Animals, Fitness and Us
"Do you ever hear of animals gratifying their desire or need for artificial exercising at a gymnasium?" asks Joseph H. Pilates, developer of the Pilates Method, in his book "Your Health".
When I first read this I imagined my dog Wendy saying, "Of course not! How boring! Why would anyone want to spend hours on a treadmill or lifting weights when they can chase squirrels or jump and catch the sticks my master so kindly tosses in the air or even grab the bizarre rubber 'doggie toy' my mistress rolls across the kitchen floor."
As a child, Pilates was a keen observer of animals and his observations about the ways in which they moved played a key role in the development of his ideas about efficient human functioning. As he wrote, "If you have studied animal life at all, you will have been impressed by the fact that so far as physical actions and movements are concerned, animals are men and men are animals...Both animals and men move their bodies in every and all possible directions. Freedom of bodily action is paramount."
It's interesting that F. Matthias Alexander, another pioneer in the field of somatic education whose ideas and procedures are today known as the Alexander Technique, was also influenced by his close observations of animals. Alexander always had a particular interest in horses and horse racing. He regularly visited racetracks and spent time closely watching horses as they were being ridden before each race to see just how well they were functioning that day. It was said that this gave him an edge in betting and that as a consequence he often did quite well at the track.*
Alexander also appropriated a term used by horsemen in Australia to describe the quality of a horse's functioning: "use". Today, Alexander Technique teachers still talk about "good use" and "poor use" as a shorthand way of indicating the level of a person's overall coordination and balance.
While Pilates didn't use a single word to encompass this idea, he clearly had a very similar understanding: "Both (mind and body) must be coordinated, in order not only to accomplish the maximum results with the minimum expenditure of mental and physical energy, but also to live as long as possible in normal health and enjoy the benefits of a useful and happy life."
Both Pilates and Alexander asked why it was that animals almost always have good use while humans often do not. Animals' use can be compromised, often severely, when they have been harmfully exposed to humans with poor use or very harmful human-created conditions (poorly ridden horses, and animals caged in a zoo are obvious examples), but these are exceptions to the rule. Even most domestic animals exhibit excellent use.
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