Hi folks,
this is the first of what I hope will become weekly musings on the nature of movement nutrition and how it relates to our health.
One of my passions is the martial art of Capoeira. I’ve been a capoeira practitioner for the last 24 years, with some breaks for career and family in that time. Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that incorporates dance, fight, ritual, music and play. It was created by the African slaves that were brought to Brazil, against their will. For many years, it was illegal to practice and it has morphed over the years, from a clandestine art into a worldwide phenomenon, consisting of thousands of schools in many countries.
Capoeira is played in a circle of participants, the roda, to the rhythm of Afro-Brazilian instruments and call and response songs. Two players move around each other trading movements such as kicks, cartwheels, feints and dodges. Sometimes the game is cooperative, at others, it is combative. The berimbau dictates the style of play. It is a bow shaped instrument, with a gourd that acts as a resonator, attached to it. In the hands of a skilled practitioner, it can control the tempo, encourage variations of play and mesmerize the audience in much the same way the physical movements can.
I’m bringing up capoeira as, it is one of the ways I incorporate movement into my daily life, and provides utility for my strength, mobility and flexibility practices. Though these forms are useful in and of themselves, it can be helpful to have an extrinsic reason to make them daily endeavors. The work of a massage therapist is quite physical and requires us to think of ourselves as athletes, if we want to have longevity in our careers. I’ve heard the same statistic about capoeiristas and massage therapists; the practitioner/job longevity is, on average, 4-5 years. One of the leading reasons that people stop practicing massage is injury. (It is similar for capoeiristas.) Injury can take the form of repetitive stress, causing pain in the joints and from occupational overuse, essentially doing too many treatments in a week without sufficient recovery time.
The paradox is that it can be helpful to do more physical exercise in order to relieve the stress of work. There’s a false idea that one’s energy is finite and that if one works out, one will be more tired afterwards, but it can have the opposite effect. A daily practice can be enormously helpful. Whenever one is starting out, making small, incremental changes is key. In other words, not trying to do too much too quickly. I’ve tried to add in (or give up) multiple things at once and have failed because the changes were incompatible with my busy life, juggling jobs, parenting and hobbies. Consistency has cumulative effects and committing to 5-10 minutes of daily mobility or stretching or stillness practice has a low cost and high gain.
Exercise: If one is just beginning a daily practice, consider spending 5 minutes, right after waking in the morning, with repetitions of reaching up with the arms, keeping legs straight, attempting to touch the ceiling then forward folding with bent knees. Inhaling while reaching up, exhaling while folding forward. After 6-10 reps. move to hands and knees and do repetitions of Cat and Cow; inhaling in cow, exhaling with cat. Focusing on bringing the movements from the sacrum (anterior pelvic tilt in Cow, posterior pelvic tilt in Cat.) Try for a couple of weeks and see how it feels in one’s spine. Enjoy!