Physical Literacy: A Skill For Life
WHAT IS PHYSICAL LITERACY?
Physical Literacy is a term that refers to “the active mastering of fundamental movement & sports skills that permit a human to read their environment & make appropriate life decisions that allow them to move confidently & with control in a wide range of physical activity situations” (International Physical Literacy Association).
WHY PHYSICAL LITERACY?
Reset LAB believe that by developing Physical Literacy, we learn how to ‘be in our bodies’, facilitating our conscious mind to receive, identify & respond to messages from the nervous system about what our body wants & needs. By being ‘more in the body’ we believe that desired goals such as increases in vitality, health, weight loss & performance gains become natural by-products.
More specifically, the term Physical Literacy was coined in 1993, by Margaret Whitehead, Head of Physical Education at Homerton College Cambridge. Alongside Whitehead, Trish Maude M.B.E, Founder of the Homerton College Gymnastics Club did much through the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s, to pioneer new modes of understanding in terms of the role & importance of Physical Literacy in primary education settings and pedagogy; approaches that Reset LAB co-founder Claire Heaord experienced first hand in childhood as a member of the Homerton College gymnastics club.
As a result of the foundational and formative effects of their work, Reset LAB now seeks to build on the research of Whitehead & Maude, by taking their approaches and applying them in the fields of health, well-being & exercise, both within elite sports & the fitness industry more widely. Situating the research within the original philosophical lineage set out by Whitehead, Reset LAB is concerned to explore perceptions of Embodimentwithin the Schools of Existentialism & Phenomenology - principally referencing the work of Jean-Paul Sartre & Maurice Merleau Ponty.
Furthermore, Reset Lab seeks to extend the original philosophical frame work of Physical Literacy to include more contemporary discussions of Embodiment, including discussions of the Philosophy of Matter that are current within Post-Structuralism & Critical Science, Somatic Syntax within the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming & Mind-Body Centring within Martial Arts & Contemporary Dance. Key thinkers here include, Spinoza, Delueze & Gautari, Judith Butler, Judy Delozier, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen & Eastern Philosophical traditions within the martial arts.