Moving Like an Animal Again

Watch an animal move through its day and you will not see a workout.

You will see stretching, resting, walking, sudden effort, long stillness, play, curiosity and movement in response to the world around it.

Human bodies once moved much more like this too.

Now movement is often something scheduled, measured and tracked. Calories burned. Steps completed. Targets reached.

For many women it has become another place in which the body is asked to perform.

But movement can be a relationship rather than a debt.

As we grow older, maintaining muscle, bone, mobility and balance becomes increasingly important. Through menopause, changing hormone levels can affect bone, muscle and connective tissues too.

So yes, strength matters.

But tending strength does not require us to become hostile towards the body.

We can lift. Carry. Squat. Push. Pull. Walk. Swim. Stretch. Dance. Practise yoga. Climb hills. Move vigorously when there is energy and slowly when there is not.

And rest between effort.

Start with the feet.

They are our meeting place with the earth, adapting continually to the surfaces beneath us and carrying the whole structure above them. Yet most of us spend remarkably little time feeling them.

Bare feet on safe ground. Uneven surfaces. Toes that can spread. Ankles that move.

Small ways of remembering that movement begins with contact.

Perhaps this is what it means to befriend movement.

Not exercising because we are afraid of ageing, but keeping ourselves capable of inhabiting life as we age.

The animal body does not need punishment.

It needs use, rest, variation, pleasure and attention.

It needs to move because it is alive.