Fitness & Disability

Focused Free Write

All the readings about centering disability, eugenics, the ideal body, and centering in the normal have me rethinking fitness. I've been interested in physical training only the past couple years--before that, I resented the body, sports, and health (another post for another time). Currently, I am very interested in fitness, health, and the intersections between web-based training and accessibility and usability and disability studies. Given the aging population, health concerns, and how all these things intersect with issues of class and the web, it seems ripe for discourse. But, what I have to ask, is fitness?

What does it mean to be fit?
What is ability?
What is skill?

Is it the accomplishment of a specific task?
Is it fulfilling a specific range of motion?

From what I can tell, the most viable and reasonable approach to fitness or ability is fulfilling your potential--whatever your potential is. That makes it pretty difficult to compare competitively, but I don't know that competitition is necessary in all situations or for all folks. Competition is a great way for testing actual ability and for gauging progress in skill development, but I don't think it is the end all be all.

While I find that I agree with a lot of criticisms about the construction of health and fitness, I don't think that the endorphin release I experience or the sense of accomplishment from increased flexibility or agility are totally socially constructed. There is something that just feels right about being able to feel, use, and explore my body in a variety of different ways. It's visceral, and there's no amount of theory which can accurately or effectively address that.

If ability/disability is determined on how much of our potential we are--or are not--fulfilling, such as how great is our range of motion versus what our bodies in their current state are capable of, then I think we would find that a lot more people are impaired or incapable than we currently label as disabled. Similarly, I wonder how many people who are impaired and labeled as disabled are actually using or employing or fulfilling a greater level of their physical potentials than so-called able people.

Obviously, this is largely speculation. But I cannot continue to work with physical training, martial arts, and bodily training with fitness aspects and not consider how disability studies impacts them. If I tried to keep my own personal interests "safe" from the critical theories or investigations, then my work would be a sham. Thanks, but no thanks. If ideas and praxis cannot stand up when challenged, if they can't evolve and develop, then I see little point in continuing to invest in them.

If it's dead wood, cut bait.