Movement is the foundation of our lives. It’s a biological necessity, and the bedrock of high levels of health, energy, well-being, resiliency, and also happiness and creativity.
My life’s work consists of teaching people about natural, efficient movement. A student of physical training history, I have discovered that there is a huge distance between our contemporary physical activity, or lack thereof, and the way humans used to move naturally through wild environments. We are to our ancestors as Chihuahuas are to wolves—we’re not physically strong or capable, and our lack of physical competency is not even an embarrassing condition anymore.
Most of us can’t climb a tree, run skillfully over challenging terrains, carry a heavy load long distances, or jump over a large gap. The way we physically train and condition our bodies in modern gyms is for the most part restrictive, too often shaped by machines or based on muscle isolation. It is mechanistic, repetitive, and just plain impractical. I believe we need programs based on functional, practical movements, movements that apply to real-world tasks and challenges, in order to prepare and use our bodies, and live our lives to their full potential.
With that approach and purpose in mind, I have created MovNat, a school of physical competency entirely based on natural movement, which includes the locomotive skills of walking, running, balancing, crawling, jumping, climbing and swimming, the manipulative skills of lifting, carrying, throwing and catching, and the defensive skills of striking and grappling. The most important principles of natural movement are practicality and adaptability—practicality because the movements are useful to real life in a direct, tangible fashion, and adaptability because natural movement demands high levels of adaptability to a great variety of environmental and situational demands.
Every day, our certified trainers teach people how to recondition their bodies with natural, useful movements and skills that will enhance not only their physical experience of the world, but also their mental, emotional, and spiritual lives. Because make no mistake—it’s not just our bodies suffering from our cultural lack of movement. Our minds, our hearts, and our entire lives are suffering. Real, natural movement is freedom—and right now, we may as well be caged animals.
If movement is truly the foundation of life, the foundation of that foundation lies where you might expect it: at the bottom. The feet. We are bipedal animals, and even though our movement abilities are quite versatile, most often we will find ourselves moving on our feet. Naturally, the healthy, efficient function of our feet is essential to healthy, efficient movement.
Just like the rest of the body, feet hold unbelievable, untapped potential. My feet—bare, throughout consistent practice—take me along clifftops, up tree trunks, down steep riverbanks, and across fields. I feel earth, rock, bark, sand, and water with my feet. I can feel the cold grass in the morning before the sun comes up, and the warmth of sunlight lingering in boulders at dusk.
But most of us have caged our feet along with the rest of our bodies; our parents strapped us into shoes as soon as we could walk. Special shoes for running, for school, for dance, for almost every specialized sport—even for being at home. Because of our shoe-wearing culture, most people never get to feel the incredible array of sensory information the world has to offer unshod feet, never realize the wonderful strength and flexibility their feet can achieve. Even if we were barefoot most of the time, the artificial surfaces we step on every day are flat, predictable, unchallenging… unnatural.
You cannot achieve efficient, full-body natural movements if your feet can’t move naturally, or functionally. And you cannot force feet that have been in cages from birth to suddenly be naturally functional, especially not on uneven natural terrains and surfaces. Just as my students cannot necessarily move with efficiency as soon as they run, jump or climb, we can’t expect that our feet will become healthy again overnight just by taking off our shoes. MovNat is methodical and progressive, focused on proper form for the highest performance and health, and Katy Bowman’s work in Whole Body Barefoot is the same. By following Katy’s program to lay the foundation for natural foot movement in yourself, you can free your feet and start to achieve the excellence your body and your life deserve—step by step.
Erwan LeCorre
Creator of MovNat and author of The Natural Movement Book Santa Fe, New Mexico