Athletic Vacation Ideas?

[u3er]

Hi All!

I'm looking to do some traveling in the New Year and am eager to find a place to train/learn "full time." Obviously something like the GB seminar or similar would be great, but I'm interested in finding longer term options - perhaps 2 to 4 weeks. Does such a thing exist? Circus school in China maybe? Does anybody know of such training camps that are open to the public? I'd love to hear some ideas - anywhere in the world is game!

Cheers,

AJ

[Parth Rajguru]

There are a few that come to mind, but they tend to be fairly specific and infrequent. For example, MovNat has a 7 day course in Thailand and Costa Rica. There was a yoga course that was 2-4 weeks long that I heard about. Charles Poliquin often has courses that are back-to-back, so you could schedule 5-15 days of learning in a row if you wanted to.

You can also contact various coaches and see what they can do to accommodate you for longer term learning and training. This sort of training/learning experience isn't cheap, but can be very rewarding. I know guys like Steve Atlas like to host out of town athletes who come to train and study with him. Ask around and see what's available.

[Blairbob]

You could opt to be a camp counselor at one of the bigger "fun" gymnastics summer camps. While you will have to be a counselor and that in general is long hours, little to no pay (in exchange for room and board); you do get to do clinics and have a bit of time to train.

If you have the $$, some gyms arrange trips to China for gymnastics. I'm sure it could be done with some contacts. Not sure about adults though.

[Craig Mallett]

I'm booked in for the Movnat retreat in Thailand in February! Can't wait!

There are also meditation retreats that go for 10 days that are supposed to be awesome. I'm going to do one myself sometime soon.

[u3er]

Thanks for the input - these ideas are exactly what I'm looking for! I really like the work of Ido Portal and Steve Atlas so it's very cool to hear that these guys may be able to host for longer training sessions. The summer camp idea is worth looking into as well, as I already do some gymnastics coaching on the side for fun.

Craig - I'm hoping you can tell me a bit more about the MovNat course... I've heard of them before (and the timing is actually quite good as I'll most likely be in SE Asia in late January anyways) though I'm not sure that it's the kind of experience I'm looking for. What do you know about it? My main interests are mostly acrobatics/handbalancing.

Also, do any of you guys happen to know of any circus schools that are open to the public? I know here in Canada there is the National Circus School in Montreal that to me looks like the holy grail, but it is only open to their (highly skilled and hand-picked) students. Darn!

[Craig Mallett]

AJ,

Basically its a week in a retreat in Thailand (jungle & coastline, pretty remote so not really near tourists or anything). On the first day you get asked to do a bunch of basic movement patterns, so running, swimming, jumping, crawling, balancing climbing a tree, lifting a huge log, etc. Then over the next 5 days you are taught a whole bunch of techniques for making these patterns more efficient.

There are 13 movnat skills covered all up, which are:

Locomotive:

1) walking, 2) running, 3) jumping, 4) balancing, 5) crawling, 6) climbing, and 7) swimming.

Manipulative:

8 lifting, 9) carrying, 10) throwing, and 11) catching

Combative:

12) striking and 13) grappling

There are also 10 principles that all Movnat practice follows (copy pasted from their website):

Evolutionary - the movement aptitudes are evolutionarily natural.

Instinctual – the movement aptitudes are mostly instinctual. We learn technique, develop proficiency, and turn them into skills. Nobody starts from scratch.

Universal – the movement aptitudes practiced belong to every human being regardless of origin, gender or age.

Practical – the movement aptitudes are directly useful to the situations of life, both simple and challenging, that demand a physical response or performance.

Vital – the movement aptitudes practiced are useful in times of emergency and contribute to safety.

Unspecialized – the movement aptitudes are practiced in order to acquire and maintain a near equalized, well-rounded skill set and conditioning level.

Efficient – the movement aptitudes practiced are performed skillfully, i.e., with efficient technique, resulting in greater performance, higher energy conservation and safety.

Adaptive – the movement aptitudes practiced and the physical actions performed, optimally, must adapt to the contextual demands of the environment or the situation.

Cooperative - the movement aptitudes practiced can be executed cooperatively (by two or more individuals) in order to perform physical tasks that no single individual could achieve alone. Or, they can be practiced individually, but for the purpose of supporting others.

Environmental – the movement aptitudes are regularly practiced outdoors in order to maximize health benefits and increase well-being and connection with nature.

http://movnat.com/about-movnat/the-10-movnat-principles/ (there are links that go into more details of the principles).

If you youtube search for MovNat, there are heaps of videos, both of the instructors practising and the retreats.

I spoke to Coach about MovNat and he said it seemed like a good thing, and he's had a few friends talk very highly of it (Robb Wolf by memory?).

There are some testimonials from some very skilled people too, Steve Maxwell wrote a very positive review about it.

The food is supplied for the week which is paleo style, and they recommend to leave your mobile phone/laptop/whatever switched off for the entire period. I can't wait to get away from the city to be honest, it's going to be such an awesome week!

[u3er]

Wow, thanks for the detailed response Craig! Sounds like a really cool program (though not quite what I'm looking for unfortunately - I'm looking to focus more specifically on gymnastics/acrobatic skills). Thanks a lot for sharing regardless and enjoy the seminar dude!