Birth and Evolution of Physical Education

Posted on Nov 6, 2024 in Physical Education

Birth of the School of Physical Education

Brief Notes on the Renaissance

The Renaissance is beginning to show again the importance of exercise as a therapeutic tool and as a game at the educational level. It re-emphasizes the great philosophical teachings of the Greeks and Romans, where physical education had a significant impact. With the explosion of the Renaissance humanist culture, the conception of man changed. Man is to become the focus of the self, and the cultivation and development of individual values are his main tasks.

At this time, physical education was very important for maintaining proper health and physical training to prepare in the event of war and as a means to effectively develop the human body. The education of the body was focused on maintaining health, based on some simple behaviors, namely fresh air, exercise, sleep, and a simple regimen. The search for balance in man’s body lies next to other human values, which explains that the body is the object of attention not only of teachers but also of artists, painters, and sculptors.

Much attention was given to the enjoyment of the present and the development of the body. It popularized the idea that the body and soul were inseparable, indivisible, and that one was necessary for the optimal functioning of the other. It was believed that learning could be enhanced through promoting good health. It was postulated that a person needed rest and to engage in recreational activities to recover from work and study. The Renaissance period helped to interpret the value of physical education to the general public. It also showed how a society that promotes the dignity and freedom of the individual and recognizes the value of human life must also have a high respect for the development and maintenance of the human body.

It revives the approach of recognizing the importance of physical education to develop and maintain general welfare as a means of recreation or for military purposes. Physical exercises are part of the education of youth. At this time, the humanists recognized the importance of physical education within the general education of the individual. As a result of the influence generated by their precursors, followers emerged to perfect the existing methodological proposals, sticking to two authors: Pestalozzi and Guts Muths.

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827)

Pestalozzi was always very concerned about improving education. He developed general teaching principles based on psychology: to go from the known to the unknown, raising primary knowledge to higher knowledge, and using intuition and practice.

In the field of Physical Education, he set up institutes from which arose the first great figures of Physical Education. He suggested joining methodical gymnastic exercise with the environment: climbing, balancing, and control. For Pestalozzi, there were two forms of physical education: a natural and instinctive one (for him, this was insufficient) and a planned and systematic way (this was the trainer’s mission). He called this elementary gymnastics, and later developed two types: industrial gymnastics and military gymnastics.

Johann Guts Muths (1759-1839)

Known as the father of modern educational gymnastics, he was the first to understand the need for physical education to be practiced according to physiological laws and knowledge of anatomy. He conceived of movement naturally and ranked the exercises in line with their effects on the body:

Gymnastic exercises sorted by body regions: general effect, superior or inferior to members …
Application Exercises: Jumping, running, shooting, wrestling, climbing, balancing, lifting, and exercises of order.
Games groups.
Crafts and professionals.

Nineteenth Century: The Current and Schools Sports Gymnast

Current English Sports

This current contributed significantly to the development and improvement of the field of physical education and sports, not only in England but also in other regions. One of the most important contributions was the “education of the movement.” In addition, England was noted for sports played outdoors, such as hockey, golf, cricket, football, tennis, and rugby, among others. The two most prominent figures of the current English sports movement were T. Arnold and A. McLaren.

T. Arnold (1795 – 1842)

He promoted sport as a result of the gradual transformation of traditional games. Its appearance in English schools had a strong moralistic function. What Arnold intended was to ensure that sport channeled the aggression of young people by controlling leisure time and sporting regulations. Thus was born the pedagogical concept of fair play. He based his approach on the principles of recreation, gaming, sports, and regulation. The essence of his work was to make sport a “lifestyle” more than a game.

A. McLaren (1820 – 1884)

He combined his knowledge in medicine, sports, and gymnastics to develop a gym for the British army and navy. In 1860, he was appointed to design a physical education program for the army. This was a program to supplement the sports and games that were already employed. His system was a copy of the ones previously established in Germany and Sweden. His works emphasize the following points:

Physical education programs should be a priority for health, rather than strength.
Through body movement or physical activity, one can control and ease tensions, nervousness, worry, and hard work.
Recreational exercise and sports games are not enough for youth development.
Physical Education is crucial for optimal growth and development.
Any athlete must train physically and mentally.
The mind and body are a single unit in humans, and each supports the other (interdependent).
Exercise should be conducted in a progressive manner.
Exercise must be adapted depending on the physical abilities of each person.
Physical education should be part of the general curriculum of any institution.

German School

Physical education and sports in Germany in early modern Europe are linked with a number of philosophers and educators, such as Basedow, Guts, Jahn, and Spiess.

Johann Bernhard Basedow (1723 – 1790)

Basedow was an educator who began his career in Denmark. At this time, physical education was part of a program of physical and mental training. The teacher returned to Germany, where he institutionalized a variety of reforms in physical education. In 1774, he founded a model school where physical education played a vital role in the curriculum of educating the whole student.

This program included the incorporation of a wide range of sporting activities such as dancing, fencing, riding horses, running, jumping, wrestling, swimming, skating, and walking. This innovative school was the first in Europe to admit children of all social classes. It was also the pioneer in the integration of physical education in the general school curriculum. These important radical curriculum changes that Basedow made were the basis for other educational settings in Germany and elsewhere to include physical education within their regular education program.

Guts Muths (1759 – 1839)

During his stay in the “Educational Institute Schnepfenthal,” he acquired a great deal of experience in the field of Physical Education. Later, Guts Muths served as a physical education instructor for most of his life in this institution. This educator was noted for having published several books related to physical education.

Guts Muths had a great influence on the movement of physical education as an academic subject at this time. Because of this vital contribution, this outstanding educator is considered the founder of modern physical education in Germany.

Ludwig Jahn (1778 – 1852)

With Germany fragmented and invaded by Napoleon, Jahn resorted to physical education as a means to achieve unity and independence for his homeland. To do this, Jahn founded a gymnastics association called Turnverein. The gymnastic movement was spread not only throughout Germany but also throughout the world, including the continental United States. Thus, Physical Education took on a patriotic and nationalist character that contributed to national reconstruction.

His design blended the ideal teacher education (moral, physical, and intellectual) with military training. His exaltation of the Germanic race meant that he only cared about the most gifted and was not interested in methodological issues such as progression or the appropriate dosage. He promoted games that developed the capacity for suffering and fighting spirit, competitions with races, jumps, and fights that included, in addition, devices that increased the risk (horizontal bar, parallel bars, etc.).

Adolph Spiess (1810 – 1858)

This teacher was the one who actually joined the gym in the educational institutions of Germany. He began his career as a teacher of gymnastics and physical education in the school of Pestalozzi. Spiess implemented a fitness program where students participated for two hours straight, three times a week. He also compiled a special program for girls and made modifications and adaptations for younger children. According to Spiess, the physical education program must possess the same level of importance as other academic disciplines.

He emphasized that physical education should be required for all students, unless they have physical limitations. It must provide a physical education program indoors (indoor) parallel to another program that takes place outdoors (outdoors). The physical education program should be implemented in a progressive manner, starting with simple exercises and then adding other complex activities.

Swedish School

Swedish gymnastics … the analytical nature of the movement

P.H. Ling (1776-1839)

He had the merit of introducing education in the use of systematic exercises, able to find work on certain points. He divided gymnastics into four branches: educational, military, medical, and aesthetics.

H. Ling (1820-1886)

The more or less concrete concepts bequeathed by P.H. Ling underwent a process of readjustment and systematization at the hands of his son, who established a classification that lasted a long time: “the tables gymnastics.”

French School

Gymnastics in France … the military nature of the gym.

F. Amorós (1770-1848)

Spanish, introducing the first method of physical education in Spain. He founded the Pestalozziano Gymnastic Institute in Madrid. He fled to France after being accused of being pro-French. There he received honors. He is the founder, in France, of the institutions that enabled the development of gymnastics. His method became the foundation of modern gymnastics. As a soldier, he designed it to train athletes and soldiers. He forgot much of the biological progression and had excessive worries about strength training, agility, etc.

First Half of the Twentieth Century: “Movements”

Motion of the Center

This movement was developed in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It covers Dalcroze Rhythmic Gymnastics to the Modern Gymnastics (rhythmic gymnastics) of Rudolf Bode, and going by the Austrian Natural Gymnastics (also called Austrian School Gymnasium). There are several contributions of the movement of the Centre:

The contributions of motion of the center: “Rhythmic Gymnastics: development of rhythm and expression. Modern-Gymnastics: expression, dance, plasticity of rhythm. Gymnastics-natural: natural forms and moves to help student’s complete education.

R. Bode (1881-19 ..)

He is the creator of the “expressive gymnastics.”

E.J. Dalcroze (1865-1950)

Creator of a body-musical approach that served as the basis for the education of children and music studies.

K. Gaulhofer (1885-1941) and M. Streicher (1891-1983)

Their idea was to introduce a new method in reaction to German and Swedish gymnastics. This raises the “Austrian natural gymnastics,” which advocates exercises and games of a natural character.

North Movement

This movement surged in Scandinavia, starting from the Swedish School, targeting education and training.

E. Bjorksten (1870-1947)

The initiator of women’s gymnastics. It brings the importance of rhythm and movement experience, giving the year of joy and the pursuit of aesthetic expression.

N. Bukh (1880-1050)

“The rhythm, the plastic and vivacity.” Initiator of the basic or fundamental gymnastics, based on dynamic flexibility.

M. Carlquist (1884-1968)

“Gymnastics and mobility.” Suggests exercises predominantly synthetic gesture and planes combined.

E. Idla (1901-19 ..)

“The economy of effort, the principle of minimum voltage.

J. Lindhard (1870-1947)

Contribution to the physiology of exercise.

J.G. Thulin (1876-1965)

Creator of the exercises in the form of the game and the stories gymnastics.

Moving West

This movement surged in France, to verify that the ideas of love were not applicable on campus, splitting from its beginnings into two trends: the scientific and the technical – in education. The scientific trend is represented by Marey (studying the movement by graphical methods and cronofotográficos) and Langrange (studying the physiological effect and hygienic exercises).

For its part, the technical trend – teaching (represented by Hebert) supports the activities of primitive man in touch with nature and claimed physical education for natural and utilitarian purposes.

G. Demeny (1850-1917)

He designed the first attempt at a scientific PE. According to him, the gym must be functional.

P. Tissi (1852-1935)

He helped to raise the scientific level of Physical Education and the ranking of the exercises. He favored a rational, analytical gymnastics, and stressed the importance of breathing.

G. Hébert (1875-1957)

Creator of the “natural method” based on the activities of primitive man, based on life in touch with nature and their needs. It provides the scientific study of physical activity from natural gestures, and is the creator of the organization of the session into three parts, something which remains valid today.

In the eighteenth century, Physical Education began to have a strong presence in the social system of the time, and the first incursions of this discipline were carried out in the various school programs within the context of rapprochement and nature awareness. It was also going to have much importance as physical training of citizens. At this time, its patriotic spirit will be predominant.

During the nineteenth century, modern education will be characterized primarily by a marked utility aimed at preparing the individual for social life. Thus, priority is given to science, notorious for points, and content deemed more flattering to the intellectual development of the individual. This makes professional studies born, developed in a highly disciplined environment, and incorporates crafts into schools that promote the physical and intellectual development of learners.

In addition, the school tries to soften the disciplinary system using attractive methods, frequent breaks, and many games, to which the “gym” then begins to have special relevance. It makes them compulsory in schools and made the first attempts of systematic gymnastic methods that will allow further development.

It will be between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, with educational systems with the continuous rise and demonstrations that had been producing about physical activity, that the authors considered as forerunners of contemporary physical education appear, which will result in the almost simultaneous birth of four major Gymnastics Schools that permeate the various currents, trends, and patterns of subsequent PE.

Schools Gymnastics

In the early twentieth century, four big gymnastic movements appear virtually simultaneously, which will result in their respective Schools and Systems Gymnastics, which, as Richard Mandell (1981) noted, had their origin in the most important intellectual currents of the nineteenth century, such as rationalism, romanticism, nationalism, democracy, and the educational ideal.

Each of these trends are characterized by a number of common elements that will lead to an analytical concept, natural, rhythmic movement, and sport, but each partner will not carry a permanent and exclusive in time identifying traits that distinguish themselves due to the influence of other trends that have emerged, often as a reaction or bypass of existing ones.

SWEDISH SCHOOL … … .. ANALYTICAL GERMAN SCHOOL SYSTEM … …. RHYTHMIC FRENCH SCHOOL SYSTEM …. ENGLISH SCHOOL SYSTEM NATURAL …. SPORTS SYSTEM

Swedish School: Analytical System

Created by Pier Henrich Ling (1776-1839), a medical, military, and fencing instructor at the University of Luna, whose method is characterized by an anatomical design, biological and corrective gymnastics, based on dogma and scientific principles that were incorporated by it the system of education (and by extension the conception gymnastics). His “gym” was designed to contribute to an integral education of children from the anatomophysiological development of the subject, to prepare the soldier for war, and to develop the aesthetic sense through body strengthening and correction of physical defects. P.H. Ling developed gymnastics apparatus such as the horizontal bar, rings, ladders, swing, or climbing rope.

The Swedish method looks for a model of physical health through gymnastics, analytical exercises, located in a specific joint core, and whose fundamental characteristics are artificiality, construction, identifying stages of completion at the starting position, development and end, too stasis, order, and use of words of command. Although these elements are believed to Swedish gymnastics, it is a very simple method attributed in part to poverty and isolation in which the Swedes had lived in the mid-nineteenth century.

The exercises were classified into three sections:

Introduction: policy exercises.
Fundamental exercises: arms, legs, and trunk.
Core exercises: jumping, climbing, and skills.

Other important features of the Swedish School identify with the non-existence of different performance levels. The concept of competition in practice was relegated to the support of the most advantaged in classes for the less gifted and distancing. They assessed the need for individual skills or sight of the executions because, as stated above, the design of the Swedish School gymnastics approached always towards the promotion of collective health. Only the tenacity of the athletes and the most scientific and emerging competitive achieved in Germany during the twentieth century to make the gym an Olympic sport.

Content originating in the Swedish school were not developed in Spain due to the lack of information from his most ardent supporters. What was done was to adopt the techniques and exercises of its closest collaborator and successor, his son Hjalmar Ling (1820-1866), who ordered and systematized the work of his father, establishing a new classification of exercises with a fixed order which was a scheme with a practical lesson also predominantly static and analytics. We are referring to the famous “Tables Gymnastics,” whose main objective was to achieve an effective correction that would mark the gym for many years.

Evolution of the Swedish School

Following the line of evolution initiated by Hjalmar Ling, three new events developed that are part of the current Neosueca:

Technical-pedagogical manifestation as the manifestation is considered closer to the educational system due to its strong linkage with childhood and Physical Education, frames, even within what is known as soft gymnastics and spirit in combining the analytical and corrective Natural playfulness and movement.

Effects of the Swedish School in the Current Physical Activity

The main consequence of the analytical system representative of the Swedish School is the appearance of the gym-jazz designed in Sweden by 1963. In this new form of movement, gymnastics is combined with African music and jazz, due to the increasing relevance that music was taking as an educational resource in Physical Education classes. Jazz music evolves so as to introduce a more pop music structure, giving rise to different types of gymnastics taking place today in physical education and exercise facilities. The most representative example of the adaptation of jazz is the aerobic workout, as popularly known.

German School: Guts Muths Rhythmic System

Guts Muths (1759-1859) and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852) are considered the founders of the German school.

G. Muths is considered the father of Modern Educational Gymnastics, whose contribution is inspired by classical antiquity, from which it takes the word gymnastics, and is geared towards building exercises for teaching and healing. It is a system very similar to the Swedish school except in one respect, namely that the motion is localized in several nuclei such joint exercises considered as synthetic. According to R. Mandell (1986), G. Muths is strongly influenced by rational thought and logic that prevailed in the German school education, so this author exercises designed tables on which were recorded weekly performances of students in swimming, diving, or racing with order to confirm their progress through regular assessments.

This concept of physical education is an excess over the game engine is supplanted by regular exercises prescribed by physical educators at the time of execution on closed-front fees, and based on a time and a few places designed systematically and mathematically controlled. At all times, it seeks to achieve engine performance shares.

The rational delimitation of space, time, action, and devices is evident in the sports fields could be Berlin, where forests of poles, ropes, weights, and bars to hang, stretch, jump, or climb in which students were to perform at to overcome certain brands than statistics. This practice model has directly contributed to the emergence of the current gymnastics.

The conception of the German Physical Education now has many elements of modern sport as is the choice of specific materials and facilities, training or systematic statistical treatment of data obtained in the evaluation of athletes have been developed (Mandell, 1986).

Muths’s work went beyond the borders of Germany and had a significant bearing on Physical Education of much of European countries, coming to be regarded as an educational gymnastics for its great educational value. This author was also attributed the conception of the pommel horse in gymnastics.

On the other hand, L. Jahn introduced a political, social, and military element in their approach, evolving from physical practices carried out in the open to closed practices in local and distant cities. Nazi ideology and glorification of the Germanic race had his system is characterized by the exclusive concern of the strongest and the practice of violent games that develop the capacity for suffering and fighting spirit through competition with races, jumps, and struggles. This system had methodological progressions or appropriate dosages of the effort. It was an extremely demanding, biased, and discriminatory.

Jahn was the designer and creator of the parallel bars, horizontal bars, and the donkey jumps, among other devices, present today in many gyms. The German School influences on Spanish gymnastics between 1940 and 1970, which takes on a patriotic spirit and military, whose interest is to train individuals politically correct, strong, disciplined, and with a strong national spirit.

Evolution of the German School

Two events occur that emerge as developments in the German school:

Rhythmic Artistic Expression and pedagogical This event comes after the appearance of Munich expressionist movement which seeks to objectify or show the mental processes through movement. A relationship between the work of art (dance) and Physical Education to blame the “gym teacher” the achievement of proper physical training as a first step towards conditional dance, which would express the feelings of the soul.

Includes two parts. The first of these is known as eurythmy, represented by Emile Jacques-Dalcroze (1865-1950), who puts the body in motion in the service of expression, emotion, and musical construction. The body movement is transformed from a nationalist movement and synthetic a movement that must be set to a rhythmic structure in which there is greater freedom of movement and body awareness, even for spontaneity.

But perhaps the most representative was the evolution of Rudolf Bode (1881-1971) and modern gym. In his system interrelates music and movement so that the end is not accompanying the movement with music and / or vice versa, but through the external manifestation of the feelings generated by the subject through physical expression is achieved totally rhythmic and aesthetic result. That is, what matters now is the expression of the soul (represented in feelings) through the body, based on the musical structure (not the simple adaptation of movement to the rhythm imposed externally), resulting in a rhythmic and aesthetic.

Bode’s method attaches great value to the maximum set to music and full motion, as a whole, in its entirety (“organic”), so that each part of it (or every movement within a set of movements) serves no purpose independent of the rest, though its proper performance depend on everyone else. The goal is tilting movements of the weight body by strengthening and increasing elasticity.

Technical-Pedagogical Demonstration German School is completed this expression, which are leading exponents Gaulhofer Karl (1885-1941) and Margarethe Streicher (1891-1983), founder of the Austrian Natural Gymnastics, emerging in response to exercise excessively militarized and efforts that prevent the proper development of children. The aim with this model is closer to nature, its environment and community group to achieve integration and formation of character through physical activity.

French School: Natural

The French school system took its first steps in Spain, Francisco Amoros and Ondeano (1770-1848), the greatest exponent of this school and founder of the Institute Pestalozziano. However, at the beginning of the war of independence, this institution is forced to disappear, and Francisco de Amorós flees into exile to France, where he later developed his work.

The French School is characterized by a utilitarian conception of the natural and physical exercises. They are global actions, in which the body as a whole participates in executions and are aimed at preparing the individual for adult life. The aim is to improve the physical form to enhance the natural movements, achieve body mastery in action, and get an aesthetically pleasing body.

Evolution of the French School

The French School has two manifestations, which are based on scientific studies and an alternative conception of life:

Represented by Stephen scientific demonstration Marey (1830-1904) and Fernand Lagrange (1845-1909). It relates to the field of biological sciences and carried out important studies that analyze the effects of sport on the body, developed important theories on fatigue and establishing a relationship between sport and the influence on intelligence and character of the individual.
Demonstration Technical-Pedagogical Its exponent is found in George Herbert (1857-1957), who after observing the customs that had a positive impact in the physical form of primitive peoples and in opposition to artificial Swedish analytical method and proposes an outdoor life in which the exercise should have a natural character, understood as something artificial (in the natural environment), but utility (for the individual’s overall physical development), without distinction between men and women, and recreational in nature.

This is what is now known as the Natural Method, which is based on the use of gestures of our own species to acquire the full development of the individual, leaving to nature. His idea contrary to Swedish analytical system based on the movements that provide strength to the body are those that take place in nature, so spontaneous, like running, throwing, jumping, …

G. Hebert makes a classification of physical exercise and groups them into 10 categories. From most to least important are:

Transport simple: start, run, and jump.
Complex movements: fours, climbing, defense, balance, and transport.
Recreation: dance and acrobatics.

This is done preferably in a natural environment, according to a control of the intensity of work which must not exceed the maximum capacity of the individual. This divides the class into three levels (high, medium, and weak) performing work in waves (organization “plateau”). It also proposes an individualized teaching from knowledge of the possibilities of the subject and the use of specific exercises of cheerful utilitarian and recreational.

Both the scientific demonstration as the technical-pedagogical manifestation are superimposed on the eclecticism of George Demeny, who develops a concept of physical education related to improving health, physical beauty, agility and volitional qualities of man, applying the advances in biological sciences to the problems of Physical Education. Demeny completed the work of his colleague Hebert in 1914 by adding an annex on female physical education was included later in French public schools.

English School: The School System

English sport has its top representative in Thomas Arnold (1795-1842) and arises as a reaction to excessive academicism prevailing in the formal equation, where the cultivation of intellect was regarded as the greatest impediment to the development of body. Therefore, the author introduces the sport at school through “sports games,” the idea of “sportsmanship,” characterized by fair play and amateurism, not only to sports, but in any sphere of life in general.

This method attaches importance to recreation, and competition rules in the exercises, sports performance disengaged and partnering with the organization and the freedom of students in practice.

This is when many sports are regulated we know today, why are carried to school, leaving the service of education and character formation. Although these practices are not without something of an elitist to be encouraged in boys’ schools belonging to the wealthier social classes. This process is of vital importance to the holding of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 and publicized through the media.

His great promoter and organizer, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, will be the most important charges at this time due to the incorporation of sport in school. This appearance, in addition to having a touch of class, will also have a sexist in that Coubertin opposed to female participation in sports activities to be considered ugly and uninteresting her (Vazquez, 1986 and 2001, Álvarez-Bueno et al., 1990, Vazquez et al., 2000; Chinchilla and Zagalaz, 2002). Because of this, the author received much criticism, especially in the late twentieth century.

Other Schools Around the Physical Education

In parallel with the development of the four schools described above evolve Gymnastics others will have a major impact on physical education in different education systems. We will highlight only two, the American School and the School of Eastern Europe, which at first will have a profound influence of European trends, however due to the different conceptions of physical activity enacted by authors members of each, they come to get a proper body.

The American School

Sport and Physical Education in America evolved in that society alongside other aspects of daily life. Regarding the development of Physical Education were two key turning points in which Europe’s influence was decisive. At first, there was a Swedish and German influence, so that the objectives of the discipline were oriented toward the individual’s physical development through health, education, recreation, and therapy.

At this time appear calisthenics that include the terms of strength and beauty. In a second stage is a strong influence of British sport, which is introduced in schools, and children go to practice physical activity through games extracted from different sports. There is a special interest in the training of professionals in publishing material to physical education environment and the development of university sport.

In the words of R. Mandell (1986), American sport has experienced phenomenal growth since its inception, mainly driven by financial support from the business sector and the advances in those fields that favored innovation. On the other hand, the evolution of Physical Education passed through different ideological positions identified sometimes as ridiculous and inconsiderate, and others as sacred to education.

One of the main representatives at the American School are Karl Follen (1796-1840) and Karl Beck (1798-1866). Subsequently Binet et al (early twentieth century) there is a growing interest in the movement and its influence on personality. Approaches are developed perceptual-motor movement and the idea of stages in the development of the individual motor.

Gymnastics Schools Located in Eastern Europe

In countries such as China and the former USSR the sport will be representative of all sports as a vehicle for political indoctrination, nationalizing, planning methods and making a great effort to provide necessary resources to the system to to develop it. In this sense, Physical Education becomes an essential tool for sports and the selection of talent that will represent the nation in sporting competitions. At present this competitive spirit is enhanced by elite sport that is broadcast through the media and also permeates practices in schools.

Conclusion

Although the educational level can establish a direct relationship between the various Schools and Systems Gymnastics, not this mean that compartments are detached from other countries or from other schools of thought. For example, the German School in Austria also includes natural methods Gaulhofer and Streicher. Similarly the Swedish School interacts with neighboring countries such as Finland (Bjorksten) and Denmark (Bukh and Lindhard).

Rhythmic systems are not exclusive to Germany, nor was there only such a trend (also in gymnastics appears Neosueca music, rhythm, control of muscle tension, etc). We have seen the same way that talking about natural systems is referring exclusively to the French School, as it has in common with the German School.

What we tried to expose and highlight in this paper, under a particular point of view is that the inter-School Gymnastic System continues to be a resource in some way used advisor when considering the historical evolution of Physical Education and School Gymnastics.

In short, we believe that many authors have followed in his works pedagogical criteria and / or geographical location to differentiate each other gymnastic movements, although our foray into this topic wanted to emphasize the idea of emergence, evolution, diversification and variety of trends within the current physical culture as a legacy of what has occurred historically in our area. The current eclectic character of Physical Education in the educational system converges historically expressed the different trends in each of Gymnastics Systems.

In this regard we believe that content related to physical condition, the driving qualities and specific skills (sports, activities in the natural and physical expression), represent the expression of each of the schools and systems that synchronized gymnastic multilaterally early twentieth century. The same applies to different manifestations of physical activity in our society (sports model of initiation and high-level competition, physical activities in nature, dance, theater, fitness, cosmetic, fitness, …), which have continued to flow Systems derived from the original Gymnastics.