Walking and running: humanistic potential and cultural continuity (Part One)

The subject of the study is the cultural content of walking and running as anthropologically universal types of locomotion and the peculiarities of the translation of the metaphysical components of these "body techniques". The article examines five types of running based on the corresponding types of walking: walking/running for pleasure; walking/running for health; walking/running for personal development; walking/running to achieve political goals; walking/running as sports practices. The presented types of movement concretize the expression of their humanistic potential, and the way to preserve and develop it in the history of mankind is cultural continuity, which is comprehended based on the content of the concepts of "(bodily) embodied memory", "universals of culture", "traditions", "actualization of tradition", "innovations". The first part of the article explicates the humanistic potential and cultural continuity of the first two types of walking/running. The historical method, the method of categorization, the descriptive method, and the method of analysis were used as the methodology of the subject area of the study. It has been established that running for pleasure is formed on the basis of free (not practically forced) walking, which has turned into a game form, that is, carried out solely for the sake of achieving the bodily and mental states generated by running locomotion and not acquired outside of it, which a person likes. The continuity of health-forming walking and running lies in the fact that optimally selected running activity intensifies the health-improving properties of walking, allowing you to achieve a greater health-improving effect during the same time of movement. The peculiarity of the positive effect of running on the human body is seen in the jumping component of this type of locomotion (which is absent in other cyclic types of movement), thanks to which the runner achieves significant biomechanical resonance, which has a pronounced healing effect. Within the framework of health–forming walking and running, an intermediate form of movement is understood and practiced - jogging, which clearly shows both the physical and cultural continuity of these types of movement.