“Movement Matters. Not just movement—your movement. Not only to your physiology, but to those in your family and your community. Your movement matters, not only to those you see on a daily and a yearly basis, but to humans elsewhere, that you’ve never met. Your movement matters to the forests and bees in your local area, and our culturally approved (and possibly demanded) sedentarianism is responsible for much of the deforestation of the planet as well as slavery in other places.
You have a role in the ecosystem, and it’s not a static position at the top of the food chain as you were taught. Your role is a dynamic one, critical to all the other living things on this planet.
I haven’t always understood movement this way. This book is a result of me, a biomechanist—someone trained in the application of mechanical laws to the movement and structure of living things—starting to think like an ecologist, and recognizing how movement is a part, a component, of our personal health, our communities and our planet.”
~ Katy Bowman from Movement Matters
This is our third Note on Katy Bowman’s work. Check out our Notes on Move Your DNA + Don’t Just Sit There plus our Interviews for more.
(And check out our Movement 101 class in which we chat about her Ideas as well. And, while you’re at it, make sure you check out our Notes on Joan Vernikos’s Sitting Kills, Moving Heals +Michelle Segar’s No Sweat + John Ratey’s Spark for more on the science of/benefits of movement.)
Katy Bowman is, in her words, “part biomechanist, part science communicator, and full-time mover” who has inspired and “educated hundreds of thousands of people on the role movement plays in the body and in the world” via her website NutritiousMovement.com and podcast called Katy Says.
She’s also an incredible embodiment of her passion and ideals—which is my favorite quality of hers.
This book is an adaptation of a series of essays Katy created over the last five years in which she unpacks her evolving views on what she calls “movement ecology.” It’s not your typical “do X, Y, and Z” optimal living guidebook. It’s a thoughtful and thought-provoking look at why—as you can guess by the title—Movement Matters and a challenging look at how our individual and cultural decisions have created a sedentary culture and a significant nature debt that few of us ever stop to think about. (Get the book here.)
It’s packed with Big Ideas and I’m excited to share some of my favorites so let’s jump straight in!
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