Movement Matters: Essays on Movement Science, Movement Ecology, and the Nature of Movement

What if, during a bout of running or cycling, parts of you were still sedentary? What if our entire model for how a cell behaves were based on cells immobilized in a petri dish? What if natural movement was more than barefoot running and tree-climbing, and required a group of people? Thought-provoking, inspiring, and always entertaining, Movement Matters is a deep exploration of movement beyond exercise via a compendium of essays from bio-mechanist and movement ecologist Katy Bowman.

Comprising her best essays from 2011 to 2016, organized by theme, Movement Matters explores the main areas in which she has focused her most recent work:

• Dismantling our current understanding of movement science;

• Exploring movement ecology and the nature of movement;

• Giving practical advice for creating a movement-based lifestyle.

A companion to Alignment Matters (2013) 9780989653909, Movement Matters presents the deepening of Katy’s groundbreaking work, models that have evolved from thinking of the body as a single structure to considering it to be a cluster of a trillion bodies, and how those trillion bodies are being loaded by forces both inside (via muscular contraction) and outside (our cells are moved by the world around us).

From movement nutrients to furniture-free homes to forest school to the problems with asking for scientific “proof,” our cultural bias against movement is explored from many angles. The reader is left with a deeper understanding of the challenges we face as a movement-starved culture—and of the absolute joy and freedom that natural, nutritious movement can bring us.