Strength in Motion

Natural Movement

Are you looking for a way to move your body that builds strength, expands skills, and is playful and fun? Natural Movement Class may be for you! The focus of this class is to help you be prepared to navigate any environment or to take on any adventure; whether it’s lifting a grandchild out of a car seat, building upper body strength for cave climbing, or improving balance for slab or icy sidewalks. This class will have some familiar elements to it with traditional strength training but will have many unique aspects such as obstacle-course style circuits, new skills, and games.

A typical class structure:

  • Ground movement and mobility

  • Game

  • Strength and/or Skill focus

  • Circuit/obstacle course

Come check out the 4-week intro series to get a taste for training using this playful, practical approach taught by Shelby!


Free for members | $10 for non-members

sign up

Learn More:

Person practicing parkour on metal rails in a backyard setup with protective mats and a wooden platform.

About the Instructor:

Shelby came into natural movement as a mover first. Looking for new ways to train and move after dealing with overuse injuries and chronic pain, she discovered MovNat and was attracted to its progressive methodology, practicality, and rootedness in nature. 

Shelby is a MovNat L3 certified trainer. Shelby teaches humans ages 0-100 years old through community partners such as the Madison Public Library and MSCR. She is passionate about access to fitness, and she enjoys training people outside of traditional gym spaces in parks and the woods. Shelby hopes to equip people with strength and skills that will make their lives richer, their confidence stronger, and their sense of play deeper. Her business is Force of Nature Movement.

  • MovNat is a methodology and physical education system to develop physical competency for the real world. The goal is to equip people with the movement skills, physiological preparedness (strength & conditioning), and mindset necessary for practical, adaptable performance – both fundamental and higher level.

    MovNat focuses on developing natural movement skills. These skills have roots in motor development and can be seen across the spectrum of human existence. The MovNat system focuses on building a solid foundation helping guide movers on a path of “earning” their progressions.

    Movement is progressed from the ground up. Just like a baby needs to learn to roll, crawl, get up, and then walk. We too need to revisit the ground and ensure our foundation is strong. We sometimes take for granted the foundational work once we have “mastered it”. This can become a big problem when we look at our environments and how they shape our movement behaviors.

    This is where learning a system like MovNat can be beneficial. It helps us understand what it takes to become not just an effective mover but an efficient mover.

  • Great question. This is not a sport (climbing) specific class. This is about getting away from the wall and getting 3D with our movements. We use common elements in our environment (the floor, benches) and we imagine environments that are more complex. Whether it’s getting over a fallen tree on a hiking trail, jumping down from a ledge, lifting a grandchild, pulling a cast iron pan out of the oven… we don’t always know where we’re going to need our strength and skill to show up. Natural movement training helps you practice a skill vocabulary to draw from and a foundation of strength that will serve you in all areas of life on and off the wall.

  • According to research by Dr. Karyn Purvis, scientists have discovered that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain, unless it is done in play, in which case it only takes 10 to 20 repetitions. Play is a fun and safe way to apply your strength and skill in non competitive (and sometimes competitive) games. It usually brings up laughter. It helps you bond with classmates. It’s novel and the brain loves novelty.

  • Lifting heavy stuff, crawling, ground movement, skill development for hanging, climbing, vaulting, jumping, squatting, throwing, partner games and a circuit at the end to get the heart pumping.

  • Anyone who is looking to build strength, learn skills and reawaken their inner child. Skills will be scalable and there will be options given by the coach as needed.

  • Skills are scalable to where folks are at. There will be some high-impact skills such as jumping and running, but there will be low-impact options available. In general, the pace of this class is very slow and steady- with a big emphasis on strength-building and skill learning. We do get our heart rates up with games and short circuits at the end of class.