Monkey Gym Workshop Day I

Today was the first day of a 4 day Monkey Gym workshop, in Canberra.  Very cool (and rare) to see, that pretty much the whole group had full, or almost, full range of motion in a full squat position.  Brought up in discussion was the cool idea (mentioned in THIS clip with Ido) that the squat position forms a position of rest in many parts of the world. 

Lucky everyone had a good squat, as first cab off the rank was Craig's - with a fantastic squatting and hip mobility play-session. This session was awesome(!), and very cool to see Craig (and others) interested in the physical cultivation aspects of movement, beyond the solely motor pattern and strength elements (which are cool to have, too).  A couple of drills here that I haven't seen, and will be keeping in my routine until they become smooth. Thank you Craig!

After lunch it was my turn, and I subjected the group to a foot and lower leg intensive session (after the morning's quite foot and leg intensive session) - will be interesting to see how/where people are sore tomorrow, after that much volume and 'novel' stimulus..   I debuted my 'Flamin' 8' deep posterior compartment exercise, with a few more additions I've been working on.  I will hopefully get these additions filmed and up in the next week, for people to play with. 

Kit and I then co-taught a section on lower limb alignment and glute activation and sequencing. A lot of the classic Monkey Gym stuff was taught, along with some recent additions, such as the Speed Skater Squat (which is Kit's latest favorite) - which is actually are really exceptional exercise, that I will practice and blog about later (if Kit doesn't get in first). 

It was fantastic to see, too, that so many people in the workshop are into body-mindfulness; sensory awareness coupled with motor performance, and increasing kinesthetic awareness and movement patterning for children in schools and classes.  So cool that people are really, truly wanting to get this stuff out there!