Groupings

When training QM postures, the work consists in taking all the possible postures with front, back or side toward the ground and in going from one posture to the next in the easiest and fastest way possible. This work can be done statically, or better as a progression, moving through the changes of postures.

For instance, one can start in QM squat, move into forward hold by moving the hands forward, then move the feet toward the hands, etc. Such progression can be done head or feet first, with various combinations of squatting and extended QM postures.

The straight holds are excellent flexibility exercises, and one must join smoothly the different movements between postures and avoid a mechanical or rigid execution. These exercises can be done during a march or a run: stopping with the feet together or apart, one can squat and get into various QM postures before standing up and continuing.

The groupings can be done first by walking the hands and feet in various combinations (Planche 29 and 30) from squats to straight holds and inversely. The work can be made more dynamic (and harder) by moving both hands or both feet together (Planche 31). Note that in many cases it is better to progress in two steps (it can be harder, for instance when moving the feet back from squat to front hold).

Further combinations can be built to move smoothly (but not necessarily in one jump or walk) from one hold to another (Planche 32 and 33). Finally, movements of the trunk are also important to help transition smoothly between postures, and can be trained separately lying down (Planche 34).

QM squats

In a QM squat ("accroupetonnement"), like in a bipedal squat, the body is lowered and the legs fully flexed. The main difference is that one or both hands are touching the ground. The legs still support most of the weight of the body, the arms providing mostly increased stability and sometimes additional support. The squat has several variants as seen on the illustrations, depending on the relative location of the hands and feet. QM squats with the hands behind or sideways are not very common, but should be trained to become natural. QM squats are mostly a starting posture for other exercises such as holds and jumps, or a transition posture between them. It is also a useful posture for hiding, resting and waiting.

For most civilized people, this position is quickly painful and hard to hold. On the contrary, many primitive peoples use QM squats as a regular resting pose. [Note: Georges Hébert, as a man of the early 20th century, saw the world as divided between "civilization" and "primitive" peoples. However, he was also very impressed by the natural fitness of those primitive peoples and very critical of the civilized world's view on physical activity. Although "primitive" has a negative connotation, it is seen here as a quality, so I kept those terms.]

The huddled QM squat ("blotissement") is a full QM squat, with round back, knees to the chest, often with the arms around the legs. Like in the regular QM squat, there are different variants based on the hand and feet position. To get into any of these, one must start by getting into the corresponding QM squat and then lowering and rounding the body into the huddled form. To stand up from the back and side huddle, it is possible to use a rocking of the body, kicking one or both legs out to increase momentum.

A quick overview

Before I start moving on to the various QM exercises, I thought I'd spend some time explaining a few details about this blog (not Georges Hébert talking, here. Not Georges Hébert either in the other posts, by the way. Keep that in mind).

The way I've worked so far is to provide a condensed summary of topics from the book along with pictures of some interesting drawings of my choice. I think that's pretty efficient, i.e. I don't spend hours laboring over the text and you still get a lot of information.

About the pictures, I made high resolution photographs so that you can read the text if you wish (try right-click and "view picture" or "open in other tab" or something like that: you should get the full resolution image). Most of the text should be straightforward via google translate or some other engine, once you have the context information from the summary (or so I hope).

Of course, there's many details missing, so if you have questions on any of the topics you can put a comment and I'll do my best to answer at least before I put the next post up.

Now, so far we have covered parts of the introduction, describing general aspects of QMs. Those are basically what to keep in mind when doing any form of QM exercise. Next come the exercise chapters, describing various modes of QMs and related exercises (the book covers QM static postures first, then walking, running and jumping, then crawling, and finally falling). In these, many of the actual exercises are described more in detail in the illustrations than in the main text, so I recommend you look closely at them if you're interested in the moves.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I do!

QM vs. Climbing

In QM, the hands or forearms interact with the surface of contact through simple pressing, possibly with a light clawing to improve traction. When the hands start grabbing the surface they're on, the movement becomes a form of climbing. In a sense, climbing is just a specialized form of QM! In both, the arms are used as much if nt more than the legs, however in climbing the arms are pulling and pushing, while QM only involves pushing movements. Note that the pushing of the arms, using triceps and back shoulder muscles, is generally easier than the pulling, with biceps and deltoid.

When progressing on a slope, QM and climbing can sometimes merge. QM movements on a slope upward are made easier as the hips are lower, decreasing the effort of the arms. The body can be spread further. On downward slopes it is the opposite: one must shorten the distance between the limbs in order to maintain a vertical alignment of the joints and contact points. On steep slopes, it is much advantageous to turn around and progress backward, feet first. In general it is best to keep the head toward the upper part of the slope and the front of the body facing it. To avoid or slow down a fall, the quadrupedist can always drop to the ground and move by crawling, thus increasing the area of contact with the slope. Going sideways can be good to progress up and down a slope, either as a crab or using a sideways posture halfway between crawling and regular QM.

Stride and strike

When walking, running or jumping in QM, the efficiency of movement depends first on the general posture of the four limbs, then on the coordination of the limbs in motion and their contact with the ground, and last on the smoothness, power and amplitude of the arm stride.

A balanced posture with the feet and hands under the hips and shoulders is best at rest, with the limbs going in "point" (feet/hands equally spaced around the upper joint) during motion. The relative height of the hip and shoulder is directly related to the achievable QM speed. Many running quadrupeds have an almost balanced limb length with slightly longer hind legs. In that regard, we are more closely related to smaller quadrumane monkeys (e.g. Capuchin monkeys) than to great apes which have longer arms and much shorter legs, and have limited QM speed.

Like the foot, the hand can strike the ground in different ways. Like for the foot, striking directly with the heel of the hand at the wrist propagates shock through the arm, while striking with the ball of the hand with some stabilizing help from the fingers enables to better absorb any downward momentum. In slow QM walk, it is not much of an issue, but it becomes fundamental to achieving good speed and fluidity in running and jumping. The hands and feet shouldn't cross or even touch during movement, except maybe for long QM jumps. The balance of speed and amplitude in classical running stride applies identically to the arms in QM: longer stride and then faster movement.

QM bases

In QMs, the body has two bases: the anterior (the arms) and the posterior (the legs). They can be turned into mixed bases, lateral (arm and leg of the same side) or diagonal (arm and leg of opposite side).

The action of the arms is principally pushing (up or down), and only rarely in a mix of pushing and pulling. The triceps and shoulder muscles are particularly important in these moves. A complementary form of movement would be climbing, which involves primarily pulling.

Let us consider first the position and flexion of the limbs. The arms and legs can be straight or flexed to various degrees, but it is also important to keep in mind the relative position of the main joint (hip, shoulder) to the point of contact on hand and foot. The square pose, where the joint rests vertically above the hand or foot allows to go through all degrees of flexion of the limbs without moving hand or foot.

Another interesting posture is "pointed", where the limbs from each side of the body are slightly oblique, in front and behind the joint, making a triangular base. These pointed bases are both stable and well suited for motion, but they don't allow as much variation in flexion.

Both postures of the limbs, square and pointed, are good to offer relative rest. Depending on the amount of flexion and the distribution of weight between the weaker (arms) and stronger (legs) limbs, those can be more or less restful.

Definitions and uses of QMs

Quadrupedal movement (QM) is by definition any movement that uses hands and feet for locomotion. It includes all the fundamental activities: walking, running, jumping, balancing, climbing (which is mostly a specialized form of vertical QM), swimming, crawling, fighting (for instance in wrestling, but many other martial arts incorporate QMs), lifting and carrying, throwing, and all sorts of saving moves when falling.

So basically QM is more a fundamental attitude of the body. In fact, it is the first form of locomotion humans learn while growing up, and form a transitory type of motion before bipedalism (which is quite unusual if not unique in the animal world, by the way).

And yet, QM has been historically discarded in physical training as it "lowers Man to the level of beasts". It brought quite a few strong critiques on Georges Hébert's method and could not really be openly taught until the end of World War I, where Hébert demonstrated its vital importance for hiding from enemy fire while moving around. Nowadays, "going back to our natural roots" or "unleashing the inner monkey" are popular ideas, yet QM is still not widely taught as a general physical skill.

Perhaps the most important application of QM in sports is to protect oneself in the event of a fall. Most saving moves are indeed quadrupedal in essence, and so working on QM in general is important to build the strength and agility needed to fall without harm.

QM also leads naturally to some of the most athletic abilities in gymnasts, acrobats and now traceurs, such as flips, hand springs, and so on. Georges Hébert repeatedly mentioned his admiration of circus artists as most accomplished athletes and masters of the "transcendental QM".

This particular topic, too technically narrow and difficult for a general audience, is however not included in the book. Hébert's method was not aimed at training high-level athletes, but rather at describing the fundamental human movements that anyone should learn through basic physical education.

The QM book contains five sections: first an introduction on general topics (some of which I have just summarized), then technical sections on quadrupedal postures, general movement, crawling,and falling. I might not follow the same order always in my notes, but I'll label each article accordingly.