Fighting Monkey Practice

I recently spent a week in Prague, studying as part of the Fighting Monkey Intensive. It was excellent for my own practice, and I’ll be incorporating many of those lessons into the programming at Uptown Movement. Here’s a snapshot of what I learned.

What is Fighting Monkey, anyway?

If you have never heard of it, Fighting Monkey is a multidisciplinary movement practice based around concepts, rather than specific exercises or movements. The Intensive program featured 1 to 2 hours of each of these five concepts daily.

 1. Forms.

This section could be the most recognizable aspect of the practice. In layman’s terms, this is mobility training, with strong roots in Tai Chi. It is a very digestible and approachable way of creating a daily practice. We should all strive to add 10 minutes a day of mindful, exploratory moving to our routines. Brushing your teeth and flossing your joints.

2. Improvisation.

This was a new concept to me. How do we intentionally improvise our movements to complete a task? How does this change if my environment or parameters change? For example: how do I react to other people’s movement?

3. Body-to-Body.

Another completely new concept for me: learning to interact with another body in a way that is not just about submission. Coming from an athletic background, the only way I have ever interacted with another human in a “training” situation is with the goal of winning. During the week, we used a lot of wrestling techniques to learn about being receptive to others’ movement, and acting as teachers for each other—rather than just trying to win.

4. Coordination.

This was incredibly hard. I was thoroughly intimidated by this section. To the naked eye, it just looks like contemporary dance.  Naturally, to the Irish man who has never danced a sober day in his life, this was beyond intimidating for me. The idea behind this is really all about brain training. How will I figure out how to make something so alien, so intimidating, and so out of my comfort zone understandable?

5. Tools.

This last section is designed to explore how we move in relation to an object we are trying to manipulate to our advantage. An example would be the way I move to make a hammer into a useful object. Or—in the case of the Intensive—we swung a pillowcase filled with 5 kilos of rice around. We learned to control our body in such a way that the bag was not manipulating us and that we could manipulate the bag. While this was quite abstract, it was a little less alien to me, given all the work I do with kettlebells, maces, and clubs.

The Purpose of Trying

I have never believed in any single form of training. In fact, I hate the distinctions that exist within the world of Physical Culture. We cannot pigeonhole an individual’s movement practice. Pilates, Kettlebells, Yoga, HIIT, CrossFit, Dance…the whole range. There is no true distinction! They all draw on very similar concepts and are just tools used to express and enhance movement. This is what draws me to Fighting Monkey.

The very essence is using disciplines to train concepts…not to train disciplines dogmatically for the sake of it. Approaching movement this way means we will never be “the best” at any particular sport, but that’s OK. There is very little glory in being a world kettlebell champion—and even less money! I wanted to experience how such a broad system based on principles could be applied in a somewhat formulaic way.

I also wanted to get out of my comfort zone. I wanted to be truly in a beginner mindset. I knew going in that the Intensive would be full of dancers and martial artists. People with a lifelong training in fluidity and rhythm….things that I do not have.

Lessons Learned

 1. Intensity has a purpose

The six days of the Intensive were—well, incredibly intense. I haven’t had to move like that, for so long, for so many days, repeatedly, since pre-season football training…at least 15 years ago. Over the years, I have babied myself a lot more, happily playing the long game. I’ve made sure I balance effort with recovery, and pay attention when my body is telling me “please, no more!”

By the end of the week, my body was definitely screaming at me “please, no more!” I didn’t have a huge amount of choice though. I had to keep going. It highlights the importance of (every once in a while) really challenging yourself, mentally and physically. If I did this Intensive every week, I would need new hips and be sick pretty quick. On the other hand, it’s important to set yourself a “reach goal” every now and then, just to know you can.

2. Improvisation and play are incredibly important

One day, they brought in a team of hockey players to train with us: all 8 to 12 years old. It was probably the most important lesson of the entire week. The kids brought so much light, energy, and inventiveness to the games! It made me realize how rigid we have become as adults. We are stuck in a right/wrong approach to almost everything that we do. In playing with the kids, we learned how much more inventive and playful we can be when we shed that limiting mindset.

We are taught games at an early age as being outcome-oriented, win or lose. Now, I understand play is for play’s sake. I will start incorporating more games into class as a way of helping us learn, rather than feeding the ego and the inner competitor.

Likewise with improvisation: learning to move for movement’s sake is a journey I have been on for the last 10 or more years. I’ve only scratched the surface of it, but allowing myself to deviate from strict forms, and improvise as the situations allow, is vital.

3. Frustration and being lost are part of the process

This one is huge. Being uncomfortable, struggling, feeling like an idiot…it’s all part of the process. When we are babies, we don’t quit after our first or second attempt at trying to stand up. Babies are not worried that everyone in the room is staring and laughing. They just care about trying again. We lose so much of that as we age.

The first two days of learning the coordination drills, I was frustrated—to the point of wanting to sit out that part of the day. I had those invasive thoughts more than once. I didn’t give in, obviously, but it made me appreciate what most people feel in the early days of starting any movement and exercise journey.

By day three, though, something clicked. I don’t think I got any “better” at the drills, but I started enjoying the process. I was at the front of the room, not the back. I really didn’t care who was looking or how silly I might have looked, because I was fully immersed in the process and I loved it.

As well as personally learning this lesson, it also gave me insights from a teaching perspective. Patience is key, perfection is not. Everything doesn’t need to be perfect! We just need to create an environment where everyone can feel comfortable learning at their own pace. 

Biases Confirmed 

While the lessons we learned led to quite a few lightbulb moments, there was also a lot of work that helped me affirm what we are doing at Uptown Movement. The Fighting Monkey practice is not big on traditional strength training: they say it is too rigid and linear. While there is merit to that argument, I observed that much of what Fighting Monkey teaches with the body, we teach with weights at Uptown Movement.

Mindfulness, awareness, and connection to movement form the bedrock of our philosophy. Having an external tool like a kettlebell is a very easy way to teach this. Also, it is really nice knowing that our bodies are strong enough to handle whatever we choose to throw at them. Our minds are built up with the knowledge that we can do hard things…we are not fragile! There is nothing as comprehensive as the barbell or kettlebell to accomplish this connection to movement in a progressive and systematic way.