What are 19th Century Calisthenics and Swedish Free Gymnastics? A Brief History & Introduction - E04

when people think of gymnastics now

they typically think of athletes doing

flips swinging from rings

and balancing on parallel bars but

originally

gymnastics simply meant any type of

physical training

that is anything done in a gymnasium

calisthenics comes from the greek words

kalos meaning beauty

and thanos meaning strength which is an

interesting combination

beauty clearly implies an ascetic

element a part which is largely left out

of calisthenics today

when people perform modern push-ups

pull-ups and similar exercises

the primary thing on their minds is

cultivating strength and doing the

largest number of repetitions

however that wasn't so in the mid-19th

century especially when you consider the

rise of swedish free gymnastics

which went on to hugely influence many

aspects of physical culture

in both europe and america so what

exactly were these

free gymnastics the origins date to the

1790s when the swedish method

began to be developed by pierre henrik

ling a fencing master

poet and world traveler about whom there

are some pretty amazing stories

to relate merely one while in old age

ling was teaching a class

on the importance of principles and

science over strength

and was vocally doubted by one of his

students whereupon he ordered several

other students to take a pike down off

the wall

a pike basically being a large military

spear

lang put his back against the wall and

ordered the students to try to run him

through with the pike

and when they rushed him he parried the

entire weapon using only his little

finger

deflecting the point just passed him

into the wall

so ling was a pretty extraordinary guy

around 1810

ling officially founded his

comprehensive system of physical

exercise which became known as

quote free gymnastics because it was

done empty-handed

you could practice the exercises anytime

and anywhere with no equipment or

apparatus

in your bedroom out in a field or

onboard a ship

swedish gymnasiums did contain ropes

stall bars and parallel bars

but the bulk of the system required

nothing but your own body

which made it extremely useful for

soldiers and sailors who could do these

exercises every day

no matter where they were ling devoted

his entire life to the propagation of

this system

which he believed to act as a sort of

preventative and curative medicine

designed to counteract the quote evil

effects of our modern civilization

swedish calisthenics was not merely

concerned with the development of

strength

but also with elasticity balance

coordination respiration rhythm

neuromuscular control skill and

willpower

attention was given to every part of the

body no matter how minut

and unbalanced power in any one

direction was to be avoided

thus ling's swedish method was truly a

holistic system

its fundamental principle expressed as

quote the oneness of the human organism

the harmony between mind and body

ling's method became hugely popular in

scandinavia

and later spread throughout europe and

america and it was influential on the

other physical culture methods of the

time

even informing the use of wands indian

clubs

and dumbbells because the way that the

swedes looked at it

very scientifically was that any part of

the body could be made into a lever

to provide resistance and eventually to

get stronger people added additional

weight to those levers in the form of

exercise tools

but it wasn't just physical it was also

mental and spiritual

and aesthetic just as the kalos part of

the word calisthenics implies

indeed as one treatise described it

quote

the exercises should not flavor too

strongly of the circus

dancing school or barrack but should

contain some of the good characteristics

of each in recent decades some have even

speculated that the swedish method

was derived from chinese exercises like

tai chi

and that in turn modern yoga is itself

derived from swedish gymnastics

and although i disagree with those

theses and may address them in a future

video

it is easy to see how someone could

think that if you superficially glance

at the photos and drawings of swedish

exercises from those times

but although the pictures are static the

postures shown in them were not static

as in yoga

nor were the movements similar in theory

purpose or mechanics to those of tai chi

postures were only momentarily

maintained or in the case of advanced

students

for no more than a handful of seconds

instead

swedish gymnastics were all about the

extremely slow movements that involved

transitioning between these postures

so much so that it became known in the

west as the quote

movement cure the swedish system of

gymnastics comprised three main

categories

military gymnastics which were movements

for control of others such as fencing

wrestling and boxing medical gymnastics

which comprised massage and physical

exercises for healing

and educational gymnastics which were

movements for self-control

that is calisthenics all these

categories were said to complement the

others

it is the last category however

educational gymnastics

which comprise the free exercises and

which went on to influence so much of

19th century physical culture

with countless treatises published in

scandinavia germany

france england and america

and in later exercises with dumbbells

and indian clubs

one can observe some of the same

postures and movements used in the

swedish method

as we'll eventually see the last good

footage of swedish gymnastics comes from

the 1940s and 50s

by then it was already in severe decline

and although there have been some

attempts to revive it in recent years

one can see that the attention to

precise form and synchronized movement

do not match what can be seen in the

footage of the past

in our next video we will practice some

of the exercises from 19th century

calisthenics

and swedish free gymnastics doing our

best to adhere

to its original form and aesthetics

[Music]

you