“Attention is the dominant cognitive skill that we use.
If that skill is diminished without activity that provides you physical support,
comprehension skills actually diminish.”
Do you know what physical literacy is and why it is critical to our overall physical and mental health? When we are children, we learn to use our physical bodies to learn about ourselves as well as to exercise our brain as we discover this world we live in and how our bodies relate to it. We take physical education classes. We run around in our backyards, climb trees, play hop scotch. They trigger fun memories.
Physical literacy can be defined as “the ability to move with competence and confidence in a wide variety of physical activities in multiple environments that benefit the healthy development of the whole person.” It would seem like a no brainer (no pun intended J) that we would continue to expand and nurture our physical literacy like we do our mental literacy but for some reason as we grow older, it shrinks from the spotlight. Yes, we know that exercise is good for us. But intentional, focused attention on body movements, on specific exercises can have an enormous added benefit. Pilates is a perfect example of concentrated, specific movements that done in repetition help the overall well-being of the person.
Classical pilates instructor Daisy Sola breaks it all down for us. She makes the connection of childhood physical literacy to adult physical literacy and how it can help us in adulthood, and especially in later adulthood.
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ABOUT OUR GUEST
Daisy Sola Lespier is a certified Pilates instructor, Watsu Practitioner, and an End of Life Doula (we’ll talk to her about these topics on another episode!). She has taught physical literacy awareness using somatic sequential movement exercises focusing on applied attention, agility and adaptability for 18 years. Daisy is Mona’s Pilates instructor and informal dating mentor :).
