Running as embodied practice.
Beauvechain, BE 5.2023 - Dries Luyten
I would still be running if it was not good for me. Whenever the subject of running is brought up, people often quote its many health benefits. These include both physical and mental aspects related to cardiovascular fitness and strengthening muscles and bones but also to becoming more resilient in dealing with stress and anxiety. These are certainly positive effects but they can also be categorised under the benefits of living an active lifestyle. More fundamentally, they condense running to an instrument for personal improvement. Leaving aside for now the fact that these discourses often cater towards a consumerist model that marketises a sense of physical inadequacy, they hardly say anything about what running can mean in and for itself.
When it comes to human anatomy, the idea is typically that we were born to run. Or perhaps, more accurately, that our bodies have evolved in order to run and to run long distances at that. However, centuries of sedentary life have deprived most humans of immediate access to the prehistoric runner that was coded into their genes. This is why running often feels uncomfortable and many runners are prone to injury in their joints and spine: we may be born to run but we certainly don’t always remember how to run properly. Savvy marketing has therefore made many aspiring runners believe that injuries can easily be prevented by merely getting the latest gear and gadgets: from fancy smart watches that measure just about any metric of the human body to of course the incessant quest for the perfect pair of running shoes that mostly serve to numb any form of discomfort.
Taken together, these two reflections seem to highlight the schizophrenic relationship running has to the body and space. Or more precisely, the body in space. Before anything else, running is bodily movement in space. Yet this often seems to be the last thing people think about when they are running. Both the predominant focus on running as a tool for self-improvement as well as the need to mitigate any discomfort that can arise from this activity seem to be premised on - and I reluctantly apologise for shoehorning some of my research in here - a specifically Western mode of thinking about both space and the body. They can be referred to in terms of the well-known subject/object distinction. Firstly, this distinction has contributed to the illusion that humans are separated from their environment. It is well known that this has directly contributed to a myriad of environmental problems and catastrophes - some irreparable - but it has also made our daily engagement with the space around us both mediated and calculated. Even a casual run in the park is still framed in a utilitarian way as if the park - itself a product of the environment being tailored to human needs - is simply there for enhancing the quality of our physical exercise.
Secondly, our inability to feel discomfort exposes the way we are separated from our own body as a sensing organism. Running can cause pain but the degree to which this leads to suffering largely depends on our inability to accept discomfort. It is dangerous to generalise this as much physical activity - running included - assumes unrestricted access to an able body. Many bodies constantly live through cycles of pain or unease, both visible and invisible. For some the idea of running is simply an impossibility. But for those who can run, it can be a practice of regaining connection to our bodies and accepting whatever emerges as we move our body through space. On some days, this feels joyous and light as running is often described as the closest humans can come to flying. On other days, we feel pain and discomfort, not only due to the strain of running itself but also due to our resistance to what has emerged.
The same also applies to the space in which we move. On some days, we can feel so close to the world around us that our sensed distinction from it seems to have collapsed. On other days, the lack of pleasant external stimulation seems to turn our experience inward. Yet we would be mistaken to premise this distinction on whether we run in a natural or urban environment. As Rickey Gates showed in his impressive project Every Single Street, the urban environment is equally a space through which we move. More so, it is a space directly shaped by our encounters with other human bodies. Running can help us to open up to what we resist both outside and inside of our selves. It allows us to find new ways in accepting what we don’t like about ourselves and the world around us. Fundamentally, it means that we open up to the fact we are an integral part of that world. And in that sense, it does not matter whether it is good for you or not.