I used to be watching a video not too long ago concerning the origins of Swedish Gymnastics, the train system created (or codified) by Dr. Pehr Henrik Ling within the 18th Century. Swedish Gymnastics was a part of the “Bodily Tradition Motion”, which started in Europe throughout the nineteenth century, spreading to England, the USA and may nonetheless be discovered right this moment within the type of Gymnastics, Physique Constructing and trendy therapeutic massage.
(Dialogue of Swedish Gymnastics is common centered round the truth that they comprise extra of the content material of a contemporary Yoga class than you discover in something from historical India. This info often comes as a shock to most individuals, however postures like Downward Canine or Desk High are straight from Swedish Gymnastics and have little to do with historical Indian Yogis on a path to enlightenment. You’ll find out extra about that within the ebook Yoga Physique by Dr Mark Singleton, or his Yoga Journal article.)
However right this moment we aren’t excited by Yoga. We’re within the connection between Swedish Gymnastics and Taoist well being workout routines. It’s at all times been been assumed that Ling was, at the very least, impressed, by the Chinese language/Taoist respiration, gymnastic and alchemical techniques (what we’d name Qigong right this moment) when he created his gymnastic system, if not truly copying them, however the next video by Bodily Tradition Historians makes the case that there was no Chinese language connection for Ling’s work in any respect. Have a watch:
It’s fairly a persuasive video. I imply, it doesn’t matter a lot lately – no person besides cultural historians actually practices the previous model of Swedish gymnastics anymore, so far as I can see, and thousands and thousands of individuals observe yoga and Chinese language Qigong, nevertheless it did begin me serious about the entire query.
From watching the video it seems that the generally quoted concept that Ling traveled to China in some unspecified time in the future is bogus. Which leaves the concept he may need been uncovered to a ebook on Taoist gymnastic workout routines. Every little thing traces again to the 1779 article by Jesuit priest Cibot “Discover du Cong-fou [Kung-fu] des Bonzes Tao-see Tao shih” which you would translate as “Kung Fu xercises of the Taoist Clergymen”. The video above calls these the “previous type of the favored Baduanjin workout routines” – nonetheless, I’m not satisfied that’s what they’re, however anyway… I agree with the purpose the video is making, which is that these seated workout routines don’t appear to have a lot in frequent with Ling’s workout routines, that are all accomplished standing.
The video makes no reference to Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China, Vol 5, which is the work that, I believe for many trendy students, provides essentially the most credence to the concept Ling’s workout routines had been primarily based on Chinese language Taoist gymnastics. However Needham can also be utilizing Cibot as his supply. Needham says:
“Our little digression, if such it was, on Chinese language calisthenics, has introduced us to the time when the Jesuit P. M. Cibot (3) offered Europeans with a brief however celebrated paper on the strictly macrobiotic workout routines of the physiological alchemists.a His ‘Discover du Cong-fou [Kung-fu] des Bonzes Tao-see [Tao shihJ’ of + 1779 was intended to present the physicists and physicians of Europe with a sketch of a system of medical gymnastics which they might like to adopt-or if they found it at fault they might be stimulated to invent something better. This work has long been regarded as of cardinal importance in the history of physiotherapyb because it almost certainly influenced the Swedish founder of the modem phase of the art, Per Hendrik Ling. Cibot studied at least one Chinese book, but also got much from a Christian neophyte who had become expert in the subject before his conversion. Cibot did not care much for the Taoist philosophy, but believed that kungfu and its medical theory was an ‘estimable system’ which had really worked many cures and relieved many infirmities.“
Did this work really influence Ling? Maybe he read it, who can say, but I think the idea that Ling’s exercises are in any way copies of these Taoist exercises seems to be stretching things a bit. In any case, there were already plenty of existing exercises systems in Europe that are the most likely source of Ling’s influence, not to mention that Ling got a lot of his stuff from fencing, which he was very familiar with.
I think we also have to address the issue of whether anybody can truly create something new, or not, as well. Every new Kung Fu style, for instance, is not really new, it’s a blend of things that have come before with some new ideas added.
So, I have to say, it is looking like Needham is wrong here and that Ling wasn’t influenced by Chinese sources, but equally, I don’t think Ling created all these exercises himself out of thin air. Every great innovator stands on the shoulders of giants. Either way, Ling’s system remains a fascinating snapshot of exercise methods that started to sweep Europe, and US, paving the way for the things that would follow.