The ideal practice of natural movement involves deep exploration of diverse natural environments.
Spending time moving in beautiful sprawling trees, on boulders, beaches, swimming holes and waterfalls nourishes the body in so many ways. It’s even better when you can move in nature with close friends or family.
But the truth is that it can be hard to arrange this on a regular basis.
We want you to start going out and finding the beautiful nature that is just outside your door; we want you to make a habit of coordinating with other people in your training so you are stacking the benefits of socialization with the benefits of movement and the benefits of nature.
We understand that this is not always easy, and sometimes training at the gym or at home are important starting points.
So how can you incorporate the Evolve Move Play approach in the gym or at home? Here are four key ways to incorporate our paradigm:
Flat ground is the first obstacle, and developing comfort with different ways to move your body across flat ground will go a long way towards adding more movement, more flow, and more diversity into your gym routine.
Here are two ground flow sequences we have used extensively with our students.
Pull up racks don’t have to just be for pull ups. You can practice swing variations, hanging drills, and climbing using your feet on the supports. Exploring these movements will improve your shoulder mobility and integrity, your grip strength, and your overall coordination.
This is an example where learning on flat ground first is actually great. Practicing your basic breakfall patterns regularly will add hugely to your safety and confidence executing higher level movement skills.
Here are our intro to breakfalls videos.
And start practicing your basic parkour roll there are many tutorials on youtube our favorites are origins parkour and apex movements tutorials.
Apex Beginner roll tutorials
Origins Method Parkour Roll
Developing the explosive strength to jump, and the coordination to land with precision on various targets is another foundational skill that can be practiced inside or outside. Weight plates in the gym can be used as a target for standing and running jumps, or if you’re handy, you can easily build a precision trainer out of two-by-fours and set it up in your backyard.
Here is quick tutorial on the precision jump
By incorporating these principles and movements into your usual training environments, while also exploring their application outside in nature, you’ll be off to a great start in establishing and expanding your natural movement practice.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.
