By Gloves Club Founder Tony Riddle.
I look to my children as my educators in movement. They never seize to amaze me, they teach me every day and I get to pass this knowledge on to others. That's right, It isn't just us, that educates them, our kids are our educators too!
They crawl, squat, jump, lift, carry, throw, balance, walk, run, hang and climb all with ease and great skill, fearlessly I would like to add.
In return, I have to encourage, not discourage their movement practice. I have to show great examples of this too.
If I don't, who will?
Some compromised, frustrated PE teacher who has been entrusted to look after the physical health of my child, that's who!
Well not on my watch!
The irony is; I go off and study with the best and re-learn the very things that my kids have inherited from me and are already naturally skilled at. This is what I class as my duty as a parent and a tribal elder, if it is something I have lost. I need to go out and gain the skill to coach them.
In a world obsessed with the intellectual mind.
We of course want them to do well academically, but to take these beautiful movement systems away with "Sit down, Don't move, Absorb this, Get down from there, Come away from the edge and Be careful of that, along with the usual chorus of of fear based crap" is a bloody outrage!
If like my daughters, you were carried around in a sling you would have learnt the pushing, pulling, grabbing and extension reflexes early. If you were kept in a baby carrier, a buggy and a car seat you have had these systems taken away. Bam! that's the attachment theory right there!
We could even be so bold as to call it "the movement connection theory" or "the movement disconnection theory". depending on where your base camp is.
Movement that should come naturally to us all
A baby/toddler will learn to grab and grip earlier than anything else. They will climb earlier than many of their other locomotive skills. Brachiation is fundamental to us; hanging, pulling, climbing are all just as fundamental to us as running. We were in fact tree dwellers and climbers before we became runners. (if you believe in evolution like I do ) Yet most can't hang on a bar and hold their own bodyweight in their hands due to their lack of grip strength for more than 20 seconds, and this is where reductionism has its place. You need to know the code to break the fear and build the layers and strip the movement right back. Look at the end result and be able to trace all the way back to where the individual is compromised, have the unique set of Liam Nielsen skills to select the 20% input towards the 80% of output, and not get caught up in selecting BS movements like the Lat Pull down that have no over lapping theory to that end result.
In fact for a large proportion of the zoo it's like an emotional bomb going off in their head to even think they could carry out what should be natural to them. Don't forget a lot of people have been containerised for so long it would be irresponsible to coach them without the correct prep work. They have lost the "HOW TO" but it doesn't mean they don't have the desire to, or the hardwiring (inherent knowledge). It is more the case that the only perception they have had of exercise is to sit in another container pushing levers like a chimp in an experimental lab. "Push this handle 15x and you will receive 1 muscle group and a protein bar."
Shoulder injuries are just as rife as knee and lower back problems. It's time we all got a grip and started hanging around a different kind of bar! We can blame the compromising chair and footwear for a multitude of sins, but the lack of hanging and climbing is just as detrimental to our innate movement system. That's "innate" not "inept"movement system!
Time to Take The Gloves Off and Toughen UP.
Climbing specifics:
Yes squat, yes go barefoot, but please don't neglect a good hang out with your mates!
