Learning how to move from my toddler

If you have a toddler, I highly recommend considering them your movement teacher.

Children move very freely and effortlessly, without all the internal resistance and tension that we accumulate over a lifetime.

I notice this in particular when I watch our daughter pick up objects from the floor. Unlike me, who bends down forward to perform this action, she effortlessly squats down.

The squat, of course is the much more efficient and healthy way to do this, in fact it is one of the most essential movements and increasingly used as a measure of youthfulness by the longevity community.

It is just something we unlearn.

By playing with children we can slowly but surely regain our ability to move in an optimal way.

Mary Cassatt’s “Children playing on the beach” (1884)