Our Method
The main focus of PRIMAL MOVES™ movement training practice is to develop stability, strength, mobility, and excellent muscle tone through quadrupedal movements and dynamic physical maneuvers that replicate the locomotive characteristics of animals.
Enhancing Functional Movement
Primal Moves™ aims to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of fundamental human movements such as crawling, walking, running, jumping, and climbing. By practicing these movements in various combinations and intensities, individuals can develop better coordination, balance, and overall functional capacity.
Building Core Strength and Stability
Primal Moves™ places emphasis on developing core strength and stability. Movements and exercises target muscles in the abdomen, back, hips, and pelvis, aiding in posture improvement, injury prevention, and enhancing overall athletic performance.
Enhancing Body Awareness and Mind-Body Connection
Primal Moves™ encourages individuals to develop a deeper connection with their bodies and cultivate body awareness. By paying attention to movement patterns, sensations, and alignment, people can enhance their proprioception and movement control.
Promoting Natural Movement Patterns
By incorporating crawling, rolling, squatting, and other primal movements, individuals can reconnect with their innate movement abilities and enhance their overall physical fitness.
The primal method is divided into 3 series:
Moves, progressions & handstand
PRIMAL MOVEMENT
Series 1
FOCUS: Conditioning & Movement Foundations
Requirements: None
The first series works through the fundamentals, building a strong foundation by restoring posture, conditioning the body, stabilizing joints, improving motor coordination, improving conscious movement perception, and preparing the hands, wrists and shoulders for the progressive inversions in the second series.
Primal Progressions
Series 2
FOCUS: Inversions & Managing Inertia Requirements: some experience in Primal Movement recommended.
Once the body has become conditioned and awareness of moving across the floor has improved, the progression to inversions begins. Inversions are a trained skill set trained through repetition so pattern recognition is built and the confidence to load weight on the hands grows.
Handstand
Dynamic handstand class combines playful exploration of different handstand variations, creative exercises to enhance balance and control, and an energetic, supportive environment that encourages participants to push their limits and celebrate their progress.
“my mission is to transmit my experience of movement practices into the lives of many.”
“think less’ move more’ breathe”
Nick Brewer
Founder & coach at primal ibiza
Frequently asked questions
- What is primal moves?
Primal Moves™ is a systematized movement method, the practice is a quadrupedal movement- based system, flow based consisting of dynamic physical maneuvers that replicate the locomotive characteristics of many animals.
The primarily multi-joint, multi-planar closed kinetic chain movements develop a physicality that is stable, strong and mobile with excellent muscle tone.
This multidimensionality of the movements often requires participants to re-learn basic patterning by bringing movement back into conscious control.A progressive 3-series system, primal movestm promotes longevity in the physical structure by loading the joints equally which trains a body that is stable, strong and powerful.
At the entrance level, Primal Moves™ focuses on developing a solid base. Once the foundation is set through consistent practice, a practitioner can begin to access movements of the next series. This is seen in body alignment, biomechanical awareness, balance skills and openness in the spine and shoulders
At Primal Moves™ studios, sessions are primarily in a group format, giving participants a sense of community, making it social, fun and interactive. Research shows most people prefer to exercise with others and doing so leads to increased adherence.
What's the difference between our primal moves training and other training methods
Primal Moves™ is accessible to all who are wanting to achieve an amazing level of strength, fitness, mobility, flexibility, body awareness and general well being. It does not train movements such as the ‘planche’, ‘front/ back lever’, flags, one arm pull ups and many calisthenics moves which are advanced gymnastics moves, which long term don’t serve as functional to the body.
What are the benefits of primal moves?
Bodyweight training, such as Primal Moves™ quadrupedal movement offers benefits often not experienced in a modern-day gym workout. When traveling across the ground, the four limbs are all working simultaneously, training motor coordination and physical cognition. It is a form of mind-body movement, developing intelligence in our somatic nervous system as we crawl.
On the structural level, the quadruped loads all the joints equally whilst moving across multiple planes of movement without any joint impact. Its dynamic, multi-range movements work through the muscular system, supported by the fascial network, helping to release tissue stiffness and immobility in the joints, including the spine. Physical imbalances are evened out as the body comes into a state of structural equanimity.
Fitness level
As a holistic movement system, improvement in baseline fitness characteristics is inherent and a bi-product of training. Cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, muscular strength, muscular endurance and body composition all measure positive changes.
How is the primal moves class sequence?
The series works through the fundamentals, building a strong foundation by restoring posture, conditioning the body, stabilizing joints, improving motor coordination, improving conscious movement perception, and preparing the hands, wrists and shoulders for the progressive inversions in the second series.
Primal Moves™ is a floor based flow body weight session, the dynamic movements gently open up the myo-fascial networks.
What are the “ABCs” of primal moves?
Series 1 – Primal Movement
Focus: conditioning & movement foundations.
Requirements: none.
Series 2: Primal Progressions
Focus: inversions & managing inertia
requirements: some experience in primal movement recommended.
Requirements:
Previous training in hand balancing or if new to movement it is suggested 3 months consistent training in Primal Moves™.
Series 3: Handstand Training
A strong stable foundation in the wrists and shoulders, a consistent practice of movement to be able to fully enjoy the benefits of inversions.
Are there any benefits to practicing primal moves?
Is there science to back up your claims?
All movement is beneficial for the human body, and has proven to increase physical longevity as muscle and bone mass is maintained, motor coordination and cognition are important factors of body weight movement as done in Primal Moves™.
I’m new to primal moves. Where should I start?
Show up, try the Primal Moves™ entry level classes which give full body awareness and build a strong foundation, the classes are fun, dynamic and bring about a strong sense of community.
I can’t do a handstand. Can I still do primal moves?
Yes, Primal Moves™ is not a specific handstand training but uses some of its methods to help train body awareness and posture.
How long has primal moves been around?
Body weight movement training, quadrupedal body work has been around for decades, often used by gymnasts and circus performers, and the performing arts, as a warmup as it is very healthy for joint stability and opening the fascial networks.
Primal Moves™ was born in ibiza in 2016 after many years of exploration.
Who created primal moves?
Nick Brewer is the founder of Primal Moves™ who created the sequence after training for decades in many modalities of movement, nick wanted to create a movement system that is accessible to all whilst being physically challenging and simultaneously offers skill sets, like handstands. Primal Moves™ is a fusion of many different movement systems put together in a structured safe format.
Primal moves looks really familiar to me. Is it based on another discipline?
Yes you will see certain characteristics of Primal Moves™ in other modalities such as elementary gymnastics, pilates, yoga, but you won’t find another system with the same structure and complete method.
What’s the difference between Primal Moves and Animal Flow / Capoeira?
They all share the same concepts being body weight training methods that bring about conscious body awareness. Primal Moves™ is a structured systemised method with a tiered progressive system.
Isn’t this just yoga?
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – verse 1:1.2
“YOGAS CHITTA VRTTI NIRODAHA”
The restraint of the modifications of mind stuff is yoga
Simply put you can find yoga in any practice where you are channeling the behavior of the mind.
But Primal Moves™ does not follow a traditional mat based asana practice although there maybe some modern asana postures.
Its founder Nick Brewer has studied and practiced yoga for 20 years, but as a physical functional movement practice found it incomplete.