“Remember when you were a kid and there was nothing more you loved to do more than running?” MovNat founder Erwan Le Corre asked me. It’s the final day of the MovNat Trainer Certification course in Minneapolis, and we’re working on making my running more efficient in all aspects—posture, sequence, timing and form.

Later, Le Corre will show me videos of my running, both before and after our session, but, for now, we’re quickly working through a series of progressions. They seem too simple to be effective, yet they transform my running form from barely functional to relatively beautiful, despite a pesky heel strike that will require more work on my own time.

I can’t remember enjoying running. The “fun” part of running for me always seems to come long after I cross the finish line. My recollections of running involve frantically trying to catch a flight or a train or speedily escaping from dangerous situations—that kind of thing. Distant memories include being forced to run around the track in middle school gym class, trying to make sure I was somewhere in the middle of the pack while also avoiding getting out of breath and wheezing in the cold early morning air. One year, long after college, I put myself through six months of treadmill running, four times a week, all in order to hit a New Year’s goal of a seven-minute treadmill mile. When I did accomplish my goal, I was filled with more of a sense of relief than pleasure, and I avoided that machine from then on.

Most recently, I remember running around the mat before grappling classes in a routine warm-up, often focusing more on making sure I’m keeping up with my teammates than on the task at hand. My sprint training? Not exactly fluid, and the pleasurable aspect came from beating my previous time and finishing the training. Enjoying running as a child? I can’t remember…

On the first day of the course, Erwan tells us that how well we move is an indication of how free we are. Learning how to run better might be fun, but would it make me freer? Are people with injuries or disabilities not free? What if someone could move well but suffered from addiction or depression? And who decides which movements are necessary for one’s freedom, and performed at which level? Didn’t Warren Zevon teach us that true freedom was about access to lawyers, guns and money? This intellectual exercise in futility soon gives way to deeper philosophical questions as it dawns on me that I really can’t feel how I’m moving. I’m reliant on others to tell me what I’m doing in a way that isn’t easily corrected by verbal cues. (The videos are truly eye-opening.)


Erwan Le Corre and Vic Verdier

How did we become so disconnected from our bodies, I find myself wondering… or, more importantly (to me, anyway), how did I become so disconnected from mine? It’s a question I continue to ask myself over and over again during the four days of the seminar, and though I have not come to a definitive conclusion, I do find myself on the fast track towards improved body awareness through the helpful guidance of Le Corre and skilled instructors Vic Verdier and Brian Tabor.


Le Corre, Photos by Julie Angel

My experience, I’m sure, is not that different from people of all skill levels attending MovNat courses worldwide. (The January issue of the Performance Menu includes Ryan Atkins’ account of the one-day course he attended.) MovNat skills are often less routinized than strength and conditioning as we typically know it. Although movements such as crawling, running, jumping, balancing and even lifting are instinctive, a somewhat unique challenge arises when it comes to coaching others to do them effectively, especially when working outdoors with varying terrain, weather conditions and even physical objects. Making these activities both safe and challenging, both fun and accessible: that is where MovNat really thrives.

Good Coaching + Practice = Good Movement

I think it’s fair to say that I’m the least ninja-like of the certification participants. This brings an unexpected set of benefits, namely getting an extra dose of coaching in an effort to bring me up to speed. I’d recommend certification candidates come more prepared than I, especially since future courses will be only 2.5 days instead of 4, but it is cool to see a hands-on demonstration of the coaching skills taught in the course as applied in action.

Although MovNat instructors seem particularly adept at working with people of all skill levels, it’s worth noting that proficiency does not depend on the MovNat system; it’s just good coaching. However, effective coaching is something that’s often covered inadequately at certification courses. We all have stories of how good coaching is sorely lacking, and we all know gyms that are suffering from a lack of safe progressions or, on the opposite end, failing to keep fundamental training interesting for all participants.

Finding that balance can take years of experience, especially when each client has his or her own unique background, skills, abilities, limitations and challenges. However, just like intensive practice and coaching accelerates our improvement in physical skills, improvements in coaching can be similarly accelerated with practice and coaching.

I’m often quite critical of poor coaching ¬¬-- I have paid for a lot of it -- but I have never done any formal coaching myself, and the realization of how difficult coaching really is comes to me as I attempt it myself during the teacher training segments of the MovNat certification course. We practice by creating a lesson to teach to a small group of fellow students, and receive specific feedback. Later, we are given a lesson to coach students who were asked to act out specific problems and imbalances.

We work on observing these imbalances and responding to them by modifying training, giving verbal cues or even providing progressions. Spotting imbalances and reacting appropriately on the fly is a different beast than simply knowing progressions and being aware of improper movement patterns. Practicing under the watchful eyes of skilled instructors, receiving individual feedback and discussing common problems in the larger group is a helpful step in understanding where we are at in the process.

MovNat instructors come from different backgrounds. Erwan Le Corre’s training is quite well-rounded, and includes Olympic weightlifting, rock climbing, triathlons, judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and “Combat Vital,” which is similar in many ways to Methode Naturelle. Vic Verdier was exposed to Methode Naturelle as a child. He trained in Close Quarter Combat as an officer in the French Navy, has extensive scuba diving experience, and coaches Krav Maga. Brian Tabor won the 2010 North American Strongman competition, completed an internship for the U.S. Navy Tactical Athlete Program and is a bit of a programming whiz.


Brian Tabor

Top Ten MovNat Coaching Guidelines

All three instructors had their own unique coaching styles, yet demonstrated all of the “best practices” of the coaching skills we studied. Here are the ten that stood out for me, which I believe can and should be applied to any type of coaching.

1. Coach clearly.

This means making sure people can hear you and see you. It seems obvious, but most of us have had to move around the room to be able to hear instructions or see things at a better angle. You’ll want to demonstrate the movement you want your clients to perform and to give clear, simple and specific instructions, avoiding unnecessarily complex language. Not all your clients know what contralateral means.

2. Create a safe environment, physically.

Safety literally has to do with making sure the environment is physically safe, without slippery surfaces and with adequate room for people to work without running into each other. Additionally, you need to make sure there’s proper supervision of clients. A third part of safety is monitoring your clients’ physical conditions—whether that’s previous or existing injuries, their current physical state and state of mind or their overall ability level.

3. Create a safe environment, mentally.

Even if you’re GSP, working on your form in an exercise or technique you think you already know or think you should already know is humbling. And even the slightest modifications in conditions can already send you back to beginners’ levels. For example, even someone who can Olylift their bodyweight may have trouble with a 60-pound sandbag clean and jerk, if they’ve only ever trained a split jerk and a barbell grip. To prevent injuries because of inattention or pride, it is key to create a mentally safe environment where it’s okay to mess up, learn and grow.

4. Recognize and respond to inefficiencies.

To do this effectively, you need to understand different causes of inefficiency and responding appropriately. Causes may include physical dysfunctions, lack of conditioning, lack of strength, lack of mobility, lack of focus or mindfulness, lack of confidence or lack of skill. In addition, a client may simply be in a poor physical or mental space that day. Being able to make appropriate adaptations on the fly is what separates a good coach from a great one. As an example of good coaching, a coach might respond to a lack of skill by slowing down the movement or offering verbal cues. A lack of conditioning can be addressed by decreasing volume, intensity or complexity of the exercise. Those lacking in focus or confidence can work on breathing drills or even try to visualize a movement in their minds before performing it.

5. Provide context.

Giving an example of a real-life situation in which the movement you’re teaching would actually be used is incredibly helpful.

6. Teach well-roundedness.

This is always worthy of a reminder: help clients focus on movements which need improvement, instead of just the ones they’re already good at. Obviously, this is meant to complement, rather than replace, any specific skills they’ve developed.

7. Don’t ignore people who can’t do something.

Even if these clients could safely be left alone, being ignored makes them feel demoralized and bad about themselves, and this is the opposite of what you want to be accomplishing as an instructor.

8. Practice integrity.

Integrity isn’t really something that can be taught in a seminar, but it was a breath of fresh air for me to hear that it is absolutely the instructor’s responsibility if a client is injured due to a lack of supervision or appropriate modifications, no matter what their client’s lifestyle.

9. Use progressions appropriately.

This is the million-dollar question. How do you create a safe environment with appropriate progressions without your clients getting bored to tears?

We all know theoretically that it’s important to create progressions that are challenging, but not too challenging. To geek out on this topic, check out Mihaly Csikszentmihaly’s book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, or Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s writing on instructional scaffolding. But how do we actually do this in practice? MovNat provides some really effective guidelines.

Starting Points

First, don’t pressure someone to do a movement with which they’re not comfortable. Encouraging clients to try to do a difficult-for-them movement is fair game, as long as it’s safe and you’re creating a positive environment instead of a frustrating one. Your clients’ personality and the amount of time they’ve been working on the skill also comes into play.

As an example, doing box jumps on a couple of bumper plates may be embarrassing and possibly unnecessary for someone who can jump high above a box but doesn’t feel confident. Falling is more embarrassing than a too-simple modification, and is potentially unsafe, as well. Best to have clients work up to the box after a few “easier” sessions.

To Modify Or Not To Modify

Second, don’t modify too much if it’s unnecessary. If a client is doing something almost perfectly but has one inefficiency, you don’t necessarily need to start over and rebuild the movement from scratch. Instead, you can give your client a verbal cue first to see if that works.

If, on the other hand, clients have multiple inefficiencies or are performing with poor quality, you may want to give them a less complex version of the movement to try. And don’t tell them all five things they’re doing wrong all at once. Find the most fundamental movement and deal with that first.

It’s worth noting that clients who are physically fatigued may need regressions on activities they’ve performed with quality in the past. However, if you constantly need to use regressions, you may be setting the bar too high.

Onward and Upward

The logical next step for people who can perform a movement safely and efficiently is to increase difficulty by adding volume, intensity or complexity.

You know you have a good balance in your coaching and your gym if clients of all levels are making progress and maintaining interest, with minimal training-related injuries.

10. Teach quality.

Becoming intimate with a movement isn’t something that’s taught often. Movements are often a means to an end, and as long as you do not injure yourself, quality is not important. For example, in a typical grappling class warm-up, you may run around a mat inefficiently, do front rolls and crawling drills poorly and, although you’ll be corrected, you may never really master good form or even become proficient in the technique.

Anyone can go to a gym and do a workout with box jumps and sprints and crawls, but it takes effort for most adults to make these movements silent and effortless, not to mention relaxed and easy. Slowing down can help bring out inefficient movement patterns in skills such as balancing and crawling, for example, in the same way that adding on weight would in an Olympic lift.

It is a bit of a paradigm shift, not settling for doing something passably well (e.g. “I can do this shoulder roll without breaking my neck and at the same speed as the rest of the class; let’s move on”). So is improving movement quality as an end unto itself, instead of as a means to an end (a new PR or a tournament win). Although reducing injury and building movement integrity can help with any endeavor, it stands on its own as well.

MovNat focuses on quality far beyond any movement system I’ve ever seen. A well-done MovNat movement isn’t just passable; it’s efficient and fluid, graceful and powerful.

After The Course

In the weeks following the certification, I continue practicing my running, imagining one invisible string at the top of my head keeping me upright and one at my hips, pulling them forward. I find places to run barefoot and work through the progressions—skipping an imaginary rope, taking small strides, running backwards to see what the right foot strike feels like. I work on actively lifting my knees, using my arms for momentum and most of all on staying upright, viewing the horizon, just as we were evolved to do. And, at some point, I stop focusing on the details and just run, and it starts to feel more fluid, more (dare I say it?) natural.

My running form is a work in progress, but I’m feeling it changing indoors, too. While running around the mats before a grappling class, I try to focus on my form instead of letting my mind wander as I mindlessly work on keeping up. I’m noticing the vibration of my feet on the mats, which seem softer than I remember them. I’m no longer exhausted after a few laps—something that I always wondered about, since it seemed out of tune with my relative level of metabolic conditioning.

Over the 4 of July weekend, while practicing running on a trail while spending time with my boyfriend’s family on the lake, it came to me. I remember a moment as a child when running was joyous and blissful and free. I was in kindergarten and our whole class got to go outside. What we were celebrating, I couldn’t remember, only that a friend and I disappeared. We ran up and down hills and through the fields for what seemed like an eternity, completely oblivious to the fact that our teacher was looking for us and we were breaking all the rules. We felt refreshed and revived and exhausted in the best way possible. The look of relief on her face when we returned was a shock to us. We literally had no idea we’d done anything wrong. We just wanted to run outside.

Whether running with better form is what awakened that latent memory, I’ll never know. Body memory is a theory for scientists and philosophers to debate. But in a world filled with competitions and records and numerical goals, creating an environment where even the weakest or least skilled amongst us can awaken that feeling of freedom that comes with moving skillfully, effectively, silently, gracefully, powerfully, even beautifully… that is an end unto itself, important in its own right.

For more information on MovNat, including their certification course and other programs, check out their website, MovNat.com.