As a business owner I’ve taken to social media to share what I’ve learned from other people and create a network of likeminded folks I can virtually hang out with. I decided to join Instagram with some hesitation, partly because I didn’t want another platform stealing my time and partly because I didn’t like the unhealthy obsession with perfect photos and unachievable body ideals. Who hasn’t been the unwitting participant in the ‘hold on, just one more, it’s not quite right’ group photo attempt that seems to take forever? But I’ve decided that just like anything in life, just because a platform has a certain reputation doesn’t mean I need to use the platform for the same reason.
I was listening to CBC last week and I heard an interesting interview that resonates with the way I’m thinking these days. They were interviewing a woman who made a decision to start posting less-than-perfect photos on her Instagram feed. It was a refreshing idea that fits with my worldview as a movement practitioner.
In the world of movement practice it’s an important step when you come to understanding that both ‘movement’ and ‘practice’ are not about being perfect or presentable to the eyes of others. But to be moving simply for the sake of moving, no matter how it looks, and practicing because it’s not about being perfect but just about simply doing. My philosophy is I don’t care how you move, just move. I don’t care how you look when you move, as long as you move. Similarly, as a practitioner I want to move away from my clients presuming that I am going to ‘fix’ them, that there is an ‘ideal’ movement, that they are ‘broken’. Instead I want to work with clients who are dedicated to moving daily and moving better over time. These are my tribe.
Much of what I present on social media is information that I have learned from other people that I hope will help people better understand their bodies and their movement practices. Part of what I post is reality, as ugly or as imperfect as it is. For example, my attempts at Animal Flow when I’m still learning how to do the basic activations and how much I grow with consistent practice. My attempts at learning to handstand when day after day I’m only seeing incremental improvements. Changes in my clients’ movement skills after consistent attention to their practice. None of this is pretty. None of this is ‘Instagram worthy’. But that’s not the point.
So I hope my little rant about the superficiality of social media causes you to think, or maybe you’re like me and you want to start changing for the better what you’re putting out there in people’s feeds. Start small. Post that fail or that blooper video. Show us your bad days. Show us the day you didn’t want to go to the gym but you went anyways. Give us your falls and your bad transitions. Let’s be real.