So what is functional movement? 

Summery

• Functional Movement is a movement that is done opposing gravity, meaning going away from the floor and has to have rotation. 
• A functional movement also includes your vision. 
• It Includes your fine motor skills, which also for me, includes the spine and breathing into fine motor skills. I look at those as a functional, immature movements. I'm not talking about immature necessarily here, but the way they are responding. A mature movement is when you can teach someone it. 
• The difference within Movement Lesson™ and what we have to offer is because we identify and look at and strengths in those foundational functional movements. 
• But also, functional movement comes into play with structure. 

Hi guys, I wanted to talk about what is functional movement. 

Most of you are more familiar with, milestones, right. Milestones are very important, but they are also very static. 

This is one of the reasons why I like to see a video, because I want to see the function behind the movement. 

For your cognitive abilities, and I'm talking about you as well as for your child, a functional movement is needed to sustain the body and also to sustain and grow the brain. 

A movement in general might be a static pose, or rote, or patterning; but that does not change in effect, truly the muscles and the brain, 

Look at it this way, I can go to a gym and just lift a weight, right? 

And I can change my muscle mass with that weight and show marked improvement and that's what a lot of people like. 

They like the measurements of movement; however, what they're not looking at is a measurement of how that child or you are organizing that movement. 

So that's why when a lot of people leave the gym, right and they quit for two to three weeks, they lose all their gains very quickly, because what they were doing was not functional. 

You really see this in outer space. 

This is why I wrote my book, ‘You Can't Get to Mars Without Me.’ 

The reason is, is that they're doing is load-lift variations in outer space, but they are not functional movements.  

This is how I was really proving Movement Lesson™.  

I didn't expect to stumble on 21 new theories of biological gravity. 

But what I was using was, I saw basically astronauts turning into cerebral palsy, which I've posted about and showing the similarities of when the system the body does not have a functional movement. 

So what is functional movement? 

Functional Movement is a movement that is done opposing gravity, meaning going away from the floor, and has to have rotation. 

That seems like a lot. 

Now go to feed yourself. 

I'm opposing gravity with rotation.  

Turning a page of a book.  

If you lie down right now on the floor right and had to get up, and I say don't use rotation and don't try to oppose gravity, you can't get up right.  

And this is where you're coming to me saying my child's not rolling over right, but again, the way that someone rolls over; it needs to be functional. 

Great assisting grabbing the leg.  

Let's say to get them to roll over.  

You see an exterior movement and go. 

You think, my child just rolled over, but if the child can't initiate it through their interior movements, it's not going to get replicated or it will be a rare occurrence. 

But then again, here your foundational movements come into play. 

If the rolling over is not there, then coming to sitting through the back, grabbing the feet; all of those kinds of movements become impaired. 

However, the way I look at your child to a functional movement also includes your vision. 

Includes your fine motor skills.  

Which also for me, I include the spine and breathing into fine motor skills because that's what it is when you're an infant. 

They're not gross motor skills. 

You and I can hold their breath for four seconds, right?  

You cannot ask that of an infant, right? 

They can't control, and even if I were to do a whole breathing exercise with you, this is why, again, I don't practice those things. They are not functional. 

You have my breathing course, it's free for you and for your kids.  

But if you practice all the breathing that you want. 

Like I, let's say if I've upset you, and you say, “Wait a minute, I have to catch my breath kind of thing,” but those kinds of reactions cannot be done when you're sleeping. 

So when you're working with a functional movement, the functional movement has to have that rotation.   

I dressed myself; now when the first articulations at 5 1/2 months. 

That's why your baby is jumping on your lap because you're starting to articulate the thumb from the pinky, right. 

These are your self-help skills of feeding the dressing, all of that, picking up things.  

Later on the pinky opposes, articulates against the thumb. 

That's brushing your hair and doing those kinds of movements, right, telling time. 

And this is also why you don't ask your 2-year-old to take dishes away.  

They don't have certain movement vocabulary yet.  

I look at those as a functional, immature movement.  

I'm not talking about immature necessarily here, but the way they're responding.  

A mature movement is when you can teach someone.  

Just because your child's walking at like say 12 months old, 14 months old, they can't teach walking. 

As far as they're concerned, 1 foot, somehow, they couldn't even say that you know. 

I mean, they're not thinking of where their bodies are in space. 

This is why most of their movement milestones happens before cognitive comes into play. 

So, when you're looking at the difference within Movement Lesson™ and what we have to offer is because we identify and look at, and strengths in those foundational functional movements. 

Right, I can sit there all day long and put my arm out right and do that.  

I am capable of doing it. 

It is not a functional movement. 

I can't feed myself. 

I can't dress myself. 

I can't do anything with this. 

You will not see a child do this. 

You will at their at risk for CP.  

That's why two that I can catch these little movements that are starting to have a conversation that really shouldn't be there in your child's life.  

That's another thing with the baby. 

You will, with functional movement, it's always, again, opposing gravity.  

A baby doesn't suddenly say or even a 3-year-old, “I should have been rolling over by now!”  

We start saying that, but that's not in your child's way of organizing movements.  

One of the things I have in my 7 essentials is can't versus can't. 

I say it all the time. 

I've been to Bhutan and its amazing place to be, but if you've never heard of the country, you're not buying tickets. 

It's not that you can't go to Bhutan, and you don't even know it's possible. 

So when you don't have those good foundations with the functional movement, those are the discrepancies that come into play where your child will start having difficulties. 

We're here to catch them, hopefully, way before it happens. 

I'm so grateful we have so many more babies coming in. 

That's why we're doing the Super Baby boot camp. 

People don't think that the first day of life is that important to your movement foundations in your functional movements. 

They really are. 

So when you're working with your child’s functional movements, but also functional movement comes into play with structure, right? 

I have a certain structure of my body. 

Again, I mentioned Cirque de Soleil, right, where again, my structure, you might say, well, you're a bit too overweight to do Cirque de Soleil.  

Well, I can move pretty darn good, but I don't think someone would pay to see me move like that.  

But again, at the end of the day, if I took an X Ray of a female to a female, we're pretty much the same. 

Our movement vocabulary is different, right, but to say that for a child who's just starting to develop, “Oh my child did this or that, and they turned out alright,” that's not the way it should be. 

We all have a right to an exceptional life, this is why I still see adults, and we need to work on the child's foundational and functional movements.  

A functional movement for literally a newborn might be here, just getting that opposition of gravity rotation.  

It might seem so simple, but that will change a child's life versus here or let's say an Ivy in the hand. 

It will change their functional movement.  

So, understanding what functional movements come into play.  

This is what we're trying to detail out with the movement lesson, so you start seeing how those little movements, that the attention in the details and how they come out to play.  

So I hope that helps you, and thank you for being here, bye.