newsletter98

The WWW has brought the history of physical culture back to life.
Here are few sites.

Studies show that the physical strength of South Korean youth is decreasing.
The height of an average 15 year-old male student has increased 2.2% and the weight 11.3% during 1989-2004.
The percentage of body fat has increased 31.7% and the BMI (Body Mass Index) has increased 6.6%.

The Iowa Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance State Convention is in Ames this year.
Focus this year is on Mindful Motion
Click here for details.

The July newsletter reported that one school district received over 1.4million dollars from the Federal Government
to spend on their physical education program! The teacher is unfit, and she talked about making
the program into an "exercise science lab." Why isn't somebody speaking up? Putting our kids on weight machines,
treadmills, and elliptical trainers is absurd. What's wrong with these teachers, and why aren't more fitness experts speaking up?

Dr. Thomas: You wrote somewhere that you taught weight training at The University of Iowa throughout much of 1970,
and that you are over 60 years old.
Were you interested in physical culture when you were young?
Who did you teach at the University, and how did you learn?
What kind of equipment did you have?

Take a look at the first article. S&H had been promoting weight training/lifting since the 1930s.
Gains made during and after WWII slowed considerably by the early 1960's.
Colleges and Universities that had weight training/lifting programs were regularly featured.
Our equipment was Spartan, and The U of Iowa weight room was in terrible shape when I began teaching undergrads there in the early-1970s.
This is not a criticism of our faculty. It was simply the times in which we lived.
My enthusiasm for physical training began before the age of ten.
These magazines were important to teenagers like me,
as were the earlier books and magazines dating back to the turn-of-the-century.
My hometown was rich with literature and teachers.

Lived in Venice for a couple summers in the `1970s, and trained at Gold's Gym.

For a while after the war, many boys were treated as if they would some day be men.
Like today, the 1950s had an underbelly that emerges as you study the times,
but we were certainly allowed more freedom to be boys during those years.

Des Moines Register 1933 photo

My parent's generation did not have to contend with fear of lawsuits,
and there were plenty of teachers around to help them develop off-the-ground skills.
Playgrounds were often staffed with instructors.
My generation simply abandoned the training methods our grandparents and their parents developed.

Hello Dr. Thomas. Where did you train when you lived in Atlanta, and do you still have contact with Korean martial arts?

Trained at Francis Fong Academy in Atlanta, and still have deep respect
for the Korean Martial Arts community.

Were you at Fort Benning when Maung Gyi came there to teach?

	Fort Benning around 1999

Guru Dan Inosanto told me about Maung Gyi in 1987.
I was preparing to leave for a one-year Fulbright in Burma,
so I called to ask Maung Gyi a few questions about the country.
My mission was with the National Sports and Physical Education Department,
and Maung Gyi said his father had once been its Director.
We spoke again when I returned, and eventually invited him to Fort Benning.
Many soldiers were familiar with Maung Gyi and anxious to train under him.
His methods were acceptable but not exemplary, and it became increasingly clear
that his background was fabricated. He has since been identified as a fraud.
People who inflate their educational, military, and other accomplishments do great harm to themselves and others.
An apology to the soldiers/students he deceived would be at least a gesture of some courage,
but courage is not usually found in those whose character is destroyed by years of deception.