The joy of movement

My four-month-old son is trying to roll over. He puts his feet on the floor and pushes himself to one side. He makes it half way before getting stuck and rolling back. He tries again and again, eventually becoming tired and frustrated.

He brings his heels up below him and pushes his hips into the air. He lays on his back and raises his feet towards his face. And if I place him on his belly, he raises up his head and shoulders to look ahead.

I can put names to the movements he repeats; the glute bridges, the leg raises, the cobra. He just babbles and keeps moving, following his instincts and moving his body, making it stronger. He smiles and coos, he enjoys mastering this control of his limbs.

Somewhere towards becoming adults, many of us lose this, this joy in movements for movement’s sake. We spend our time sat at desks or on sofas. We go to the gym and relearn under duress the exercises we knew intuitively as infants.

There’s lots of things my son doesn’t know yet that I do: what his name is, how to ride a bike, how to fill in a tax return. But he already knows something it took me 30 years to discover, that there’s a joy and satisfaction to had in simply moving your body. I hope he never loses that.