I have had the opportunity to spend time with a lot of different groups of people, who lived closely to a traditional human ‘schedule’.
But one of the big surprises, when it came to the San people of Namibia, was how much they moved.
They wake up with the sun at around 5:30 am, and pull a fire together, smoke some tobacco, clean their weapons, and at 7am they are on their way to hunt (and the women are on their way to gather with the kids).
You have to imagine hunting the following way:
It is a constant, well-paced walk. This means that it is not a leisurely pace but rather movement with a purpose.
They have all of their weapons and survival kit with them; one spear, a bow with about 10 poison arrows, two wood sticks designated to light a fire, some sort of tobacco, a digging stick, and some tiny, multi-purpose rope.
Since they don’t take water or food with them, whenever it is possible they snack on a particular tree sap (which requires some tree-handling, since it is up high, and awkward to get to). If they come across it, they also dig out a particular root, which is like a giant potato filled with watery fibers. This root is down about 3 feet deep, and it takes about 20 minutes of intensive digging to get to.
Generally, during the hunt, they keep themselves focused so if an animal comes into sight they can perhaps pursue it (if the wind is blowing from the right direction).
When they see an animal track, which makes sense to follow, they split their attention between following the tracks (which I could barely see, let alone follow) and looking around constantly for the presence of other potential prey.
If there is an animal nearby, everyone becomes more still than the best hunting dog. One of the hunters goes down onto his knees and hands and crawls as close to the animal as he can and tries to shoot it with a poisonous arrow. If they succeed, they wrap up the whole animal and continue with the animal on their backs.
If it is the time of the year when they run down animals, then the run is well paced with induced sprints to scare the animal when they are near it. The run can go anywhere from about 2 hrs to 9 hrs long.
They also look at traps, which they set out the day before. Building a trap requires carrying and moving some wood sticks and branches around, and making rope out of a plant fiber (which is a pretty physical activity as well).
Mid-day when the temperature is very high, they lay down for about one hour or an hour and a half, cleaning their weapons and daydreaming.
Then they continue with the constant walking and pursuing until about 7pm.
When they get home, they eat a meal sitting down on the ground.
Traditionally in the evening, they light a big campfire, the women sing and the men dance around in a semi-trance. The dancing is all done with the legs only, no arm gestures. Their feet move so little, but so fast, that I didn’t even have a chance to follow.
At the latest, they are off to sleep around 9-9:30 pm.
The next day everything starts all over again. This goes on 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
The point of my note is to give you an understanding of how active we are meant to be.
Please look at your daily schedule, see where you could introduce some movement in there! If you have to be on the phone for a few hours, do it while walking instead of sitting down. If you can manage standing and working, then do just that. When you go to meetings, choose the stairs and walk to your meeting, or bike to your meeting.
Also, see what you can change in your weekend to make it more active.
Again, the intensity is not what matters, but the constant movement, as much as you can.
Suddenly, working out for 7 days, 1 hour at a time, sounds like a very inactive week, doesn’t it?