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I’m staring up at the corner of the room with my head slightly turned and my arms folded.

I’m standing in front of someone I’ve just met this evening in the student accommodation where I live.

She’s just asked me a simple question that I don’t have the answer to.

It’s also the four hundred seventy-second time I’ve been asked this question.

“What is a Movement Practice?”

I’d love to give you a straight answer

But it’s complicated…

If we look at the word “Movement” for a second, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

Movement could be anything

And that’s the point.

The mind doesn’t like when things ARE NOT definable and easy to categorise.

If someone tells you they do Yoga

Then straight away your brain has brought up a catalogue of experiences and personal knowledge about Yoga and what it looks like.

The brain is an association machine.

The issue now is that you have trapped what they do in a box that is hard to get out of.

Because you heard “Yoga”, everything they say from now on will likely be associated with Yoga.

It’s similar to Taoist philosophy.

They talk about the linguistic constraints that naming the Tao does to it.

When you think you have defined it, you have lost what it truly is…

So this is the predicament I found myself in for the four hundred seventy-second time.

But this time I thought of an analogy.

Think of “Movement” as an umbrella term.

There are aspects of different fields like acrobatics, dance, martial arts, parkour, athleticism etc.

The list is endless.

When it comes to a “Movement Practice”, there’s really license to do whatever you want in combining different aspects of various disciplines.

No one Movement Practice is the same.

It’s about developing a robust range of qualities and abilities in the body through a multidisciplinary approach.

Of course, we don’t want it to be a jumbled mess of things with no aim.

Then we just have a soup of movement where nothing is achieved.

(This is a big problem I see within the movement space!)

When developing the body, we need to give each aspect its due time.

My aim is to give you a taste of these elements and what they have to offer with this Movement Practice Masterclass.

We’ll discuss theory where relevant and I’ll also deliver some practical tools for you to try in your practice as well.

As I mentioned yesterday,

Try to be a vessel over the next 30 days and really sit and contemplate each piece.

Today I want you to consider where labels and categorising have hindered your thinking around movement and your own approach.

For me, I knew deep down that this was at the heart of what I wanted out of moving the body.

I didn’t want to be limited by one discipline but that’s where I found myself at one stage in life.

Now I’m able to explore all aspects of moving the body and I’m not limited to one thing.

See you on the next one,

Ronan