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Gray Cook, Brett Jones & Ed Thomas Club Swinging Essentials Video: XviD, 640×480 (1.33:1), 1 584 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 0.22 b/px, 01:30:39Audio: MPEG-1 Audio layer 3, 128 Kbps, CBR, 48.0 KHz, 2 ch. Of. Site >>> Few tools are more elemental, natural and enduring than the Club. Certainly primitive or developing humans picked up heavy sticks to crack open food or swung them for defense. Children pick up spoons and other objects and bang on whatever is available. As adults, the games we play can involve clubs in a variety of shapes and designs, including the golf club, baseball bat, and cricket bat.A look at ancient Hindu texts reveals pictures of Hindu deities carrying clubs. These images indicate that the club has roughly a 5000 year history.So called Indian Clubs made the trip to the West as a result of British Colonialism. They eventually gained popularity in the United States in the late 1800s and were widely used in the German Gymnastics system called the Turnvereine. One of these, which became known as Turner Halls in the US, was still active when Dr. Ed Thomas was growing up in Davenport, Iowa.Club swinging was highly developed and popular in Davenport for several generations when Dr. Thomas began training with them around the age of eight. He eventually began teaching the art to a few of his university students in the early 1980s, and continued searching for instructors. In 1988, he went to Burma as a Fulbright Scholar and studied under a classical club swinging instructor for nine months. Along the way, he has also found club swinging instruction in Korea, Germany and other places.Despite its illustrious history as an Olympic sport in 1904 and 1932 and its presence in Army physical training doctrine from around 1885 1980, we currently find ourselves in the perplexing situation of it being reintroduced as a training implement. Add to this the fact that there are at best only a handful of people alive today who are truly familiar with the art of classical club swinging, it is truly a skill worth learning.Club Swinging Essentials seeks to ground Club swinging as a restorative art and to bring Mindful Movement to the extreme fitness culture. The manual and DVD reveal, and detail, an essential group of classical Club swinging movements and provide a bit of history and perspective.Below is an excerpt from the introduction of the Club Swinging Essentials Manual. Gray Cook and Brett Jones have been extremely fortunate to work with Dr. Ed Thomas in taking his club swinging system to the public. A disappearing art, club swinging provides a high neural demand on movement and coordination.Why Swing Clubs?Not to answer a question with a question but allow me to ask you: Do you have a restorative art as part of your fitness regime? What is a restorative art?The fact that you may have felt the need to follow my question answering the first question with a question means you probably dont have a restorative art in your fitness regime.A restorative art seeks to bring the body back to an optimal state of balance. It is the balance to the heavy, extreme training common in todays gym. In the past there were three systems in physical education: Martial, Restorative and Pedagogical. Today we are heavily slanted toward the Pedagogical (games and sport) where the push is to achieve what we call fitness. This push to run faster or farther or lift more weight pushes us out of balance. A restorative art like club swinging seeks to release the tension and stress of extreme fitness training.In addition to being a restorative art there are great benefits to upper body mobility and integrity, coordination and just the plain fun of swinging clubs. So my final question is: Why not swing clubs?Arent they too light to be of benefit?Clubs used as a restorative art are usually light (in the 1 3 lb range), and unfortunately some people consider these weights useless. In discussions with Dr. Thomas he has simply stated that while there are club swinging systems that use heavier clubs all of the classical systems begin with the lighter clubs. Grapplers and wrestlers would tend to move towards the heavier systems while boxers would move along with the lighter systems. But again everyone learned and got started with the lighter clubs.Are you a kettlebell athlete, a powerlifter or do you participate in sports or activities that place significant load on the body? (Take running for example where roughly 6 times your bodyweight is moving through your body every step.) Then you do enough heavy and light club swinging is again that restorative art that can help restore balance to your body.