MVMNT is a Movement
The first time that I worked out at a gym was a total joke.
I mean that literally. My best friend in college and I went to the school weight room as a joke. We wore hoodies and pulled the hoods up while we sang the Rocky theme song and “raced” each other on stationary bikes. We played with all the machines and made faces and dumb noises and snarky comments under our breath about the “dumb jocks” who were taking it seriously.
As soon as we got outside, we both lit up cigarettes and exclaimed, “To your health!”
We thought we were hilarious. We were also total assholes. I went to a hippy liberal arts college that didn’t even have grades, let alone official sports teams, so those “dumb jocks” were just people trying to workout.
The weird thing was, peddling like a maniac on that bike had felt really good and there was something compelling about seeing how much I could lift on the machines that broke through my smug attitude. I hadn’t expected to like the gym. I insisted we go back.
We returned about three times a week for the next few months. I don’t remember exactly how long we went for (this was almost 25 years ago), our attendance petering out to nothing before the end of the semester.
It took almost a decade after that for me to begin the movement and strength journey that would become a consistent, daily part of my life for the last fifteen-plus years, but two things about that brief, first gym experience still stand out for me.
First, I remember how much I liked pushing myself and how surprising that was to me.
I was never “sporty” as a kid; in fact, I was a stereotypical nerd: I wore glasses, I was uncoordinated, and I was always picked last in gym class. Because I was told at a young age that my scoliosis would prevent me from being athletic and that I should actively avoid most training activities, I took for granted that anything concerning athletics, strength, or physical culture just wasn’t a part of who I was or who I could be. But I was having an almost opposite experience in the gym, and it ran counter to everything I had believed about myself up to that point.
Testing my strength and working hard felt natural, like something my body could and should be doing. I felt different after that first workout, even if it was a joke; it was a kind of rush I had never experienced, the feeling of a job well done combined with a natural calm, centered state.
Of course, the in-the-moment experience of working hard in the gym isn’t necessarily a “fun” feeling, but at the end of each workout I felt like I was coming home to a part of myself that I hadn’t even known about.
It would take almost twenty more years for me to realize what this feeling was. I was coming home to my body.
The other thing I remember about that early gym experience is that I felt very, very out of place.
There was an invisible, uncrossable line dividing me from those “dumb jocks” in college, just like there had been in the high school social strata, and all the way back in elementary school gym class.
It was clear to me that they belonged there, and I didn’t. I saw that because I believed it, and I believed it because I had been told that from the beginning.
It can be tremendously challenging to get past the labels that are put on us as we grow up; and those labels ultimately harden into ways of being that often don’t fit us at all. Ways of being that we rarely conceive of having the freedom to step away from.
As a kid, I was labeled a “nerd,” and when I was old enough to choose my own identity, I changed that label to “rebel.” I smoked, I dyed my hair black, I definitely didn’t work out. Working out was for bullies who only cared about their looks.
Trapped inside these labels, it was almost impossible for me to reconcile who I was told I was with who I thought I was, let alone imagine that I could be something else entirely.
Because I was never told that I have just as much of a right to movement and strength as anyone else it took me far, far too long to claim those things as my own.
• • •
Movement is for everybody. Movement is for every body.
Yes, this means you! You and your body, too!
When I finally began my journey with movement and strength in earnest, I quickly realized what a misfit I was.
Not for the reasons that I had been told. It wasn’t because I was too clumsy or not “sporty” enough, it wasn’t because I was chubby, or a nerd. It was because I saw past the arbitrary social divisions that dictate who belongs in the gym and who doesn’t. I intuitively recognized the truth that movement is an integral part of each and every one of us.
Movement is a part of us because our bodies need it. But to understand the depth of that fact we must understand that our bodies are more than just bodies.
Take a moment with these questions: When you feel sad, where do you feel that? When you’re happy, where do you feel that? When you concentrate on figuring out a problem, where do you feel that? When you realize you’ve found the solution to that problem, where do you feel that?
You feel it in your body!
Your emotions, your mind, in fact every single part of your human experience is housed in your body.
We know that we’re experiencing an emotion because we literally feel it in our bodily sensations. Heartache. A gut feeling. Shaking with rage. Floating on cloud nine. We are capable of sharing our emotions with others in a way that truly resonates by describing the physical sensations that accompany them.
Despite how we treat them, our bodies are not just cars that our brains drive around. Our nervous system (which is a part of our brains) extends throughout and ennervates our entire body; brain and body are woven together to such an extent as to be inseparable.
Our bodies are a single unified unit, not a rattling box of unconnected components, and the movement of our bodies is the matrix through which we collate and experience all aspects of ourselves. To subtract movement from our lives reduces and deadens our experiences. It is comparable to a society without culture.
Movement is, in many ways, what allows us to be, and understand ourselves as, human.
Movement is a part of our shared humanity and you have a right to claim movement as your own, to inhabit it as you come home to your body.
When we embrace movement as a part of us we become part of a revolution.
And what’s another word for a revolution?
A movement!
• • •
Since all revolutions, or movements, begin with the personal, I will share the three entry points that we, as individual people, can use to claim movement as our own.
You may find that just one of these routes to ownership of movement resonates with you. Or all three may call to you as ways that you can break through the invisible, and arbitrary, distinction that society has superimposed on you as not having a right to movement.
I encourage you to read the following with an open mind and an open heart, and to trust your feelings and responses; this very well may be your own body trying to get your attention and ask that you begin to engage with it through movement in one of the following ways.
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1. Movement is a skill.
About six years ago I was laying on the floor of a local gym, so angry I could barely speak.
At that point in time, I considered myself to be a more than competent mover and exerciser. I wanted to directly experience the techniques that this gym was using, in order to educate myself personally and professionally, but I didn’t expect to be overly challenged, let alone struggle.
One of the trainers had noted a gap in my movement ability and when I asked for suggestions as to how I could improve, they enthusiastically shared a basic, daily drill I could practice.
I was completely astonished when I got down onto the floor to try it and found myself floundering. Beyond floundering, actually. I simply could not do this foundational movement.
I covered my embarrassment with some self-deprecating humor, thanked them for their advice, vowed out loud to practice the movement each day until I had mastered it, and continued with my workout, all smiles.
But to be completely honest, I was pissed. Was something wrong with my body? Was I an idiot? How could I be so completely stumped by something so absolutely basic?!?
So, what was it? What was this completely befuddling, infuriating, impossible movement that had reduced my physical abilities to that of an over-cooked lasagna noodle?
Just this: rolling over from my belly onto my back.
I was so pissed about my failure to do something I judged to be so simple that I absolutely did not practice it every day. In fact, any time I even thought about it I would be overcome with anger. Stupid rolling over. Who needs it anyway?
Finally, I relented. I knew that I would never get better at something that I never did.
I practiced rolling over five times to the right and the left each day for two weeks. Within a few days, it felt natural. At the end of the first week, the movement started to feel fluid, even graceful. By the end of the second week it was as easy as pie.
The principles behind my improvement are simple: The greatest driver of change is practice. If we practice, we improve. The reason this works is because movement is a skill.
And because movement is a skill, anyone can learn it and anyone can improve at it -- through practice.
Seeing movement for what it is, a skill that can be improved through practice as opposed to something we are randomly born with, empowers us to claim movement for ourselves. When we claim movement for ourselves, we create our own belonging. We belong in the gym, or on the field, or anywhere that movement is expressed.
You don’t need to be “sporty,” you don’t need to be “naturally talented,” you don’t need to be anyone other than yourself. You simply need to practice.
If we practice, we improve. And we only improve through practice. In the example I shared, when I embraced that it was only through practice that I would create the change I desired, I was empowered to embark on that practice and reap the rewards of it.
I share this with you because it is inevitable that you will feel like I did at some point on your movement journey: angry, frustrated, worried that there is something wrong with your body or that you’re just an idiot.
Movement is a skill. No matter who you are, if you practice, you will improve.
In fact, if you cultivate regularity of practice you can’t escape improvement -- even if you wanted to -- because improvement becomes inevitable! You don’t have to force yourself to get “better,” simply strive to show up and keep showing up and improvement naturally follows.
(If you haven’t yet, check out Part 2: #makeithappen to learn how to cultivate regularity of practice by teaching yourself how to show up and keep showing up.)
As you engage with your practice of movement as a skill, it is helpful to remember two things:
First, practicing a skill requires engaging in the human learning process and that process is mistake-driven.
We only learn when we have room to make mistakes, examine them, and room to try again.
To create the room we need for this process we must treat our failures with kindness, because they are an integral and necessary part of the process, not an obstacle to it.
Second, humility is a key component of practice.
Without a broad foundation we cannot access more complex skills in the future. Consider the mighty pyramids of Egypt. Their broad foundations are what allows them to tower so high.
In movement, building a broad foundation comes through mastery of basic skills. It is incorrect to assume that these basics are “too easy” or otherwise beneath us. Accessing our humility grants us the attention to detail and dedication to our task that is necessary for us to truly master the basics and develop proficiency with more complex skills as we progress.
Practicing the basic skill of rolling is something I still do regularly and it continues to improve my ability to access other more challenging movements as I grow in my training over time.
Make mistakes. Be humble. Practice.
That is the recipe for adopting movement as a skill. When you adopt movement as a skill, you engage with movement as something you can and will improve at.
When you adopt movement as a skill, you are empowered to claim your right to move.
When you adopt movement as a skill, movement belongs to you.
• • •
2. Movement is medicine.
I was nine when the doctor came to school and called us all out of class, one by one. He asked us to turn around, lifted up the back of our shirts, and then asked us to lean forward as he observed our spines.
The note he gave me, and asked me to bring to my parents, told them I should be seen by our family doctor as soon as possible, have an X-ray exam every three months until I stopped growing, and might eventually need to be fitted with a body brace.
As I grew, my spine continued to curve and twist inside of me.
The X-rays looked like I’d swallowed a snake. The doctor’s eyes were serious as he met with me and my parents, “One more degree of curvature, and he’ll need that brace.”
The prospect of wearing an unwieldy plastic body brace 24 hours a day, including to school where I would be sure to stand out, was anxiety-producing for me. But shortly after turning 16 I stopped growing, and all medical intervention stopped as well.
Besides the discomfort and anxiety produced by constant medical evaluation, my diagnosis influenced my life by defining how I could, and couldn’t, move my body and this informed how I saw my body.
The doctor cautioned me early on that I should stay away from any physical activity that might cause me to “excessively” bend my spine. I’m not sure what your grasp of anatomy is like, so I will just say this: the function of the spine is to bend and twist in multiple directions as your body moves, whether through everyday activities or sport.
As I’ve already said, I wasn’t “sporty” as a kid. So this was just fine with me at the time. It even occasionally gave me an out from certain distasteful parts of gym class, like sit-ups.
But as I grew, and most likely because I wasn’t physically active, I started to experience pain anytime that I stood, walked, or sat for longer than about an hour. My experience was that it felt like my body wasn’t strong enough to hold itself up, so though I tried to maintain an upright posture I would slowly slump and then be struck by a piercing ache in my left side.
I saw these two things as facts, as just how my body was: Weak. Painful.
The amazing thing about humans, though, is that we are masters of testing and pushing boundaries. I had lived with scoliosis for almost my entire life and yet no calamity had struck me down. When my body didn’t shatter from my first forays into movement, I kept going, pushing, driven by curiosity and trying for more.
And that’s how I discovered the magic of pull-ups.
Over the summer of 2012 I became obsessed with pull-ups. I had a magic number in my head: ten. Ten pull-ups in a row with good form. If you’d asked me what I wanted for Christmas or my birthday, that was it.
I got a cheap doorway pull-up bar, a resistance band, and a book on bodyweight exercises and got to work.
Now, just in case you are also someone who already is or might become obsessed with pull-ups, let me share some cold, hard truth with you: ten pull-ups in a row with good form is not something you can actually accomplish in just one summer as a beginner.
But fortunately for me, reaching that arbitrary goal wasn’t a requirement for me to receive the medicine of movement.
Through a summer of consistent effort, I went from being able to do just two flailing, teeth-gnashing pull-ups to five clean, smooth, unassisted reps. And two very important things happened as a result of this.
First, my self-image and self-confidence dramatically improved.
I had been dedicated to both yoga and cycling for six years prior to this, but my mind still thought it was living in the body of that little kid diagnosed with scoliosis. I was still mentally trapped inside the story that my body was “weak.”
With measurable evidence in front of me, there was no choice but to accept and embrace myself for who I had become: someone living inside a body that was made stronger through my own efforts.
The even more important change was in the confidence I now had in my ability to improve through sustained practice. And in more ways than just physically. I began to see myself as having the power to influence my situation by making small, steady efforts.
Because I had tangible data showing the results of my efforts I understood that I was capable of creating change.
(As an aside, this is why training to get stronger is superior to training to change the way we look. Training for strength creates tangible, measurable results that lead to self-efficacy, or the knowledge and understanding that we have the means to change and improve our lives.)
I can trace every good thing I have now back to those five pull-ups.
Every accomplishment, and all of the innumerable but vitally important tiny steps I took to get there, are a result of this shift in perception: I was no longer someone who was “powerless” because of a diagnosis I had been handed but someone who could choose to create their own life through the actions I took.
Secondly, I reduced the physical pain that I was experiencing.
(I want to be clear on something: pull-ups feel like “magic” to me because of my experiences, but they are not actually magic. In other words, pull-ups are not a cure-all. If you cannot do pull-ups, or don’t want to do pull-ups, you can absolutely still benefit from the medicine of movement!)
Once I had spent an appreciable amount of time training to make my body stronger, I began to have less physical pain of the type I had been living with for most of my life.
This is important: it wasn’t just the pull-ups. Like any half-way decent strength training program, the book I had read included full-body compound movements that strengthened every area of my body. Getting stronger allowed me to maintain my posture longer, with less effort. And so I experienced less pain.
I will always love pull-ups (even though I sometimes don’t like them) because chasing after them made me into a different person. After I earned those five pull-ups I was stronger, in my body but also in my mind, and I understood that those changes weren't due to magic, but medicine. Medicine that I had chosen and applied.
Medicine can seem like magic if we don’t understand how it works; if we only pay attention to the changes that occur, but not what creates those changes.
Movement is medicine, and to use that medicine effectively, you must understand these three things: Medicine isn’t magic. Medicine isn't immediate. Medicine sometimes doesn’t taste good.
•Medicine isn’t magic.
Movement-as-medicine works because of the simple biological fact that your body requires regular movement to function well and feel good. Just as your body requires food, water, air, and rest to function well and feel good.
When you move your body you are giving it what it needs and it will respond positively to this. Understanding this as medicine, not as something mysterious like “magic,” will help you to consciously, purposefully, and intentionally apply it and get good results.
(Please remember: movement is medicine, but certainly not the only kind, so it is important to go to a doctor when you need stronger, or more, medicine than what movement can provide!)
•Medicine isn’t immediate.
Only in the movies does someone get a shot and then seconds later miraculously recover. Our bodies are organic, not machines. Changes in our bodies take time. Real medicine takes time.
Moving your body is something that must be done regularly and repeatedly in order to accrue the positive changes that you desire.
•Medicine sometimes doesn’t taste good.
We can appreciate, value, and use something that we understand as beneficial, even if we don’t always like the experience that comes with it. Or, like I said earlier, I will always love pull-ups even though I sometimes don’t like them.
Movement can require physical effort, which might feel unpleasant at times. Beyond that, our bodies are more than just bodies. Movement, when practiced with attention, will bring our focus to our minds and emotions, and this can often challenge us far more than physical effort.
When we understand how movement is medicine we will have realistic expectations and can engage with it effectively in order to benefit from the truly transformational aspects of it.
Additionally, when we purposefully harness movement as medicine, we take ownership over the powerful results this medicine provides us. We become the expert on, and primary caretaker for, our body, our wellbeing, and our very life!
• • •
3. Movement is for everybody.
If you glean only one thing from reading my words I sincerely hope that it is this:
You have a right to move.
No matter who you are. No matter how you look. You have a right to engage with your body through movement in ways that feel powerful, joyful, healthy, and good to you. You have a right to move in the ways that you want, that honor your body and your relationship with your body.
Whether that be through the structure of sport or training; through movement as enjoyment, like riding a bike, gardening, or games; through expressive movement such as dance or theater; or something else entirely!
You have a right to move because movement is for everybody.
If you’ve read this far, I doubt that I need to convince you of this.
But I know that even if this is something you believe whole-heartedly, as I do, that you can still experience moments where you feel like you don’t fit in. And you may also experience situations when a group, institution, or business is doing all they can to actively discourage you from joining in.
Undeniably, there is a history, as well as an ongoing reality, of exclusionary practices that impact human movement. Race, dis/ability, gender or gender expression, size, sexuality, and/or class can be some of the reasons that we or others have been, and continue to be, pushed out of the conversation around movement.
This conversation is about more than just dumbbells or yoga mats (even though those can be powerful entry points); the conversation around movement is about something much deeper.
Movement brings us home. This is the greatest homecoming we can ever have: a return to ourselves. This is how we develop the knowledge of who we are and where we stand in the world. We gain an understanding of our personal power, and how to use it to positively impact the world around us. Access to movement is access to freedom.
Being free to engage with movement means being free to engage with our human right to physical autonomy.
Physical autonomy is a human right because it is just as vital as having access to shelter, food, and clean water. It is just as essential to our wellbeing as connecting with our community, engaging with meaningful and sustaining work, and being free from violence or harm.
And the most powerful thing about engaging with our own rights is that it helps us to grow our investment in the rights of others! It makes us eager to share the wholeness and joy we feel, it drives our desire to connect with others, it clarifies why these rights are so important and why equal access is so necessary.
Embracing our right to move is a revolutionary act!
To quote Cherríe Moraga, the massively influential queer, Latinx, activist writer: “The revolution begins at home.” We can begin the revolutionary journey towards movement freedom for all by embracing movement in our own lives.
The movement conversation turns revolutionary when we practice the following:
•Empower the individual as the only source of permission required for that individual to engage with movement and as the ultimate authority when it comes to how that individual engages with movement.
•Approach movement as curious and intelligent explorers, open to having our own complex experiences and capable of adapting to our needs in the present moment.
•Reframe movement as a relationship between ourselves and our bodies; with an emphasis on repairing and building that relationship into a healthy and friendly one.
•Observe the places where we are free and not free to move; extending this generously to all human beings by actively seeking out, listening to, and learning from the voices of those who are asking for the freedom they need.
Movement has been such an important part of my own liberation that I cannot imagine my life without movement at the center.
When I begin working with a client, to highlight the importance of our efforts together, I often tell them, “Everything important I have ever learned, I learned in the gym.” This is not an exaggeration. My movement journey has expanded my life and heart in ways I never thought possible.
I have gained the courage to sit with uncomfortable feelings; the strength to be present, honest, and vulnerable; the patience to show up for long-term processes; the grit to take action even when I’m not “ready” or “perfect;” and the compassion to meet myself and others where we are at. I have been able to connect with my own humanity in the deepest and most exquisite ways.
And all of this has allowed me to form loving and sweet connections with myself and with others.
I keep moving because I know that movement is for me, even when I was told it wasn’t.
I have fought for my right to move, even when I was told the lie that movement wasn’t for me because of who I am or how my body is. And this is also true: I have been able to wage that fight because of invisible privileges that allowed me the space and energy required for it. But no one should have to fight to access their right to move.
• • •
If you get moving for no reason other than that you are angry, well, then you and I have something in common! Perhaps, like me, the best way to get you to do something is to have someone tell you that you can’t. I honor your rage. Anger is a gift; it’s the gift of mutable energy, it can be transformed into action, and action creates change.
If you are angry that someone at sometime said you didn’t have a right to movement, or otherwise kept you from your birthright of movement, then use that anger! Focus it like a laser and burn your way to freedom.
And know that the fastest and most lasting route to your own freedom is through fighting for all to be free.
I suggest checking out the following organizations working towards movement freedom for all, supporting them as you are able:
Fitness 4 All Bodies
Women’s Strength Coalition
Pull For Pride
Information on supporting trans youth in sport
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Thank you for reading what I have to say about movement, it would mean so much to me if you would fill out this short feedback survey, so that I can improve the ways I work toward creating more movement freedom for all.