Movement Training for Humans

5 ways to set up a successful outdoor movement practice

While setting up your movement practice outdoors may seem challenging at first, the benefits of getting out to move in nature are hard to ignore.

An outdoor movement practice gives you…

Exposure to the sun, which is important for mood regulation, hormonal health, stress reduction, and sleep quality.
Exposure to beneficial microbes that improve your immune function and elevate your mood.
It gives you the chance to encounter wild animals, gaze upon beautiful vistas and get up close and personal with trees, rocks, water, and wildflowers. I regularly see bald eagles, osprey, woodpeckers, sharp shinned hawks, harbor seals, and sometimes even river otters and coyotes during my training. This is a huge highlight of natural movement practice that is often overlooked.
If you can bring other people into your training practice, you have layered in positive social engagement which is something we all need. You will feel a deeper sense of connection and tribe with those partners through exploring nature and roughhousing together, more than any training in the gym is ever likely to give you.

Keep all those benefits in mind as you start up your natural movement practice.

So, how do you actually get started? First, make a plan to to stick to the natural movement practic

Five key ways to start and stick with your outdoor practice

Make a Commitment:
Start by committing to six weeks of training outdoors. If you can, getting out at least twice a week allows you one day to explore new areas and one day to revisit an old site.
Explore Your Area:
Open Google Maps or another mapping site, and pick out all the local parks nearby that are likely to have good trees, rocks and other elements for natural movement. Plan to visit a new park every week for the next six weeks.
Start Simple & Explore Your Movement:
When you find a place to train, start with what you know. Jog around the trail at the park, do pull ups on a branch or box jumps onto a rock or log. Just be sure to get into a tree, get on top of a rock, or jump over something every time you go out.
You won’t see what is possible in the environment until you start interacting with it regularly. By starting off slow, you can safely get to know your abilities and the features of your spot, and eventually you can begin to expand the movements you’re practicing within them.
The trees in your local park may not look as perfect as the ones you see in our videos, but climb anyway and see what you find.
You’ll slowly build up a vision for how to move in your own native natural environment, and the world will become more and more enriched with movement potentials!
Keep a journal:
Log how you feel and what you learn after each session. Be sure to note breakthrough moments, wins, questions that arise, and even when you notice fear, hesitancy, or frustration. All of these things are natural, and by keeping track of when certain feelings arise, where our motivations lie, and how our learning progresses, we are taking a much more active role in farming insights from our practice that will help us grow.
Grow Your Tribe:
Recruit friends or family to train with you. You can also see if there is anyone else in your area on the Evolve Move Play Facebook group, or look for other online movement groups like parkour, rock climbing, etc., where people might be willing to go out and train with you.

Once you have established your outdoor practice, you’re going to be gaining so much more from your movement, the gym will always be there as a back up or means towards specific goals, but you may well find it is hard to to want to go back!

Ready to take your movement practice

to the next level?

Register for one of our Natural Movement Online Courses to help you learn the fundamentals, improve your skill, and build your overall fitness with natural parkour.

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5 ways to set up a successful outdoor movement practice

An outdoor movement practice gives you…

Five key ways to start and stick with your outdoor practice

Ready to take your movement practice

to the next level?

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