Continuing from tuesday’s theme, lifting heavy odd objects is a powerful practice for expanding your manipulative capacity. Of course if we think about lifting in utilitarian context most often when we lift something its because we want to move it somewhere which usually involves carrying(or dragging or pushing). We have talked about the values of weighted carries in general before, today lets look at training with driftwood on the beach.
In Methode Naturelle there as an emphasis on chaining movements, which meant one needed not only to be able to do all of the 10 basic movement patterns in MN but also to link them continuously. Switching between modalities is surprisingly hard even for those who are strong at the individual capacities. Evolve Move Play expands on this concept by training different movement modalities simultaneously, like carrying and balancing, swimming and fighting, and throwing and running(this may or may not have been part of MN I am not aware).
One environment that invites this type of training is a nice beach, driftwood logs offer complex difficult, carrying challenges, while moving on the sand, over the driftwood or boulder fields, offers the chance to combo lifting and carrying with balance and precise footwork. This is huge challenge to proprioception, balance and the ability to effectively transfer strength through the body in a variety of positions.
So today’s challenge is to explore carrying some driftwood around if you can find a good beach. Build yourself a similar sort of set up with stuff you can find in your environment.
