The Full Story
Movement Based Athletics
"MBA was founded by Erwin Maaswinkel and Virgil Spier. The both found out in different ways how important good Movement is for a high quality of life. Erwin experienced multiple injuries, despite just wanting to enjoy sports. Virgil, an Olympic athlete, was extremely fit but couldn't even play a short game of basketball without ending up with swollen knees. These challenges led them to realize that something was missing.
How can we make sure we can move with grace, joy and competence while also incorporating longevity into it from the start?
Together, they searched for the missing pieces of the puzzle. The result was a unique methodology combining scientific knowledge (Erwin has a PhD in sports science) and top-level sports experience (Virgil is a former Olympic athlete) with the praticality of a <Movement Approach.
As a team, they are perfectly equipped to elevate your Movement and teaching to a higher level, helping you be the best version of yourself!"
Mission
What does your business do? How does it do it? And why?
Many movement festivals or workshops focus on developing individual skills and practices. However, with MOVE NL, our emphasis is on a different dimension: fostering connection, human interaction, and a spirit of playfulness. We aim to delve into the journey of becoming a better human being. We aim to erase the boundaries between teachers and students. We aim to move better. We aim to substitute me with we.
Our vision is to recalibrate our minds to embrace a state of playfulness and to dive deep into human connection and interaction.
Vision
Within the BAD Academy, we start from a couple of core realizations and beliefs and work with a
central vision of what we’re aiming for.
The central belief where the BAD Academy finds its origin is:
Movement = Life
This central belief is based on two realizations.
The first realization is that being able to move well plays a crucial role in everything you do
throughout your life. Not just in terms of athletics or sports, pretty much anything you do, any
participation in society and the vast majority of activities you do will depend on your ability to move
well and with ease. So movement is an extremely important factor in quality of life, not just right now
but for the rest of your life.
Movement = Quality of life
The second realization is that movement, or practicing sports and movement games in all their forms,
is one of the best “schools of life”. It can teach you emotional regulation, how to cooperate with
other people, how to overcome fear, how to show vulnerability, how to learn, how to trust, how to
express yourself... it can teach you perseverance, setting boundaries, recognizing boundaries,
respecting boundaries, how to take responsibility, etc.
Movement = School of life
The goal that we’d like to achieve for you after participating in the BAD Academy is as follows:
That you can enjoy and excel at multiple sports or physical activities while optimizing your longevity.
So you have a body that allows you to fully immerse yourself in different kinds of sports and physical
activities and the idea that you need to take care of your body for as long as you live is built-in right
Movement Approach
The Movement Revolution
Over the last couple of decades, a movement revolution is taking place. Recently we’ve seen the rise
of a movement culture and community and the central focus within this community is on being
able to move well in a very broad sense.
In the 1950s and 60s, we had the golden era of bodybuilding. The focus within bodybuilding was
pretty much exclusively on esthetics. So it was all about building the biggest muscles, having the
lowest percentage of body fat, and just generally looking very strong.
In the 1970s and 80s, we saw the rise of the fitness culture. Compared to bodybuilding, fitness
was much more about health and wellness. However, there was still a strong focus on esthetics
as well. Fitness culture was all about looking fit and feeling fit.
Now let’s fast-forward a little bit to the year 2000 and we see the emergence of CrossFit, which
really took off in terms of popularity around 2007 after the first CrossFit games. The main focus
of CrossFit was to be fit and strong and be ready for everything. So the approach was to be the
jack of all trades and the main goal was to achieve a great work capacity across different
movements and activities. We see a sharp deviation from both fitness and bodybuilding as
there’s no longer any focus on esthetics. On the other hand, there’s still a lot of overlap with
fitness and bodybuilding too in terms of the movements and activities that are involved. So it still
revolves a lot around squatting, deadlifting, doing push-ups, running, burpees, etc.
From the 1950s up until early 2000, we saw a shift from a
focus on esthetics to health to performance.
The final step in this movement revolution, somewhat later in the 2000s, came with the
emergence of the movement culture. The central drive within this movement culture is to be
able to move really well in a very broad sense, even a much broader sense compared to CrossFit.
Other than “being able to move well”, the goals and directions of the movement culture are not
very clearly defined.
Where movement culture deviates from CrossFit is that it no longer just focuses on traditional
movements like squatting, deadlifting, running, etc. Although these movements are certainly still
involved, the perspective got much wider, beyond just capacity and physical attributes. So
besides the traditional movements mentioned before, we also see, for example, a lot of
movements and practices that are not very quantifiable. This would be problematic within
CrossFit because standardization and measurability are important hallmarks for the CrossFit
community that’s built around the CrossFit competitions.
The final step in the movement revolution brings us from esthetics to health,
to performance, to being able to move well in a very broad sense.
The BAD Academy aims to contribute to the movement revolution by keeping a broad focus but
also by addressing some of the problems that have arisen within the movement culture and
current society.
Values
Play
play is not optional
Evidence-Based
The first we already touched upon and that’s that we want everything to be evidence-based as much as possible. Of course, the scientific literature does not have complete answers to all the questions that we can ask ourselves so we’ll have to supplement with practical experience from ourselves and other knowledgeable people with experience but we still want to make sure that the information that we provide or the answers that we provide are in line with the scientific evidence that is available and does not contradict it.
Clarity & Simplicity
The second value is around clarity and simplicity. We don’t like to portray things as more complicated than they are. We’re here to teach and teaching effectively requires clarity and simplicity. The other side of the coin also applies, meaning we won’t simplify things further than is possible. We aim to teach you everything in its full complexity, not simpler, not more complex.
Integrity
A third important value we have is around transparency, openness, and honesty. We dislike false claims, unrealistic expectations, portraying exceptional results as typical results, or acting like we have definitive answers for everything.
Awareness
A fourth important value for us is awareness. We want to create awareness of the consequences of the choices that you make and of the directions that you take. If you have this awareness, you are equipped to make good decisions for yourself. What we don’t want to do is push any goals or directions on you. You are in the driving seat of your life, of your dreams, goals, and aspirations. We are here to help you discover and to create awareness of choices and consequences.
Nuance
We aim to look at everything through multiple lenses and from different perspectives. We won’t just take something for granted, we will analyze it critically from all angles. That includes our beliefs and biases. An important rule is that context determines everything and there’s always a certain measure of uncertainty. Rarely is anything ever black or white. We want to stimulate an open mind to other perspectives and ideas. The mindset that we’d like to stimulate is that everyone can teach us something.
Community
Another important value is community. This journey of broad athletic development is a lifelong pursuit. And we definitely find some truth in the saying that “if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together”. You can walk this journey alone, but you’ll get so much more out of it if you walk it together with a group of like-minded people. Therefore, community will be a cornerstone of the BAD Academy.
Freedom
The final value that takes a central role is freedom and there’s actually a lot packaged in there.
We don’t want to give you a fish… we want to teach you how to fish so you can benefit a lifetime.
To us, it means that you should be able to break free and liberate yourself from what we are teaching you. We don’t want to rob you of that freedom. We don’t want followers and especially not blind followers. We want critical thinkers and active participants who can enhance and challenge the concepts and ideas that we explore and study. We want to encourage your independence, we want to encourage you to keep on learning, to not be afraid to innovate, or to leave or deviate from our way of doing things whenever you want. We want you to be able to bring the knowledge that we share with you into your context so you can become great at whatever you chose to do, also outside the frame that we offer to you.