Table Of ContentFirst Published in 2019 by Victory Belt Publishing Inc.
Copyright © 2019 by Erwan Le Corre All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, or stored in a database or retrieval system,
without prior written permission from the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-628602-83-8
The information included in this book is for educational purposes only. It is not
intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. The reader
should always consult his or her healthcare provider to determine the
appropriateness of the information for his or her own situation or if he or she has
any questions regarding a medical condition or treatment plan. Reading the
information in this book does not constitute a patient-physician relationship.
The author/owner claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any
liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a
result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented
herein.
Cover and Interior photography by Anton Brkic Author Photo by Erik Tranberg
Page 39 photo by Christopher Baker Cover design by Erwan Le Corre and Dylan
Chatain Interior design by Charisse Reyes and Elita San Juan Printed in Canada
TC 0118
Contents
Preface
1 Manifesto
Chapter 1: Evolutionary
Chapter 2: Instinctual
Chapter 3: Universal
Chapter 4: Practical
Chapter 5: Vital
Chapter 6: Unspecialized
Chapter 7: Adaptable
Chapter 8: Environmental
Chapter 9: Progressive
Chapter 10: Efficient
Chapter 11: Mindful
Chapter 12: Cooperative
2 Movement Efficiency Principles
Chapter 13: Breathing
Chapter 14: Position
Chapter 15: Tension-Relaxation
Chapter 16: Sequence and Timing
Chapter 17: Local Positional Control
3 Practice Efficiency Principles
Chapter 18: Foot Freedom, Health, Function, and Strength
Chapter 19: Practice Environments
Chapter 20: Learning Techniques
Chapter 21: Progressions
Chapter 22: Structuring Sessions
Chapter 23: Programming
4 Techniques
Chapter 24: Ground Movement 1: Lying, Rolling, Crawling
Chapter 25: Ground Movement 2: Sitting, Kneeling, Getting Up
Chapter 26: Balancing Movement
Chapter 27: Gait Movement
Chapter 28: Airborne Movement
Chapter 29: Climbing Movement
Chapter 30: Manipulation Movement 1
Chapter 31: Manipulation Movement 2
Acknowledgments
Preface
“See that bump on the trunk? Put your foot right there.” My dad was talking to
me as he helped me climb an apple tree. I was barely four—and a little afraid—
but I was willing to follow and trust his guidance; I was willing to show ability
and strength; I was willing to learn.
Did I have a choice? Could I step down and quit? It didn’t seem like it. My
father wasn’t beneath me to catch me if something went wrong; instead, he was
right above me. I was six feet off the ground, which seemed like a deadly height
to me. This exercise was way beyond what I had ever attempted on my own. My
older brother Yann was next to my father and already confident in his own
ability, which just added to my desire not to disappoint my dad. I wanted to
succeed. I wanted to be proud of myself, and I wanted my father and brother to
be proud of me, too.
It’s a natural instinct in young children to seek peer validation through their
achievements. At the time, I was too young to think of the situation in those
exact terms, but I had the intuition of the practical, real value the challenge held.
I knew it in my gut.
I remember this first big tree-climbing experience very well, but that’s not really
when my Natural Movement training had started. My dad told me about another
situation that I have no memory of, which proved to be a pivotal experience for
me. He had climbed to the top of a steep muddy hill as I struggled along behind
him. I was quite young—only about two years old. My father said I called for
help, but he wouldn’t come back down to assist me. I tried to climb but kept
sliding down and back. After a few attempts, I started weeping in frustration and
again called for help. My dad kept asking me to try again; he was not going to
come to my rescue, and I had to make it on my own.
Because I had no choice, I stopped fussing and fought to make it to the top,
where he cheered me and explained what the lesson had been about: You are
capable of more than you think. My dad recalled feeling a little bad about
refusing to help me, but he also wanted to teach me at a young age about self-
reliance, which is a timeless lesson about a necessity that must be trained.
By the age of six, I was hanging from a metal rail outside my bedroom
window—my whole body in the void 15 feet above ground. I wasn’t showing
off; there was no one around. I just wanted to see if I could do the maneuver
with self-control. Instinctively, I was replicating what my dad had taught me
four years before. Now I was training it on my own.
Apart from his long daily walks, my dad never had a healthy lifestyle, and
consequently his health slowly but surely deteriorated over the years. On the
other hand, I was growing up fast, but I wasn’t particularly tall, strong, or
athletic. In fact, I just looked like a regular teenager. I was looking for a
direction in life, and I knew I didn’t want to follow in my father’s footsteps from
a lifestyle perspective. I had a vision of being strong, healthy, happy, and free,
and he was none of those things.
By age 15, I had taken up karate and started to practice with great
commitment. I loved the combination of physical and mental strength the
practice required. The Japanese martial art taught me a lot about precise
movement, efficiency, and methodical practice. I was an addict; I trained every
day—sometimes twice a day—and added daily supplemental training in the form
of running, swimming, stretching, and even weightlifting. I started competing—
first at the local level and then at the national level. It felt as if karate was the be-
all and end-all.
When I was 19, I began to study at the university, but after a few weeks I
gave up out of utter boredom. However, I was a young adult now, and things
were a bit more complicated than they had been when I was younger. What was
I supposed to do with my life? How could I make myself strong, healthy, happy,
and free in this world? I didn’t expect anything conventional would make me
feel that way, and I questioned every single aspect of what’s called a “normal”
life.
Then I met someone who understood me. “Don” was my dad’s age and a
charismatic character who was known for being something of a nature stuntman
and natural-lifestyle guru. He had once jumped off a helicopter into the freezing
waters of Greenland. He was near an iceberg and equipped with only a pair of
shorts from the company he was promoting. I was fascinated by everything I
heard and saw about this man. In many ways, Don embodied what I was looking
for.
I reached out to him and started training with him the day we met. I
immediately became a follower of his philosophy and practice. While other
young people were still studying or starting a career and family (living “normal”
lives), I was running barefoot in the streets of Paris by night, climbing bridges,
balancing at great heights, diving in dark and icy waters wearing only swim
trunks, jumping from rooftop to rooftop without safety equipment, practicing
Thai boxing moves in forbidden areas of the Paris underground, and doing
breathing drills at the crack of dawn to draw energy from the “elements.” I was
doing 15 hours of fasting (only drinking water) daily, and once each week I’d
fast for a stretch of 24 to 36 hours.
I had ditched conventional forms of entertainment to dedicate all my
energies to this lifestyle and to getting as healthy, strong, and free as I could
through my daily practice. The Internet was still new to most people, and
smartphones didn’t exist. I didn’t own a TV and couldn’t have cared less about
not having one. I was running barefoot long before it became a thing. I was
training “wild” or “primal” long before it was a thing. I was doing “intermittent
fasting” and cold plunges before both were trendy—before digital cameras and
social media. I was doing all of it almost 20 years ago, when I was only 19.
I was immersed in an atypical existential quest. I learned a lot in the process
—so much that I could write a whole book about that period of my life.
During these years of consistent lifestyle practice, I often got to train
outside in the streets, in parks, and in nature—anywhere, anytime. People often
looked at me as if I was weird, and I couldn’t have cared less. Sometimes they
pointed at me. Sometimes they laughed or smiled in a sarcastic manner. Some
people would ask me what I was doing because they were puzzled that I was
barefoot, long-haired, and dressed in ninja-like black clothes as I did some kind
of mysterious practice they couldn’t identify. The way I described my approach
didn’t seem to enlighten anyone. They’d say, “If you want to be ‘strong,’ why
not just do bodybuilding?” There seemed to be a thick wall separating my
perception, behavior, and lifestyle from a normal one, but I had to follow my
innate drive. It felt vital to me, although I recognized the evident mismatch
between what I was doing and the behavior society normally expects from a
young man. I wasn’t practicing conventional fitness; I wasn’t doing military
training; and I wasn’t involved in a sport or a known physical discipline. So,
what was I doing? Training to be a stuntman? Thinking I was some sort of
Rambo? Even when I tried to explain, nobody would really get it.
I started to understand that what was missing and what I had intuitively
been looking for all my life was that I wanted to develop and maintain the most
timeless skills in human beings.
You could go to a park and identify physical activities that you spot people
doing. Someone holding a pose, maybe upside down? Yoga, of course. Someone
doing slow, controlled, mindful movements? Tai chi or qi gong. Someone
stretching? Well…that’s stretching. Someone doing handstands or acrobatics?
Gymnastics or calisthenics. Someone doing push-ups and sit-ups? General
conditioning. You get the point. You can identify when someone is doing
capoeira or hip hop, karate or judo. Most people can even identify diverse styles
of dance. You don’t even have to be a practitioner to recognize when other
people are doing those activities.
Now imagine an adult man or woman climbing a tree, jumping off a
branch, and landing in a roll before immediately transitioning to a crawl, then to
a sprint, then to a jump before eventually throwing something to another person
or maybe even carrying another person. What would you think? What is that
activity? Are these people sane? Is it something new?
I started my Natural Movement practice as a young child, without knowing
it by that name or that it was a very ancient practice. Only later in my life did I
realize that the very idea of having a physical practice or activity entirely based
on the full range of movements that are natural to humans was novel to most
people. I came to the realization that many physical activities or disciplines had a
name and were recognized by all, but this ancient movement practice didn’t have
a name. Without a name, it had no identity; without an identity, it had no
recognition; without recognition, it had no value; and without value, it had no
place in our modern world and lives.
In studying the history of physical training, I learned that others had
attempted to champion this type of physical practice, with mixed results. My
new heroes became Girolamo Mercuriale, Johann Heinrich Pestolazzi, Francisco
Amorós, Johann GutsMuths, Friedrich Jahn, and Georges Hébert, to name the
most important innovators. I realized that a long line of people had been
exploring this area of physical training, and I was its new thought-leader and
spearhead.
NOTE
If you’d like to learn more about the history behind MovNat, read “The Roots of
‘Methode Naturelle’” on the MovNat journal (www.movnat.com/the-roots-of-
methode-naturelle/).
I decided that my mission would be to first give the practice a name, and
then develop a rationale or concept to explain it in a straightforward, intelligible
manner so that I could bring the idea to mainstream awareness and share the
practice on a worldwide scale. How ambitious! My vision was to bring the
benefits of this practice and lifestyle to as many other people as I could in order
to benefit them as much as possible; I hoped to help improve many lives. This is
the intention behind this book, and it has been my life’s work for many years
through the MovNat method I created a decade ago.
More and more people are becoming aware that “Natural Movement”
involves the skills of crawling, walking, running, balancing, jumping, and so
forth, but that has not always been the case. Do you remember the first time you
heard about Natural Movement as a discipline or physical practice rather than as
a mere anecdotal way to describe a movement using the “natural” label? Today,
after I have spent a whole decade dedicated to continuously and systematically
promoting the Natural Movement term and concept through countless magazine
articles, podcasts, blog entries, interviews, videos, and finally this book, the
concept is finally on the verge of reaching mainstream awareness.
Humans, just like other animals, have been moving naturally since the
dawn of our species, but Natural Movement as a clearly, objectively defined and
delineated concept with a set of detailed principles has existed only since I
created it and made it popular. Whereas a small handful of individuals may have
used the same term in the past—for instance, as a book title or descriptor—they
used it to describe something entirely different and did so without drawing any
real attention to the subject.
When I began to design and talk about the MovNat method and people
would ask me what it was about, I was surprised that, regardless of what country
people came from, the most frequent reactions were, “Natural Movement? What
is it?” or, “You mean it’s yoga or some kind of tai chi?” Not a single fitness
professional I talked to even knew what I meant by this term. This made me
quickly understand three things:
• The idea of Natural Movement was unknown to most people.
• The term I had chosen to quickly explain MovNat required an explanation and
a definition of its own.
• Even by giving the practice a name, I still would have to work hard until the
day would come where people would respond, “Natural Movement? You
mean crawling, balancing, running, jumping, climbing, lifting, and so on?”
The process of defining the concept had to be more thorough than simply
enunciating the diverse movement skills involved in the practice. It had to rely
on fundamental principles that make it a solid, rational concept rather than a
relatively vague notion. As a result, I have determined the twelve principles of
Natural Movement that I outline in Part 1 and that constitute the “Natural
Movement Manifesto.” Although I could simplify each principle to a single
