Are we too fussy with movement?

We have spent a good chunk of the last 15 or so years being sold how to move in the ‘correct’ way. We quietly contort our bodies into positions & postures we have been told are the best way to move for fear of injury, doing it wrong, not getting the right benefit & whatever other reason we are sold. I am not dismissing educating & supporting people in learning about their bodies & how they move, but I do worry that we have commercialised natural movement to such an extent we are disabling people from learning what feels good for them & being confident in moving in lots of ways

I think there is a big difference between helping people learn the power of movement vs. trying to teach people to move in the right way. Spoiler alert, there is no right way

The more we interfere with instructions, rules, fear inducing language, the more disabling it is for people to access healthy movement. Our bodies are more robust than we seem to be selling nowadays, maybe because we can sell structure, maybe because we all still crave that societally-created framework of teacher-pupil & being told what to do

You can bend your knees, look up with your neck, load your spine, lift wonky, twist… the key is doing a variety of things & working within your awareness, building it & doing it in a way that you enjoy - you might prefer the flow of a yoga class , the sweatiness of a HIIT class or the vibes of a barre class. You might prefer to dance around your sitting room, follow a meditation, breathwork, lift something heavy. Mixing it up, keeping your body & mind entertained, learning what feels good but also creating space for surprising yourself

We have been building a framework at Flow of offering a variety of feel good movement. It is really easy to see a new class & think, I’m too… (insert old, stiff, short, tall) for that. You may assume you wont like it, you may struggle at first to be the beginner, to be vulnerable in learning something new & allowing yourself to expand & grow than continue along the same path of movement & awareness that is within your comfort zone. Not that there is anything wrong with your comfort zone, but so often we show up to a class, or we move, because we want change. And I always say if we want something to change we have to do something differently

Sometimes with that it takes times, we don’t like not know what to do, that’s also why we often like lots of instructions, because being told to simply move is scary & takes a whole new level of awareness we often don’t have the time for

But, it’s not new… if we look around, we see children & animal exploring movement, using their bodies in different ways. They don’t need instructions or restrictions, they explore, they learn & they have fun doing it

So next time someone tells you not to lift like that because it will hurt your back, or you have to move like this get it right, quietly take the time to make your own judgement; how does it feel? Is there room for growth in my movement? Can I learn more about myself & spark curiosity in my movement, or am I repeating the same thing, in the same way?

If you have any questions, please let me know!

Love Katie