Keywords: chronic pain natural movement primal movement body alignment kinesthetic intelligence childhood conditioning sedentary lifestyle posture improvement movement therapy active resting resting squat mobility exercises body awareness chronic tension knee pain back pain physical health natural instincts movement patterns daily movement holistic healing physical fitness body connection flexibility body mechanics emotional release posture correction lifestyle changes muscle coordination physical well-being

Eyla Cuenca [00:00:00]:

As a society, we believe chronic pain and discomfort are natural byproducts of aging. What if I told you the path to a life riddled with chronic pain starts with our childhood conditioning? And despite what you've been told, these chronic physical pains are actually completely treatable. All from the comfort of your own home. Have you ever wondered why so many children are getting diagnosed with ADD adhd? And why they have such a hard time focusing or sitting still? With all of our modern day technologies and insight, why is society the sickest and the most in pain it has ever been? On today's episode of More to Know, I am joined by a dear friend, Bam Lionheart. Bam is a movement expert and founder of Primal Movement, a method of movement that is rooted in the reclamation of our natural and instinctual human movement patterns. His trainings and educational programs have transformed the lives of everyone from professional athletes leads to expectant mothers to the elderly who thought they would never be able to walk pain free or even do something like hike again in their lives. In his programs and one on one sessions, you can expect to learn to move with confidence, improve your posture and reclaim your birthright. To move with freedom and strength rooted in the principles of primal movement.

Eyla Cuenca [00:01:19]:

You'll break free from physical limitations, reduce your pain and unlock a new level of vitality. One that lasts for a lifetime. This conversation with Fam is a red pill on how we view the limitations of our body and an invitation to start feeling free and reconnect with this beautiful mechanism that moves us through the world.

Bam Lionheart [00:01:44]:

I get so excited exploring so many topics with you. You're one of those people that is able to explore and converse just about anything you can think of. And so I always enjoy conversations with you and your perspective on the world and how humans move through the world and how we experience the world. So it's just always a pleasure for me and yeah. What are you up to today?

Bam Lionheart [00:02:08]:

Where are you in the world currently right now? In Portugal, specifically Peniche, which is a beautiful surf kingdom. And I'm surfing, doing my coaching online and exploring the coast of Portugal for the next until the end of the year.

Bam Lionheart [00:02:27]:

Yeah, whenever I talk to you, it's, it's interesting because there's always like a movement through the world, like you're exploring the landscape, how you experience that landscape, how that landscape you feel like responds to you and your energy and your movement. And so I always love knowing where you're at. Some people that I talk to who travel a lot are having like maybe be a little bit more of the Conventional experience, visiting a new place. But you really, like, see how you weave yourself into the landscape and the culture, and that always is so exciting for me to listen to. So, yeah, one of the things that I found really remarkable when we first connected was how you were really drawn into understanding, like, our origin. Like, how, you know, because we were talking about birth, and I was actually on a podcast for the company that you used to be affiliated with, and we were going to be talking about birth and how the way a woman births shapes the way that a human ends up moving through the world. Right. Because it impacts their physical capacity, mental capacity, their relationship to their environment and all of that.

Bam Lionheart [00:03:36]:

And I was really, you know, it was really striking to me that you were someone who was so deep in, like, what I perceived as, like, the physical fitness, movement, health world, who really understood the connection between how our origin, you know, is woven into the. The rest of our life experience. I feel like some people just look at things as very separate, right. Like, movement and physical health is so separate than how we were born or how our mothers, you know, had their pregnancy with us. And so I remember noting that about you, and I was like, oh, this is going to be a great conversation. And he has a perspective that most people don't have. So I would actually just love to hear a little bit about what I call, like, the hero's journey, like your arc. I know you have experience in mma.

Bam Lionheart [00:04:20]:

You were in the military. You've had so many life experiences that I feel like, have really painted the picture for how you, you know, where you are now. And so would you walk us a little bit through that journey and how you discovered movement as your access to freedom?

Bam Lionheart [00:04:37]:

Yeah. From the beginning of my life, movement was what made me feel free. It made me feel joy, you know, from a young kid, I was running around, climbing things, jumping off of things, exploring the world through my physicality and through movement. And anything that was attracted to me or challenged me and made me want to see what I can accomplish and see how I could grow from skateboarding to youth football, basketball, you know, more conventional sports, and then ultimately, ultimately into jiu jitsu and mixed martial arts, which I spent the majority of my time from 15 to about 22, 23, and after that was really big into endurance swimming, weightlifting, CrossFit, and just about climbing anything that I could do. Modern dance. The world of movement was the way that not only I expressed myself creatively, but also the way that I challenged myself with this whole mind, body connection. It was this. And it has Been this extremely long, diving into different practices of, okay, now I'm doing jiu jitsu, or now I'm doing dance, now I'm doing surfing right now.

Bam Lionheart [00:05:57]:

But in all of these practices and all of these movements, there are similar themes, similar patterns that emerge the more that you move your body, similar to many different truths about the world. And so as I continue to go through all of these different modalities of movement, the expression of the natural way that humans move, the baseline patterns become and have become really apparent to me. And so movement ultimately becomes a language, a language that you can speak, a language that you can read in other people if you are willing to open your mind and to see that and to engage with it. So it's been a long journey. It's one that I'm still on today. And I do both roles of taking myself through different modalities that challenge me, that interest me. Like, currently, right now, surfing is that one. And now at the same time, I'm coaching, educating, and teaching natural human movement to people all over the globe.

Eyla Cuenca [00:06:58]:

Yeah.

Bam Lionheart [00:06:58]:

Oh, man. So many things just came to mind because you were talking about your youth experience. And this is something I wanted to ask you later, but maybe I'll ask it now. So many children, like, you've always. We've always talked about this. Children are born to move. Like, they. It's.

Bam Lionheart [00:07:15]:

It's instinctual. Their movement patterns are just. They're wired in. And if we were. If we were to allow them to continue to move in their natural pattern, they would stay on that trajectory. But we don't. We put little shoes on them, little like fashion sneakers that, you know, create a barrier between them and the ground. We have them sit at desks and be quiet.

Bam Lionheart [00:07:37]:

They have to sit for certain periods of time. They have to ask to go to the bathroom. Right. I'm referring to how children are conditioned in schools and daycares and things like that in their home, Right? Like, sit in this chair, don't get up until you're done eating, right. When what they might want to do is squat down and pick up food from where they're squatting, you know, which is very natural. You know, I'm an anthropology background, so. Or major, and so I always looked at how people would come together to do certain activities. And people were always in a squat, resting squat, or like a half squat with one leg down, one leg up, or even in a tailor pose, sometimes lying on their side even.

Bam Lionheart [00:08:18]:

You know, there were all kinds of different resting positions. And so I see children getting kind of redirected. What do you think about this? Like, especially with boys, right? Because hormonal composition is so different than girls. Girls can actually sit for longer periods of time and focus. But I really believe little boys need to be like, climbing, running, jumping, like tearing things apart outside. And I see them like, you know, we're gonna do circle time and we're gonna, you know, like, work, you know, work with our hands and, you know, develop, you know, this is something from the Waldorf, for example, which, you know, I think is probably the closest to natural supporting the natural systems of the body when it comes to childhood education. But I see a lot of kids and then they say that the boys have these attention deficit disorders or these challenges because they're not able to send circle time for 25 minutes. But I'm like, no, they're just not supposed to be doing that.

Bam Lionheart [00:09:12]:

So, like, in all of your, you know, your professional journey, working with so many different people over the years, and then also your own experience, like, are kids supposed to be like, sedentary and focused and sitting for extended periods of time?

Bam Lionheart [00:09:28]:

That's a great question. And it doesn't matter who you are, if you're a child, if you're an adult, or you're an elderly person. Sedentary lifestyles or sitting or standing in the same place for an extended period of time is a very unnatural environment for the human body. It causes a lot of agitation and irritation, and it's actually very unhealthy. Example of this is that I can think of is we think that it's a place of rest, is our bed. You know, it's a comfy place. We can sleep, we can heal, we can rest and get that good. It's like a.

Bam Lionheart [00:10:02]:

It's a healing place. As most of us believe that the bed is good for us. When I was on the ambulance for about four years doing 911 response, oftentimes I would be interacting with elderly patients or bed bound patients who would develop bed sores from laying down in a bed. So prolonged lying down creates bed sores, actual open wounds that fester and can get infected. And it's pretty dangerous. And so just lying in bed for prolonged periods of time can cause harm to our physical body. Standing in one spot for a long time can also cause harm to the body. A common thing that I say is that there is never a time when humans are not in movement.

Bam Lionheart [00:10:49]:

We are constantly moving, Whether it's the blood through our body, whether it's the air that's coming in and out. Of our lungs, our mind, our eyes, we're walking, we're doing certain actions, we're constantly in movement. Even if you think that we're still the only humans that aren't moving are humans that are past, they're dead. So movement is life. And the more that we can start to wrap our head around that and start to see that movement is medicine, movement is nutrition. One that we should constantly try to encourage within ourselves. And so for children who are more closely tied to their natural instincts, more closely tied to the sensations in their body, the fidgeting and the movement that happens when we ask especially a child, and especially a male child to sit in a chair for a long time is because their body instinctually is asking them, hey, this does not feel good. I need you to move.

Bam Lionheart [00:11:45]:

Can we move around a little bit? Because it's healthy, Just like when the body asks you to go eat something, this is a very healthy instinct that your body's requesting. I need some nutrition or I need some hydration or I want to go outside and get in the sun. We have these inherent set of instincts that allow us to thrive, be vital and be healthy. And movement is one of those really concrete pillars of a healthy lifestyle, the nutrition of movement that we do not really value that much in our current society. And because we don't value it, we don't promote it, we don't nourish it, and we don't give as many opportunities, especially to our youth, to really understand and give ourselves that movement medicine. And we know that intelligence. There's many different types of intelligence for the human. Like there's musical intelligence, some people are musically gifted, there's mathematical or arithmetic intelligence or spatial intelligence.

Bam Lionheart [00:12:46]:

People are really good in different ways of intelligence. Emotional intelligence, well, kinesthetic intelligence is one of those intelligence that is extremely important for all humans. And it's one of those intelligence just like all the other ones that we have to develop. Some of us are gifted more as more, you know, from the get go. We have a kinesthetic intelligence. We feel our body. We're, you know, quote unquote natural athletes or we're gifted. Oh, you can just go do whatever and you pick it up really easily.

Bam Lionheart [00:13:15]:

I loved movement and physicality, but my hero's journey was saying and acknowledging, I'm actually not that intelligent physically and I want to engage more with the world. But it takes me a little bit longer to learn these things. I have to do a ton of trial by fire, a ton of failing, a ton of errors, and I need to Understand all types of movement. Even running has been the biggest challenge for me, which is one of the most natural movements. And so because of this, I understand what it takes to develop ourselves kinesthetically, which means, like, the understanding of our physical body, our instincts, our touch, where we are in time and space, how to coordinate our muscles and our movement. It's. It takes quite a bit, just like emotional intelligence or language or any other intelligences that we really prioritize in our education system. And movement is one of those that I would, I really hope in the future we start to value, because it is so crucial to not only being able to move forward in the world and experience the world in a very healthy and positive way, but when we have a reduction in kinesthetic intelligence.

Bam Lionheart [00:14:27]:

This is where things like chronic pain, injuries, and just overall, this sense, this physical sense of anxiety or I don't really know what's going on with my body. And my body and I are kind of disconnected.

Eyla Cuenca [00:14:40]:

We're.

Bam Lionheart [00:14:40]:

We're not a team like I was when I was a kid. We were. Me and my body got to experience the world through my body. I got to experience a sensation of just running down the street or riding my bicycle. As we get older and we start to move away from that kinesthetic intelligence, that's when we have this general feeling that I'm noticing in a lot of my clients, which is I kind of forgot what it's like to be in my body, and I'm having trouble getting there.

Bam Lionheart [00:15:05]:

Yeah, it's interesting what you just said about my body and I were a team, because that also goes back to the way that we condition children where their body has a desire or some sort of a response, and then we. We correct them, and we course correct them, and we say, actually, no, not right now, or we're not going to listen to that right now, or that's not appropriate right now because we have to teach them, like, what we believe to be proper social etiquette and timing. And so they slowly learn to disassociate their body's needs from what they're actually going to take action on. And that's how I believe very often the disconnect begins to happen. And so we get to adulthood and we're like, you know, the body's been giving us signs and signals, and we ignore them so much. We override with things like, you know, ibuprofen and whatever other substances, or we distract ourselves, or we, you know, step into other types of things to soothe, and the body eventually gets To a point where it breaks down. And then we say, oh, well, it's just age, right? Like, I'm my mid-30s or my 40s, and this is just what happens. But I really perceive it to be years and years of neglecting the body's calls and almost supplications for attention and connection and support.

Bam Lionheart [00:16:23]:

And so we deviate at a certain point. And this is really interesting because I. One of the things that I was going to ask you is with your work, you. You know, some people come to you with very limited mobility, and they say, I want to maybe accomplish a certain goal. What do you see being one of the main. I know you've told me before, people have big emotional releases or they have these big aha moments or even recall certain memories from childhood. And, you know, it's actually quite a healing process to reconnect with the body. Or it's just also why I'm like, you know, I get so excited about the work that you do, as opposed to maybe, like, what other people might say, like, personal training, where people are, like, have physical goals in mind, but they're still not coming back into their body and learning how to listen to their body.

Bam Lionheart [00:17:10]:

They're still going. They're. They're personal training, but they're still overriding and sometimes even injuring themselves. So can you talk a little bit about some of the, like, big breakthroughs that people have had or what you see become possible for people when they start getting into natural movement patterns and they start titrating into, you know, because it's not comfortable at first, right? You're relearning something that you knew before that you forgot or you were told was not good, or you. Or you even had associated with shame. Right. Like, I noticed with my daughter, she walks barefoot everywhere. And we were walking down the street, and the neighbor was like, where's your shoes, little girl? You're gonna get sick.

Bam Lionheart [00:17:53]:

You know, and she was like, what?

Eyla Cuenca [00:17:55]:

Like.

Bam Lionheart [00:17:57]:

And then she, like, ran off and, like, started climbing a tree. You know, it was like. So it's just funny because she's. She's, like, immune to that. Like, it doesn't make sense to her when people make that commentary. But I know that for some kids, it's like, you're not even allowed to be barefoot in your own house. So. So anyway, just.

Bam Lionheart [00:18:12]:

Yeah, I'd love to hear a little bit about the breakthroughs. Like, what's. What's available to people when they do, they step back into these natural movement patterns, into the more instinctual times, the.

Bam Lionheart [00:18:23]:

Most common one, and the most common reason that somebody will seek out a natural movement coach like myself is because their body is really at its. They're at their last wit's end. There's a ton of tension. There's possibly chronic pain or chronic injury that has been with them for sometimes years out of their life. And many of my clients that I work with have gone through traditional methods to try and alleviate these things, like chiropractic or physical therapy, massage, acupuncture, personal training, going to the gym and exercising, all of these different modalities to try to alleviate these symptoms, which is I wake up in the morning and I'm just stiff and tight or like, I can barely move. My neck, my shoulder hurts, my back. Back pain is a hu. Huge one.

Bam Lionheart [00:19:16]:

Absolutely, a huge one. Knee pain, just chronic knee pain. These things that just seem to emerge out of nowhere. It's not like, oh, I fell down and now my back has been hurting for a while. It's like, I was good, and then now all of a sudden I've got back pain, is kind of lingering. And I'm almost guaranteed that three or four times a year I'm going to have a back spasm that's going to make me have to lie down. I'm not going to be able to participate in life. I'm going to be physically handicapped, and I'm going to have to recover from this back spasm.

Bam Lionheart [00:19:51]:

And there's not so much empowering our ability to overcome this. There's just a lot of band aid solutions. So the biggest one, when we start to move in a natural way and really reconnect with our body and the way that it's designed to move, how it's supposed to be aligned or postured, then the biggest one is that we start to alleviate these chronic tensions and pains. They start to fall by the wayside rapidly. They start to move out of our life in a really big way. The example that I like to give, because this is the entry, but it's also the most superficial, and it's also very easy. If you have a car and let's say you notice that one of your tires is not properly inflated, and you're like, oh, my goodness, I've got one of my tires that's not inflated. And then you drive that car knowing that one of your tires is not properly inflated, and then something happens, the tire pops, or your steering gets a little bit off, or your steering is wobbly, we know, like, oh, if your tire is not inflated, let's just inflate it, it's not a big deal.

Bam Lionheart [00:20:56]:

Same thing if the frame of your car is bent a little bit. And so if you're driving down the street and you have to constantly pull the wheel to the right or to the left just to go straight, you would inherently know that this is a very serious problem. And it's very fundamental. Have tires that are inflated and also pointing straight, have a frame that's also pointed straight. So I can do the most simplest task of a car, which is move forward and drive down the road in a very straight way. When we think about the body, for some reason, these basic principles we start to forget, or we think that it's more complicated. Like you'll see somebody with one of their feet that is like crooked or completely collapsed, and then they'll say, well, this is a genetic problem. It just kind of is what it is.

Bam Lionheart [00:21:43]:

And so they walk through the world and then they have, they develop knee pain or back pain on that same side of their body because that whole entire leg, that whole entire side of their body cannot properly align itself and funnel pressure and funnel muscle activation. We're asking our joints in our connective tissue and bones do too much work. Same thing with scoliosis or bad posture. It's just the same as the frame of the car is. Hey, if this frame isn't designed well or if it's not aligned properly, if we go and drive this thing for a long time without correcting this, it's almost guaranteed that there is something that's going to happen that's not going to be ideal. That's why we have on the car, we have all those signals. Hey, engine failure or in check engine light or. You need to address this.

Bam Lionheart [00:22:32]:

You need to address that. Our body gives us all those same signals. Hey, take a look at this, Take a look at that. Those little lights that appear on the dashboard. And we all know when those lights come up, we kind of have this emotional, dang it, like, why is the check engine light coming on? But we know that we need to address it because if we don't address it right now and early, then something bad is going to happen. So unfortunately, these check engine lights that, that come to us through our instincts, through the communication of our body, through sensations, sensations like confusion or even sensations of pain or discomfort, even just sensations of discomfort. This is your body's way of saying, hey, can you please do something different? Because if we continue going down this path, there's a chance that we might hurt ourselves or injure ourselves and so reconnecting with those instincts, reconnecting, aligning the body in the way that it's supposed to move can help guarantee that we get all of the mileage that is almost our birthright to have a life that is not full of chronic pain, where we don't have injuries, where we don't need to have orthopedic surgeries to replace entire joints like hips, knees, or surgical interventions because our back, our discs are bulging or rupturing, all these types of things. These are all symptoms of a body that has been misused and moved in an improper way.

Bam Lionheart [00:24:00]:

Not to anybody's fault that's listening to this, because we have not grown up in a society where the proper way to move has been nursed and taught to us. So it's kind of one of those situations right now where somebody has to step back and say, what is this? What is the reason that this is emerging? And is there something holistically I can do to course correct this from the, from the root problem, as opposed to providing a band aid solution like massage therapy, chiropractic, even physical therapy, which is trying to alleviate pain instead of saying, hey, there's a, there's a root problem that's coming on and it's because we're not aligned properly. It's because we're not moving properly. And so the simplest thing of aligning the body in the natural way that it's designed and reconnecting and reclaiming the natural way that it's moving. The biggest thing is someone that I have is, oh, I can play with my kids and I'm not worried about my back hurting. I've got a ton of energy throughout the day now. I wake up and I feel good to go. I actually feel like I want to go outside and move.

Bam Lionheart [00:25:05]:

I don't feel like I have to, like, you know, drink a ton of coffee or take a hot shower just to get my body kind of feeling warmed up and ready to go for the day. I've got energy and I feel in my body that I want to go engage with it physically. I don't feel like I just want to go on the couch, lay down, or sit in the chair because I'm feeling uncomfortable. This enclosure of tension that's happening that we see with so many of our friends, family, co workers, you see it everywhere.

Bam Lionheart [00:25:34]:

Yeah. And it sounds like people also have. Because they're more. There's more possible for them as far as their movement. They have more connected experiences, like you said, with family, with their relationships with themselves. They're Able to do more. They're able to also rest more. Right? Like, rest properly.

Bam Lionheart [00:25:54]:

You know, that's something that I think that concept, a lot of people don't understand it, what it means to rest actively or rest properly. That's. That's something that I love about the resting squat. That was one of the points that we connected over because it's something that I teach in my birth. Birth classes is the resting squat. I don't have some complicated assignment for, you know, pregnancy exercises or postpartum exercises. I know there's whole programs that are like CrossFit focused, Pilates focused, you know, that are for pregnancy. But my whole thing is like, just move how we used to move, and it's simple and it doesn't even require tools.

Bam Lionheart [00:26:32]:

And like, you don't even have to leave your house. You just use your environment. And so the resting squat was one of those that you can actually be supporting the body's natural alignment when you're resting. And it's called active resting, right, because you're in a position that you know is supporting circulation. It's adding elasticity to the perineum, it's supporting the pelvic outlet. You know, I'm speaking in terms of preparing for birth, but I know that you created a post on your Instagram a while ago, maybe like two or three months ago. It was where you talked about resting in a squat. And a lot of people, like all over the world got super upset and triggered and confused and said that it's completely unnatural to squat, that it's, I don't know, something that's like a fad or it's just been recently, you know, talked about and that it's not part of our natural movement pattern.

Bam Lionheart [00:27:26]:

And like, all you have to do is open, like, pretty much any book on any people before 200 years ago. And, like, everyone is squatting. So could you talk a little bit about that? Like, what is. What would you say is that resistance to. To squatting? And what are the benefits of squatting, people?

Bam Lionheart [00:27:43]:

There is a lot of resistance right now when you do make claims about anything that is like, quote unquote, like, natural, especially because when it comes around with movement, what is natural for the human body, especially a big lens? There's a lot of people who are unable to do what is naturally given to the human body. For instance, the two big mobility shapes that are almost a prerequisite to being a really naturally gifted human mover, which doesn't take a lot. The two shapes are the resting squat, and then the ability to forward fold and put your hands on the floor. But if you said that there are more than 50%, maybe more than 70% of the Western population right now that cannot do a resting squat, they cannot comfortably bend themselves and get down without pain or even achieve that position. And it's not like hanging out there for a long time. We're talking like one to three minutes. And then the other one is the forward fold, or just the general hip hinge and putting your hands on the floor. So those are the two natural mobilities that when I'm working with clients, we seek to unlock those things as much as we possibly can.

Bam Lionheart [00:28:55]:

But when you do say something like the resting squat is a natural position that all humans should have the ability to do, it does create this trigger kind of like, ah, that doesn't feel good. Especially if somebody is unable to do that. And so they'll say, you know, it's not natural, only certain people. And then there's a whole institutional belief that some people's hips are different shapes, there's different femoral links type of thing. But in general, there's so many examples on every single continent in the world, you will see humans doing a deep squat. You'll see that in North America and South America, in Russia, in China, in Africa, just about everywhere. And it is also, not only is it something that we do to rest and engage with ourselves, it's a, it's a natural sitting position where we eat, but it is the natural position where humans go to the bathroom. And so before there was the invention of toilets, in order to have a bowel movement, we would squat.

Bam Lionheart [00:29:55]:

And that's how we're supposed to have a successful bowel movement. There's actually some obstructions and some difficulty to go to the bathroom to go number two on a toilet because of the actual alignment of our bowels in the rectum. It's supposed to be in a deep squat position. It's actually the easiest way to have a bowel movement, the healthiest way to do it. And if you just imagine a child or a baby. So like a toddler in diapers, when they go to the bathroom, in what position are they.

Eyla Cuenca [00:30:28]:

They always squat?

Bam Lionheart [00:30:29]:

They're always squatting. Yeah, it's. It's a natural.

Eyla Cuenca [00:30:32]:

My daughter.

Bam Lionheart [00:30:34]:

Yeah, they'll just like, they'll be walking and they just like squat down. They go and they just stop. And you know that they're making, they're doing a little poo poo. And so because we have toilets, we potty train because we have chairs because we have countertops and beds that are raised up. We have created an environment in all of, in our society where we rarely have to go to the ground. In cultures like Asia, where the toilet is just a hole in the ground, you'll see that the resting squat is something that's natural. You'll see it at the bus station. And it's something that they will repeatedly do because they go to the bathroom through the day.

Bam Lionheart [00:31:16]:

So I don't. You don't need a study, you don't need to like understand the entire anatomy of the human to recognize that one of the primary functions, which is elimination, is done in a deep squat. And if we don't have the ability to deep squat, then that primary function is going to be a little bit obstructed, restricted for you. And wouldn't it be great if everyone could go to the bathroom like easily, without strength and whenever they wanted? Like, that's some of the power that these positions have. But the more that we sit, the more that we move away from the floor, those positions become less accessible to us. And so we have to actively reclaim those things, which means we actually actively seek the floor. We have to actively put ourselves in these positions. And if you're somebody that is struggling or is unable to hit that, yes, it's going to be very uncomfortable.

Bam Lionheart [00:32:13]:

Uncomfortable meaning it's going to feel unnatural. It's not going to feel like as good as it feels right now for me to be in this resting squat. There is that reclamation that needs to happen. Just like if somebody throughout their entire childhood was eating fast food and toxic foods, processed foods, switching from those foods, fast foods, over to a natural holistic diet, whole foods, you know, good foods. That isn't always easy. Change is hard and difficult for us, even if that change ultimately results in a positive, until it settles in the body, until it settles in our subconscious, as this is just the new way. Once it does happen, though, that's where the power of the body and our instincts can really help us. When you make that change, let's say like diet, to moving away from eating soda processed foods to a holistic, healthy diet, the moment that you go and have a fast food burger or you have a can of soda, immediately you have this entire body response of that does not make me feel good at all.

Bam Lionheart [00:33:19]:

And before what I thought was yummy and nice, a nice treat for myself that I gave to myself and made me feel good, now I get my entire body says, this is not okay, and please don't do that. Again. And I don't. I don't want to do it actually anymore.

Eyla Cuenca [00:33:35]:

Right. It's the pattern disruption that has to happen. Right. And I think people from childhood become so accustomed to feeling unwell that it just becomes the standard. So they don't recognize that they don't feel great. Right. Like, chronic headaches, constipation, like, not going to the bathroom for three, four days is just such a normal part of people's lives. And I've met clients like this, right.

Eyla Cuenca [00:34:01]:

And it's like they'll have to take something in order to go. And that's just that. That's just how it's been, right? In air quotes. It's just how it's been for years. And so for it to be different, like, why does it need to be? I've made it this far, you know, and so then when they make those changes and then they have that meal, that sends their body into some sort of intense reaction or response. They say, oh, yeah, I got accustomed for so long to feeling so unwell that when I did the pattern disrupt to actually feel good daily, and I went back to that pattern for just a moment, I can now recognize the huge disparity. And there's a distinction there that's created. Yeah, it's when you're talking about, you know, children just popping down into a squat position, they're so free.

Eyla Cuenca [00:34:45]:

They're just responding to their body's needs. It doesn't matter where they are. And parents generally allow that to happen until a child's like two or so years old. And then something happens around three or four where they start really course correcting the child to behave a certain way. And this is where I often see children develop, you know, as a. As a birth. Someone who's been in the birth world for over 10 years now, and in homes of so many people and working with breastfeeding, I see that there's so much shame woven into a child's behavior. Right.

Eyla Cuenca [00:35:15]:

And so for a child to even, like, experience a natural response to the body, it's okay for a time, but then there comes an age where the parent is like, you can't feel that anymore. And even changing a diaper when the parent is stressed or the mother is stressed or she, you know, it's. It's a whole thing. Then the baby starts to associate the bowel movement with stress, depending on how the mother is approaching the process of her having that. And, you know, if the child squats down to have a bowel movement, some, you know, some moms I've seen them go like, don't do that. Not here. You know, and so then the child is like, oh, it's not okay to have this reaction. It's not okay to have this natural response in my body.

Eyla Cuenca [00:35:51]:

That's the script they're starting to write about that natural movement and that, you know, defecation, right? And so then they start to hold it in. They start to tense. They only want to do it in private. They even. They can't. They suddenly can't do it in certain settings. And so it becomes a whole trauma. Trauma that they're trying to navigate.

Eyla Cuenca [00:36:13]:

And then they have a harder time getting out of diapers. And so when we course correct these natural movement patterns in children, it sets them off on a really long path that I think, you know, say, hey, I don't want to be in a squat. Because when I was in a squat to do this, I was castigated by a parent. And so I don't want to be in that position. And then I avoid it. So that's just one of the ways, I think that from my perspective in my work, we arrive at restricting our bodies in order to not get punished, you know, and. And it's unfortunate, but something that we can just be more conscious of is expanding that permission field for our children to stay in these natural patterns. The other thing I noticed is that, you know, in those comments and that post that you made about the resting squat, a lot of people were saying, you know, you have to.

Bam Lionheart [00:36:59]:

It.

Eyla Cuenca [00:37:00]:

It's because of some freak genetic thing that you're able to even squat, you know, and so it's. It's just fascinating to me that when, you know, people will pull anything they can out of a hat just to avoid facing their own bodies, you know, and saying, hey, maybe I. Maybe I could try this. And maybe the diagnosis that I got from this, I don't know, doctor or physical therapist, like, maybe there's another way. So just expanding that possibility is just very liberating. I think we don't give ourselves enough permission to explore that. You know, when we get feedback on something once, we kind of just take it as the word. And we don't seem to go beyond that.

Eyla Cuenca [00:37:39]:

So I guess it's an invitation, right, to see what else is possible.

Bam Lionheart [00:37:43]:

That is exactly it. Yeah, it's. It. Ultimately, I hope that our diagnosis, the diagnoses that we are given from different professionals or specialists or adults, people that are more knowledgeable than us, these diagnoses that are given, I hope that people start to See them as invitations, invitations to change or invitations to look at things in a new way. We know the body is constantly adapting. We know that the body is constantly healing, it is constantly shedding, eliminating and growing at the same time. There's a really cool, a good friend of mine, Dr. Luke, and he talks about the fascia having an 18 month kind of birth, death, recycle period, that in 18 months just about every fascial cell has gone through this changeover.

Bam Lionheart [00:38:35]:

And so it's a long time, 18 months. But if we started today, right now, to change our movement patterns, our posture, or let's say how we spoke in 18 months, that would be ingrained in our subconscious and in our nervous system kind of communication. And so when we're looking at things that are uncomfortable, that are not good, like I was gifted with a body that was very flexible and mobile. And so there are many positions that I can achieve. What I wasn't gifted with was natural athleticism, ability to do sports at the drop of a hat, or pick things up really easily. I have to do a ton of repetitions, a ton of failure, a ton of falling and understanding things completely before I can start to really perform at the level that I'm having fun. Now I'm in that flow state type of thing. And there are.

Bam Lionheart [00:39:30]:

So because of that, I am able to do a lot of things with my body. There are other people that weren't gifted with that flexibility and their, that mobility. And so they might be saying, oh, you have this genetic capability, bam, this EDS and this person doesn't. And that might be true, but it's more of like a half truth because then the next question is, well, what would you like to do with that? Just because you are restricted in your mobility or you do have long femurs and it makes those positions difficult to get into, does that mean that you're never going to get into those positions? And that just is what it is. And you close the door to change. You don't invite the possibility to reclaim something that is yours. We know that we are genetically passed down from our parents, from our grandparents, even muscularly, how we are built. Like if the, if the father is built muscularly and the mother, the child will have a certain similar muscular build.

Bam Lionheart [00:40:34]:

And so if your parents didn't have mobility, didn't, you know, go into these natural positions, you might be born with a similar restriction within your body. And so you have to work with what you're given. We can change, we can adapt always, 100%. But this idea that I've got this diagnosis, and that just is what it is. It's not true because it happens with arthritis. It happens with chronic low back pain. It happens with hip impingement, femoral acetabulum impingement. It happens with frozen shoulder.

Bam Lionheart [00:41:08]:

All these different things that are ailing us. We go into, let's say, a doctor, a chiropractor, or a physical therapist, and they say, you have the diagnosis of femoral acetabulum impingement, or you have the diagnosis of arthritis in your knees, or you have a bulging disc in your low back, which simply just means that there's compression on your disc. And we take that as the end of the road, this finite type of understanding, when in reality it says, no, this is a snapshot or a language that can help me understand what's happening right now. And then the next question is, what do I want to do with that? What I want to. How do I want to overcome that? Arthritis is one of my favorite ones, because the word arthritis simply means inflammation of the joint. And so you go in to the doctor, your elbow is hurting you, and you're like, my elbow is hurting you. And then your doctor says, oh, yes, your joint is inflamed. And it's like, I know, that's why I'm here, and I'd like to overcome that.

Bam Lionheart [00:42:07]:

But they say, well, your joint is inflamed. And that just kind of is what it is type of thing. So there's a ton of holistic way.

Eyla Cuenca [00:42:15]:

Take a. Take a pill or do some sort of surgery to create a buffer so that things aren't rubbing.

Bam Lionheart [00:42:22]:

So the way of the invitation is asking, why? Why is my joint inflamed? Why are the discs in my back bulging? Why is my shoulder frozen? Or why is my hip pinching? Type of thing? And we start to ask the questions of why we can start to lead ourself down to some. The root cause that is available for us to change and to work with. And once we start addressing that root cause, then our body starts to respond also and change as well as we start to change and look at things differently.

Eyla Cuenca [00:42:56]:

Yeah, it's. It's a belief system, really. And it's just, are we willing to walk toward that invitation or not? Or even see it as an invitation? You know, I think we don't know our options. We think we have none. We just don't know them. Right. And so I love what you're doing because you're creating options for everyone. I mean, even in the doula training that I.

Eyla Cuenca [00:43:16]:

That two cohorts ago, I had two women in their 60s, and they said, you know, I've been feeling this call for years, but I just felt like I had reached an age where I wasn't going to be appropriate or it wasn't for me anymore. And they reclaimed that part of themselves and said, it doesn't matter how, what age I've reached, I can still pursue this thing. And actually, they had a gift. Because of all their experience in life, they were able to offer a different gift. And I look at movement as the same. It's a metaphor for that. It's like it doesn't matter what age you reached or what injuries you've had or what surgeries you've had to undergo, you can still access a new version, a more expanded, empowered version of yourself, but you just have to give yourself an opportunity, which means stepping into the invitation. You don't know what's possible.

Eyla Cuenca [00:44:06]:

Like, we don't until we try, you know, So I really love that, that it just. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where you've been. It starts here today. And you know something? That. That really struck me when I first connected with you was the amount of young people that you knew, athletes, professional athletes, who had already, at, like, age 25, even gotten surgeries, ACL surgery, different types, you know, different types of surgeries that the doctors just said, you gotta do this. And that's when you made me aware of this idea of, like, the cadaver science, how a lot of this, you know, the sports medicine world, really, they learn through studying cadavers, which are at this, at that point, very different than the living, breathing human body? So how can we really understand the capacity of the human body when we're studying a body that is, you know, essentially stiff and inactive? So what would you say to people who've gotten surgeries because they thought it was their only option, or, you know, they're thinking about it, or they have a child who's in sports, or, you know, like, how. Like, how can they step outside of that and try another way?

Bam Lionheart [00:45:18]:

This is the advice that I would give myself if I was in that situation, or my family members or anyone, is that surgery is. We're glad that surgery is available to us. We have, you know, Western medicine is great at those acute traumas. Again, a car accident or something happens. I saw this in the emergency world when I was doing ambulance service. Like, it's great that we have orthopedic surgeons and trauma specialists, people that can put us back together. When we get into those accidents, but when it comes to chronic injuries like, okay, my back has been hurting for like 10 years and now the doctors are saying we should consider surgery or my knee is hurting and we should consider surgery, or I need a new hip, I need a replacement, a new hip type of thing. In those situations, I always just stress that surgery should be our last and final option.

Bam Lionheart [00:46:18]:

Because surgery is extremely invasive. Somebody is physically cutting open your body and changing the actual structure of your body. And once your structure has been cut open and changed, it will never go back to the original way that it was. So it will change you forever. And so if you're going to make that forever change, we want to know for sure that this is my last and final option. And I have exhausted all options, all holistic options that are less invasive before saying, you know what, I'm going to go and take this option to do this certain thing. There are a ton of examples of people that have avoided that invasive surgery and have found healing and reconnecting through a ton of different modalities, including movement therapy or using natural movement. So know that it's an option that's available for you right now.

Bam Lionheart [00:47:19]:

But if it is being suggested as the first and only option, that's where a red flag comes up in my brain personally. But this is for everyone to decide for themselves. Because the path of surgery is, let's just say in a normal case somebody is having some back pain or something's coming up where it's not a life threatening situation, they need surgery, but it's something to deal with pain. You know, surgeries that are meant to address, it's very interesting. And when you look at, there's a ton of surgeries that are saying, hey, there's an actual anatomical something wrong with us, or I need to remove my appendix, is it ruptured? Or something like that. But when we have chronic pain and surgery, cutting somebody open surgical procedures are suggested to deal and alleviate with pain. That's a huge kind of red flag for me. More trauma to deal with pain.

Bam Lionheart [00:48:15]:

Because what ultimately we're looking for is to not have pain and to have movement. So there's a ton of different options that we can go down and just, I would encourage everyone to exhaust all the options for that so that it's not the only solution. But what the previous point that I was saying is the path of surgery is you become sedated and you give your life, your back, your knee, your hip, into somebody else's hands. And so there's a Part of you that's offloading your sovereignty, offloading your responsibility of your body to somebody else. In some situations, this is really good because somebody is overwhelmed, unable to actually just physically take care of themselves. However, I always invite people, my clients, and the message is that our body is a healing machine designed to heal itself and is constantly seeking equanimity, constantly seeking alignment, constantly trying to be its best version of itself. And as long as we can support that, we're going to be moving in that direction. But that does take a lot of work, that does take a lot of awareness that will ask you to have like large paradigm shifts on your lifestyle, why these things have emerged inside of your body.

Bam Lionheart [00:49:30]:

And for some people, that's. That's a route that is difficult to swallow and maybe not possible because of that belief system that they've created. So ultimately, looking at what do I believe about my physical body and am I willing to do the hard work to overcome these different ailments, injuries, and come out on the other side of being somebody who is strong, able to move and not restrict it?

Eyla Cuenca [00:49:59]:

Yeah, that's really powerful because it's like a language, right? It just takes one generation to lose it, right? If your parents aren't going to speak that language to you, then you're not going to speak it either. It's like learning how to cook recipes. It just takes one generation. So with movement, if there's a belief system about the body, about the way we move, if there's a belief system that we have to be restricted within social norms in order to appear appropriate or whatever it is, physically, the child will lose that. So it's about first reclaiming it within ourselves, right? Reclaiming that self sovereignty through movement. And then those around us, our spouse, family members, usually they. It's. For me, it's.

Eyla Cuenca [00:50:38]:

It was contagious, right? Because when I started understanding primal movement, you know, spending time with you, learning from you, learning from John Defeati also, I started feeling so much more free and capable in many areas of my life. It had a deep emotional and spiritual impact for me to unlock and reclaim my body in these ways. And then I started to notice that so many women even around me, were kind of stuck in a cycle. Like, I want to feel this, I want to look like this, right? It's about, I want to look like this. I want my body to look like this. I want my body to feel like this. And they would do kind of cosmetic surgeries or they would do these temporary fixes, bandaid fixes, you know, and to get those results, but they still had that feeling. Because the real true feeling is you reclaim it for yourself.

Eyla Cuenca [00:51:26]:

Even if you were to get that, let's say cosmetic surgery to make the body look a certain way temporarily, there's still that deep desire. Because what that is is the human wanting to reclaim its power. You know, doesn't matter if you get the desired physical results for a moment. The real power is you reclaiming that within you. And so when I was able to get the strength back in, my body didn't have knee pain anymore. I did for years because of the way I was walking, because of the way I was standing, because of the shoes I was wearing. Even my posture changed, right, the way that I was sitting at a desk, right. I used to do a lot of photo editing and I would just sit at a desk for hours and hours.

Eyla Cuenca [00:52:05]:

So when I even changed things around, my home started moving differently in my home, started connecting my feet back to the ground. So much started to change for me. I felt so much more capable, so much more clear headed. I felt more joy. I would say something in my chest opened. Like I felt like I was breathing through my heart, if that makes sense. Because my posture had changed. I was like, I was walking and moving through the world from my glutes, right, Rather than like in my head and like from my chin, you know, which is like how my posture was.

Eyla Cuenca [00:52:38]:

I was like had my head forward because I was leading through the world with my thoughts rather than with my heart and my body. So everything had kind of reorganized just by simply doing this work. And it was a big pattern disrupt for me. It wasn't easy, but it actually was kind of quick, I would say, you know, within three months I noticed a huge difference. So a lot was possible for me. A lot opened up. I found primal movement at a time in my life where a lot was changing. It's, you know, it's never an accident.

Eyla Cuenca [00:53:09]:

So I could keep chitty chatting with you all day, but I don't want to sit any longer. And I don't think you do either. I've been like repositioning myself on this ball for a while. But are there any closing thoughts that you'd like to share with us? Any words of wisdom, some steps that people could take right now, right here, right now.

Bam Lionheart [00:53:32]:

The philosophy and the theory of this Pramma movement is not about just exercise. That's often where people go. It's like, it's, oh, it's movement. I'm in a gym, I'm doing this 30 minute one hour routine and this one hour routine, this supplement gives me X, Y and Z. When in reality, problem movement is more about the 23 hours where you're not intentionally moving, where you're not in the yoga class, where you're not going and doing the personal training. It's how are you moving throughout your life through where are you sitting at home eating with your family? Are you on chairs or are you on the floor? What would that change give to you? What would being on the floor give to you? Are you walking through your life? You know, are you able to go and walk to the grocery store or go on a walk outside and get some sunlight type of things? Or are you only confined to a car as your main mode of transportation? So I would say encourage everyone to look at your movement of your life outside of the hour or 30 minutes that you might be doing a physical practice. Because those when you start to reclaim your movement in those hours, that's where the real change happens. That's where the real transformation is able to occur.

Bam Lionheart [00:54:50]:

And some simple things that we can do is take a look at your working environment. Does your working environment provide a healthy movement for your body or is your working environment constricting your body? And what changes can you do for your working environment so that when you get done working, you feel more open, connected, and your body's actually stronger and healthier rather than more stiff and rigid, contracted?

Eyla Cuenca [00:55:15]:

Yeah.

Bam Lionheart [00:55:17]:

Take a look at your also your resting behaviors. So in the morning, are you on the couch or at the end of the day to wind down, are you sitting on the couch, slumped over in that kind of couch position? In what ways can you change your resting behaviors where you're recovering so that your body is also realigning itself, is also able to actually rest and settle. And a lot of times this means stepping aside from the chair, stepping aside from the couch, inviting yourself to go back to the floor or to reclaim some natural resting positions that are very healthy and naturally align the body and strengthen it. All of these things you can find on my YouTube channel at Primal Movement. Some free resources to realign your living space, to look at your workstation, and to offer some different places where you can work, engage with computers or whatever it is that you're doing that could, could really dramatically change how your body is structured and feeling throughout your day. So check out Primal Movement on YouTube and you can also go to PrimalMovement.org for some free courses on all of this information about the 23 hours or so outside of the gym and how you can really take ownership of those that movement, how you're moving through your life, how you're posturing yourself and makes them really incredible and simple. Not easy, but simple changes.

Eyla Cuenca [00:56:47]:

Beautiful. And I know that for those of you listening who go to the gym, who have a routine workout routine or something that you really love, I can pretty much guarantee that if you work with Bam or any one of his coaches, you will completely uplevel how you do your routine and your movement. Because there are some, I'm guessing, pretty simple tweaks and awarenesses that can come through that will just up level everything. Because something like the position of your foot or how you're landing or where the center of gravity is shifted in your routine will make a huge difference. I was working out hard for years and hardly saw any results. And then after introducing some changes through the primal movement, rhetoric and matrix, it was like I was. It was like I gave the workout like a 10x. Like it was just suddenly I could feel what I was doing.

Eyla Cuenca [00:57:45]:

And I used to say, like, oh, I can do this many reps and like, I don't feel much. You know, I guess my body hit a wall. But then when I actually changed the position of my body and reconnected with the floor, I was like, could only do 10 of the reps. And I was like, oh, I've been doing this wrong for years. So, you know, that's a whole other episode. But he has those resources. So if you're ready to up level or this is just the beginning of your journey, or you are just like, oh, I haven't moved in a very long time and I'm ready to take that first step to even move. Pam's the man for you.

Eyla Cuenca [00:58:19]:

So thank you so much for being here with me and sharing your wisdom. I will share all of your contact info in the show notes. And yeah, what are you gonna do the rest of the day?

Bam Lionheart [00:58:30]:

We're gonna get a sun sunset surf session. My favorite type of surf session. That's it. And thank you to anyone who listened to this and for expanding your mind and. And maybe looking at movement. Maybe you never even thought about the global movement of your body. Maybe you only thought about exercise. But if there is anything that really stuck out to you that you would like to get a little bit more information on, specifically for you, I actually have a free consult call where we can talk and share some ideas.

Bam Lionheart [00:59:00]:

I can maybe provide some resources for you or give you some insight into what's going on with your body. If you are experiencing some tension or you're just kind of confused a little bit and you want to some more insight. I'll provide that with Ayla for the show notes and would love to talk to you about anything that's happening and how maybe movement can benefit you and provide you some relief.

Eyla Cuenca [00:59:22]:

Beautiful. Thank you.

Bam Lionheart [00:59:23]:

I'll see you.