Moving Efficiently

Time has gently found its way to me tonight at 11:20pm.  Sigh...life is just so hectic.  There's just never enough time for a woman with multiple hats...why oh why did I pile up my plate?  Still, I am so syiok over the amount of new things learned, so, I attempted a new hat over this weekend.  Hence, the pleasure of discovering new things, relevant to my rediscovered hobby (and ambition) that is health and fitness.  Wuhoo!

For the past few months I have been doing a lot of work and research on exercise and diet.  And we have already concluded that everything done in moderation is the best methodology to keep ourselves healthy and age gracefully.  Sadly, however, we've also concluded that our will is horribly weakened by temptation regardless of the amount of information fed repetitively. Even illness fail to change our attitude towards getting healthy (that includes the reality that most of us are lazy, lazy, lazy and use procrastination as our greatest defense).

So, what shall we do?  What shall we do?

In my last post, I mentioned that as much as we train our bodies, we need to reclaim our brains too.  According to the founder of M.E.T, Marcel Daane, our mental and physical well-being is highly dependent on movement.  However, it seems that our brain has unlearned quite a few things in our aging process.  And because we have unlearned what used to be so much fun (and a menace to our parents), our brains detect any movement that resembles effort as a chore.  So, we don't quite enjoy it as we used to as children, hence we repel exercise and treat it like a plague.


Remember how much fun it was to climb a tree, jump over a puddle (or into it), crawl through the drains, run up and down the staircase, swing from and between poles...and drive our parents mad?  We would reminisce and laugh about it, but those were skills we were blessed with because humans were made with built in agility to move.  But, like many of us, we grew and were told to sit down and be quiet!  So, we did...and then we forgot to move.

Similarly, due to aging and physical trauma we may have experienced in our lifetime, our brain may have registered some movements as painful or a risk.  So, we tend to associate certain movement negatively due to fear of possible injury or pain. Hence, simple fundamental movements are treated with extreme prejudice...that many muscles are left to limb because we have forgotten simple movements like pulling, hopping, twisting, pushing, squatting and even running efficiently. So, for some people, a simple request to lift may evoke a memory of a traumatizing experience, whereby a back pain was experienced, creating a threat response and defense mechanism to shoot up with a scream "NO THANK YOU!".


So, brain, memory and movement is a tricky thing but a fun relationship if we just understand it.  Brain can use memories to deny you movements that could save you, or you can train your brain into enjoying movement and regain your youthful movements.  Hence, when we rediscover how to move more efficiently, then exercising won't be so scary or much of a chore. Aging, too, can be done ever so gracefully and healthy. How cool is that?

MET Training Participants in KL, 15 Jan 2012

Over the weekend, I participated in the M.E.T training in KL.  I learned that I was stronger than I thought I was.  I could push myself to do many things I thought I couldn't.  I also found out I have forgotten so many basics...so, no wonder la I've been cheating my exercise and self-made training programs because the movements were such chores.  But now that I have relearned some basics, I'm going to see how much progression I can invite my body and brain to be comfortable with.  The beauty about M.E.T is, I've also learned the steps to regress from a particular movement should my body and brain screams "NOT READY, LA". So, I have the luxury to learn at my own pace.


In conclusion, its a paradigm shift that really starts with the retraining of the brain to perceive movement as a friend more than a foe.  To do that, many have to regress and go back to basics.  Learn how to push, pull, rotate, squat, lift and lunge like we used to as kids. I found out that even athletes and champions have issues with movements and have to relearn it.  Maybe we should observe our little ones and pick up a trick or two.  Otherwise, we could just visit http://www.metmethod.com/ for more information.  

What's really exciting is that the brain learns quickly through repetition.  So, if we're focused, getting fit and healthy is really not a far fetched dream.  All we have to do is move more efficiently and rediscovering how fun it can be.


Marcel Daane will be joining the Unleashed 2012 to conduct a workshop on M.E.T.  Maybe you want to catch him in person and pick his brains.  Check out http://www.facebook.com/tnf.UNLEASHED for more information.