Weekly musings, 2/18/17: Overuse and the middle

At a workshop I attended recently, several times during the observation period, people noted their movement tendencies. One woman preferred rotating one direction, another young man was frustrated he only had one strategy for avoiding an object. The instructor commented late in the day after another habitual pattern was observed, “it seems the metrics are overuse, if there’s any use at all.”

In the US, we tend to “go hard or go home.” We don’t like to slow down and take a moment to observe our actions and the consequences of our actions. Movement illustrates this concept so well- every time we move, no matter how subtle, there is a response in the entire body. The consequence, then, is the change in how we hold ourselves as we respond to the shift.

The instructor is an Israeli man, living in Barcelona. He has studied and taught movement all over the world. He was not trying to be cheeky or profound with his statement- he was simply voicing his observations. I had a woman recently contact me for training, only to call back before we started to tell me, “I’m not ready.” Though I had mentioned in our consultation that my style is a little unusual, I got the sense she envisioned training the way it is often depicted in television shows and movies- with lots of discomfort, pained looks, and soreness. The all or nothing approach serves no one over the long term. Finding the middle way and taking the time to slow down, move in ways that are unusual, and be less connected to succeeding or failing allows general fitness to become sustainable.