What Exactly is Human Ecology?
Human Ecology is created by Kris and Pavlina from SOMA. In Greek Mythology the soma represents the human body distinct from the mind.
They created this Human Ecology to help us modern humans stay more in tune with our bodies and help give us a wider understanding of how our body can move to deliver a more functional lifestyle and a more sustainable lifestyle.
The course begins with an introduction into the concept of ancestral movement and how to sit, how to roll, how to lunge, how to kneel, how to crawl and how to squat and how to combine these movement patterns in a natural, primal, and free flowing way.
Many of these positions are crucial for improved performance and injury prevention in daily life, and are even more important for life’s fun like sports and leisure activities. If our bodies are stiff from sitting at desks all day and commuting to work, then when we ask it to suddenly run, jump twist and turn we increase the risk of injury and muscle spasm as our bodies are just simply not used to moving so much. This can have detrimental effects on muscles and joints in particular.
However, if we can regain our ancestral ability to move our muscles and joints the way they move naturally, and then maintain that capability, we will greatly reduce the risk of injuries and improve our body’s ability to successfully perform a plethora of beneficial movement patterns in our leisure time and playing sports.
Kneeling, half kneeling and pounce are the first three of the sitting postures described in the course. Each of them has a primary focus on the feet and ankle complex and also improve mobility and flexibility of the hips and spinal column which can in turn help us when we are walking, running or jumping. We can begin to execute each movement more efficiently and with less stress on our feet and leg muscles.
In order to achieve some of the ancestral sitting positions that may be new for people, Kris and Pav demonstrate a number of ways to release specific joints by targeting specific muscles and fascial lines with foam rollers and trigger point release balls.
The middle section of the course teaches us how to sit in positions that we, as humans who sit in chairs and on sofas all day, rarely find ourselves in. The z-sits, half-cross-legged and cross-legged positions are positions that some of us will long have forgotten.
Re-educating our bodies to feel comfortable in these positions encourages our hips into new joint nourishing alignments, reducing pain and pressure through our pelvis and spine.
Half Long Sitting, Sitting Position, Drink Position and Resting Deep Squat are the final movement ecology postures in the series. These are great postures to loosen off tension surrounding the sciatic nerves, our hamstrings and lower back.
Kris and Pav demonstrate how to move from one sitting posture to another and give tips and pointers on how to use cushions to prop ourselves up if we just don’t quite have the flexibility to comfortably sit in these full ancestral sitting positions.
The course finishes with some beautiful flowing movement series taught by Pavlina, that brings life to the static positions Kris teaches in the first part of the workshop.
Seeing these positions in motion really stimulates your mind as to what movement patterns and positions our body and our mind is capable of creating in an environment without any equipment or resistance.
Pav and Kris come together and further ignite our thoughts with a full flowing partner series to music at the end of the course using a simple weight as an anchor to create beautiful ancestral movement patterns into a fun and emotive workout.
All these Human Ecology positions can be used to regain our ancestral mobility that we may have long forgotten about from all of the time spent sitting in chairs and on sofas. Technology our ancestors didn’t have, they were forced to crouch, kneel, lie down and sit around a camp fire for hours on end in comfortable legs crossed, deep squat and even legs straight out in front of them.
If you like restoring movement and tapping into your primal ancestral roots, then this Human Ecology Course is perfect for you to nourish your body and mind with primal movements!
