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The concept of the gym originated in Ancient Greece, although some 2000+ years on, many things have changed.
Women, for example, are allowed to train and athletes no longer douse themselves in olive oil prior to their workouts. Clothes are also generally worn to train, when previously, they were not.
But perhaps one of the most important changes is that culturally, the gym is now viewed exclusively as a place to train one’s body. We have created a linear and transactional relationship with it. This is a place strictly associated with the achievement of a certain goal, concerned only with one aspect of life; physical fitness.
But this idea is far from its ancient roots.
Two of Greece’s most famous intellectuals and philosophers – Plato and Aristotle – were responsible for the establishment of the Academy and Lyceum in Athens, some of the earliest recorded gyms. And while members would frequent these places to engage in the pursuit of physical competency, they also did so to train the mind; to learn and to be educated.
The gym encompassed the pursuit of arete; a Greek concept. It loosely translates as excellence, in all areas.
We need not emulate the exact principles of the ancient gymnasia. But perhaps pursuing arete through our practice; treating the gym as a training ground for far more than just the physical is something worth preserving.
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