Originally from San Diego, Rabbi Moshe Rube lived in various cities from coast to coast before landing at Birmingham’s Knesseth Israel congregation. “Over the past few years I’ve had the privilege to go through a personal process of fitness and weight loss,” he says. “This involved exploring my way through nutrition and all kinds of movement/fitness practices like powerlifting, running, kickboxing, and body awareness methods.”
Rabbi Moshe recently earned his personal training certification through the National Exercise and Sports Trainers Association and is now a trainer at The J. Currently he is focusing on calisthenics and bodyweight training. “I just love the simplicity, creativity, and mind-body connection it affords. Whatever my personal goals, the real challenge and fun is learning to enjoy the process, because through that we learn to move better and live lives that we enjoy.”
The Beauty of Human Movement
By Rabbi Moshe Rube
We all move. Whether in a planned exercise session, cooking a meal, or pressing the buttons on our phones, movement serves as a foundation in our lives. Even your eyes locomote through each word as you read this sentence.
Would you like more proof? Try standing completely still and you will find (as you notice yourself slightly swaying) that to not move is not possible.
Such a realization can make us in awe of movement’s pivotal status. Much as we might try to segment it as something we have to do at a fixed time on a fixed day and then as something we get to rest from, we can also recognize that movement is a privilege that we get to engage in at every moment. To move better is to live better.
And how beautiful it is. Have you walked today? Even this simple act that we do has so much that goes on behind the scenes. To quote James Earls from his book, Born to Walk: Myofascial Efficiency and the Body in Movement:
“We walk to take our heads and hands to other places. To achieve our needs and desires. But even this simple act demands a brain and a nervous system, internal planning, the ability to predict actions and reactions, and all of our cooperative senses of sight, balance and sensation to communicate together in harmony.”
As human beings we have the capacity to express this harmony with every step we take. Unlike animals, human beings spend a chunk of their lives on two feet. To stand on such a narrow base of support of two instead of four puts us in a constant state of flux. Our bodies have thus developed an unrivaled balancing skill. And this is without even taking into account the uneven hilly terrain we may find ourselves on throughout our lives. Walking – the skill of transmitting physical forces from the surface through our entire system – requires the most complex maneuvering.
But no need to worry. The whole body works as one unit to provide us balance. (Thank God most of us have already learned how to do this in our earliest years.) With every step we take we find our balance. We find our harmony. We find our peace.
With every step we take we find our balance. We find our harmony. We find our peace.
Rabbi Moshe Rube
What if we stood in appreciation of this incredible phenomenon? How would our walks around the block or from our dining rooms to our kitchen be transformed?
Let’s take it further.
The privilege to move
If walking – a movement that most of us have grown accustomed to – has so many marvels behind it, what about our pushups or squats? Or how about other movements we perform, like kayaking, swimming, climbing, boxing, and jumping, or lifting up a heavy dish of food to place it on the dinner table? Are they not miracles? How would our days be transformed with more exploration of our own movement? Would we run around with our loved ones with a greater sense of joy?
We have the privilege to move. The privilege to learn about it, play with it, and enjoy it throughout our lives. How do we start to find more joy in how we move? Like all things, it’s a process. Let us first accept that we won’t be in a state of absolute awe, sweetness, and light every single hour of our day. And that’s fine. Life is dynamic. And so is our movement and our attitude toward it.
But we could start simply by acknowledging and appreciating the beauty of human movement. The beauty of all our systems working together as one to give us this gift. As a great sage once said, “The real miracle is not to walk on water or air, but to walk on earth.”
Even that tiniest extra bit of gratitude for this miracle you may have felt while reading this piece can go a long way.