Something to keep in mind when you exercise your body – fixed postures and repetitive motion do not build fitness as much as they build rigidity and stiffness. Too much effort and too much activity can tear down the body. Too little effort or not enough activity weakens the body.
Exercise, by its very nature, is repetitive and forceful. Allowing changes of pace and variety of movements helps develop elastic, supple, flexible muscles, tendons and ligaments your body needs to move with greater ease and less risk of injury.
Posture and alignment must shift and change in order for the body to move in balance and with freedom. Fixity, or rigid standards and repetitive movement patterns contributes to inflexibility and brittleness. Weight lifting, for example, while building muscular strength, may also reinforce a damaging imbalance weakening the structural integrity of the body.
Rigidity is not for our living, breathing and very alive bodies! Our bodies are made up of bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia. Everything is alive, in constant relationship with gravity, load, direction and force – always needing to be elastic and supple, able to distribute force, contract and release.
Our minds are constantly receiving and sending signals to the body based on the information it receives from you, but also based on the impact of your emotional state. This is our Body Mind Intelligence. Bodies breathe, expand and contract, flex and release. The achievement of balance is ultimately the result of all these emotions, all our cells and systems being able to adjust to the space we live and move in, as well as the speed and cadence of our lives.
We can’t stop life from coming at us. We don’t necessarily need to resist “what is.” But what we do need is the space and time to adjust to what our senses have to tell us. To take the time to listen to the body and how it feels and allow movement that is appropriate to the needs of the body at the moment – that leads to less rigidity and resistance, and therefore greater mobility and improved balance.
We need to guide the body, to shape the moves for the body rather than forcefully telling the body what to do. We want to work in partnership with our bodies, not from a point of hostility and dominance.
Our bodies are brilliant and wise. Our bodies know how to move and how to avoid injury if we would only pay attention and give the body a chance to adapt and learn, so that it can teach us in return.
Traditional exercise programming, or the traditional exercise mindset, restricts the body’s ability to adjust. Exercise from the standpoint of body dominance limits the body’s ability to absorb the extra forces placed upon it. The joints have to work even harder and the entire structure of the body suffers.
Rather than demanding a high degree of activity while at the same time ignoring the body’s signals of tension and overload, GEMnastics and its Gentle Easy Moves provide a framework to enhance balance, alignment and mobility while at the same time improving body mind intelligence (relationship and information sharing between mind and body).
GEMnastics is a physical re-education for grown-up bodies that addresses fixed posture and patterns that arise simply as a result of living stressful grown-up lives. When old methods of exercise do not provide the suppleness and adaptability needed for a safe and sound fitness foundation – a new approach is necessary. GEMnastics is a new approach to building sound movement fundamentals and progressing the body within its current limitations and potential, rather than imposing the structure and standards of traditional exercise programs.
For more on GEMnastics go to https://anewbmi.teachable.com/p/gemnastics
