MovNat West Virginia June 2011
I attended my second MovNat camp from June 27th to July 2nd. The first one was on a beautiful beach in Thailand, this one was in a beautiful camp ground in West Virgina -- Summersville Lake resort. We had a much larger group this time -- twelve people (whereas Thailand was only six). Two of the twelve were women; two of them also came from Europe. The gentleman from Hamburg had to spend a night in Charleston on each end of the trip just to come to MovNat; another MovNater rode his motorcyle from Toronto -- that's dedication!
For reference, here's my post about the camp in Thailand from the winter: http://adamzrashid.posterous.com/movnat-thailand-december-2010
This MovNat course was the "Expansion" course -- people had to have at least an intermediate level of fitness, whereas Thailand was open to all. That meant that some of the attendees were quite fit. We had an MMA fighter -- one could tell he was a professional athlete, he was very strong and coordinated, picked up all the skills very quickly. One of the women was in the Swedish Air Force, it was her second camp, she trains people on the side -- she was also very capable, had all the skills, impressive focus and concentration. There were also three college kids, it was good to see young people embracing MovNat, two of them eventually want to become MovNat trainers.
We slept in tents all week, the air mattress was comfortable. By the end of the day, I was so tired that I could have slept anywhere. It was also refreshing to breathe fresh air and be in absolute silence while sleeping -- no honking cabs or M23 buses cruising past my window. MovNat provided us sleeping bags -- it never got too chilly at night. The weather for the week was perfect -- it sprinkled one day, but there other four were bright and sunny, but not unbearably hot. I probably should have brought sunscreen, as I have a pretty deep tan now.
The other major feature of the camp is that we cooked all our own food. They had a little tent with a grill and four burners. Clif, one of the coaches, brought in groceries everyday and supervised us in the preparation: lots of vegetable chopping, egg cracking, and meat flipping. Of course, all the meals were Paleo. Unfortunately, the meat wasn't grass-fed, owing to the limitations of the grocery stores there. All the food was delicious, especially the meat marinara, ribs, and eggs+bacon. Everyone cleaned their plates -- the last day I must have eaten 12 eggs. Erwan joked that the secret ingredient was hunger, which we certainly had enough of after running around for >6 hours per day. We also washed the dishes together after every meal, Henry Ford would have been proud of our rinse/wash/rinse/disinfect assembly line.
Of course I got some new MovNat tattooes.
We did pretty much the same activities in Thailand: walking, running, crawling, jumping, lifting, swimming, throwing, catching. Some of them I was better at, some of them I was pretty much the same. Our playground was similar to the one in Thailand -- logs tied to trees that we climbing, jumped, and balanced on. This camp was an improvement in that they made the playground safer, and there was more emphasis on spotting. One of the tasks involved walking on a log that was about six feet high -- it's easy when it's a foot off the ground, but six feet makes one nervous, it's more of a mental task than anything. Everything was very safe: Erwan distinguished the concept of risk and danger. For tasks that were slightly dangerous, we worked up to them in increments, so we got lots of practice. Other members of the group served as spotters. Nobody was pressured to do anything they weren't comfortable trying. Remarkably, in the two camps I've been to, nobody has gotten hurt.
A couple videos from the final "skills" session:
The final day consisted of a two hour session where we employed all the skills, some times at breakneck pace. For you future MovNaters, I'm not going to spoil it, but it was exhilarating. At the beginning of it, Erwan told us that, in the past, people have cried and vomited during it, but the goal is to push your limits and fight through. If you want a vacation where you sleep in a tent, wash your own dishes, get covered in mud, and could potentially vomit, I highly recommend MovNat!
Some of the movements above may look hard -- you may even be saying to yourself "I could never do that" -- that's completely wrong. MovNat is for everyone -- these are movements natural to all human beings. You might not be able to do some of them at first, I certainly wasn't, but Erwan, Vic, and Clif will coach you through them. You may start with an easier version, then work up to progressively harder versions. If you can't do the movements, they will teach how to practice at home so that you will eventually be capable. You will probably find yourself more capable than you had thought -- MovNat will teach you how to reawaken your natural abilities.
