Interesting comment on Youtube, from Fred F. on a video about squatting down to sit on a chair. “It is amazing that, when one is young, these movements are so natural and one would not give it a second thought how they are done. It is only when one is old and have mobility issues, or when recovered from injuries, that one has to re-train the brain about how they are done.”
Two things come to mind. First of all, heaven forbid, but if you happen to see some children, observe (oh noes!) how they sit down and get up from chairs, and how they are sitting. You will probably soon realise that sitting down and getting back up and sitting itself is not a problem of old age alone.
Yet, I agree, probably none of these children is questioning authority and the dynamics of chairs and sitting, too much. I have as a child, and it worried me down to my core to have been left alone with these questions. But then, I was not your regular child. I did second guess my teachers, every single one of them, and despised every minute that I had been (sort of) locked up in these classrooms and had to sit on their despicable chairs and their ugly benches. Nevertheless I served 18 years of schooling. Not the smartest kid on the block, am I.
Secondly: culture. It is the role of culture to teach us. Children should learn the basics of movement from their parents and chosen role models. Just like the asian squat is performed perfectly, each and every time stunningly beautiful by the adult Vietnamese living in Vietnam, and learned by their children just as well. It should be the same for standing, walking, running, sitting down, and getting up, and all the other things we can and must do in a certain culture (Swimming maybe? Diving? Climbing on rocks? Whistling?) We shouldn’t have to think about how to do it. It should just happen on its own, it should be perfect as it is, and we should be free to focus on the content of life, on the things we do, rather than how to hold ourselves up without wrecking our biomechanical properties to pieces.
Yet, our culture is broken. How many percent of adults suffer from back pain, knee pain, have less than ideal dynamics? And the children of our culture now learn just that, as members of our culture they grow up to face the exact same challenges.
Unless, and here’s the beauty of it, we question, we second guess, we experiment, we try, study and learn. We become aware, create options, and thus overcome, evolve, improve, knowingly.
