Approaches & Entries Into Primal Movement Practice

A starting point for those called to 'primal movement'...

Born Knowing

Every crocodile is born knowing how to ‘death roll’, and will do so it’s whole life. Like a cyclone of muscle, flesh and fury they whirl with definite power.

Life ending power.

Why do they do this?

A deeply instinctual somatic intelligence emerges in response to a particular trigger: resistance at the jaws and neck.

Crocodiles deal in resistance at the jaw and neck as a matter of course and have for eons of time.

The movement pattern and the trigger have emerged together.

No one has to instruct the crocodile on this pattern, for it’s Ancestors already have.

It’s as much a part of it’s ‘spirit’ as it’s geometry (shape); the crocodile is ‘designed’ to death roll.

To the crocodile this is a ‘primal movement pattern’.

It’s also an expression of ‘whole hearted movement’: the whole of the crocodile’s body, emotions, mind and spirit move as one, to accomplish a particular task.

If you would like to see an adorable baby crocodile performing this feat in less than 20 seconds worth of video (of course you do).

Check this out:

A Primal Tapestry

Primal movement emerges to facilitate ‘primary’ patterns of orientation in the world and (in part) to facilitate a knitting or sewing together of our various ‘segments’, so that we can develop into a body that moves as ‘one piece”.

Fragmentation of the body (and thus the psyche) is a plague in modern society. Instead of feeling sewn together as unified whole, capable of expressing ‘whole hearted movement’ most of us feel ‘cobbled’ together.

Furthermore, ‘body part centric’ work at the exclusion of coordinated whole body movement (such as body building), further reinforces this.

The more fragmented you are, the more power you leak, and the less effective you are.

This is an enormous part of why the Chinese martial arts (arguable one of the greatest treasure troves of somatic development on Earth), places so much emphasis on ‘whole body/whole hearted movement’: unity.

*In this short 2 minute video, you can observe an old master expressing this kind of whole body - whole hearted movement.

An Open Door

Clearly, ‘primal movement' is by no means the ‘only’ way to address this fragmentation challenge, but it is an effective and accessible method.

Many other systems and methods require years of training, workshops, and teachers, while as primal movement can do much through simple exploration, because it already hard-lined into the human body, through billions of years of evolution.

It probably won’t make you immortal or allow you to devour mythical beast, but hey, everything in life is a trade.

From my Book ‘The Ancestral Now’

‘In the world of fitness, terms get co-opted, wrecked, salvaged, and repurposed on a constant basis; and with the term primal movement, it is no different. I personally define primal movement as: the fundamental movements that form the foundation that all human movement is built upon and are easily seen in the movement of human infants.’

Humans do not develop as quickly or in the same way as the Crocodilians. We don’t jump out of the womb with sharp teeth itching to bite down on someone’s leg (well most of us anyway).

However, our development does follow similar principles.

As humans we are born with ‘ingrained’ Ancestrally inherited patterns, that are a part of our ‘geometry’. They are innate and inherent. No one ‘has’ to teach them to us in most instances.

There are triggers, and these seem to be related to general interaction with the environment, other humans and age.

They are most readily observed in babies.

Although from the outside, it may seem as if babies are fumbling about in random ways, they are in fact expressing a deeply instinctual intelligence, that simultaneously facilitates:

1. Learning how to use a human body

2. Tying the body together into a unified whole through strength and coordination

These movements are valuable in the most practical sense because they provide:

• Injury prevention and rehabilitation

• Powerful but gentle strength training

• Dynamic mobility

• Knitting the body together into a unified whole

• Soothing the nervous system

• Vestibular system health

• Pain reduction

• Stress relief

• Concurrent muscle activation & relaxation

And more…

However, in the my estimation one of the most beautiful reasons to engage in primal movement is because of ‘what it connects you to’.

+A heritage of strength built into your very bones, for humans are built for strength

+Innate aspects of what make you human

+Expanded empathy through engagement with patterns of movement shared with other species of animals

+Ancestral ways of orientating upon the Earth

+Engaging with the ‘sacred geometry’ of the body itself

Although one can engage these patterns for life, sometimes just spending a few years working with them can wonders for people.

Now, to get into practice…

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The subtle somatic cues that I wish I knew before starting: