Yes, I was practicing falls/rolls the other day and I realized that the old-timers used to do that stuff all the time. The real “strongmen” of the 1800’s were usually either wrestlers (catch-as-catch-can) or circus performers, like you said.

It wasn’t until Eugene Sandow that “bodybuilding” in and of itself came about. But he still did stuff like have people sit on him in a back-bridge, or balancing on chairs, etc. And even then, it was seen as sort of a “perversion” by most people, even through the early days of the sport of bodybuilding in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s.

The historical source of the modern craze is good to know, so you can understand why people are infatuated with big biceps. Old gyms looked more like a crossfit gym does today (check this out - http://www.oliverphotocollection.com/gym.html). But the term “gym” comes from “gymnasium,” which was the Ancient Greek word for the physical education schools of their day.

More and more people wanted to sell their gadgets. When Nautilus first came out with their machines, they were based on machines used for rehabilitation of injuries. Bodybuilders recognized the ability to isolate certain muscle groups, and started to use them (though they still relied on the standard barbell and dumbbell exercises for the most part).

Gym owners of the 80’s saw the Nautilus as a way to fill the gym with easy-to-use (no explanation necessary, since the instructions were printed on the machine) equipment, that would also lower their liability costs, since the machines don’t really allow you to do anything really dangerous.

Exercise science at this point was still in sort of an infant stage, since the lessons from the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries hadn’t made it into mainstream thought.

Basically, the “skill” portion of physical conditioning got weeded out, leaving only muscular development. Even true strength development wasn’t a focus by the early 1990’s.

Finally, we have crossfit gyms, which look like gyms of the 1800’s or earlier (maybe even Ancient Greek gyms, though those also had wrestling pits…).

You and I have discussed the future evolution of exercise…and I think it’s around the corner.

Someday I hope to get a studio space with some padding on the floors, it would be great to include things like rolls and falls as a warm-up on a consistent basis. That’s something that I think is incredibly useful to learn in martial arts. The ability to roll safely and spontaneously has probably saved me from more serious injury on a number of occasions - you don’t get on a motorcycle or scooter in Taiwan without the understanding that you are going to get in accidents and fall down. Rolling definitely saved me from serious injury. That’s real world self-defense!

All good stuff as always Josh!

I think I will try to put up some of my views on training and how I feel conditioning type movement should relate to baguazhang training. Nothing special, nothing new, just think I should probably try to flesh out more my thoughts on it. And I would love your more professional assistance and ideas on the subject as always!

Geo