My wonderful and heartfelt friend, Darryl Edwards gave a superb TEDx talk, titled: ‘Why Working Out Isn’t Working Out’.
It’s fabulous, and important.
Most of us are far too sedentary, and we view the idea of working out as something inconvenient and/or painful… So it’s easy to rationalize avoiding a trip to the gym. Darryl has sacrificed a lot to make it his life’s passion to inspire people to think of natural movement in terms of physical “play”, and not pain. Darryl inspires us to avoid the lethal pitfalls of our convenience-oriented and technological society in favor of reconnecting with our bodies and each other–the way we are intended to as human beings.
Our prehistoric ancestors did not wear running shoes or have gym memberships. But they did move quite a lot. And they engaged in brief bursts of intense physical activity and exertion in order to pursue the game they hunted (or avoid predators that wanted to hunt them), or otherwise procure or manually process the foods they ate and more. They walked a great deal, too, as nomadic hunters. But they also regularly engaged in physical play. They danced. And they engaged with one another as a community. Our prehistoric ancestors suffered no obesity, and had far greater musculoskeletal strength/density than many of even our elite athletes do today. Research shows that diet likely accounts for most of this… But we simply cannot negate the importance of frequent daily movement and human interaction as an essential complementary component of daily life to our best dietary efforts.
Darryl Edwards is a man on a mission, and he happens to also be one of my favorite humans walking loose on the planet. Not long ago, I interviewed him at quite some length for my Interview Series, and he was utterly brilliant, inspiring and riveting. It was decidedly one of my best interviews for the series and a favorite of many that have watched it.
Darryl’s integrity is truly second to none (a rarity today), and he has a message more than worth listening to—It makes you want to get up off the couch and learn to play again. It’s a message that has the potential to save your life, or at the very least your long-term mobility and joyful vitality. It reminds us that movement is indeed medicine!
See his inspiring TEDx talk here.
Darryl also has a superb website full of resources to help get you started on your path to Primal Play.
Leave a Reply