Fitness Fads Come and Go, Martial Arts is Here to Stay
By: Bruce McCorry's Martial Arts, Peabody, MA
For our forefathers, life must have been quite easier, since they didn't have to worry too much about working out in the morning. For them, daily life provided enough physical activity that they didn't feel the need to work out. The moment we left behind those old ways of living, health and fitness found a place in our lists of worries, and fitness fads made their entry. How did this happen?
Fitness Fads: A Glance at History
It is said that the European enlightenment modernity of the 18th century is the moment when man became conscious of health as a state of being which needs to be taken care of. From early 19th century, we could see names in history that associated itself with fitness. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, the founding father of gymnastics, lived in the 19th century.
Since then onwards, the human health history has witnessed many fitness fads come and go. In America, the fitness trends, as we see them today start in the post-war economic boom of the 50s. The focus that war placed on fitness, the move to healthier suburbs and the rise in leisure must be the reasons. President Eisenhower's Youth Fitness Club is a memory of this moment. By the 60s, the feminine mystique was working at its best, and women too took to work out, hoping to be the ideal beauties that society wanted them to be.
The late 60s saw the emergence of health-oriented fitness methods. Devices like sauna pants and jiggle machine appear at this point. Jogging emerged as a popular interest in the 70s. Popular figures including President Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone actively promoted fitness, and 80s witnessed the fitness boom as we know it today.
Fitness Fads Come and Go, Martial Art is Here to Stay
Since then, America has left no stone unturned in the fitness race. Everything including machines, alternative medicines, crazy diets and self-help groups have been tried and discarded. Sometime they revive in new forms, sometime they get obliterated forever.
In this mad rush of fitness fads, the only constant presence have been martial arts. Asian home countries had thought about martial arts, though not necessarily as fitness, centuries before. Most of them made their way to the US during 19th and 20th centuries, but right from their commencement, martial arts had never gone out of fashion as a fitness mantra.
There must be something about martial arts that makes it the only constant fitness technique over centuries. That the benefits of martial arts are not limited to fitness alone must be a reason. Also the fact that martial arts can be easily customized and taught to learners of any age group has increased its popularity. Once you take up martial art, it is a lifetime companion, monitoring your health, fitness, mental poise, immunity and confidence for you.
In the case of the US, the presence of some great martial art schools, with a legacy of decades, has definitely led to the popularity of martial arts. Bruce McCorry's Academy, which has dedicated 40 years of professional service to the promotion and popularization of martial arts in Massachusetts, belongs to those names. If you ever get a chance, never lose the opportunity to experience the fitness wealth of centuries-old martial art traditions! Experience what's here to stay, Bruce McCorry's Martial Arts Academy!
