Primal Fundamentals

What are the foundations of Primal Move Fundamentals ( PMF)?

The Functional Movement System designed by Gray Cook and Lee Burton

The Flow by Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihaly

Dr. Istvan Balyi's Long-term athletic development model

PMF is a unique approach, where we melt bodyweight training, dynamic joint mobility, the Flow feeling from Professor Csíkszentmihalyi into one system, and where all movements are based on and inspired by the principles of the Functional Movement System™ created by Gray Cook and Lee Burton.

PMF was born out of necessity, simply from many years of working with injured athletes AND everyday clients who did not enjoy movements anymore. Pain or discomfort absolutely prevented them from any enjoyment of moving. When pain is present, goals simply cannot be met. And any fun or playfulness in movements will simply become impossibe.

Playful - mindful - useful

The founders of PMF are all FMS and CK-FMS specialists. While we have studied many different movement systems throughout the years - Feldenkrais™, Alexander™, Z-Health™, Ginastica Natural™, Hatha Yoga, Tai-Chi and Prasara Yoga™, just to mention a few we hold in regard - Primal Move mainly grew out of the Functional Movement System by Gray Cook and Lee Burton. Teaching and using the correction exercises of the FMS was an 'eureka' moment, and one idea followed another.

While movements can be similar across sytems, our approach - the strong foundation of FMS - the systematic thinking and the way we teach movement are fundamentally different. We have not only put the FMS corrections into flow moves or logical order, we've also created many games, and providing a logical progression plan to our practicioners and instrcutors, i.e. how to progress from zero to graceful movements.

Considering how modern society handles physical education, we can see a huge degeneration in the present generations from our perspective. We are not becoming better in any sense. While different training methods are being rotated by the industry just as fashion is rotated by the fashion industry, we have lost something –  playful and graceful movements.

Having kids will inevitably teach many lessons to any human being, but I learned something early – making any activity playful for my kids will make them learn easier and enjoy it more, and they will be willing to repeat it over and over. We adults do so many things because of the different benefits, but it is very difficult to impose demands on a child, unless he or she enjoys that activity. And yes, as clever parents, we can certainly try shortcuts, giving them treats for doing not so playful things. This does not mean they will enjoy what they do, but they will enjoy what they get after having accomplished a given task. Sound familiar?

FMS performance pyramid

PMF is about having fun and  enjoying movement again, as we did when we were kids. We did not think about fat burning and muscle building, or plyometrics and periodization. We did not even feel like we were training or working out. We simply just loved moving!  And injuries were rare, unless we fell off the tree and broke something, but that did not really mean we would not carry on playing and even coming up with every kind of moves that the cast could withstand.

In a typical PMF session we practice rolls, crawls or rockcing, pushing, pulling, lunging or squat movements...A session is normally takes 40-45 minutes, where we work on movement quality, and targeting the flow state - as described by Professor Csikszentmihalyi.