Move Like You're Meant To

We all know more movement is better than less, but there’s a growing community who think some movement is more nourishing than others. Followers of the “movement culture” are ditching weights and treadmills to move the way we evolved to — and it’s spreading fast.

- Josh Doyle

The first time you see them, crawling along the floor like yogi marines or standing in a row turning their spines into undulating waves, you’re more likely to think it’s an interpretive dance performance than a fitness class. And you’d be right about one thing: it’s not fitness. It’s movement.

The “movement culture” is spreading. It’s making waves in the fitness world, asking important questions about traditional exercise programs, like “Why am I doing three exercises just for my biceps?” Its followers are ditching their restricting machines to crawl across the floor and flow with partners. They’re making use of real, natural movement, often with nothing more than their own arms and legs, the floor and maybe the occasional tennis ball. The result? They’re finding greater strength and mobility, and sustaining it for longer as they age.

“We try to teach people to move the way humans evolved to,” says Rafe Kelley. After a life of teaching parkour and gymnastics he created Evolve Move Play, an organisation with the goal of helping people move in more human ways. You can find his students working on joint mobility in parks, jumping across rocks at the beach, manoeuvring through trees and trying to push each other off logs.

If it sounds fringe or New Age, you only need to see Kelley’s schedule to know it won’t be that way for long. Last year he held camps in Hamburg, Copenhagen and all over the US. This year he’s set to teach in Perth, Sydney, Shanghai, Croatia and even Borneo, where his students will fly in from around the world and stay in treetop cabins throughout the event.