Why Your Physical Practice Is Political

The physical practices you engage in — strength training, stretching and mobility, calisthenics, acrobatics, handstands, yoga, dance — are political practices. I am not the first or only person to have this insight, but I want to express it definitively because it's at the center of the work I do, as well as how I understand my own personal movement in the world.

your body is political, your movement practice is shaped by politics

Physical practices and movement practices are first and foremost political because bodies are political — your body exists in relationship to other bodies, to community and society, to the state and its institutions. Your body has inherent worth and value, but it also has strategic political value and as a result is a site of contestation. Those with marginalized bodies feel this most acutely and most often, as powerful individuals and institutions subject the value of marginalized bodies to debate, and restrict access to resources, programs, and material support in ways that devalue some bodies relative to others. This marginalization and devaluation might be obvious or extreme, as it is in cases of human slavery or corporal punishment; it may also be more subtle or unspoken (perhaps only because of normalization and societal acceptance in a given moment) as it is with narratives around feminine weakness or the moralizing denigration of fat people as lazy.

Practicing your physicality and using your body moves it through (past? beyond?) its politicization, but all forms of movement exist within these narratives and political constructs. Learning to lift weights for the first time? You will immediately confront the expectations of toxic masculinity — needing to be bigger, stronger, more hard-working. Looking to improve your flexibility and attunement with a yoga practice? You will no doubt experience not only expectations around body size and shape, but also the residue of cultural appropriation, as the yoga practice warps and shifts with the predominance of white teachers and Western cultural norms. “Physical culture” as a movement arising in the 19th century also predominates in our understanding of movement and sports today, with all of its baggage of Western domination, antiquated notions of wellness and disease, and links to Christian hegemony. Modern sports and fitness trends have the capacity to further entrench political ideologies and movements, as for example combat sports have served as a refuge and recruitment ground for far right ideologues and militants. At the same time, as authors like James Stout have explored, physical practices and competitive sports have served as a site of contestation in antifascist organizing and recruitment as well.

If your movement is political . . .

. . . how will you wield it toward change?

why your politic of physical practice matters right now

I'm writing in a very particular political moment, and I want to strive for clarity about what I do not mean as a result. By "engaging your physical practice with political context in mind," I do not mean, for example, emotional avoidance by way of going to the gym to work through your anxiety and create endorphins to feel better. I also do not only mean sitting in silence and deepening or feeling your breath in the sense of spiritual bypassing. And I (still) do not mean, appealing to some sense that everything somehow must turn out ok, or that balance between darkness and light exist in the universe and therefore we as enlightened beings should minimize the risk, danger, and uncertainty of political upheaval.

Rather, I would argue, taking time to focus on your body, and to set goals and intentions regarding your physical practices, is itself a tactic to ground and center, as well as to counter the seeming authority of cultural or political narratives by developing an embodied sense of your own ideas, values, and commitments. I believe in generating power with rather than power over in the political sense, but also in terms of how you develop a relationship with your body and its physical form and function. I may write more extensively about this at a later time, but in brief what I mean by this is: your body can do amazing things, and you can do amazing things in and with your body, but often the practice we're encouraged into by popular fitness culture is one that takes us out of relationship with our bodies and ourselves. We're told to punish our bodies with restriction or overexertion, or inflict pain or suffering or struggle on our bodies in order to shape ourselves into a "better" form or somehow achieve our best lives and selves. There are certainly many people and institutions you could pay to subject you to these types of techniques if that's what you believe and want for yourself. What is more difficult but rewarding, I think, is finding a path towards knowing where you need to be challenged, and where you want to grow, and finding the balance to work with yourself, your body, your history, and your community to stay in a constant state of negotiation with that challenge. That skill set is the fundamental skill set you need to survive in the world and in society, and your body and physical practices are an excellent place to practice and hone those skills.

how to use the politic of your movement

Developing these types of values-based intentions and skills differs from the type of agenda-setting common in physical culture and fitness practice. Setting goals common in current fitness culture like, “I want a 6 pack in 90 days” or “I want to achieve my first pull-up this year,” is not inherently wrong or morally questionable, but these types of goals are incomplete—and not just because they aren't written as SMART goals, either. The first, for example, validates a premise that your body is not “good enough” without visible abs. The second focuses on a single movement or action, but lacks a why. Does the strength you gain in pursuit of that goal allow you to feel connected with your musculature, coordinated with your limbs, and steadfast in your commitments? Or does doing a pull-up serve as a litmus test in your mind for what a "good" body can do, or a "strong" body, or a body that your traumatized middle school self could look up to? In contrast, goals emanating from an understanding of political context and meaning might shift toward things like “I want to feel freedom in my body” or “I want to build my resilience to discomfort with difference and adversity.” These don't exclude aiming for the strength to do pull-ups or doing movements that shape and strengthen your abdominals, but they do emphasize the values orientation that your practice will reinforce. Perhaps these types of goals show up in physical practice not through strength training or acrobatic movements, but instead in how you choose to speak to your loved ones, or what work you take on in your community. Choosing how you challenge yourself is itself an instantiation of your politics: it communicates what matters to you, what you prioritize, and what kind of future you envision.

This is far from being a definitive word on this subject, but is instead intended to introduce the idea that the physical work you do — and the physical training we could do together, whether it's refining your handstand line or calibrating your banquine tosses or deadlifting your bodyweight — is not distinct from your political practices and commitments. Rather, these physical practices are opportunities to feel, strengthen, and deepen your political commitments and how you can enact them in the real world.