Movement Training for Humans
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Inspiration 11/19/14 mountain running
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Inspiration 11/19/14 mountain running

I hated long distance running for most of my life as an athlete. My first mentor in physical culture who got me started weight lifting(useless machine stuff) at 13 was a runner he tried to get me to run with him but I found running long distances unutterably boring and painful without any real reward.

As a power athlete involved in gymnastics, weight lifting and parkour, influenced by thinkers in track and field and team sport strength and conditioning it has always been easy for me to find people confirming the view that long distance running is destructive to the type of athleticism I cared about.

Over the last few years my position has shifted I have seen more good arguments made about how attaining a good aerobic base aids athletic development in general, as long as it pursued in a balanced way and not in excess.

As I moved from training in the city to training in the woods I found the spots I wanted to play in were often quite far apart and being able to go from one place to another quickly and have energy left to play became increasingly intriguing.

It was actually capoeira that unlocked distance running for me. The aerobic development I got from florieo and rhoda work gave me the the wind to run, and with years of working on my sprinting form for the first time in my life it simply felt easy and good to run a couple miles to get from one place to another or to end a training session.

When you find a good rhythm in a long run it is very freeing and meditative experience seeing the beauty of the world as you pass lightly through it.

I saw this video today and it spoke to that experience for me, and of the relatively under explored overlap between complex locomotive movement disciplines like parkour and endurance running.

The environments featured here are complex and chaotic, balance and agility are required as well as endurance, expressing those attributes when fatigued from a long run is a beautiful thing to be capable of.

I will definitely be devoting a training session in the near future to continuous movement through some similar environments in my local area.

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