Talking MovNat with Clif Harski
25 Jul
The virtual world that we live in is sometimes very strange with all this Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. My mom always wants to know how many of my Facebook “friends” I actually know and the truth is 
maybe only about 25%. Truthfully I will never meet many of them, but a handful of them I later met in person and now count them as friends. Clif Harski is one of those people. He and I first had dinner when I was in San Diego earlier this year and had a great conversation about fitness and life over grass-fed burgers and “Paleo” shakes. I was very impressed with Clif’s background, knowledge, and passion for health & fitness. It was this conversation that really piqued my interest in MovNat.
Clif was able to beautifully articulate MovNat’s mission and much of it resonated with my view of the world. I have been searching for a type of fitness movement that isn’t only about competition, counting repetitions, and agonizing over the stop watch. I have been intrigued by MovNat ever since I first saw videos of Erwan Le Corre moving gracefully and efficiently across a mountainous landscape (barefoot and of course topless). I am excited to attend my first MovNat seminar this August in Lake Tahoe and thought this was a perfect time to let my readers learn more about Clif and MovNat in general.
Tell us a little about your background – what you studied in school? training experience?
I grew up around the world playing traditional sports, doing martial arts, and actually just playing outside (hide and seek, tag, capture the flag)-I think i am lucky because video games weren’t as engrossing then as they are now. I had some success in high school with basketball and volleyball and played some jc bball, but decided to become a playground legend instead of continuing collegiate ball. I graduated with a degree in kinesiology from sdsu. During college I worked at trader Joe’s, and in my last semester took a management position which I held for 5 years. I feel like that helped me immensely in my personal experience in the fitness industry because it allowed me to experiment with a lot of methodologies instead of specializing becoming the “kettlebell guy” or the “pilates master”. I’ve done extended periods of traditional bodybuilding, only Bodyweight stuff, yoga, pilates, crossfit, etc. & I’ve tried spin, pure barre, cardio kick boxing, although the last three may of had to do with the cute girls in the class. Trying all these things and more allowed me to see the benefit in each, as well as the short comings, and speak from experience about them instead of just bashing other methods. However, I draw my line at zumba, I’m not doing it. Throughout school and management I selectively trained people who were serious about their goals.
What was your first exposure to MovNat? What initially attracted you to the concept?
My 1st exposure to MovNat was the men’s health article a couple years ago. I read it and kept it in my brain as something else that I wanted to try out, mostly because it sounded like fun. Then last year I stepped down from management before I got trapped by a big paycheck and started accumulating acronyms to put after my name to start training people as my career. I got certified through RKC, ACE pt, UA360 combine trainer, and cross fit. I also went as a participant to the MovNat 5 day west virginia workshop.
What is your role in MovNat? What made you decide to go to work for Erwan?
I’m one of the MovNat team instructors, specifically in charge of our domestic workshops. I joined the team because last summer. When I was in WV I was impressed with MovNat in ways I didn’t expect to be. I thought it was just gonna be a new and fun physical challenge mixed with camping. But instead what we practiced covered so many things that the fitness industry compartmentalizes-prehab, mobility, flexibility, strength, capacity-and MovNat did all of this without targeting each area. Instead we targeted moving, and let those areas develop as a result. This changed the way that I perceived fitness; rather than being overly concerned with how much I can lift or how far/fast I can run, I became focused on how well I can move in a variety of contexts. Additionally it broadens how you measure yourself-sure you can lift a barbell but can you lift that rock? You can do 30 kipping pullups but can you climb on top of that branch? You can run a nice 400 time with your minimal shoes but can you run through the woods, a city, or a field of play without problems? The scope of what we can do is so much greater than the limited movement typically seen in the confines of a gym. And while that scope is in a sense limitless, it is not aimless. We always want people to work towards their goals and their weaknesses.
I also went to work for erwan because of his passion. It’s contagious. We want to change the state of health-the way that paleo diets are changing people’s lives, we believe moving naturally, without societal pressures, arbitrary rules and regulations, can change people’s lives too.
How does MovNat differ from other schools of fitness that you have been exposed to?
The biggest difference is the amount of what MovNat encompasses. Humans have the capability to move in many ways, and, in fact, these capabilities were and still are necessities. We had to be able to adapt to different and changing demands. Adaptability is the real measure of capability. Our take on fitness is: be real-world fit.
Yet many traditional/conventional methods are basically reductionist views of what movement is, or they adhere to some arbitrary rules and are impractical for life’s actual demands. For instance you can jump and stick a 40″ box jump, but can you move across a river jumping rock to rock with precision? You can hold a yoga pose but can you help me move my furniture? You’ve mastered hypertrophy but you can’t reach your own seat belt.
I love Gray Cook’s (Read about Gray’s recent MovNat experience here) quote that “fixing muscles doesn’t necessarily fix movement, but fixing movement seems to fix muscles”. Our focus is on movement capabilities-not body image, not work capacity, and not some “total”. Those things improve, which is nice and can be motivating factors and there is nothing wrong with that, but we are primarily focused on increasing quality of movement in varied settings. Once that quality is there, we can design the training to work on our goals and weaknesses.
I know from talking with you that you still do some traditional training in the gym (strength work, gymnastics etc.). How does your MovNat training supplement or improve on that training (and vice versa)? Why do you continue to keep up with that type of training?
Because I like it too! The traditional stuff I do in the gym falls under MovNat though- lifting, pushing, pulling, rotating-these are all things that humans do. An important thing MovNat considers is that we want to focus on movement, not necessarily where movement is done. For instance doing curls and crunches in the woods don’t make those movements any more natural than doing them in a gym. And from the other way, picking up a barbell is not bad, it’s a natural movement to pick things off the floor-and sometimes it’s just more practical or convenient to go to the gym rather than go outdoors. But getting outside allows for changing stimuli and forces us to be more adaptive with our movement. As far as gymnastics, sports, and other activities-they are fun. Everyone should do things they enjoy-the best form of activity for someone is the one they will actually do. As far as how it’s helped me: my grip improved dramatically, and so my deadlift went up nicely, so did my kettle work; my confidence and precision in movement is really the highest it’s ever been as I have done all sorts of stuff I hadn’t thought to try before. It also helps me to keep a sweet tan.
I noticed on the website that MovNat currently offers a few different seminars (1 and 2 day, Expansion and Reawakening). Beside the length can you give a quick overview of some of the differences in these programs?
I travel the country holding 1 day fundamental workshops-these cover the philosophy and principles of movnat and basic technical instruction in walking, balancing, jumping, climbing, running, moving on all fours, lifting, carrying, throwing and catching. Its a lot to cover and people leave with loads of new techniques, principles and tons of ideas on how to apply them wherever they find themselves. Our objective is that attendees become self-reliant and can get started training MovNat on the basis of efficient, varied and safe movement.
The five day events allow us the time to practice more and work up to more advanced techniques in the previously mentioned ten movement areas, as well as work on techniques in swimming and defending. The five days also let people sleep peacefully in a tent away from their normal stressors, eat awesome food, and really feel a great sense of belonging to a group/team/tribe for the week by encouraging each other, growing together and experiencing things for the first time.
Is there a typical client you see attending the MovNat workshops?
No. We get nature folk, yoga folk, crossfitters, barefoot runners, chiropractors, physical therapists, personal trainers, people bored with the gym-basically we get all sorts because the desire to move naturally and be in nature is innate in everyone-remember playing outside freely before adults told us what was allowed and what “real fitness” was? We recapture that feeling of freedom in movement.
What can you say to help relieve the fears of folks who might think this is too challenging or out of their wheel house?
Last week we had a gentleman in his mid sixties come out for the week, it was his third workshop with MovNat. Before that we had a five month pregnant lady, her husband and his two teenage daughters. The goal of the workshops is to be challenging but not to crush people-that is easy to do, just do an assassine amount of volume-instead we focus on the quality of movement. Once the quality is mastered you can safely add intensity. We don’t do anything dangerous or stupid, we are not the jackass of natural movement.
I know you spent a lot of time this summer in the wilderness living in a tent with very few amenities….What was that like? What small pleasures do you find yourself missing?
It was a lot of fun. What I loved: Going to bed when it’s dark, getting up when it’s light, not being judged for not wearing shirts or shoes, and greatly reduced electronic usage is freeing. What I didn’t love-my sensitive supple soft skin gets irritated by grass sometimes, Mosquitos loved me the first week and high humidity. What I missed: ice cream and my beautiful mattress.
Every picture I see of you involves you without shoes and a shirt – do you go everywhere like this? Is this part of the program?
There’s that judgement again (Editor’s Note – I like to give Clif grief about always being topless in every picture). My mom tells me that I never liked wearing shirts, and in the dorms I had the nick name of “guy with no shirt on”-so I’ve been not wearing shirts for years. Shoeless is sort of part of the program. In recent years we’ve seen the “barefooting” trend grow, but let’s be serious, barefoot means no shoes. The mechanical benefits of being barefoot is well established. Shoeless increases proprioception, awareness of what you’re doing, mental toughness, foot toughness, and is less whacky looking than five fingers. Now, five fingers and other minimal shoes are great because you get the mechanical advantages without the added real danger that exists with true barefoot training-and I use them when needed.
Are you going to beat me to my goal of a double beast clean and press?
(Editor ‘s Note: I have a bucket list of fitness goals that I’m constantly tinkering with – the double beast clean and press is on this list ever since I saw this video.)
Maybe, that’ll be an interesting goal to try to hit. First my goal is to be a “beast tamer”, which means you can pistol squat the beast, do a legit pull up wit the beast, and strict press the beast with just one arm. I just need the strict press-and I want it because “beast tamer” is an awesome title.
If anyone has any questions about MovNat please post in the comments. Clif is going to come back and answer any questions we receive in part 2 of this post. I will also be doing a post about my MovNat experience in August. You can learn more about MovNat on their website and you can keep up with Clif via Twitter.
