Gotta Get Up to Get Down

Categories: Blog, Pressing RESET, Wham, George Michael, Gravity, Get-up Jul 16, 2023

I recently watched the Wham! Documentary on Netflix. I loved it. I am a huge George Michael fan. He was extremely talented. One of George’s later songs was called Fastlove, and the repetitive chorus was “Gotta get up to get down.” For some reason, that chorus runs through my head from time to time. I guess it's because there is some truth in it; you just have to get up if you’re going to get down.

There is also truth if you phrase it in the other direction: You’ve gotta get down if you’re going to get up. Truth has layers to it, so there are many ways to look at this. But for today, I’m looking at the truth of the physical, surface level.

We are made to rise up against gravity. Our ability to live independent, strong, and healthy lives depends on our ability to be able to effortlessly rise against gravity. Literally, the easier we can get up from the floor, the better quality of life we have and will have. Our design of health requires us to be able to rise up easily.

But to easily rise up, we’ve got to be comfortable with getting down to the floor or the ground. In fact, we need to get comfortable with easily getting down to the floor. Spending time on the ground, being comfortable with the ground and not fearing the ground, being able to navigate all the amazing ways our body can move in both the getting down and the getting up - this is where our youth and health are found and maintained.

One of the best ways to keep from growing old and becoming frail is to make sure you keep your ability to get down and rise up from the floor. This gets to be a challenge as we grow older because the world is constantly luring us to stay away from the floor after our first few years of life. Once we enter the education funnel, most of our time is spent away from the floor. Chairs, cars, shoes, scooters, bikes, culture, environment - obviously, these aren’t horrible things, but they can be things that distract us or discourage us from spending time on the floor.

The point is we are made to become resilient through spending time on the ground (on the earth) learning how to manipulate our body against gravity. Using our limbs, our articulations, our sensory cells, our vestibular system, and constantly maneuvering ourselves through space and positions against gravity - this is where strength comes from. This is the foundation upon which our best possible life is built.

That’s not a crazy thought. The better we can move, the easier we can gracefully swim through earth’s gravitational pull, the better we will feel, the better we can think, and the fuller life we can live. THIS is quality of life, and it leads to a quality span of life.

Conversely, it is harder to move our bodies up and down from the ground. The more assistance we need to move, the more afraid we are to get down to the ground or fall on the ground, the less quality of life we have, and the harder it becomes to navigate through life.

We were meant to rise up in ALL areas of life, and our ability to rise in any area is connected to our ability to rise in all areas. It may seem crazy, but the easier you can rise from the ground, the easier you can rise up in every area of life you want to soar through. When you have strength, when you feel amazing, you can fly.

Give yourself daily floor time and explore all the ways you can move your body through space from the floor to standing and from standing to the floor. If you don’t know where to start, simply start exploring the Original Strength Getup for 10 minutes a day. As you do this, don’t be forceful and aggressive with your body but do be patient and curious with your body. The ten minutes will fly by, and in a few days, you’re just going to start feeling really wonderful. This will all make sense if you do it. Give yourself 30 days and see for yourself.

Gotta Get Up to Get Down

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