrounded you. Eventually, you were
meant to explore your surroundings by rocking, rolling, crawling, touching, and
feeling everything you could.
The World, however, didn’t wait.
The World, in its impatience, put you in a stroller and a
walker, robbing you of your movement birthrights – rolling from back to belly,
rocking back and forth, and cross-body movements like crawling. These things made you strong and resilient,
not immature and lesser developed. They
made you human.
When you were young, you were playful. You learned to run, jump, wrestle, throw,
climb, and enjoy life and movement. Your
play spanned neighborhoods, creeks, fields, dreams. It followed you wherever you went – at home,
at school, on vacation, and any place else you could think of. It included games with your friends, both the
standards and the ones you made up. It
included all kinds of sports and activities, and your imagination knew no
bounds. Your surroundings were your
playground, and no place was off limits for physical exploration and movement.
The World, however, didn’t wait.
The World, in its insistence to sell something, developed
video games and lured children everywhere into playing them – so that they
learn to run, jump, wrestle, throw, climb, and enjoy life through their
fingertips and a glowing screen rather than through their limbs and minds. Outdoor play and movement took a backseat to
computer programming that made the world only as real as what the start button
said it was.
When you were in adolescence, you were an open book. Sports, competitions, games, and activities
became a vehicle for self-expression, and just as you don’t use just one
sentence to express yourself, you didn’t want to commandeer just one of these
vehicles – you liked playing many of them.
You enjoyed the complex game of human chess that was football, baseball,
basketball, dodgeball, tennis, martial arts, and the myriad of other games and
movements that comprised the art of expressing the miracle of the Soft Machine. You wanted to remain a part of all of them.
The World, however, didn’t wait.
The World, in its impatience, demanded that you pick just
one, and excel at it by all means necessary.
When the weather permitted, you were at practice, doing repetitive
movements and cementing them into your muscles and mind. When weather didn’t permit, you were given
alternative arrangements and made those work instead. When the season was over, rather than
participating in new sports or activities, you were funneled into sport clinics
and camps and made to repeat the same movements in the same way again and
again. Your baggage of movements that
you would carry with you through life became more and more economical – and
unbeknownst to you and The World, this would do you more harm than good.
When you were in college, the World was your oyster. You were on your own, allowed once again to
explore your surroundings. Only this
time, no one could tell you what to do.
You could major in anything, be involved in any club, activity, and
program you liked. The classroom was
your window to the world, and you could look as far and deep as you wanted
to. If you felt like it, you could skip
class, play catch or Frisbee with your friends, laugh, and enjoy life. Deep down, something told you and your body
to return to what you knew you should do, and now was your time to do it.
The World, however, didn’t wait.
The World, in its ambition, nudged, poked, and prodded you
into ignoring the primal scream within your body and mind, as you spent more
and more time in class and in the library, while comforting your decision to
now rob yourself of the joy of movement.
You were told you had too much to get done, and playing around would
have to wait until you were finished. If
you did find time to activate your Soft Machine, it was in the same sport you
played in (and possibly even got hurt doing) as a kid. Your training for this sport involved your
Soft Machine sitting in a hard machine – doing exercises involving pulleys,
well-oiled and perfectly calibrated moving parts to “safely” guide you into
movements you no longer had the strength and knowledge to do. Having spent most of your life seated, the
open arms of the exercise machines comforted you into having a seat to do all
of your movement. This seemed like a
great idea.
When you were a grown up, you were funneled into “real jobs”
where you sat all day, hunched over a computer and relegated to more repetitive
tasks – tasks that involved minimal and redundant movement, given importance
that comforted you once again into not moving outside of what was required of
you, because deadlines beckoned and promotions called from afar. In your mind, in your imagination, you
couldn’t miss any of these things.
Then one day you woke up.
You looked around and, like the child you once were, you realized how
big the world is around you, and how much your body and your health have to
offer you as a conscious entity. As
important as everything in your life is, none of it is as important as you are,
and there is nothing you have ignored as much as yourself. Your life is a shell of impressive
accomplishments and its interior is filled with ghosts of memories of what you
could once do effortlessly. Running to
catch a cab becomes an exercise in wheezing and coughing. Trying to climb a tree to get your family’s
cat out of it becomes an embarrassing realization that not only can you no
longer climb due to the mobility restrictions that “more important” sedentary
tasks have left you with, but even if you had the mobility, you no longer have
the strength and coordination that once came to you as easily as breathing.
Primal Move isn’t just a system about movement; it IS a
movement. A movement to return you to
your primal nature and your God-given birthright. We were not born to sit all day. We were not born to restrict ourselves. We were not born to be drones. We were born to play, to move effortlessly,
to be both strong AND supple. Only the
World’s deafening insistence that we silence our primal desire to be so
abundantly active convinced us otherwise.
Resilience and unrestricted movement and muscle joy in all
sorts of activities is what awaits you, regardless of your vocation, history,
or personal background. You are not
meant to merely exist. You are meant to LIVE. The living are separated from the dead
through movement. The less we move, the more
our bodies start to resemble the dead. More
and more, we are dead on our feet; we die years before we are declared so
because we forget how to move. If we
have to be taught how to move again, so be it, so long as we do it.
For too long, that primal scream has been echoing within
your shell of accomplishments, bouncing off the walls of everything you’ve done
for decades and decades. It will not go
away; it will only echo louder. The time
has come to answer the call. The time
has come to reclaim your movement birthright!
Unlearn what you have learned and re-learn what you used to know; play,
have fun, and enjoy the way you were meant to move! Whoever you are, wherever you are, and
whatever you do, come back to what you were made to do. Your movement destiny awaits, and isn’t going
anywhere as long as you make the return you need to. Throw off the shackles and joint the movement.
The World can wait.
***
Aleks Salkin, RKC, SBS is crazy about kettlebells, bodyweight strength training, flexibility, and nutrition, and he loves nothing more than to connect with people who love the same!
Aleks Salkin, RKC, SBS is crazy about kettlebells, bodyweight strength training, flexibility, and nutrition, and he loves nothing more than to connect with people who love the same!
