LEAP 2 With Edward Yu: The Mass Psychology of Fittism

 

Dear listeners,

I hope your year is coming to a meaningful close in spite of the craziness that often accompanies the holiday seasons and new year. Before you make those “New Year’s Resolutions” to get in shape in 2017, you may want to listen to this interview with Edward Yu.

In this podcast, I interview Edward Yu, author of “The Art of Slowing Down” and “The Mass Psychology of Fititsm.” We talk about the latter, his latest book, which delves into how many of our ideas about post modern fitness are based on: the first and second laws of thermodynamics,  are inhuman or even inhumane, and very, very outdated. We also talk about how fitness can be life enhancing if it includes learning and growth rather than just counting repetitions, weight or distance.

What might you do differently than going to one of those gyms that has rows of shiny machines, innumerable treadmills and TV screens above each one? Listen and find out. And by the way, did you know that the treadmill was originally used as a means of punishing prisoners in England? We talk about that as well.

I hope you enjoy our conversation and share this with your friends on social media or wherever you hangout in the virtual world.

 

We talk about how modern fitness: 

• is based on the steam engine and 1st law of thermal dynamics.
• can dumb down our sensory motor intelligence
• is reductionistic
• is de-humanizing
• is divorced from the word fitness
• is corporate based
• is a form of meritocracy

In the podcast, Edward mentions the book, "Awareness Through Movement" by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais.

You can find out more about Edward at

The Art of Slowing Down

 

And find his books from AchievingExcellence.com:

The Art of Slowing Down

The Mass Psychology of Fittism

All the best for the coming New Year,

 

John