FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ - Frequently asked questions about the Neofold Academy

What is MovNat? MovNat is a physical education system. MovNat will let you explore your body’s innate capability of moving and adapting in and to the environment. We take you back to nature and show you how you need to move to adapt to the natural landscape. We will deepen your knowledge of the different skills such as crawling, balancing, walking, running, hanging, getting up from the ground, rolling.

This varies from training to training, but two main methods that are applied are the Oxygen Advantage Breathing Method and the WimHof Breathing method. Depending on the training and occasion we will adapt the breathing methof to enhance the experience and use for the participants. Your trainers are certified Breathing instructors and have experience in guiding groups and inviduals through these breathing sessions. We also often combine functional breathing patterns with movement exercises. 

The Neofold Academy is the creation of Bernd R., MarbodK. and Andres Santamaria. It provides the digital and physical place to combine many poweful tools such as Breathing Methods, NeuroMeditation and Natural Movement – and much more! The Neofold Academy grew out of what many of you came to know as MovNat Munich. There arre still deep connections with the MovNat headquaters and Natural Movement (MovNat) is still an important part of our Online Training and our retreats. But Neofold advanced out of the necessity to make it about more than just movement and integrate many different facets that our community came to love and use frequebtly. We truly believe that health and performance can only be achieved through a holistic approach. This is what we work on daily to provide to you – this is the Neofold Academy. 

This is a breathing method, which evolved out of from the Buteyko method and was developed by Patrick McKeown. The breathing method can be used to develop better breathing and to increase performance.

WHAT IS NEUROMEDITATION? We know that ancient meditation practices have a deep impact on the mind and the body. In the past two decades, scientific studies have been examining the benefits from a neurological perspective! NeuroMeditation®️, you can re-wire your brain by meditating in the style that fits you personally. The NeuroMeditation®️ process creates an individualized approach to enhance your focus, non-judgmental awareness, cultivate pleasant emotions and quality of life by calming the mind.

No you are not! Our training is for every age, depending on your level you might need to take it slow in the beginning, but that applies to all ages. 

No you do not need a certain level of fitness. You will progressively and playfully built your cinditioning and mvoement skills. If you have certain worries about your level and the training just join one of our free lessons to try it out and don’t hesitate to ask us questions.

We don’t generally offer personal training through this website, but if you are interested, don’t hesitate to contact us. 

There are many books to recommend. We will add a link here soon to our favourite books organized in a reading recommendation list. 

MovNat is quite unique in its philosophy and approach. It is differentiated first from movement specific activities that can be classified as a sport. Because natural movement is more general in its approach to movement, as it relies on the fact that humans are movement generalist.

It is also distinguished through its focus on technique first and conditioning second. Most fitness programs aim at conditioning the person, through countless repetitions or increase in weights or difficulty. Our system focuses first on the technique, and the function of the movement, through that there is also the positive benefit of better conditioning, but it is not the aim.

For example, you will not be doing countless sets of push-ups. Because first the question would be, what is the function of this movement, what is the correct execution of this movement.

Natural Running means to run in a style or pattern that our ancestors would run with. It is

  • Efficient
  • sustainable on the body
  • can be done without dampened shoes or artificial heel rise (= zero drop)
  • implies minimal forces on the joints
  • the way our bodies are designed to run

About the Online Training

Natural Movement is ..

This can happen, especially in the beginning, when you start out with the movement practice. When we go through movement progressions and you find yourself lost, then don’t take the correct movement too earnest, a different movement from one position in another can do no harm. Do not panic, but rather see the training as an hour of play and mindfulness to explore the capabilities of your body. After the training session, you can always ask questions, check out videos online, or join our retreats for more in-depth information on these topics.

If you do not have the equipment, it is not a problem at all. The equipment is usually there to add complexity to the movement or to aid as a support to the technique. You can always improvise and work with the equipment that you have.

If you do not have anything that comes close to what is recommended you can just pretend as if you had that object and focus on the correct application of the technique. This will be more than sufficient to have a great training session

This is a problem many of us experience. We need to work with the space we have. Make sure your space is free of any dangerous objects that could harm yourself. We recommend you use the biggest room you have available.

For most people it helps to have a carpet or yoga mat if you start out. But in general, you can do everything on the floor in your room.

When you do not have enough space, you can usually just shift a bit back and do the rest of the movement, keeping the range of the movement shorter or stop the technique there and rearrange into the next position to follow along again.

Working with the space we have is part of the MovNat philosophy, if you are limited through the space, do not get upset, but rather see it as a challenge to find ways to work in that confined space.

We respect your privacy, it is not required to have your camera on before, during or after the training. You can do that as you please.

Sometimes the trainers can look at your movements and correct them, so for that it would be useful to leave your camera on.

We do ask you to turn your microphone off, during the training, to avoid distracting the other participants.

That is the great part about MovNat. You can start at any level. The system is made to determine where you need to improve and to break these movements down as much as is needed for you to succeed and build your movement capability slowly and from the ground up. “You do not need to be fit to move; you need to move to be fit.”

But the training is also great for people that are very fit, as most of us have some deficiency in our movement that we should work on.

Yes, we invite you to participate in our online training. It might be helpful to gather some information first to understand the philosophy behind MovNat and our online training. We welcome everybody, no matter which level of fitness or age.

As we said before, you can do our training at any age. No matter which age, you always need to be mindful with each movement, to explore your boundaries by being mindful to the signals. This will prevent you from injuries and lead to a healthier life. We would argue that most people above 18 in today’s society should practice natural movement.

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