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Natural Movement, Awareness, and Tracking Retreat – Battleground, WA
An Immersive Nature Connection Retreat
June 10, 2022 – June 12, 2022
Connect with Nature Through Natural Movement, Awareness, Tracking, Stalking, and Basic Wilderness Skills.
Description
For countless millennia humans existed in close relationship with the natural world. We hunted and gathered everything we needed from the land around us. We had to be strong and stealthy.
You could argue that our bodies evolved the way they did because of all the activities we needed to do for survival. Our upper bodies are suitable for throwing things, digging, climbing, and lifting. Our legs are strong and can move us swiftly over great distances, yet are capable of very fine, slow, deliberate movements. There isn’t much a well-conditioned human can’t do, from swimming great lengths to climbing mountains.
Flash forward to modern times, where many people no longer need to use their bodies to provide for their needs, and if they do, it’s by doing the same activity over and over again. This lifestyle wreaks havoc in so many ways.
The simple act of reconnecting to the natural world through the vehicles of awareness and movement can help us recapture the essence of our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
During this course, we will explore the areas of:
- Stalking and movement
- Awareness
- Tracking
- Nature Connection
- Basic Wilderness Skills
Natural Movement will set the tone for the experience and will be taught and practiced throughout the retreat. Your instructor will focus on practical, mindful movement and progressive, safe skill acquisition: particularly ground movement, get-ups, and locomotion patterns. Emphasis will be placed on using your body to safely and efficiently interact with nature.
Topics include:
- Safe, step-by-step movement progressions for all ages, abilities, and fitness levels
- MovNat’s principles, and how they will change how you think about the way you move
- Understanding MovNat’s approach to developing movement skill and improving fitness
- Introduction to each of MovNat’s movement domains, from crawling to climbing
- How to incorporate MovNat into an at-home practice or busy lifestyle
Meet Your Instructors
Tom Brown III, also known as “T3,” has been a lifelong student and practitioner of primitive living skills, wilderness survival, and nature connection. Born in New Jersey in 1978, he grew up learning the skills our ancestors used to live close to the Earth from his father, Tom Brown Jr, founder of the Tracker Wilderness Survival School. Growing up at the Tracker School showed him the profound effect reconnecting people to Nature could have not only on the individual but on the planet as a whole. After spending a few years wandering across America putting the skills he learned as a child to the test, he has spent the last 21 years teaching the skills he learned as a child.
Currently, Tom lives in Oregon, where he runs a school known as FutureNature. The Vision for FutureNature is pure and simple. To take modern humans into the wilderness and introduce them to the wonders of the more-than-human world while also teaching the skills our early ancestors practiced. This dispels the fear about Nature and starts them on a lifelong path to a deeper relationship with the natural world. With that comes true freedom. The freedom of knowing you can walk into Nature and make anything you may need to maintain your lifeforce.
Danny Clark, MovNat Master Instructor and Performance Director, leads the official MovNat curriculum and “sets the bar” for MovNat’s certification standards. He is a lifelong practitioner/teacher of movement, strength & conditioning, and martial arts. He is also a former D1 wrestler and world-class athlete in the sport of grappling. His passion is to help people connect to their deepest, truest nature through deliberate practices that foster empowerment and self-knowledge, including the practice of Natural Movement, contemplation, and “quests” in nature.
Event Location
Note: This is an “off-grid” location where you’ll be tent camping. Camping will be free of charge. There will be outhouses, a generator, and solar power options for charging devices, if desired. More details will be emailed to participants in advance of the event’s start date.
Schedule
This event will begin at 8am on the 10th and end at 4pm on the 12th. You will be encouraged to come during the late afternoon the day before the event (the 9th) but you are welcome to arrive on the 10th and be ready to begin at 8am. More details will be in an email from your instructors 4 weeks out from the event.
What To Bring
- Tent
- Sleeping Bag or other linens
- Pillow
- Breakfast, Lunch, and Snacks for each day
- Appropriate clothing for being out in nature all day
- Notebook and pen
Additional Information
- Dinner will be an additional expense and will be cooked “community style” at the end of each day. Your instructors will reach out via email for payment well before the event starts (cost will be kept to a minimum and food will be healthy, organic and when possible, local).
- Your instructors will be in touch with you with more details approx. 4 weeks prior to the event
