Georges Hébert

"Hébertisme" redirects here. Not to be confused with the ideology of the Hébertists.

Georges Hébert
Born	(1875-04-27)April 27, 1875 Paris, France
Died	August 2, 1957(1957-08-02) (aged 82) Tourgéville, Normandy, France

Georges Hébert (27 April 1875 – 2 August 1957) was a pioneering physical educator in the French military who developed a system of physical education and training known as "la méthode naturelle" ("Natural Method") and a more wide training program known as Hebertism (built on his name). Hébert combined the training of a variety of physical capacities with the training of courage and ethics.

Early life

Saint-Pierre, Island of Martinique, with Mount Pelée in the background

The remains of St. Pierre after the 1902 eruption

Hébert was born in Paris. He had been involved in acrobatics and circus performance. While an officer in the French Navy prior to the First World War, he was stationed in the town of St. Pierre, on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea. On May 8, 1902 the town fell victim to a catastrophic volcanic eruption from Mount Pelée.

French cruiser "Suchet," from which Hébert rescued victims of the volcanic eruption from the Caribbean island of Martinique.

Hébert was the first officer to approach the town from the sea from his ship the "Suchet." He coordinated the escape and rescue of some seven hundred people from this disaster. This experience had a profound effect on him, and reinforced his belief that athletic skill must be combined with courage and altruism. He eventually developed this ethos into his personal motto, "Être fort pour être utile" ("Be strong to be helpful").

Hébert travelled extensively throughout the world and was impressed by the physical development and movement skills of indigenous peoples in Africa and elsewhere, writing:

"Their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skillful, enduring, resistant and yet they had no other tutor in gymnastics but their lives in nature.".

Hébertism

Hébertism as known today is the fruit of a lifetime's work. There are significant differences between Hébert's early books and the later volumes. His later ideas best represent the complete evolution of his thought.

Predecessors

In addition to his observations of the natural movements of indigenous people, Hébert's method synthesized various influences, including but not limited to:

• The work of his predecessor Francisco Amorós, who published in 1847 Nouveau Manuel Complet d'Education Physique, Gymnastique et Morale, which already encompassed a full range of practical movement skills.
• The work of German Prussian gymnastics educator Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (August 11, 1778 – October 15, 1852), which was also an influence on the early physical training of the United States Marine Corps.
• The classical representations of the human body in Graeco-Roman statuary and by the ideals of the ancient Greek gymnasia.
• The naturist lifestyle principles of his friend Dr. Paul Carton (1875–1947) (although Hébert strictly rejected complete nudism).
• The influence of Georges Demenÿ (1850–1917), a French inventor, chronophotographer, filmmaker, and gymnast who emphasized the progressivity and the scalability of the training.
• The founder of the modern olympic games, Pierre de Coubertin, who was among Hébert's early supporters.
• The French sculptor Auguste Rodin.

Hébert's reform of physical education consisted of replacing the gymnastic methods (movements which were more static and repetitive) which were in vogue with "natural" or "utilitarian" activities.

The 3–10–15

Most of the philosophy of Hébertisme can be found in the first seven chapters of Volume 1 of "La Méthode Naturelle." It can be summarized by the "3–10–15" approach to fitness:

3 main components for training

Physical training: Heart, lungs and muscles, but also speed, dexterity, endurance, resistance, and balance.

Mental training: energy, willpower, courage, coolness, firmness

Ethical behavior: friendship, collective work, altruism

Differentiating Hebertism and other physical activities

10 families of practical exercise

1. walking
2. running
3. quadrupedy (crawling)
4. climbing
5. jumping
6. balance
7. lifting and carrying
8. throwing
9. defence (wrestling, boxing)
10. swimming

15 principles for training

1. Continuity of work and exercises.
2. Alternating opposite efforts: fast/slow, intense/relaxed...
3. Progression of the intensity of efforts during the training.
4. Initial warmup before training and final cool-down after training
5. Individualization of efforts – i.e. adaptating the difficulty to each one's level
6. Working with flexibility, relaxing inactive muscles relax your mind
7. Proper posture and sufficient breathing
8. Complete freedom of motion even in group work – avoiding collective or synchronized movements
9. Cultivation of speed and skill.
10. Correction of individual weaknesses
11. Taking advantage of open air and sun, obtaining the hardening benefits of the elements.
12. Allowing the group to express joy and happiness
13. Cultivation the qualities of action – i.e., courage, willpower, cool headedness, firmness – by the execution of difficult exercises for example while seeking to control the fear of falling, of jumping, of rising, of plunging, of walking on an unstable surface, etc.
14. Cultivation of altruistic behaviour – i.e., altruism, collective work, mutual aid.
15. Cultivation of self-improvement via healthy competition.

The ten families of natural movement were ideally to be performed in the following conditions: "the movements should be continuous, at a rapid and sustained pace and progressing over rugged terrain in a natural environment." The exercises were to be peformed in "near nudity" which improved physical endurance by being exposed to the elements and it also allowed for the trainer to more easily see how a movement was being performed in order to correct it.

Hébert wrote:

The final goal of physical education is to make strong beings. In the purely physical sense, the Natural Method promotes the qualities of organic resistance, muscularity and speed, towards being able to walk, run, jump, move on all fours, to climb, to keep balance, to throw, lift, defend yourself and to swim.

In the "virile" or energetic sense, the system consists in having sufficient energy, willpower, courage, coolness, and firmness.

In the moral sense, education, by elevating the emotions, directs or maintains the moral drive in a useful and beneficial way.

The true Natural Method, in its broadest sense, must be considered as the result of these three particular forces; it is a physical, virile and moral synthesis. It resides not only in the muscles and the breath, but above all in the "energy" which is used, the will which directs it and the feeling which guides it.

Expansion of Hébertism

Hébert's full "holistic" teaching approach consisted of six modules: (1) intensive use of the Natural Method (NM) physical exercises, (2) daily manual crafts, (3) mental and moral culture ("psychic gymnastics"), (4) intellectual culture (e.g. history of philosophy and sciences), (5) esthetic culture (e.g. the arts, "Atlantean studies" [connected with the teachings of Paul Le Cour (1871-1954)], dance, rhythmic movement), and (6) naturist modalities such as nutrition, hydrotherapy, and heliotherapy.

In an interview a few months before Hébert's death, he explained the difference between Hébertism and the "Natural Method." He said that "the natural method is not Hebertism and it should not be called so." He pointed out that the "natural method" is "as old as the world," and that "Hebertism is something else." Hébert said that "it is philosophy that must emerge from this natural method to induce each individual to put at the service of others what he can obtain from his physical and mental training. It thus goes far beyond the framework of a physical culture to become a true education, indispensable link between physics and moral."

World War I

Physical exercises in an undergrowth near Dieue-sur-Meuse (Meuse). January 16, 1917. The exercises are led by General Maudhuy and Hébert, visible in the foreground.

Hébert was wounded in November, 2014 when he went into combat with a company of fusilier marines during the First World War. He was shot in the left arm which left his arm severely disabled By the end of World War 1 his training center in Reims (called the "Collège d'athlètes") had been destroyed and most of his "natural method" coaches had been killed in battle. (The "Collège d'athlètes" ["Athletes' College"] had been a physical education training center opened in the city of Reims, in north-east France, in 1913.)

Marriage

"Chronophotography" by Demenÿ, who was the former gymnastics teacher of Yvonne Moreau prior to her marriage with Hébert

In 1923 Hébert married Yvonne Moreau. She was a former gymnastics student of Demenÿ. In 1913 she became the "Chief Instructor" at Hébert's training center known as the "Collège d'athlètes" in Reims, France.

In 1918 Hébert founded the "Palestra" which was a physical education training center for women and children near Deauville, on the coast in northern France, where Yvonne became a director. It is at the "Palestra" where "Hébertism" came to fruition. The schedule of daily activities provides an example of how Hébertism was carried out on a practical level. (The word "palestra" is derived from the Latin word for "gymnasium.") The training center on the northern coast of France was open only for six months a year during the summer. In 1923 Hébert thus created a winter "palestra" in the southern French Riviera. Then in 1929 Hébert also created a "Women's Nautical School" or "marine palestra" aboard a ship. This training was intended for boys under age 14 and for girls of any age.

Georges and Yvonne Hébert had two children: Jeanne and Régis. Yvonne Hébert died in 1975.

Legacy and influence

Georges Hébert's teaching continued to expand between and during the two World Wars, becoming the standard system of French military physical education.

He was also an early advocate of the benefits of exercise for women. In his work Muscle and Plastic Beauty, which appeared in 1921, Hébert criticized not only the fashion of corsetry but also the physical inactivity imposed upon women by contemporary European society. By following the natural method of synthesized physical, energetic and moral development, he wrote, women could develop self-confidence, willpower and athletic ability just as well as their male counterparts.

Hébert wrote:

A (Natural Method) session is composed of exercises belonging to the ten fundamental groups: walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, equilibrium (balancing), throwing, lifting, defending and swimming.

A training session consists, then, of exercises in an outdoor environment, perhaps a few hundred meters to several kilometers, during which, one walks, one runs, one jumps, one progresses quadrupedally, one climbs, one walks in unstable balance, one raises and one carries, one throws, one fights and one swims.

This course can be carried out in two ways:

1. the natural or spontaneous way; i.e., on an unspecified route through the countryside.
   
2. within an especially designed environment.
   

All of the exercises can be carried out while progressing through this environment. A session can last from 20 to 60 minutes.

Thus, Hébert was among the earliest proponents of le parcours, or obstacle course, form of physical training, which is now standard in the military and has led to the development of civilian fitness trails and confidence courses. In fact, woodland challenge courses comprising balance beams, ladders, rope swings and so-on are often still described as "Hébertism" or "Hébertisme" courses both in Europe and in North America. It may even be possible to trace modern adventure playground equipment back to Hébert's original designs in the early 1900s.

As a former sailor, Hébert may have patterned some of his "stations" on the obstacles that are found on the deck of a ship; he was also a strong proponent of "natural" or spontaneous training in non-designed environments.

Hébert publicly condemned sport after the Olympic games in Paris in 1924. His view was that sport is "corrupted, not educational and immoral because of issues such as professionalization of sport, merchandising" and "unnecessary public exposure...of the athletes." In 1925, he published a book entitled Le sport contre l'éducation physique (Sport Against Physical Education). Hébert denounced the harms of modern sport due to its promoting specialization of movement, its "showmanship," money (instead of altruism) and promoting of violence. At this time he broke with the modern Olympic movement founder de Coubertin.

In the mid-1930s he gradually withdrew himself from a wider involvement in society and in 1938 he broke with the so-called Hebertist movement (as exemplified by the "Groupement Hebertiste") rather than be tied to a specific organization.

The "Palestra," which was Hébert's training center for women and children, near Deauville, France was destroyed by bombardement during World War 2.

The year 1955 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Natural Method, and Hébert was named Commander of the Legion of Honor by the French government in recognition of his many services to his country. In 1953, Hébert had a stroke which affected his speech, but he furthered the admiration of his peers by relearning how to walk, speak and write. He died from a heart attack on August 2, 1957 at age 82 in Tourgéville, Calvados, France. His wife Yvonne Hébert died in 1975.

There are still schools and gymnasia throughout Europe that are promoting the Natural Method of physical training, some maintaining their own elaborate "parcours" in natural surroundings.

Most recently, Hébert's teachings have been an important influence on the emergence of parkour (by David Belle) as a training discipline in its own right, as well as being an influence on Sebastian Foucan's "Freerunning," and "Athletic Explorations" by John-Edouard Ehlinger. Also, in the first decade of the 21st century, the French American physical education instructor Erwan Le Corre took inspiration from Hébert's "méthode naturelle" ("natural method") and has expanded on the training to form a system of natural movement which he has named "MovNat".

• 
  (1913) Reims, France; Collège d'athlètes. Hébert is standing to the left. The man to the right is Jean Bouin, the French mid-distance Olympic runner, who died at age 25 while fighting in the French army during the opening weeks of World War I, in the year 1914.
• 
  Collège d'athlètes ("Athletes' College") was a physical education training center opened in the city of Reims, in north-east France, in 1913. The center was designed according to the principles of Georges Hébert. The training center was destroyed during World War I.
• 
  (1913) Reims, France; Collège d'athlètes. The swimming pool, located to the side of the large indoor training facility.
• 
  Aerial view of the Collège d'athlètes.

Publications

• (1912) L'éducation physique ou l'entrainement complet par la méthode naturelle. Published in Librairie Vuibert Paris, 85 pp.
• (1913) La Culture Virile et les Devoirs Physiques de L'Officier Combattant published in Lib Vuilbert Paris, 152 pp.
• (1919) C'est la vie, un grand respect au Renzamen. Published in Librairie Vuibert Paris, 96 pp.
• (1925) Le Sport contre l'Éducation physique. Published in Librairie Vuibert Paris, (1946, 4th edition)
• (1942) Marche et Sauts
• (1941–42) L'éducation physique virile et morale par la méthode naturelle. Tome I. Exposé doctrinal et Principes directeurs de travail, nombreuses illustrations. Published in Librairie Vuibert Paris.
• (1942) L'éducation physique virile et morale par la méthode naturelle. Tome II. Technique des Exercices. Technologie. Marche. Course. Saut. Published in Librairie Vuibert Paris, 643 pp.
• (1943) L'éducation physique virile et morale par la méthode naturelle. Tome III. Technique des exercices. Fascicule 1. Quadrupédie. Published in Librairie Vuibert Paris, 244 pp.
• (1943) L'éducation physique virile et morale par la méthode naturelle. Tome III. Technique des exercices. Fascicule 2. Grimper. Published in Librairie Vuibert Paris, 240 pp.
• (1946) L'éducation physique virile et morale par la méthode naturelle. Tome III. Technique des exercices. Fascicule 3. Equilibrisme. Published in Librairie Vuibert Paris, 280 pp.
• (1947) L'éducation physique virile et morale par la méthode naturelle. Tome IV. Technique des exercices. Fascicule 1. Lever.
• (1950) L'éducation physique virile et morale par la méthode naturelle. Tome IV. Technique des exercices. Fascicule 2. Lancer.
• (1955) L'éducation physique virile et morale par la méthode naturelle. Tome IV. Technique des exercices. Fascicule 3. Défense.
• (?) L'éducation physique virile et morale par la méthode naturelle. Tome V. Technique des exercices. Natation.
• Sylvain Villaret and Jean-Michel Delaplace: La Méthode Naturelle de Georges Hébert ou «l'école naturiste» en éducation physique.

US Marines & French military training together

See also

• Fitness trail
• Freerunning
• Obstacle course
• Parkour
• Ropes course

Bibliography

• Angel, Julie (2016). Breaking the Jump: The Secret Story of Parkour's High-flying Rebellion. Arum Press. ISBN 978-1781315545
• Philippe-Meden, Pierre (2018) Chapter 2: Georges Hébert (1875-1957): A naturalist's invention of body ecology in Body Ecology and Emersive Leisure. Routledge. ISBN 978-1138569836

Further reading

• Aux origines de la “méthode naturelle” : Georges Hébert et l’enseignement de l’éducation physique dans la Marine française (in French)
• Georges Hébert (author); Philippe Til (translator into English) (2014). The Natural Method: Georges Hébert's Practical Guide to Physical Education (Volume 1) ISBN 15-1233436-7

External links

• Official website of Georges Hébert association
• Georges Hébert
• "L'Hébertisme, une autre idée du sport"
• Hébertisme in Flanders (Belgium) page in Dutch
• Australia Parkourpedia, with youTube-Link.
• methodenaturelle.de/en General informations/ Website for "Méthode Naturelle"(MN) group in Germany; the website is both in English and German
• Guide pratique d'éducation physique, 2nd edition (1912) (Hébert's "Practical Guide to Physical Education," 2nd edition. English translation by Pilou and Gregg.)