From: jonc@ulysses.atmos.colostate.edu (Jon Cornick)
Newsgroups: rec.nude
Subject: Re: EXERCISE (long)
Summary: Long
Date: 19 Aug 92 20:09:15 GMT
Followup-To: jonc@ulysses.atmos.colostate.edu
Organization: Atmos. Science, Colorado State Univ.


  I've been wanting to write about naked physical fitness for a long time.
Thanks for the opportunity.  I've read a lot about the nudist movement in
the recent past, prior to WWI, and again in the 1930's, and found the 
reoccurring emphasis placed on health. Then I began to study the Olympics
and the diet, training, and social interaction between the nakedness of
the athletes and the tasks they were put through.  Nudism as practiced by
the ASA and TNS is so disjointed from these beginnings as to be non-
related.  I would like to find where nudism lost touch with fitness when
translated to the U.S. shores from the rigorous grounds it held in 
Germany in the '30s.  

  I began the love of nudism when I read "Among The Nudist" by Frances 
and Mason Merrill (Garden City Publishing Co 1932).  Naked exercise was the 
rule of the day, and it's benefits were well documented.  Adolph Koch had
a true Gymnasium in Berlin that taught class after class of naked part-
isipants the movement and grace of dance and strength.  Jan Gay followed
with her account of physical activities at nudist camps in her book "On
Going Naked" (same publishers and date).
  
  The reason for exercising naked in the Hellenic times is well covered in
a chapter in the book "Sport and Recreation in Ancient Greece" by Waldo
Sweet (Oxford Univ Press 1987).  In this chapter he uncovers transcripts
that originate the practise with an athlete that drops his loin cloth in 
a race so as to run faster, beginning the whole issue of naked sport. He
also addresses the 'support' issue for men, which brings in the strength
of the individuals cremaster muscles which hold the scrotum and can be 
developed to make the need for external support useless.  Women were also
in the ancient games and he finds transcripts which show that the sexes 
competed together.  It was truely a competition of the most fit body.

  Being in the USAF, I get around the world alot.  While in Holland, I 
noticed that players would change clothes on the sidelines and shower 
together with no shame, from themselves or from the audience.  Beaches
were a place to swim, naked or clothed.  Sunning was done similarly, nudity
was not an issue.  I returned to the States ashamed that the land of the brave
turns red-faced when someone pulls the towel.

  As for exercises at nudist camps, I read several very old books about an 
art form that originated in Scandinavia, were the saunas are the center of
family life.  Called by a lot of different names, it's usually termed 'body
sculpture' and is related to the Chinese acrobatic arts.  The skill and 
balance needed is incredible and the strength is not so important.  The aim
is to balance bodies in various ways so as to produce a sculpture that might
resemble an elephant, someones outstretch legs making up the trunk.  I saw a
picture in a book on body sculpture in Sembach Germany that was made up of
dozens of twisted, wrapped bodies that formed a huge suspension bridge across
the stage, resting on the shoulders of ten big men and stretching 20ft high.
If a ten man pyramid is of difficulty 5 then these examples are orders of 
magnitude greater, and they were almost exclusively the nudists forte.  What
became of the art is unkown.  Most books I do find have the pages ripped out.
and only words to describe the shapes.

  For myself, I always execise nude.  I hold great contempt for the clothing
industry, the one vehicle which can make something out of nothing.  The very
need for sportswear is to produce a sporty image and gain the same respect as
someone who pays for their image in sweat.  I would love to (upon retirement)
open a health spa, where you leave your warps at the door, and walk out only
when you're satisfied with your shape as produced by your skin, and not some
highly stressed spandex.

  The ASA is leisure headed and lost sight of the potential for helping others
overcome their destructive sense of false self image.  When you see what you
are, you can decide rationally how much it's worth you to change your eating
habits or your lifestyle, or enjoy what you are.  With the big market these 
days in health, no one is benefiting more than the fasion industry and fad
foods.

  When I exercise, I spend much of the time before a mirror, and just like the
doctors told me, muscle groups don't stop at the hem or belt line.  Try it 
sometime. Deep knee bends will show you if your hips are miss-aligned by the
formation of unequal wrinkels in the pelvic crease.  I did a photo poster of
a model (Penny Blakeney) doing the salutation to the sun while nude.  The lines
and form resulting from unresticted movement was not only beutiful, but almost
poetic, it also showed a tiny patch of cellulite she never knew exisited until
she saw the prints.  It's gone now, and she can once again feel that she has
a perfect figure (another force inflicted by the fasion industry).

  Exercise not done with full veiw of the range of motion and constriction of 
the skin in response to muscles tensing is like avoiding the rewards of a 
tough workout.

  You have to remember, in America: Sex Sells.  And Americans will do anything
for that almighty dollar.  To kill an avenue to fortune is like waging war on
your neighbor.  To be naked in America, you have to "join" something, which 
means dues.  If it's enjoyable and sought after, someone is willing to pay for
it. and while there's people willing to pay, there'll be people willing to 
charge.  So if you want to exercise naked, like myself, and learn a liitle
about how you work as an articulate machine, you will find yourself poor or
alone. Or you can visit a European country on a Spa Vacation, and find out 
what a free thinking society can do to improve the welfare of it's people.
  
  If you want more sources of nudity and health, e-mail me and I'll be glad,
no overjoyed, to discuss the topic and pass along my lists.  I'm also
studying the nature of natural man and the extinction of societies by   
civilization.  Knowledge on how to live on this planet forever, is being 
lost by people thinking that you have to have a phone to survive.
 
  Just my thoughts. Jon
 
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA