CNY mood is round the corner. It’s again the time of the year we get together with friends and relatives from near and far. Often, I hear older relatives disclosing their inability to do certain things at their age during our yearly gathering.
The usual things I heard people said are:-
-No longer able to lift heavy stuff from the floor
-cannot walk while shopping at the mall without certain discomfort
-not able to use squat toilets anymore
-not able to raise their arms anymore
-easily sprain their neck after sleeping on hotel pillow that is too high or too low
-cannot sit long without back support
-definitely not running, jumping and hiking anymore for decades and never dream of doing it again
-and certainly in their entire life, never take the head back to look at the moon and stars without fear of breaking the neck.
In today’s society, being able to do things that once were normal activities for all people is now considered something almost incredible.
Originally, squatting was not done for gaining mobility but to enable people to cook, work, rest, poop or give birth and the mobility is further enhanced in the process of repeating such activity. Bending and lifting heavy loads are not about being strong but those activities are needed to carry children, bring ripe crops from the farm. Jumping was about crossing a stream.
Today, most of us can operate devices and technology more effectively than we can operate our own body movement beyond sitting, standing and walking a short distance.
And people are openly revealing such lack of competency and no longer an embarrassment and it’s socially acceptable norm. We don’t even question it simply because we don’t realise there is an issue.
And for those of us who can sit, walk, jump, balance, bending and carrying stuff, to some extend, at least. But can everyone perform such movement skillfully without fear of straining the body?
The question is, how much clarity do we know about our aim and purpose of providing better movement health when it comes to exercise so that we have more movement capacity when we are there, at “their age”.
Catalist movement is about building real world capability which itself starts from movement competency and physical capacity where practicality becomes core ground in our training.
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