Adaptability is the capacity to adjust to the condition of the situation without breaking stride, as well as accommodate new circumstances without hesitation. Having an adaptive body and mind are open to shifting course to be helpful and useful; you are ready for the unexpected. Having an adaptive body and mind empowers us to take advantage of opportunities that a more rigid person would miss out on. When we train adaptively, we are ready for whatever the situation… planned or unplanned. Training should be a continuos surprise of capability… not numbers and vanity.

Life is in a constant state of movement, it does not make sense to be stiff or to cling to the idea of what is going to happen… we can’t predict the future… we can only be ready. We are more in tune with reality when we are adaptive. Being adaptive enables us to adjust to our environment and other people no matter the weather or circumstance… there is no factor. When we are rigid and stiff we sometimes are unable to get out of our own way, let alone help someone in a sticky situation. Instead of adjusting to our surroundings, we sit back and watch or even hide. Letting routine guide us instead of instinct limits us from life, we miss out on heroic opportunities, as well as euphoria.

As we create adaptability in our bodies physically, we create an agile mind creatively. Each day we have the opportunity to train our adaptability. Here are a few examples:

1.) Take a different route to and from work.

2.) change your exercise routine.

3.) Rearrange your living quarters. etc.

As we do this, we become more openminded and supple, when change comes our way we embrace, accommodate and circulate with no hesitation.

~Brandon

The post Being ADAPTIVE. appeared first on Primitive Movement.

LOOK UP^ & locate the 2 constellations: 1.) THE BIG DIPPER & 2.) CASSIOPEIA. Now, locate the North Star. Draw an imaginary line from the North Star down to Earth. Ahead of you is North. Behind you is South.

~HOW TO TIE A WICKED GOOD KNOT~

Besides the overhand knot this is the simplest knot and most useful. It’s known as the Square of Reef knot.

Starting with 2 pieces of rope(or 1), cross the ends & thread as shown in (fig.1)

Feed both ends of rope back around & through the loop as shown in (fig.2) you may have to click on the image to see.

Then pull both ends evenly to tighten

50*F / 10*C

3tsp / 1tbsp

16tbsp / 1cup

1cup / 8fluid ounces

16ounces / 1pound

1gallon / 4quarts

4quarts / 8pints

1pinch / less than 1/8tsp

1inch / 2.54 centimeters

1mile / 1.0934 kilometers

1year / 525960 minutes

The post ~:~ UTILITIES ~:~ appeared first on Primitive Movement.

Time to get outside, clean up your routine and rejuvenate your workout.  Primitive Movement’s Brandon joins a group of wellness experts with fitness, nutrition and beauty tips to  re-energize your Spring season.  Read on @  Refinery 29.

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First of all Parcour is about being useful. It teaches people how to trust themselves in and out through safe training. The philosophy is to always progress. Just like in life, you must always continue forward even when something knocks your off kilter.

I would like to introduce my friend Josh. He is the student in the video below that I have had the pleasure of teaching this art to. Like any other 11 year old all he wanted to do were tricks and advanced acrobatics. Who would blame him?.. now a day “Parkour” displays flips, twists, and other impractical movements. I am all for freedom of expression but “Parcour” originally is a method of physical training that develops ability and adaptability to overcome physical and mental obstacles given the situation. It involves movement that will help you or some one else to escape an emergency situation or get from A to B safely and even faster. Ultimately it is about altruism, the usefulness of your strength, longevity, self-improvement, and safety. A witty 11 year old he quickly understood that we must lay a foundation before advancing.

We started out with depth jumps at waist height, focusing on landing as soft as possible. Once we mastered that I brought over a flat patio rock where we depth jumped with precision. This took longer to master, but eventually he started to land it affectively with softness and grace. We then took it to the ground for some forward rolls:) Starting in a quadrupedal(bear-crawl) position I showed him how to thread one arm between the space between the opposite arm and leg, keeping the chin tucked and making contact first with the shoulder and rolling forward back into starting position. We drilled going downhill using gravity to our advantage until he was fluent in rolling off both shoulders. Not only did he learn how to use the forward roll in a practical situation but also the importance of being symmetrical. After establishing our equilibrium from all the rolling:) we bloc’d the movements together for a route from A to B. With in a half hour Josh was jumping on top of the waist height rock wall with an approach, depth jumping down with precision, followed by a bound for distance into a forward roll, popping up out of the roll continuing his momentum into a run. Smiling while doing it:)

With in 3 weeks his competency grew to this and hasn’t stopped: Le Parcour

The post “Le Parcour” appeared first on Primitive Movement.

Well & Good NYC meets us for an East River workout.  Many thanks to writer Lisa Held. (Photo: Well&Good).

A Workout That Wants You To Go Wild 

On a recent February morning, New York City-based trainer Brandon Sewall threw a heavy, misshapen brick he’d found on the ground in East River Park at me. After I learned to catch and throw it back, I hurled it over a fence, sprinted towards another fence, and then scaled said fence—while the traffic on the FDR zoomed past.

The regimen—a mix of exercises like climbing, throwing, and running on outdoor, unpredictable terrain—was part of Sewall’s Primitive Movement program, and he’s not alone in his back-to-nature approach.

A growing group of fitness professionals are advocating a similar philosophy—that fitness and strength are found in mastering basic, functional human movements. The approach is sometimes referred to as “Paleo Fitness.”

Read on for Entire article, including more natural movement philosophy from Movnat founder Erwan LeCorre.

The post A Workout That Wants You To Go Wild (Primitive Movement on Well & Good NYC) appeared first on Primitive Movement.

I’m writing this in CAVEMAN because dinosaur food is what I love to cook and eat. It tastes delicious and makes me feel good to know that everything internally and down there is shipshape, working, and functioning easily and steadily.

The fact that more food that “isn’t real” is more accessible  than “real” food!  absolutely boggles my mind… Eating is but a small fraction of what shapes human life, but a very important one! This blog is about turning that improper fraction into a proper fraction and breaking it down to simplest form. You are what you eat. If you don’t believe that, go to Bodies the exhibition. Eating Real Food should be your motto… that’s right, straight from da’ ERF’! aka the earth;) It’s not a diet! Eat whatever you want, just as long as it comes from da’ Erf! Put a bunch of food groups together and make your plate as colorful as possible:). It’s simple, clean, and leads to better training and greater brain POWER.

Start by eliminating the things your mind craves aka “comfort foods/belly fillers” and replacing them with more food the inside of your body craves and thrives off. When you Eat Real Food you fill up on less volume and denser quality fuel. Fake foods and artificial ingredients such as refined sugars & salted bleached white flour based SH!T end up expanding while your digestive system is trying to break it down. This causes more stress on your internal organs by making them work harder. Not to mention punishing them even more with the carcinogens that make up these FAKE foods… doesn’t your gut already do enough for you?!  It already fights away cold and flu symptoms! Why add more stress? Feed your gut with food that will help your inside self:) The human body inside and out can handle a tremendous amount of pressure and withstand anything you throw in it and at it but eventually “wear N’ tear” will set in. With that said eating whole, local foods can help repair the damage that has been done. Anywhere from creating supple skin, better circulation, more energy, a smooth functioning digestive system, and can also cure bad breath! Those are just a few of the many awesome things nutritionally dense wholesome food will do for greater longevity.

#hieroglyphics I post a lot of food I make.. I would like to see yours for new ideas and meals! What do your plates look like?! Sign up here to receive a hunter gatherer movement practice you can use on your way to the market or gym:)

-Brandon

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http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/18/we-tried-this-with-movnat-play-like-youre-a-kid-again/

Excerpt:

Since starting MovNat, he’s gained a robust following and hosts training retreats around the world from Spain to Singapore. He’s also certified a battalion of trainers worldwide to spread the movement, including Brandon Sewall, a wellness coach in New York City who runs his own training program called Primitive Movement that shares Le Corre’s principles. Sewall led me through a beginner training session in the decidedly unnatural environment of Manhattan.

“Doing this feels good, and your body wants to do it. You have to. It’s vital and instinctual. It makes you feel that much better, stronger, coordinated and more aware,” says Sewall, whose blog hosts videos of him swinging along tall, chain link fences and bounding over obstacles in busy Chinatown.

I wasn’t so sure, but I bear crawled across a park bench and weaved under and over a bike rack, receiving my fair share of raised eyebrows. Who knew there were so many potential places to work out on the way to work?

Sewall sees them everywhere. Take pull-ups for example–one of the most common strength and conditioning drills. Generally, completing 20 pull-ups is a notable feat—and the final goal. But Le Corre and Sewall argue that a pull-up is simply one step in a full climbing movement.

“If you do 20 pull-ups, that’s a great achievement, but you’ve conditioned yourself to be good at pull-ups and not necessarily other actions. It doesn’t mean you could hook your leg over the bar and swing your body on top of the bar,” says Le Corre. “So what do you train for? Do you train to be able to do pull-ups or do you train to climb?”
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/18/we-tried-this-with-movnat-play-like-youre-a-kid-again/#ixzz2IMhZ0haR

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Example: Bloc Training

1. Envision the situation first.
2. When you’re ready, engage in a controlled manner.Mental coolness is the support system that will propel you the first few steps before merging into a euphoric experience AKA complete focus. Progression leads to confidence and later on to more accomplishments. Training in the state of fear allows you to be and feel more comfortable, by turning fear into a utility. The endless scale of progression proves that the human animal has no limits.

Remember, fear is never absent.. it will always be with you. Keep building your courage in order to take positive action anytime anywhere.

-Brandon

The post “Fear is all in the head” ~S.Q. appeared first on Primitive Movement.

Our bodies crave movement. When we stretch or dance, our bodies adjust, realign and start to become fluid with the rhythm of influence. Our mood lifts and we feel more connected with the world around us. If you are feeling unmotivated and are ready to release, or eager to feel more alive, try moving your body. By giving your muscles a chance to do what they were created for, you will find that your body and your life benefit through the collaboration.

“I’m to busy” is no excuse. Some of us remain seated at for hours every day or hurry from task to task in a robotic manner. Concentrating on only crossing items off our to-do lists, we tend to neglect all the opportunities there are to enjoy our bodies in the process. If this is true for you, I encourage you to start looking for opportunities to MOVE. You might try dancing or moving about freely as you clean your home, tend your garden or care for loved ones. You must devote time to self-care, practices such as yoga, dancing, rock climbing, running, and walking are all great ways to keep your body in motion.

Imagine how AWESOME:) it would be to trust your body’s abilities, knowing it has perfect strength and rhythm to GET SH!T DONE. Providing graceful support, your muscles and tendons expanding and contracting in just the right measure, your lungs changing pace filling deeply with fresh air. Movement is a vital part of life. It proclaims your existence and allows you to relish in the joy of being alive. This New Year, put your body in motion.

-Brandon

P.S. Do your body a favor and sign up to the mailing list and receive a Quadrupedal Motion routine that you can do ANYWHERE anytime:) 

The post Movement and the response we get from it. appeared first on Primitive Movement.