To be strong to be useful and no more?

To be strong to be useful like a cog in the machine?

“Be strong to be useful” said Methode Naturelle’s motto and morals. But wait a minute, do you mean “useful” like a tool is useful, a cog in the machine is useful?  Who or what should decide my own agenda, if not myself?

Isn’t there more to living one’s life to the fullest than just being strong, or even healthy? Isn’t it also important, maybe even more important, to be happy and free?  How about “Be strong to be free” for instance?

In order to to be helpful to oneself, to others and to the world, wouldn’t it be a very relevant and fantastic thing to make oneself a strong, healthy, happy and free individual?  How about a more comprehensive and probably more inspiring motto that would say “To be strong, healthy, happy and free”? And since I strongly believe it is our true nature to be strong, healthy, happy and free, how about a simpler motto, that would sound more like a positive invitation, like:  “Explore Your True Nature”?

A different orientation for a different predicament

MovNat holds a unique philosophy called “True Nature” that is the foundation of the overall MovNat approach and orientation and that addresses major global issues that were almost unknown to Hebert, i.e., the Zoo Human predicament.

The philosophy behind MovNat is embodied in the motto: “Explore Your True Nature“.

The world changes ever more rapidly and indeed it has tremendously changed in the last century, and so have people, not in nature, but in lifestyle, mindsets and expectations as well as physical condition.

Spiritual Suffering

Mental Suffering

Physical Suffering

We’re not in 1905 anymore.  More than a century later, we all face the massive, ongoing and increasing influence of the “Zoo” and it is a saddening thing to observe that more and more of us are turned into Zoo humans becoming weak, sick, depressed and conditioned.  Unquestionably, we have become a pathetic version of what Nature had generously and intelligently designed us to be, or of what the human species itself, as a whole, had evolved to become until now.

It is a destructive predicament, and it would clearly be an ostrich attitude to deny or minimize it. Softly destroying your true nature, it also progressively destroys the nature that is around you and that is the real source of your life and health.

Or devolution?

Evolution???

Contact with nature is vital, but so is natural movement and natural eating

It is all connected actually.  Painkiller anyone?

Is it really a fate we cannot do anything about?

It is not easy to deal with this predicament indeed. We were all born in the Zoo and being true to our nature is an amazing challenge. There is no ideal, perfect or ultimate one-size-fits-all solution and there is also certainly no easy one. You still can choose to go for coping mechanisms like watching more DVDs, playing more video games, eating more ice-cream and drinking more soda or beer. Or take a chill-pill?

Kid disconnected from his true nature and trying to cope with his physical and mental suffering

You can also go for quick-fixes: run on a treadmill or buy a Wiifit and swallow loads of laboratory-made supplements. But that’s treating the symptoms, not the causes. The truth is that it takes genuine dedication and often a tremendous courage to seriously and durably commit to a positive change in one’s own life.

“Nature deficit disorder”

The real priority issue is to battle a “nature deficit disorder”.

Nature Deficit Disorder - a great term coined by Richard Louv in 2005 and it refers to the alleged modern trend that both today’s children and adults are spending less time outdoors, resulting in a wide range of behavioral problems.

But when I say “nature deficit disorder”, I am not only talking about a lack of direct contact with nature in modern children, but a chronic lack of understanding, respect, experience and expression of the very nature that lies within us.

I believe that movement is our nature, and that it is actually natural movement that suits us best, all simply because it suits best the fundamental, universal, evolutionary and biological human nature which I call our “True Nature”.

Movement in nature is best, but above all, it is natural movement that matters first, natural movement that can re-awaken the need to be in touch with the nature around us.  This quote by Pascal illustrates this viewpoint perfectly: “Our nature lies in movement, in complete calm is death.”  It is actually more than a personal, subjective viewpoint.  In fact, no animal, including the human animal, can thrive and maintain health and vitality when deprived from movement.

There are very effective solutions though, that are natural and healthy, free or quite inexpensive, but again it is all about being committed to apply them in real-life.  Your real-life.  It has to be a life-affirming orientation, and more than a concept: it must be an experience, a reality.

MovNat, in this regard, is actually much more than fitness and can as well be more than just the Natural Movement Training System. It is also an education program designed to rehabilitate the “Zoo human” with its unique “True Nature” philosophy that affirms that it is our universal birthright to be strong, healthy, happy and free.

It addresses much more than just the hypothetical promise and the limited objective of obtaining an ideal body shape.  It actually guarantees something actually invaluable and priceless, which is that you will learn how to experience your true nature again, without having to go back to life in huts or caves, while still having the possibility to enjoy the best of modern life.

Getting back to a wild state is probably mission impossible, and actually not necessarily such a desirable ambition.  However, being true to one’s nature is, with sufficient commitment, a very accessible goal that will positively transform your experience of life.

Young kids free and happy to explore their true nature

Where there is exuberant movement, there is strength, health, happiness and freedom.

So before you can actually be strong and may decide to be useful to others, I strongly advise that you start where it all starts…

…finally meet who you truly are.  Explore your true nature!

Erwan Le Corre

I have decided to join forces with Exuberant Animal, the health, movement and play organization my friend Frank Forencich heads.

Frank Forencich with athlete

The values of Exuberant Animal and MovNat are perfectly aligned :

_healthy people, organizations and culture
_preemptive health activism
_authentic human relationships and community
_simplicity and functionality
_personal and social responsibility
_play, creativity and innovation
_sustainability and integration with the natural world

Frank and all Exuberant Animal trainers are genuinely passionate activists in the field of movement, play, body-mind health and vitality and are positive participants in the emerging shift of culture that sees an increasing number of us switching from the unhealthy modern human predicament, which I call the “Zoo”, to the “Exuberant Animal” lifestyle, which I call the “True Nature” lifestyle.

Explained with different words, applied with partly-similar and partly-different coaching methods, our philosophies and practices share a common orientation which is to address the lack of contact with nature, lack of movement, lack of play, lack of authentic human relationships and communities that causes so much physical, mental and spiritual suffering to our lives and societies while at the same time we both provide rational, efficient and simple solutions and alternatives.

“Exuberant Animal is fun, communal, exhilarating, strength-increasing, joy-increasing, and just an incredible way to think and live!” (Laurent Muney)

We believe it is crucial to cooperate and join forces to make us stronger and generate an even greater positive impact that can inspire and help many more.

I invite you to browse the Exuberant Animal website.  I suggest you start by watching Frank’s speech comparing ancestral living conditions and the modern human predicament here:

http://exuberantanimal.com/about/index.php

Truly inspiring and also humorous!

I also recommend Frank’s books, the most recent being “Exuberant Animal: The Power of Health, Play and Joyful Movement”

Erwan Le Corre

NB: MovNat and Exuberant Animal are separate organizations that remain fully distinct concepts. Frank Forencich is my friend, that I decide to support and contribute to what he does by joining his organization at a personal level does not and will not have any effect on the autonomous development of MovNat. It simply means that I am personally connected with an organization that seriously (and playfully!) goes to the right direction. I could as well join other physical education, health, outdoors or environmental organizations in the future.

So MovNat…Methode Naturelle with just a different name?

Not at all!

It would be a very simplistic shortcut to imagine that the sole change is found in the name. Despite being inspired by Methode Naturelle, MovNat is both a philosophy and a method of its own, that remodels and renovates the former approach.

What happened?

In fact, Methode Naturelle itself was not something static…until it completely stopped evolving.  If you had a chance to study the various re-editions of Georges Hebert’s books, you would not only be able to notice an evolution and refinement of his own work over 4 decades, but would also distinguish what was ahead of time, was missing, and what is now outdated.

Archive photos of early Methode Naturelle. Three of the shots clearly display elements of the Swedish gymnastics by Ling that Hebert will later on completely exclude.

Hebert himself underlined several times in his own books that since his method was based on observation and experiment it could be always perfected over time.

It just makes perfect sense to imagine that if he had been alive until now he would have made his system evolve, continuously improve and in half a century many positive changes would have undoubtedly taken place…while his followers oppositely made it a golden rule to always go by the book in an ultra-revering approach of the past,  never daring to attempt any change in the coaching and seemingly absorbed in some sort of cult of personality of the founder.  The perfect recipe for stagnation or  regression.

Cult of the Past vs. Evolution

Amoros 1770-1848

Every method has its own design…but it is the very intelligence of such a design to be able to evolve, to always improve or adapt.  If it doesn’t evolve…it is not alive anymore.  Just like a dead language, it has a past but holds no future. This is exactly what happened to Amoros’ system, and then exactly what happened to Hebert’s system: by having totally ceased to evolve since the death of Georges Hebert in 1957, which is more than half a century ago, Methode Naturelle has become…a brain-dead concept.

Hebert 1875-1957

Unable to reform itself, to incorporate innovative ways or knowledge and adapt to new mindsets and expectations in order to propel itself in a modern era and to propagate within a contemporary culture and way of life, the old fashioned method has been stagnating for decades and seen its practice shrink to almost total extinction, despite the efforts of a handful of dedicated remaining practitioners.

The MovNat Natural Movement Coaching System®:  ready for the future

The MovNat Natural Movement Coaching System® is a real modernization of the former Methode Naturelle coaching system. The extent of this retooling can be compared to the level of improvement of the original Amoros method observed after Hebert, with the contribution of Demeny (see “The Roots of Methode Naturelle“), remodeled the former concept he based his own system on.

Here is a list of the most significant innovations or improvements that MovNat brings/provides:

1. Movement principles and movement principles perception drills: a good perception of movement principles significantly boosts progress and spares lots of trial and error. But there is more: when movement principles are well understood, applying them makes movements way more efficient and saves lots of energy. That is an innovation, as such movement principles and drills didn’t exist in Hebert’s approach.
2. Levels of practice: they are defined by limits in difficulty at each level. They ensure full scalability, incremental progress and injury prevention. They also ensure reaching equalized abilities, an essential goal in MovNat, by providing a hierarchy of difficulty in term of technique, distance, height, weight, time etc.  This is an improvement, as the differentiation of practice levels in Methode Naturelle was entirely subjective.
3. Danger-risk ratio: it is an essential notion, from both an individual or supervised practice, that is crucial to assessing what is at stake concerning the preservation of physical integrity as objectively as possible and helps ensure prevention. The notion of danger-risk ratio alone legitimates the definition of levels of practice and limitations in difficulty or complexity. It is an innovation.
   
4. A much greater emphasis on optimum technique before going for volume or intensity since efficient technique ensures efficient action, preserve energy and above all is key in injury prevention. Hebert expected a progressive improvement of movement directly through course training and technical instruction was consequently made secondary. Experience and observation, so dear to Hebert, showed us that the process of learning must be based on optimum technique right from the start, as the brain doesn’t automatically select the most efficient forms but prioritizes the ones the body performs most often. A lack of initial emphasis on proper techniques leads to problems, i.e. the assimilation of inefficient movement patterns,  which leads to both inefficient action and injury. In MovNat, we focus on optimizing technique before adding volume or intensity in essential techniques.  That different approach is a significant pedagogical improvement.
5. Focusing on essential techniques first and on movement variations second. There are essential techniques in each natural movement capacity that are fundamental to the beginner and from which many movement variations derive. When these essential techniques are well assimilated, they constitute some sort of technical toolbox easily adaptable to any context. Essential techniques greatly increase movement adaptability by making any variation much easier. This is an improvement, as there was no hierarchy of techniques or movement variations in Methode Naturelle where they were all randomly taught.
6. Perception drills: they are drills that break down movements slice by slice and boost the learning process or allow to spot and solve technical blocks. That is an innovation, as perception drills didn’t exist in Methode Naturelle.
7. Emphasis on “combo” training: it is a MovNat training type that creates many more patterns, more and faster transitions and therefore greater and faster progress thanks to more specific physiological adaptations. It also ensures a better visibility of the students by the coach and then a more efficient supervision, an easier individualization of the training within a group resulting also in greater injury prevention. That is an innovation and improvement, as the core of the Methode Naturelle training was the course training or a “follow the leader” training type, which didn’t offer the same overall benefits.
8. Specialization cycles: this occurs only at higher level of practice.  Experimenting made me realize that if a broad combination of skills is the most efficient way to make fast general progress in beginners and intermediate practitioners, this strategy looses efficiency the higher the level of practice gets as it doesn’t allow to go beyond usual thresholds and break plateaus. Well-rounded natural athletes that have already reached an advanced level of skills and conditioning should, if not must, frequently manage relatively specialized training cycles in order to make even more progress, of course while maintaining fully combined training sessions regularly. Such a strategy, which is crucial to the advanced practitioner, does not exist in Methode Naturelle.
9. General improvement of techniques: we know that thanks to studying technical indications, old graphic diagrams and photographic records in Hebert’s books.
10. Punctual use of video analysis: it allows practitioners to visualize and develop a better perception of their own movements and for the coach to better analyze and pinpoint the particular details of movement that need improvement. That is an innovation made possible of course by the evolution of technologies.

MovNat: empowering the human of today!

Erwan surrounded by certified MovNat trainers at Wildfitness

When a successful company like Wildfitness, a world-leading fitness vacation company whose program has always been based on natural and evolutionary movement, recently decided to fully adopt the MovNat Natural Movement Coaching System®, you can be sure that what MovNat has to offer is more than regurgitating Hebert’s principles.

MovNat goes beyond the past by revolutionizing the preceeding method with significant innovations that make the natural movement coaching system tremendously more efficient and allowing practitioners to make broader, faster and safer progress.

Just like Hebert had understood the necessity of remodeling Amoros work and approach, I have, animated by a very similar spirit, retooled the whole Methode Naturelle concept in order to produce a modernized version that has the potential to reach a

The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress. Charles F. Kettering

great number of people and help them develop their full natural movement potential more efficiently.  That, I believe, has the potential to empower many people’s lives.  It is more than my belief and more than my dream: it is my vision.

Erwan Le Corre

PS: I am currently writing a book, “MovNat, the Philosophy and Practice of Natural Movement” that will encompass all aspects of my approach and provide a practical and comprehensive guide to MovNat training.

“World’s Fittest Man”?

Oh nooooooo, they did it again…listen people, I have never claimed such a thing, first off because I am personally bored with the notion of ranking, secondly because there are plenty of other seriously, incredibly and impressively fit guys out there!

And what I say here is not out of some fake humbleness.  It’s just reality.

My ambition has never been that anyone look up to me, but to inspire others to move in a natural way again so they be proud of themselves, happy with their own nature and also rediscover nature in a more simple way. If I want to be best at something, it is probably about coaching and spreading the philosophy and practice of natural movement and to offer the best coaching system in this field and focus on education.

So please let me happily decline that rather embarrassing title that truly doesn’t make any sense to me.  I am just a normal guy that, despite nearing 40, can still move naturally well enough.  So if there is one title I would rather claim it could the “World’s Most Annoyingly Fit Man” just because THAT one is truly hilarious!

So, what is it that I am talking about here? I am talking about what I believe is another fantastic article about MovNat by Graham Averill of Blue Ridge Outdoors magazine and another in-depth insight in my philosophy of movement.

I would like to thank my friend Will Harley, editor of the magazine and an amazing ultrarunner himself for offering to write an article about MovNat and for helping to spread the word to another quarter million in the US!

Thanks guys for your enthusiasm about MovNat and a big “Hello!” to all Blue Ridge Outdoors mag readers!

Erwan Le Corre

On a side note: I am familiar with the popular designations, but there are no such names as “monkey” walk or “crab” walk in MovNat.  We don’t mimic animals. We just move the way humans are designed to move.  It’s all perfectly human movement when you understand their contextual applications. But after all it can be nice to feel like a crab sometimes, you guys should try :D.

Read the magazine article online: Click Here

It is true, the MovNat Natural Movement Coaching System finds its roots in “La Methode Naturelle”.  But where does Methode Naturelle comes from?

The Internet makes many people believe that everything they need to know about anything is available online in a few clicks, but this is often not the case at all.

Georges Hebert

You have heard of the old French physical education method and its founder Georges Hebert thanks to the Men’s Health article about MovNat, maybe thanks to little bits of information available on the internet which are more-often-than-not grossly inaccurate, or maybe because of some improbable video clip randomly labeled “Le Methode Naturalle” (spelled incorrectly) uploaded by overexuberant teenagers who despite knowing so little about it cannot resist the temptation to draw attention to themselves by trying to look cool…

Georges Hebert

But how much do you know about the whole story, the real story? How much do you know of about the history of physical education?

According to the legend, Georges Hebert traveled the world as a young French naval officer, met indigenous tribes and observed these populations living a natural and ancestral lifestyle. Upon his return to France, the legend goes, he then simply devised his method based on his observations.

Well, that is knowing very, very little about the true genesis of Methode Naturelle. The truth is actually much more complex than the simple legend, and very interesting too.

(continue reading…)

Wildfitness, a successful fitness company, embraces the MovNat Coaching System!
By the beginning of April I traveled all the way from Seattle to Kenya to reach a beautiful place called Watamu by the Indian Ocean.
A few days later I started the MovNat instruction especially arranged for Wildfitness, a fitness vacation company based in the UK whose [...]

To our ancestors, running after things or running away from things was an almost everyday challenge.
Does the popular saying go “Watch TV for your life”  or “Wiggle on your WiiFit for your life”?  No. It clearly says “RUN for your life“.
Even though running has turned into a pure option that sounds like torture to the [...]

Here’s a great introduction to Christopher McDougall’s newest book “Born To Run” by my friend Barefoot Ted:
Born to Run

This is a masterpiece. A work on running that will define running for a new generation of runners.
Christopher McDougall asks a simple question: Why does my foot hurt?
His answer spans the centuries and brings us [...]

I predict that within less than 10 years, natural movement will have become the prevailing orientation in fitness.
A radical shift of perception and practice is on its way.  It is a cultural shift and it will be fast and massive.
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Certification Training in Kenya
I have just successfully completed my first level 1 certification course and certified 6 fitness professionals. Everyone had a blast including me!
This event was specially arranged for a very successful active vacation company based in the UK and operating in Watamu, Kenya.
More about this event soon.
The MovNat level 1 certification program will [...]