A movement re-evolution – my MovNat experience

Tengeri Fitness Director Stuart Gadenne with MovNat founder Erwan Le Corre

MovNat workshop with Erwan Le Corre, Brisbane, May 2011

It took me 7 hours on buses, 2 ½ hours on planes and more time than I care to think about waiting for connections but it was worth the wait, just for the chance to train with MovNat founder Erwan Le Corre on the two day fundamentals workshop. And it did not disappoint.

For a system that is based on our own evolutionary movements, some of it felt very foreign. After a lifetime of learning the wrong way to move the re-awakening came as a rude shock. My legs burned, I felt like they were made of lead, and this was just after the first session – learning how to ‘walk’.

But after two days of learning techniques for balancing, jumping, climbing, crawling and running, my body felt like it was starting to re-discover something it had forgotten. Kind of like a physical de je vu and it didn’t take me long to remember where – The Army. I remembered having to utilise a lot of these skills in my time in the Special Forces. Odd now that I think about it (and as Erwan pointed out several times) that the movements that I had to use for the job I never practiced. Not once did I find myself out in the field needing to bicep curl or bench press a bar. Yet scaling obstacles, balancing, and climbing became essential at times.

Apart from the tutelage on the mindset and technical aspects of MovNat, the most important thing I took away from the course wasn’t physical at all. It was inspiration. Erwan’s vision and energy is infectious. His philosophy talks left me feeling partly like I was ready to take up a pitch fork, form an angry mob and start destroying  the closest McDonalds, and partly like I’d just stood behind a jet engine of information.

But if you’re not yet willing to let go of the pec deck and leg extensions then MovNat may seem like a total world away from what you consider ‘normal’ training. But in actuality nothing could be more normal or natural. MovNat isn’t for hippies or the fitness fringe, it’s for everyone. I would say that if you care about your health at all and you ever get the chance to train on a MovNat course, do not pass it up. It will take everything you thought you knew about fitness and throw it out, hit the re-set button, and lead you to a fun and efficient way to health.