“You can move but do you “Movement?” – Andy Myers

So I’ve decided to start this post with the same quote as last year. Let this be a nod to the fact that a lot of what I said last year will just continue on the predicted trends.

This last year for myself and the team behind Silver Leap Project has been better than I could imagine. A sell out workshop tour and more importantly getting to meet some epic people along the way.

It’s great to see such groupings springing up around the world in greater numbers.

Movement: Attack of the Clones

A point that really solidified with me when visiting Point A is that “Movement Culture” should be more correctly Movement Cultures. To quote:

“Movement Cultures are developed, often informally, around physical activities that are undertaken for the pure reason that they are enjoyable and rewarding in and of themselves.”

I think people need to step back from the idea that you need to do or fulfill a certain trick list to be considered a “Mover” or that doing these activities to the exclusion of others is what makes the identity of a mover.

“Movement Culture, make sure you don’t become just a TRICKING CULTURE. ” Ido Portal,

Considering your last post before that was a string of one arm handstands, maybe, just maybe you’re beginning to reap a little of what you’ve sown over the last few years 😉 regardless, he does a have a point.

One particularly grim trend I’m seeing is the rise of the instant online coach. I don’t think this is strictly limited to Movement. But it’s when someone will do a block of coaching with a coach and then, by virtue of being a student of that coach, start providing online training and just copy pasting the programming they received from the initial coach. Cavaet Emptor as always applies.

The social media reposting game is getting stronger and stronger this year. If you need to repost athletes and movers who have nothing to do with your business or facility to promote it: Do you have a business worth promoting? Nothing wrong with sharing an impressive feat or video here and there but as the core of your marketing game…

Movement : Rogue One

So now that the negative is out of the way let’s get to building a bigger and better community.

You don’t need to attend a workshop, seminar or class to do an activity. Getting training with visiting and advanced coaches is great both from a training and networking point of view, but don’t think the workshop is the cost of admission. If you want to climb trees You don’t need Rafe Kelley to start climbing trees, as he himself say’s the teacher is their to guide the student but we all have the capacity to start the movement journey with or without a coach. You can just go and do it. That’s how most of the good teachers I know did it, they just went and did it and fucked up, learnt and iterated til they ended up with something interesting.

Get out of the Gym this goes for coaches as much as students. Spend time socialising and moving without the hierarchy or formula of a class / learning environment. Organise outings to dance class, trampoline centres, whatever is in the locale. If you’re stuck for ideas check out The Movement Collective they’ve always got something informal going down on their feed, be it hanging on the beach doing acro or paintball.

Avoid favoring the mystical out of town teacher. I say this as a travelling teacher but in some cases there might be someone local to you who is just as good a teacher but doesn’t have that out of town charm and mystique. Maybe they’re not using the cool online lingo to describe what they do but more than likely you’ll be able to find someone local to you that can give you a movement education, be it Dance, Object manipulation, martial arts etc.

Dare to be creative. This is something that if it grows and becomes accepted in the growing movement culture will shift it off the course of bosuballification. Make games, exercises seqeunces. Experiment, don’t worry if those experiments fail you’ll learn and grow regardless. Dare to fuck up and try make your own ideas / concepts and principles. Every new discipline started with someone going “I want to do my own thing”.

Also stop doing the max effort joint prep. Seriously wtf. How do you want to explain your torn meniscus, “I bailed a round-off back sommersault” or “I tried to find my 1rm medial aspect squat”. The choice is yours.

Emmet