Sports, Workout, Exercise, Movement

5.0.04

A Generalist’s Perspective

How the multipotentialite nature may project into a way one explores their body and its capabilities.

"In sports, to be declared an individual of superior physical value, it is enough to carry out an exceptional performance, even if that person is hopeless in other kinds of exercises. The records established by the specialists thus distort the outlook on the value of the individual who is capable in a complete and practical way. The latter, being capable of all kind of exercises, yet cannot reach the performances of the specialists." - Georges Hebert

Sports is not a bullet point list of exercises or expertly tips, I rather see it as a narrative: A physical story of me. A story of a mind hosted by a body. A story of hating and loving it. A story of a constant restoration of vitality. A story of seeking social approval. A story of (not) being comfortable in it. All those interwoven...

A story of living in my body

I started as a nerdy fragile boy who was hopeless in all the ball games, terrified of water and pole-climbing, but curiously skilled in some other athletic disciplines. ("Running away" - fast - was my favorite. 😎) I just did not want to achieve anything there. I only wanted to pass - off the radar.

🏋️ As a "frustrated teenager" I got enchanted (as everyone here in the eastern Europe) by the "cargo cult" of the action-hero movies of 80s and 90s, imported from the west on VHS. That naturally led me to a gym: barbells, machines, proteine shakes. Some collateral erotics of the testosteron-infused space providing an extra queer incentive. But ... it was also boring, debilitating, unengaging. 🏃 I tried running, but that made me feel like a hamster in a wheel.

🧘‍♂️ Later on, out of curiosity, I started a yoga practice. First with random book, TV and/or live instructors - soon just on my own. Not knowing what school/direction (ashtanga, hatha, power, hot, nude 🤦‍♂️ ) to choose - and not willing to sing 🕉️ & imitate a religious awe 🙏 - I started developing my personal eclectic style tailored to my own needs. (I admit - I can’t stand most of the yoga teachers, sorry. 😶 ) After a few years of following two paradigms (1. vague "manly" strength + muscle volume | vs | 2. flexibility + balance + aesthetics + spirituality), I realized I cannot exist in / work with my body in two contradictory ways. So I dropped the barbells and continued with yoga only. Here and there I tried reflexology massage (foot fetish 😈 + esotherics! 😇 ), or Thai-massage courses ... to some extent. Until the enthusiasm wore out, right?

🐵 In a course of life I got cross-inspired by a lot of other inputs. Several of my friends did some sort of body-work (massage, different therapies, qi gong, tai chi, Alexander technique, Feldenkreis, Rolfing) - and even if I was not a "pro", I sponged inputs on different conceptualizations of how to understand body and how to work with it.

🕴️ While I have a thorny/sarcastic relationship with post-modernist tenets in arts, still I had some contemporary dance performers and choreographers around me - and saw more "performances" than a "usual normal laic" does. 🙃 If nothing else, I learned to perceive some subtle qualities of movement (e.g. the way how cowboy macho 🤠 "full of masculine pain" carries himself, performs the adopted masculine patterns), recognizing that there is something like "the movement phrases" and "the movement cliches" (everyday body "acting"). Appreciating authenticity, fluidity, adequacy of relaxation and tension, the range of movement, the diversity of it ("the vocabulary") ... instead of the mere static physical looks.

Diverging and converging

"The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways." - Robert Greene

🏊‍♀️ In the meanwhile, despite the fear of water, I learned to swim - which then served multiple purposes in my life - as an exercise, a form of meditation, a destination for my trips in the summer (lakes), but also it contained a certain erotic lure. 🤷‍♂️

🧗‍♀️ Despite my fear of heights, I started indoor climbing, later on subscribed to a course of outdoor climbing and later on switched to a low-key low-heights bouldering. I loved that it was a non-competitive activity, the dependence on one’s own skills but with a necessary trust towards the partner. My fingers and feet holding up the whole of e on a rock - as a counterbalance to the keyboard typing. 😁 And I loved the way it shaped the bodies of the professional climbers - not really inflated mountains of muscles, but toned to a precision, balanced, almost ideal.

🚶 I developed a habit of walking kilometers/miles all around the town instead of using the public transport. 🚴 I got inspired to cycle to work - and soon the bicycle has become almost "a part of my body", my universal means of transport: Take a bike and a huge mountain bag, go across the borders, do some museums, ride elsewhere for a lunch, then swimming in the lake at the other end of the city, then do a monthly volume of shopping and then cycle back home with this towering bag. 😄 I really loved that idea of "sports" as a natural byproduct of everyday life ... not an artificial self-serving addition to it. You know, compared to going into an artificial gym room, tube light, A/C, and burning electricity for running on a belt ( 🙆‍♂️ 🤦‍♂️ 🤷‍♂️ ) - that gets you nowhere in a literal sense. 🏞️ Once there were companions, I gladly started with mountain hiking - traveling, nature, conversations, experience and movement all combined in one.

"A specialist mind is a slave to his specialization" - Mokokoma Mokhonoana

❓ By that time, aside of the yoga softness - "philosophy" and "woo-woo" 🧘‍♂️ - I really craved to enrich my physical practice with something more ... uhm, 🤼‍♂️ "male", "with more power", but not "macho" or dumb. Briefly I tried cross-fit ... the thingy for young invincible males showing off and fetishizing how much did they "destroy themselves" on the last training. Of course I did not like it. I love my body-home and do not wish to express that love by pushing it to the brink of exhaustion. The social/group aspect of cross-fit was nice, but that did not redeem the technically amateurish "couching" by the unbreakable Sports Faculty students.

❗ I tried something new again - a so called "movement academy" in my town. Meeting there two particularly gifted instructors. Imagine a blend of ... gymnastics, calisthenics, street-workout, yoga, breathing exercises, martial-arts inspiration, outdoor play, ball-games, running, dance, archery... Not selecting out one particular goal, but developing in complexity: Dynamics, balance, strength, flexibility, precision, aesthetics, health, ... one might call it a "primary (re)education in basic usage of ones body". Quality before the quantity. How to do very fundamental things - walking, jumping, hanging, squats, sitting, taking an object, throwing it, catching it - in a diverse ways, in what situations to apply which one, how to do it safely, intelligently, efficiently, mindfully, purposefully. Abandoning the old habits, relearning things that we somehow monkey-saw-monkey-did as youngsters. Rediscovering one’s own body from the scratch.

There was even this aspect that many multipotentialites will recognize: While I had some pretty solid prerequisites (even if I can be quite clumsy 😵‍💫 ) and while after years of this new practice I got rather skilled - I still preferred to pick "basics" trainings. Because of the naturally-talented lector, but particularly because I developed "an awareness" in which I was not ashamed to learn the basics continuously. I found "the beginners lessons" to be an infinite source of new useful information, even being myself on an advanced level.

This was a mayhem where all generations - from the all-powerful twenty-something(s) to the challenged above fifty-something(s) - practiced together. There were the sporty types as well as the sports anti-talents. They were not there to "win medals" but to learn to live in their bodies and to play with them. People with various traumas from the P.E. of the school years, or accidents, or diminishing abilities along the age progress. We did not "exercise" in a regular sense, we did not "work out" - but rather played and learned outdoors - in any season of the year, any weather. Not just doing the isolated geometrical movements with machines to build a particular muscle - but using the whole body, seeing the interconnections - muscles, organs, movements, breathing, focus, habits, skills. Awareness of the environment, presence, every movement as complex co-play of multiple elements of the body.

Sports for specialists - movement for generalists

"No single exercise can represent the full spectrum of human movement". - Gray Cook

One of the key paradigm shifts - a colossal one - in the contemporary knowledge and practice is heading from the "sports" towards the "movement". This inspiration perhaps came through the contemporary dancers and performers who already long time ago abandoned "pleasing" twirling patterns 💃, stiff ballet poses 🩰, cool video-clip choreographies 👯‍♂️ and other phrases 🕺 and started to inspect how and why we perform with our bodies in everyday life. How we express moods, social status, gender stereotypes, injuries and pains, or just following the crowd. Through in-between-ers like Ido Portal this new perspective entered also into an exercise practice.

One of my trainers distinguished between the sportsmen and the "move-men". The whole philosophy of it. Do you exercise because you want to compete and to win - in one specialized discipline, developing/deforming your body peculiarly for the sake of that specialized need? Or do you move because movement is natural for the body, because it is what it was made/evolved for, because it needs to develop diverse capabilities for a plethora of tasks? Yes, this is a quite a specialist/generalist question.

"Natural movement has always been and will always be a timeless biological necessity." - Erwan Le Corre

Unfortunately, for many, "the sport" has become a synonym for watching sports - on TV or at the stadium. Personally, I do not indulge either. While I have no sentimental feelings for the concept of "sport" itself, I wonder how many can call "watching" "admiring" "following" - a sport. It’s not just a problem of specialization of a body to one task, but the division of the society into a few chosen experts - the stars - and the crowd of passive audience, who swallow hot-dogs and cola or beer, while their bellies grow.

"Before beginning a program of physical inactivity, see your doctor. Sedentary living is abnormal and dangerous to your health." - Frank Forencich

Of course, sports celebrities may "motivate" the followers. Football is watched and played by many "inspired" amateurs, skiing or hockey alike. But many highly specialized disciplines have no amateur clubs for adults. If you are not the best of the best, in your apex youthful strength and worthy of representing the nation at the Olympics - "there is no need for you to do it". Just watch the "pros" and applaud.

So many people still admire and imitate professional runners, cyclists, swimmers etc. "Pick one specialization. Define what you are. Work hard on that one skill. Compete. Clench the teeth. Push the limits. Be the best. Win." And if you don’t win, buy a lot of technical gadgets. Measure: (mili)seconds. Kilometers. Steps. Heartbeat. VO2. Wear functional garments. "Look like a pro - talk like a pro." We know how the contemporary amateur practice of the average population feels like: Looking up religiously to the icons, fetishizing the tools and the numbers.

I can’t avoid the controversy of competition here. They say: "It is natural." "It is an incentive to grow." "It stimulates us to show the best of us." Do we push competition everywhere (school, business, workplace, love affairs, science teams, even artistic awards) - because it is natural, or simply because we just see it everywhere - in language idioms, social habits, cultural cliches. It becomes a question of a chicken and the egg. The generations are educated to compete, not knowing any other "way to be". Is it unavoidable? Is it in our genes? Is it always beneficial? Scientists and artists would disagree.

"Through the evolutionary process, those who are able to engage in social cooperation of various sorts do better in survival and reproduction." - Robert Nozick

The whole culture behind it is stunning - the sports channels, the ridiculous sports pages in the "serious" news, the overexcited sports commentators, the crowds of millions just sitting in the auditorium going crazy over the few chosen stars (the experts) to do something. The combative sports. The "football religion" in some countries. The hockey mentality ("are you on this team or that team", "what color of the dress you wear", "are you with us or with them", "who will win and who will lose", "who will be the best") - infesting everything. The "competition-is-a-natural-thing" brainwashing since childhood may make us think it is natural, "it was always like this", "everyone is like this", make us feel like there is no other paradigm: Faster. Higher. Bigger. Better than the others. Winning.

"Remember that there is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self." - W.L. Sheldon

What if you just try to be, be comfortable, be healthy as you are?

💪 What if you don’t inflate the muscles into a volume ("the bigger the better") - with purely decorative function ("because it is sexy", "because it’s what everyone wants", "because this is what all the porn is about")? A business habit - stunning wrapping without content, just to sell. What if you are satisfied with a body where every fiber represents a capability. A body that looks like exactly what you are using it and need it for? Maybe it does not need to be huge (and ridiculously immobile). Efficient and not just for the effect.

"Few people actually want to be fit; most just want to look fit." - Erwan Le Corre

They call it a "functional strength". I know this may be quite a shift in thinking - in the context of the male world, straight and gay. Muscles fetish. Size fetish. Appearance fetish. But imagine a body of a climber, tri-athlete, MMA fighter? Slim, toned, agile, flexible and strong in the same time. A different type of aesthetics.

A few years since rediscovering movement, I found out a few names that my trainers were inspired by. Ido Portal - is a sort of a cliche. Erwan Le Corre’s MovNat ("Mouvement Naturel") read to me as the most complex and the most inspiring system so far. Le Corre redefines the whole philosophy of why we move. Not to sculpt a specific fashionable body type, or to execute the debilitatingly repetitive exercises ("what the other guys in the gym do") in the sterile fitness centers.

A movement that is complex. A movement that is diverse, unspecialized, generalist in some sense. A movement set in the real environment, in all possible weathers and seasons - not just in the idealized "safe conditions" on the carpet with A/C on. A movement that your head cannot sleep through. There was some research on brain (in)activity of the gym bunnies as well as the yoga robots - the neurons of both these groups were "sleeping", i.e. unstimulated. Defocused, "not there". While you may think this is fine - many people exercise to "switch off their heads" after work - doing any movement while "not being there" can be dangerous. From not really achieving that counterbalance that we needed for our intellectual life, through developing a wrong/inefficient movement pattern to actually hurting oneself.

"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." - Arthur Ashe

A movement that is not motivated only by individualism (how do I look, how much I eat) and competition (who am I mirroring, who am I beating). A movement that serves a purpose, teaches you how to use your body in the real tasks and activities (yes, going to shop, loading a truck, sitting at work, carrying a child, catching a falling glass, reaching out to that annoyingly entangled cable), helps you in your everyday life, or even can save someone’s life. E.g. rescue team or fire-men’s practice has to be complex, they don’t just "lift weights" and "swell volume".

Run, jump over the obstacle, run under it, climb up a tree, walk on a rope, take something, bring it elsewhere, lift a barrier without destroying your back, throw stone out of the way, fall safely, swim, cycle, catch, pick, use, ... and above all: cooperate with the others on a shared goal.

Can you just see how different our (physical) education system could look like, if it was not based on artificial strategic competitive games and picking the seasonal stars, juicing their potential and letting them burn out early in their life? Making the rest feel ... clumsy, inadequate? Making them come up with conclusions like: "Physical stuff was not for me."

I don’t want to but I should

I often hear my friends complaining - that they are lazy, but they have to go to the gym, just not to fade or get fat (or ugly in some way), to manifest a certain aesthetic ideal, to be attractive, or just "manly". They don’t like to be there, it’s monotonous, it’s a routine, it’s repetitive, it’s painful - but it is a "necessary toil". It must be done, because ... So they motivate themselves by paying yearly subscriptions. They motivate themselves by finding buddies who support the regularity. But all this reveals one thing: they struggle with themselves. It’s hard, it’s tedious, it’s a necessary bother (if not evil) ... kind of like a job. Specialized. 🤣

Now imagine me, doing my MovNat-ish practice: First time in my life I did not go to do the exercise "because" ... because I wanted to grow muscles, because I wanted to look attractive, because I wanted to show off with some cool feats, because I wanted to check out sexy guys working-out half-nude or parading fully-nude in the showers. (Well, erotics is part of life, like it or not - some people look at you and some find you attractive 😎 ).

"The pursuit of normality is the ultimate sacrifice of potential." - Faith Jegede

After discovering the complex / generalist natural movement, I was going to the trainings because of the movement itself, not its visual effects. The body looks was not my main goal. Actually everything else was just a pleasant side-effect that I did not even think of most of the time: the shape, the social group, even the erotics. I enjoyed the movement. I felt the real joy while doing it and looking forward to it. It was sort of self-motivating. There was no routine, tediousness, monotony. Not a single one of the hundreds of trainings was like any other one. I played. I had fun. I learned. I did not sleep through my practice as in "executing it mechanically". I embodied my body.

A vulnerable body

Some do not like the happy-ends. And the stories needs also The Trouble. 😄 I do not like it, but it has come anyway, of course. I had to learn that the dis-ease, injuries, recoveries, disappointments, negotiation, accepting my pace, my limits, my need to slow down, giving it some time - are a part of the story of living in my body.

Thus the next chapter are the injuries, surgeries, chronic viral infections, IBS, immune system disorders, allergies, long-covid (CFS/ME) ... and me learning to live not only as an all-mighty young male, but also as a fragile and aging being. 🧙‍♂️ Learning to move within certain constraints, accepting them and making peace with them (unlike clenching teeth, pushing the limits - preached in the sports). Finding my pace.

Well, all that experience of falling and standing up, all those lectures of "listening to your breath", all that working under the various environmental conditions, all that finding a different motivation than competing and winning, all that moving for the pleasure of movement (because it is a natural thing to do for humans) - came handy now. 😄 I find MovNat or all the derived and similar generalist movement education - usefully universal and robust. In physical and philosophical sense.

"Those who do not move do not notice their chains." - Rosa Luxemburg

Inspiration

I invite you to check out these intros. Some of the commentaries provided can be applied much more widely - in various situations in and out of the merely physical practice. A more generalist take on dealing with the situations of life.

Erwann Le Corre | MovNat:

I’d recommend his huge and heavy book "The Practice of Natural Movement" explaining the basics of the "mechanics" of body movement for "regular people". The first chapters are quite philosophical and could be read even as "a manifesto of a generalist". 😉

Natural Movement - Fitness for the Real World (Part 1)

Natural Movement - Fitness For The Real World (Part 2)

Erwan Le Corre Training in Nature | By MovNat

Ido Portal:

Movement Culture - Ido Portal

Waves-Balls-Whips-Rails-Grass-Tendon-Coffee

Conor McGregor - Gunnar Nelson - Ido Portal Movement Training UFC194

Eero Westerberg | Vahva Fitness:

The Great Movement Journey - No Boundaries

Quarantine - "Restriction of Movement"

Notes

The quotations retyped from Le Corre’s The Practice of Natural Movement, the rest of the text is an original, written by me.

I have published this article originally on the paid community portal of PuttyVerse.