How to Make Movement Meaningful

Thoughts from a webinar we ran on March 18th 2026 - you can watch the full webinar below.

At WildStrong, we spend a lot of time thinking about how do we learn to move.

For many of us, movement has been taught as if there is one correct way to do everything. Stand like this, squat like that, keep your knees here…The assumption is often that the coach knows the right answer, and the learner’s job is to copy it. But real life is rarely that tidy.

In the webinar, Andrew explored what we call the prescriptive–emergent continuum. At one end, there is highly structured, top-down teaching. That can be useful, especially when someone wants clear guidance, specific technique, or an evidence-based programme with a defined goal. At the other end is a more exploratory approach, where people learn through tasks, challenges, play, and interaction with the environment.

This matters because the movement that we need for life is rarely about perfect form and mostly about solving problems. Walking on wet ground, picking up a sleeping child, carrying an awkward bag, climbing over something, regaining balance, getting up from the floor. We respond, adapt, and find a solution. In that sense, movement is less like following instructions and more like learning a language: it develops through experience, not just explanation.

That does not mean coaching, cueing, or structure no longer have a place but we do need to ask better questions about why we are teaching something, who it is for, and what kind of capability we are trying to build.

At WildStrong, that is why some of our work is more prescriptive, and some is much more play-based. In courses like Strong for Life, people often want clear guidance and strong evidence. In Nature Moves, we lean much more into games, tasks, and exploration, especially for helping people build confidence, adaptability, and enjoyment.

The big takeaway is - meaningful movement is not just about doing things “correctly” or "optimally," it is about helping people become more capable, more confident, and more able to respond to real life.

Sometimes that means more instruction, and sometimes it means stepping back and letting the environment teach. Usually, it means knowing when to use each.

Access to the slides & references here.

Podcasts episodes that link to this: