How to be Flexible. Part 6 – Safe Movement Exploration

This is the 6th and final part of my “How to be Flexible” series and in this episode of MoveMedics TV we will explore Safe Movement Exploration, which is the movement approach I believe is safe and efficient both in acquiring new movement and also to recover movement lost to pain and injury.

Like This Post?

Never miss a post.
Get our blog posts delivered straight to your inbox!

’Til next time, Be Free In Your Movement™.

x
Selina
B. Phty
This information is not medical advice. Got health concerns? Consult a real-life health professional.
Views are my own
.

*Affiliate links. Your choosing to use these goes towards supporting my content creation. Thank you.

This is the sixth and final part of my “How to be Flexible” series and today we are talking about Safe Movement Exploration. Let’s jump in.

Hi, I’m Selina from MoveMedics here to help you move better, feel better, so you can keep doing what makes you happy, for as long as you want.

So far in this series we have talked about my Movement Philosophy and the key concepts the Movement Spheres™ and the Movement Zones. We’ve also talked about your Brain and Movement, and how important it is that your brain thinks the movement you want to do, and the space you want to occupy, is safe.

This is important both when you want to acquire more movement, so when you want to expand your Current Movement Sphere™, and it’s also important when you want to recover a movement lost the pain and injury, so a movement that was once in the Green Zone that your brain the bodyguard has decided is no longer safe and marked it Red, boarded it up and say no entry.

So how do we do it? We want to practice Safe Movement Exploration and Safe Movement Exploration has two components.

Firstly, we must have sufficient Movement Capacity to do the movement we want to do. The Movement Capacity series is coming up next, but essentially you got to make sure that you have the right elements, if you’re lacking element A working on element B isn’t going to help your cause.

Real life example, I’m working on a freestanding handstand, strength is not my problem, I can take my weight upside down, but my proprioception, my body awareness when upside down is shit. I don’t know where I am, and what I think I am moving isn’t what’s happening at all, so until I address that, freestanding handstand ain’t gonna happen.

So firstly we’re gonna make sure we have sufficient Movement capacity, your brain needs to know you can handle it.

So what about the other part? How do we convince our dutiful bodyguard that something is safe?

Well, this is when we practice Graded Movement Exposure. And what that means is that you’ve got to work slowly, gradually, methodically, patiently, and gradually nudge your way into the direction that you’re not supposed to go.

So essentially you need to work in your Alert Zone. In the Alert Zone your bodyguard is only going to think “Oi! What are you doing?” And if you can demonstrate that you are fine, and nothing is coming to harm you, you’re not dying, then your body guard is going to think “Oh! They’re find over there, she can play over there. Oh that’s fine, that’s now Green” Right.

But if you just like charge and jump from Green to Red, like I used to chase after my nephew, boom, you’re just gonna go no you’re not going there, back to square one. So we don’t want to spook the bodyguard, that’s what we’re trying to do, we want to go and build the confidence, gain the trust, so that gradually over time, what was once Red becomes Yellow and what is Yellow becomes Green.

And if you’re not trying to recover a lost movement and you are just trying to gain new movement, the same concepts apply, if you just go straight to something that is completely foreign and unknown, you’re going to spook your bodyguard and you know what’s going to happen, it’s just going to go, boom nope, not going there, and it will probably immediately mark that off as a No-Go Zone and you are just then going to make it a lot more difficult for you to try to get there in the future.

And in fact that’s how I used to have a lot of irrational fear for the handstand because my first introduction to the handstand was literally from nothing to boom, it was crazy and I will tell you that story one time in another video.

But that is Safe Movement Exploration, you just gotta work in the Alert Zone and gradually expand out, build Movement Capacity in the Alert Zone and expand out and expand out, and as you do so your Movement Options will increase and very soon you’re going to have enough to do the things you want to do.

Remember in one of my first video I said to you most people only use about 40-ish, 50% of what’s in there waiting for you to explore, so as you expand out your options will improve.

So how do you feel about this? Let me know what your thoughts are about my Movement Philosophy, I would love to hear from you.

And if you have found this interesting and exciting, please give me a thumbs up.

And make sure you share this with your friends so they know how they can move better and expand the Movement Sphere™ as well.

If you haven’t already done so make sure you subscribe to my channel so when the new series, the Movement Capacity series come out, it will pop up on your home screen.

And until then thank you so much for watching and Be Free In Your Movement™

Sharing is Caring!
Scroll to Top