If you go down to the
woods today...
Olly Selway
I like to exercise in the
woods. There! I’ve said
it. I’ve said it aloud too so there’s no going
back. Truth be told, I’m much
happier here amongst the
trees than squeezing between
the pec-decks and stationary
bikes at my local globo gym. I even
prefer it to pounding the streets or hiking through
the fields. In fact I prefer it to pretty much
everything.
There’s something primal about the woods. It’s
not just the smells, the sounds of the whispering
trees, the presence of birds and other wildlife, or
the dappled sunlight effect that the forest
canopy casts on the ground. I think
it goes further than that.
I don’t just walk in the forest though. That’s
enjoyable enough but there’s so much more fun to
be had. No, I use the forest as my gym. There’s
far more to do there than there is at your local LA
Fitness centre. You just need to know how to use
it!
There’s no end of challenges when you learn how
to spot them. Can I jump that log? Can I vault that
broken stump? Can I balance on this branch – or
hang underneath that one – or move hand-overhand along it?
The challenge of moving well only becomes real
when we are asked to engage in real, complex
and unique movement patterns. The woods
provides plenty of these.
It’s a place where human beings
seem to instantly feel at home; an
environment that at once
welcomes and intrigues. For me,
being in the woods puts humans
back where they belong, back
where we started before the first
of our species walked out of the
forest on two legs and into the
African savannah.
Of course you could argue that
other environments could be
thought of as just as natural for
humans - the desert or the
mountains, for example. What’s
different about the forest
though is that you can’t see it
all at once. Upon a mountain
top, you can gaze out over
acres of terrain at one glance.
In the Sahara you can cast an
eye over mile-upon-mile of undulating dunes if
you stand on top of a high one. In a forest
however, only as you walk through it are its
secrets revealed to you. You stumble from one
little discovery to the next with a surprise around
every corner.
Diet & Health Today
Kids love forest time too!
The test is to use your sense of balance, posture
and grace in an increasing number of more
challenging ways. And, to my mind, there’s
nothing outside of the woods to beat this.
28