“The cure for the literacy crisis lies, in my opinion, in reading. Specifically, I am recommending a certain kind of reading—free voluntary reading (henceforth FVR). FVR means reading because you want to. For school-age children, FVR means no book report, no questions at the end of the chapter, and no looking up every vocabulary word. FVR means putting down a book you don’t like and choosing another one instead. It is the kind of reading highly literate people do all the time.” – The Power of Reading, Stephen Krashen

Maybe something similar could be said for the move… movement… movement-cy… mov-eracy… moveiracy… crisis. Ok, I need to look at this word first. I need to find the word for it, or make one up. Moveiracy, based on the Old French word “movier”, would that be it? Either way, let me start with literacy:

Literacy, in its broadest sense describes particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form. (Definition from Wikipedia)

Numeracy is the ability to understand, reason with, and to apply simple numerical concepts. (Definition from Wikipedia)

Movement is already a noun, but it does not hit the same mark as the terms literacy and numeracy. I’m looking for a word that in its broadest sense means to act in particular ways of moving, thinking, sensing and feeling to understand and express ourselves through physical movements that serve intent, purpose, that express the state of our nervous system, our expertise and accomplishments in movement learning, our history, identity, our belonging to a class or group; through movement, instead of words.

Heck, where’s the nail that can nail down that definition? It’s like making a sentence that makes sense, but instead of using words it’s movement. And when the left arm moves but the pelvis does not support this movement then the sentence sounds funny or lacks momentum and roots, or is part of a play, a jest, a twitch or twiddle… something like this.

So, hm, 🤔 am I missing something here? Is the crisis so big and so all-encompassing that we don’t even have the first word to describe it?