updated 2/16/07
Another Kind of Exercise
Alternatives to jogging and pumping iron
by Paul Ingraham, Vancouver, Canada MOREclose
Credentials and qualifications
I am a writer and retired Registered Massage Therapist (unusually well-trained for a massage therapist, a 3000-hour program). I’m almost done with a Bachelor of Health Sciences degree. I am a peer reviewer for The Natural Standard, and a copyeditor for Science-Based Medicine. My most important qualification is more than a decade of workaholic post-graduate study, clinical experience, and constant conversations with readers from around the world, including many experts who have provided countless suggestions and criticisms.
For more information, see: Who Am I to Say? More information about my qualifications, credentials and professional experiences for my readers and customers.
Credentials and qualifications
I am a writer and retired Registered Massage Therapist (unusually well-trained for a massage therapist, a 3000-hour program). I’m almost done with a Bachelor of Health Sciences degree. I am a peer reviewer for The Natural Standard, and a copyeditor for Science-Based Medicine. My most important qualification is more than a decade of workaholic post-graduate study, clinical experience, and constant conversations with readers from around the world, including many experts who have provided countless suggestions and criticisms.
For more information, see: Who Am I to Say? More information about my qualifications, credentials and professional experiences for my readers and customers.
The usual goals of conventional exercise are to increase muscular strength and cardiovascular endurance. These are good goals, but they are not the only measurement of fitness. For millennia, the Chinese have had a more sophisticated and complete view of vitality: a healthy person is also graceful, calm, balanced and self-aware.
In the West, the ultimate expression of fitness is in the elite and highly specialized athlete, operating at the extremes of performance in a single activity, whose general fitness is valued only insofar as it contributes to that singular skill. Athletes are notorious for breaking and burning out physically and emotionally while still young. The long term benefits of exercise are not a priority, and are not cultivated for their own sake.
Western athletes are notorious for breaking and burning out physically and emotionally while still young.
Meanwhile, the ultimate expression of fitness in the Eastern world view is longevity: a long life and a good life. The martial artist is another kind of role model. As we saw in the film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the mystics and great warriors of Chinese history and mythology are admired for wisdom, quiet strength, and unusual control of their minds and bodies. It is unthinkable that a Chinese hero would “burn out”! In China, if you are fit, you only grow more powerful as you age.
(Of course, this is a romantic vision of Asian philosophy: China also pushes hard on young athletes headed for international competition and the Olympics. But the point is that the Chinese at least have a full-fledged idealized view of holistic fitness.)
Of the two models, I believe that the Eastern version has the most to offer to my clients. Most people, if they stop to think about it, are more interested in the quality of their physical fitness than they are in its intensity. If you want to be athletic, hire a personal trainer and start pumping iron and running the treadmill. But if you want to sleep more deeply, crave healthier foods, move more gracefully, heal from injuries faster, and if you want all this to continue into your old age … then you need exercise of a different sort.
We don't get a fraction of the sleep, fresh air, exercise or nutrients that our ancestors did.
And most people do. Most people need this more than they need anything else (including massage therapy). We don’t get a fraction of the sleep, fresh air, exercise or nutrients that our ancestors did — and this is the cause of (or a major complication in) a huge majority of dysfunction and disease. Exercise in the ancient Chinese tradition tends to stimulate people towards resolving all of these issues, directly and indirectly, through its subtle but firm emphasis on balance and the long view.
These priorities are expressed through the practice of countless variations of tai qi, qi gong and falun gong — diverse forms of exercise that are unfamiliar to most Westerners, except for clichéd images of old men in a park, sweeping their arms gracefully through the air. In fact, nearly any kind of exercise can justifiably be called “qi gong,” as long as it is inspired by the philosophy common to all of these forms.
This is what I strive to teach, whenever I have the opportunity: that there are other ways to exercise. Just as drugs and surgery are not the only option in health care, jogging and weight training are not the only option in exercise!
