Chapter 5: Vital - The Practice of Natural Movement

“We don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome.”

 

—Isabel Allende

 

While humans may occasionally reflect about the purpose of their lives, the fundamental biological agenda of all animals is not only survival but also reproduction, which ensures that their genetic pool is transmitted to their offspring and therefore perpetuates itself. Even to those of us who are seeking a higher purpose in life, the primary concern of any human being is first to stay alive as long as possible and, for most of us, to eventually have children.

Fitness, from a biological standpoint, is nothing but the ability to reproduce successfully, which first requires that we are healthy enough to remain alive long enough to become fertile in the first place. In that sense, fitness is survivability.

While we definitely tend to take fitness for granted or choose to see it as optional in our lives, that has not always been the case throughout the history of mankind. Even by today’s standards of relative peace and safety, life—and successful reproduction, for that matter—is in no way guaranteed for anyone. Movement may have become almost optional, but staying alive as long as biologically possible is mandatory.

So, what is the relation between the agenda of life, biological fitness, and Natural Movement? It is an essential one. Boiled down to its two fundamental aspects, survival is the vital ability to find and seize opportunities while avoiding threats or danger so one can stay alive until one reproduces and until the offspring becomes autonomous. Whether you are predator or prey, both aspects are ensured by the alertness of our senses, acute observation, situational awareness, experience, what we could simply call “instinct,” and also species-specific Natural Movement. In short, the better you can move, the better you are at survival in the wild. Even the most alert prey cannot escape predators if the prey is unable to move, and even the hungriest predator cannot catch prey if the predator is unable to move. The loss (even if only partial loss) of Natural Movement ability would be the predictor of an imminent death. Having the ability to engage in Natural Movement is ultimately what ensures survival, at least within the original conditions of life in nature.

Survival, in the cool economics of biology, means simply the persistence of one’s own genes in the generations to follow.”

—Lewis Thomas

 

By logical extension, the vital principle makes the case for high levels of physical and mental vitality and health, which effective Natural Movement obviously demands. You are supposed to be optimally healthy and highly energetic by biological design rather than unhealthy and physically apathetic by cultural influence.

Despite continuous advancement in medical technology, global health levels are declining. What this indicates is that humankind is still in a state of survival, but today that survival is dependent on technology. The “health” industry is not actually making us healthy; it’s simply managing our unhealthiness, and for that reason it could easily be renamed “sickness industry.” Medication and medical technology enables you to keep holding on to a deleterious lifestyle, but it doesn’t make you robust; only a healthy lifestyle can make you that.

Make no mistake, by today’s lifestyle standards, if you do nothing deliberately healthy, then it is very likely that you are doing something unhealthy without being aware of it, even if you’re not deliberately doing something you know to be unhealthy. In this case, doing “nothing” is the same as doing “something.” Episodic resolutions or challenges that do not fundamentally question overall unhealthy lifestyles are smoke screens. Consistently choosing to stay away from lifestyle habits or choices that you know are harming you in both the short and the long run is not just a genuine form of courage; it has become a vital imperative.

In times when physical neglect has become an acceptable state and the accepted norm, those who strive to be their healthiest and fittest instead of being unconcerned and apathetic about the issue are like modern heroes. The most cynical among us are quick at stating that such efforts are useless and doomed because everyone will age and die. But those who do something intentional about preserving high levels of health and energy are not trying to be healthy because physical activity supports longevity alone. Of course, we all age and eventually die, but exercising may not exactly have any antiaging property; it only prevents the abnormally fast aging that a lifetime of physical inactivity guarantees. The point is not to prevent aging, which is impossible, but to prevent our biological age from advancing much faster than our chronological age. Have you ever met a person in his or her forties who physically looked and moved as if he or she had already turned fifty or sixty? That’s a mismatch between the two types of age, chronological and biological. Aging is unavoidable, but some people will go through the years like a good wine; they will age beautifully and gracefully and live as healthily and with as much vitality as possible. Consequently, they will enjoy the greatest life possible for as long as possible. Dismissing any effort to become healthier and stronger on the basis that one is not “naturally” healthy or strong is another very cheap yet very common excuse.

Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.”

—Jamais Cascio

 

Vitality and survival are closely related. The truth is that, while having at least minimal levels of physical and mental strength, energy, and vitality may be the prerequisite for moving your body, moving your body frequently and vigorously is one of the major prerequisites for having physical and mental strength, energy, and vitality. Energy drinks are temporary, artificial energy boosters. Natural Movement helps you generate organic, clean, renewable, sustainable energy. This deliberately healthy behavior is often not just physical but also psychological and promotes positive thinking. We know that our thoughts affect our bodies, but we too often forget that our bodies affect our thoughts. It is not a surprise that the most physically thriving individuals are often those who are the most mentally positive, energetic, or “life-affirming.”

Along with healthy nutrition, deeply restorative sleep, and frequent contact with nature, movement is one the easiest, most underrated, and most underutilized forms of health practice you can access.

We must understand that we have been led to see this type of healthy physical behavior as “medicine” only because unhealthy lifestyles have become the norm, and any improvement and return to natural healthy habits necessarily become a beneficial “antidote” or “cure.” Healthy behaviors should be the norm, so we shouldn’t think of them as being beneficial or healing. Instead, we really should be regarding unhealthy behaviors as being detrimental and deleterious.

The primary focus of the vital principle—the ability to effectively perform natural movements—starts with the simplest, most practical physical actions that take place in the easiest circumstances and ends with extreme, life-threatening circumstances: Natural Movement will potentially save your life and the lives of others. In times of danger, you will never hear, “Play ping-pong for your life!” Instead, you’re likely to hear, “Run for your life!”

Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.”

—Hunter S. Thompson

 

You might very well have to jump, climb, crawl, or swim for your life; you even might have to fight for your life. Or you might have to perform those same movements and physical actions to help save someone else’s life. In any case, in a life-threatening situation, you might have to hold an awkward position for some time until you are rescued, but it might not be remotely as fancy and awkward as some of the most intricate yoga poses; it’ll be whatever position will ensure that you stay alive until help shows up, and “perfect form” will have no influence whatsoever. Whatever you must physically do in a survival situation has nothing to do with culture, tradition, style, sports, or exercise-science protocols. It has to do with the tangibly useful physical performance that will serve the highest practical purpose, which is keeping you or someone else alive. The vital value of Natural Movement physical competency is timeless.

In a world where modern comforts have come, slowly but surely, to the point of making walking an accessory activity, you might wonder why on Earth you should practice these timeless skills. In a modern context that’s seemingly devoid of danger, it is a very common thing to regard our Natural Movement capacities as optional leisure and our evolutionary movement skills as complete anachronisms. We barely need them anymore, right? Wrong. Even a highly technological world like ours is not devoid of dangers. Some are different, and some are new. Dangers are out there, and everyone and anyone can be confronted by them at any time, be it in the form of an accident, an explosion, an aggression, a shooting, a flooding, a storm, and many other potential scenarios. In any of these scenarios, your immediate reaction will be to physically respond in the form of some Natural Movement. Real-world physical capability only seems optional as long as you don’t need it and until challenging circumstances make you realize it is indispensable. You could say, “It will never happen to me.” My reply would be, “How do you know?”

In that sense, the evolutionary nature of our natural movements, while remaining relevant, becomes almost inconsequential: I am not romantically trying to replicate how my ancestors moved, I am moving the way that makes me and keeps me physically capable in today’s world.

From a modern standpoint, fitness is mostly about looks, hence the term physical fitness as opposed to biological fitness. There is certainly a close link between how physically active you are and how good you physically look as well as between physical attractiveness and mating (and ultimately reproduction).

We tend to obsess about what our bodies look like in the mirror rather than focusing on what we can physically do with a fit body in the real world. When it comes to physical fitness, most people simply want to be “beach ready,” which means having a body that looks good enough to impress others in the summertime. From a Natural Movement standpoint, you are not “beach ready” just because your body shape looks good; you also need to be capable of swimming without endangering yourself or capable of sprinting, swimming, and diving to reach someone who’s drowning and then swimming back to shore while dragging the victim and keeping them afloat and able to breathe. You also might need to be able to lift and carry that person on land to get help. You can, of course, apply the same idea to other types of life-threatening situations. You might not become a first responder, but you should be able to respond first in the absence of assistance.

Look at firefighters and other rescuers; they might use equipment and technological tools, but do they solely rely on them, or do they also have to physically intervene? When they do intervene physically, what movements are they using? They run, climb, jump, balance, crawl, swim, throw and catch equipment, and lift and carry victims. That all sounds like Natural Movement to me, and it sounds like those capabilities are a much more realistic assessment of fitness than anything else. It’s definitely more accurate than looking at the size of someone’s biceps.

Could you sprint fast or run over a long distance if it was necessary? Could you jump over a large gap and land skillfully on the other side? Could you swim underwater and hold your breath for at least two minutes if you had to? Could you hang from a ledge and be able to climb to the top of the surface? Could you lift and carry someone that is your weight, or maybe heavier, over a mile or more? You can imagine a variety of physical demands and mentally assess how well you would do. In fact, you should.

To be fit doesn’t necessarily mean possessing a good-looking body; it means being physically ready for demanding real-world situations. In fact, authentic self-confidence even stems from knowing that you possess such vital, real-world movement competency and physical preparedness. Fitness isn’t for the show-off; it’s for real life. Not so long ago, actual physical capability was more impressive than looks. I’m not saying that we should get back to rough times where such capability was a daily necessity, but it doesn’t hurt to realize that, in many parts of the world, it is still the case.

I have an instinct for survival, for self-preservation.”

—Julian Barnes

 

The point of the vital principle is not to alarm and scare you but to remind you that life is not guaranteed. It’s a precious gift we owe to ourselves to preserve in every way we can, and Natural Movement is an important part of this ability. There is neither a guarantee that you will ever find yourself in such a situation nor a guarantee that even if you trained physically that your physical competency and preparedness would be sufficient. However, you are pretty much guaranteed to find yourself in trouble, if not totally helpless, if you are in a life-threatening situation and you aren’t trained, competent, and prepared. By being helpless to yourself, you also become helpless to assist anyone else. As a matter of fact, one of the most potent ways to never find yourself helpless is to learn and train to become physically helpful.

We ideally want to be strong physically and mentally, to be physically competent and prepared, and to possess mental qualities for action—including alertness, responsiveness, self-control, courage, and willingness to help. In that regard, we need to embrace a realistic, no-nonsense, situational mindset in the way we approach physical training. No matter whether you call it exercise, working out, or fitness training, it has a higher, more meaningful, and nobler purpose than helping you look better or do more push-ups in a row. Ultimately, physical training is all about being life-fit (or life-ready); the upside is that physically training to be capable is very likely to improve your looks and increase your attractiveness in the process.

If you do some research, you will find countless examples of survival stories that involve individuals or groups of people who are struggling for their lives, as well as stories of people saving other people’s lives in harsh, extreme conditions. Some of these individuals may have been physically trained, but most often they aren’t. That’s not the point; what’s important is the thing that all these stories have in common: Natural Movement was the key to staying alive or saving a life. The survivors had to walk, run, crawl, jump, climb, lift, carry, and so on.

Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the practical value of any fitness regimen not just in terms of health, well-being, or cosmetic satisfaction but also in terms of contribution to the preservation of life when needed. You might be wondering what essential techniques or benchmarks you should possess to make it out of any challenging situation. As I describe in principle 6, “Unspecialized,” you never know which Natural Movement skill will be the potential lifesaver or at what level you will need to perform any movement in difficult circumstances. Aren’t all movements potentially vital?

For instance, I’ve often met guys would could do many Pull-Ups in a row but who were unable to actually mount the top of the bar they were pulling from.

In a realistic scenario, you won’t need to pull yourself to the level of the surface you hang from twenty times in a row, but you might need to mount the top of that surface one time, with a tragic consequence if you can’t. This is what happens when the only goal of exercise is to develop muscle mass or strength: Realistic capability goes unchecked, and lots of energy is spent on efforts that do not contribute anything to actual real-world competency. Again, strength does matter, and muscle mass may support greater levels of strength. There is nothing wrong at all with either of those things, just as there is nothing wrong with having a great-looking body. However, the vital aspect of physical training should be the priority, starting with the practical nature of it.

By extension, a real-world, vital approach to physical fitness should do more than involve the training of Natural Movement skills. It should occasionally simulate the scenarios, environments, or context in which those skills must be performed, which helps train situational awareness. Even though a familiar motto to all those concerned with real-life preparedness is to “expect the unexpected,” you want to start preparing for what you can realistically expect, especially for those situations that are statistically likely to happen. Nobody is ready for everything, but we can most certainly prepare for many things, and such preparation begins with equipping ourselves with a baseline physical capability.

With the near complete disappearance of the necessity for movement and the erosion of our movement instincts, we are left with no choice but to embrace a mindset and create a strategy that enables us to not only get “some” physical activity but to restore our original, Natural Movement behavior. While the intellectual notion that Natural Movement should be practiced because it’s evolutionary, universal, and instinctual is already very useful, such notions may not be sufficiently motivating to prompt us to train. But if we understand and take the vital principle to heart, we can start training today with a new powerful motivation: purposeful, useful, helpful, real-world physical training, competency, and preparedness.