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This kind of training and physical education is about fulfilling our bodies' needs for certain movement patterns, as well as some specific restorative exercises that promote our natural self-healing potential. This approach involves an adjustment of our perspective and mentality toward exercise and movement in daily life. We'll explore some of these key natural movement patterns and break down why they are so important, and how you can integrate them into your daily life, especially in regard to your hips, lower back, center of gravity, knees, and ankles.

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In this workshop, we focus on mobilizing the hips and joints of the lower extremities and spine through a few specific modalities: self-Shiatsu to manually release excessive tension, Sotai exercise for restoring structural alignment in the body, mobilizations on the ground to strengthen and increase flexibility in the hips and lower body, and a breakdown on how getting up and down from the ground as an exercise is one of the most important patterns that our ancestors did hundreds of times a day, but modern conveniences renders it unnecessary now. We pay the price in mobility issues for these conveniences, but this workshop is about the things we can do in our daily lives and movement practice to pay down that debt.

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Human beings and the design of our body have been shaped by the need to interface with our natural environment in certain ways. We can squat because we had to get up and down from the ground frequently, or move around at a lower level in certain situations, as well as occasionally lifting and carrying heavy things. Our shoulder allows for brachiation, which means we can swing from a branch, and throw objects. At some point, our survival depended on our ability to throw objects, and of course, running, jumping, and planning ahead to maneuver our environment. At an earlier point it depended on being able to escape into the canopy to evade predators. The point is that there are many things that we are not required to do in modern society, that our ancestors did relatively often in our natural environment.

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This workshop utilizes a number of synergistic systems:

 

Meridian Stretching essentially focuses on increasing the active range of motion of your hips. Each of these stretches stimulates a head-to-toe chain of tension, so more than just the hips benefit from this. The hips are the seat of your center of gravity, so being able to access the full range of motion here can save your back, knees, and everything else in your body.

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Sotai is about recalibrating your nervous system with a surprisingly simple technique that improves postural alignment through the synchronization of natural movement. This is all about neuromuscular reprogramming, but it all starts with cultivating body awareness. Some of these exercises are done standing, and some are done seated, crawling, or lying down.

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Shiatsu Therapy is about applying pressure to specific areas to relieve tension, and mobilizing joints with passive joint rotations. This is especially good if you have specific problems, or areas of pain that feel like they need extra attention, but there are a few Shiatsu maneuvers that are great to do every day, such as "Ampuku" abdominal massage (which puts me to sleep every night,) and joint rotations for the wrists and ankles, to prevent injuries and stress from using tools, devices and driving.

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The three above methods are Japanese therapies from two specific masters: Shizuto Masunaga (Shiatsu, Meridian Stretching) and Dr. Keizo Hashimoto M.D. (Sotai). Both of these masters utilized the musculotendinous meridians in their treatments, focusing on whole-body connections rather than localized treatment.

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The principles of natural living that we delve into are based on Dr. Hashimoto's ideas, but we expand on the basis of natural movement to explore the full spectrum of human movement skills. This facet was inspired by Erwan Le Corre's MovNat Natural Movement system, and Katy Bowman's book: Move Your DNA.

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We have not evolved to adapt to the deficit in physical activity and variety of movement, and our bodies still need "Movement Nutrients", as Katy Bowman puts it, in natural proportions. The bare minimum recommendation would be going for a walk every day, getting up and down from the ground many times to benefit your hips and core, and hanging from your hands to keep your shoulders healthy.

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*Register before June 10th, for the early bird price.