Primary Gymnastics

By Niels Bukh

Primary Gymnastics' is a form of gymnastics pioneered in 1915 by Dutch gymnastics instructor and leader of the Danish Olympic Gymnastic Team, Herr Niels Bukh. This style of gymnastics is based on the importance of rhythm and is outlined in this volume after over twenty years of testing and refining. 'Primary Gymnastics' was written by Niels Bukh and translated and adapted by Frank N. Punchard. Contents include: 'Primary Gymnastics or Fundamental Gymnastics', 'Danish (Primary) Gymnastics', 'The Gymnastic Leaders', 'Posture', 'Postural Faults', 'The Stock of Gymnastic Exercises', 'The Effect of Gymnastics', 'The Table or Programme', 'Gymnasium and Apparatus', 'Commanding', 'Teaching', 'Starting Positions', etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition complete with the original text and images.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tufts Press
• Release date: Dec 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473347403

Book preview

GYMNASTICS

Introduction

IN the years 1885 to 1915-20, there existed in Denmark a very live interest in the system of gymnastics which the Swede, Pehr Henrik Ling, created and so well advocated.

The gymnastics was termed rational, it being implied that the practice of the exercises would provide a well-founded, systematic and purposeful influence on the human body.

The main reason was the great need for bodily development and culture, whose lack was revealed in the posture and conduct of Youth.

The purpose of the planning was that gymnastics through its all-round exercises should counteract the one-sided influence which daily life and vocational work had upon Man; and, further, that the gymnastic lesson or practice should be conducted without overtaxing the heart and respiratory organs.

The basic aim was a healthy and beautiful body, as the abode and instrument of a sound mind.

When gymnastics gained so much interest in this country, quite a generation ago, it was particularly due to the Danish Folk High Schools.

It was men such as Ernst Trier, Vallekilde; Poul la Cour, Askov; N. H. Rasmussen, K. A. Knudsen, and others of their circle, who first appreciated that in physical education great national values were hidden: and it was these men who prepared the way for rational gymnastics into the Danish work for the Youth, first in the Folk High Schools and later, from there, out into the Rifle Clubs, Elementary Schools and into the Army.

But Swedish Gymnastics, as it soon was called, did not, in the long run, satisfy the gymnastic need and interest of Danish Youth.

The fault must by no means be attributed to Ling. It lies entirely with the theorists who systematized and formalized his work.

In order to maintain its place in the service of national education, a gymnastic system must be capable of accepting changes or modifications, and it should always possess or acknowledge ways and means, exercises and methods of application, which will remove all difficulties that may hinder the perfecting of physical education.

Every systematized structure has definite laws or bases to build its work upon. Further, it has a number of means for use and, finally, a declared goal to aim at. The laws and the aim are the fixed and immovable points, whilst the means, of course, must be alterable, as may be indicated by experience, experiment and sound judgment.

Ling’s words, that inadequate body culture is the actual reason for rational gymnastics and that perfection is the aim of its work, were absolutely true. But the means or exercises with which the Swedes enveloped Ling’s genius were quite inadequate.

Nevertheless, these exercises were authorized in Sweden, as well as here in Denmark and in other countries, and such an infallibility was attached to them, that when they failed to lead the performers quickly and surely toward the true goal, the goal was changed instead of providing freedom of choice and use of means.

Gymnastics for children became play-like activity and mere entertainment; in the Army gymnastics was used mostly as a disciplinary measure, as a form of punishment; the voluntary (recreative) gymnastics soon acquired a competitive basis, which was contrary to Ling’s idea.

But even though Swedish gymnastics to some extent disappointed many of us who had believed in it, it would be good if Ling’s view of rational gymnastics still prevailed here in Denmark, as body culture still leaves something to be desired, both among school-children and the adolescents.

Generally, the school and vocational training make such strong and one-sided demands upon the physical ability and strength of Youth, that these powers are usually neglected or abused, the consequences of which do not fail to make themselves evident. Everything acquired through disharmony in education must be paid for, and in this case it is bodily beauty, health and fitness that suffer.

The fact is, that both mental and physical strength should be fully applied in daily work without Man losing that distinguishing impress which harmonious education gives.

But this demands a national gymnastics which offers to its practitioners the complete development which they desire, and which they may rightly claim of it.

I hope that our gymnastic experiments during the past twenty years at Ollerup have been a decided move in that direction, and that the present book will assist in the continuance of the movement.

Primary Gymnastics or Fundamental Gymnastics

THIS gymnastic method which was first called Primary Gymnastics, and later also Fundamental Gymnastics, has, since 1915, grown healthy and strong, not merely through the seven thousand odd club leaders trained at Ollerup, but also by the work of many other leaders and teachers in this and other countries.

It sprang from the desire to remove all restraining systematization and hide-bound tradition from gymnastics in Denmark. It was built on quite simple, fundamental observations, and from experiences collected in cooperation with Danish Youth partly in farming and other occupations, and partly from the gymnasiums of the Folk High Schools at Ollerup.

The work has, as far as I can judge, never been discordant with Ling’s idea of rational physical training, yet it does not agree with the orthodox practice of Swedish gymnastics, which evades breaking and turning over the soil and is deficient in the necessary means for furthering the development of the abilities of Youth.

In rational gymnastics the leaders must not be satisfied by commanding the exercises for the sake of the system, as the old Swedish methods tempted many to do. On the contrary, it is a matter of leading a purposeful work for the welfare of Man. And, first of all, it is a matter of carrying the work into the fields and factories, where bodily misuse and neglect, in the routine of daily life and work, leave postural faults and bodily defects, with their train of muscular, anatomical, organic, cultural, and even economic, disabilities.

Bodily stiffness is, and always has been, the working youth’s most marked physical failing, hence it is quite natural that the first primary gymnastic methods were directed toward the production of suppleness.

Exercises for increasing strength and agility soon followed, and it was not long before the work was assembled and co-ordinated to provide the solution of the first problems which were: to remove all acquired stiffness, to train the neglected muscles, and to gain freedom from physical awkwardnesses and from ill-conditions established by poor physical habits.

However, from the first, the gymnastics proved unable within a reasonable space of time to eliminate the stiffness without using big movements requiring full range of action in the joints involved. Also, the strength of the neglected muscles was not increased unless greater and greater demands were made up to the working capacity of these muscles; and agility was improved only when the demands for co-ordination between nerves and muscles were steadily increased. Tension in movements and positions of the Swedish methods of performance was replaced in Primary Gymnastics by a lively and natural working-rhythm, which removed all undesirable interferences with the natural functioning of the heart and respiratory organs. Thus it was possible to carry through a gymnastic lesson or practice, with its numerous swingings, turnings, stretchings and bendings, in suitable tempo and manner, whereby every individual exercise yielded its effect best.

It is understandable that this new gymnastic method should meet with much opposition from the followers of orthodox Swedish gymnastics and, for that matter, from those leaders too, who are easily irritated by anything new appearing in their field of gymnastic interest.

The vigorous tempo and the great display of energy in the gymnastic practices met with the strongest criticism; and compared with the drill-like Swedish positional gymnastics, the differences were most conspicuous.

But it was well that Primary Gymnastics at once revealed the antagonism so clearly. Too much time had been occupied over unessential details while using the Swedish methods, and Danish Youth needed vigorous, more effective gymnastics.

At that time the problem was (and it persists), that children, men and women all needed gymnastics, and there were the difficulties of suitably adapting the work for utilization by all three groups, with their different builds, stages of development and physical natures.

Of course, proper consideration must be shown for these differences, but it should not be forgotten that men, women and children have physical qualities and needs that are much alike, even though these are not quite similar.

All bodies have skeletons, the respective bones of which are jointed uniformly, and are endowed with the same number of muscles arranged in exactly the same uniform manner; and so it is with the nerves and the physical make-up generally. It is only the small variations in proportion—apart from freakism, accident and deformity—that provide the differences which give identity to our physical selves.

As in the skeleton, the musculature and the nervous system respectively, stiffness, weakness and incoordination are present in practically all people, so gymnastics ought essentially to be the same, at any rate, as long as the work aims at removing these typical physical shortcomings. The real difference between gymnastics for men and for women is to be found further forward in the gymnastic work, where consideration has to be given to the development of the separate characteristic abilities, qualities and natures of each. However, the leader ought at all times, both in choosing of starting positions and in the call for expression of energy, to consider the particular group of individuals to be dealt with or taught.

In spite of many difficulties and much opposition, Primary Gymnastics has managed to thrive during its twenty odd years of trial, and this is surely due to the fact that its basis is solid and sound, and that its aim is satisfactory.

Though it has not yet received complete acknowledgment everywhere in Denmark, it has, in truth, attained it in the voluntary (recreative) work, and in foreign countries Danish gymnastics is becoming more and more adopted and practised.

Danish Primary Gymnastics

WITH this designation, gymnastic work described in the following pages, rests on the same basis, and possesses the same purpose, as the previously called Primary (Fundamental) Gymnastics. But the means (exercises), on the other hand, are not offered in such quantity or variety as hitherto (i.e. in previous editions). Here, now, is a selected collection of tested exercises and methods which, according to experiences gathered, can be confidently offered to the leaders for use in a precise manner.

The systematization, which thus tends to reappear, must by no means exert a repressing influence on the development of the gymnastics. On the contrary, it should help in starting the work well and guiding it as long as the methods are clearly determined. From that point there should always be freedom for new experiments, further investigation and pioneer effort.

The Gymnastic Leader

THE first requisite for effective gymnastic teaching is that the leader has a firm conviction of the absolute necessity of gymnastics as an educative means. If this is absent, then in practice, everything becomes hopeless; because with the leader’s personal attitude everything in relation to gymnastics stands or falls.

But such a conviction is not gained by reading this book nor any other work on gymnastics. Practical experiences of various kinds, which can give the leader an appreciation of his own shortcomings and a good evaluation of those of other individuals, are of the greatest importance. And when it is properly realized that gymnastics can and ought to be practised seriously, if important values are not to be lost, one has the right basis on which to build one’s work of gymnastic leadership.

For right understanding and skilful use of the means in gymnastics, much anatomical and physiological knowledge is necessary,