Maximilian Thun-Hohenstein

Maximilian von Thun-Hohenstein

Maximilian Maria Moritz Graf von Thun and Hohenstein (born December 14, 1887 in Lissa an der Elbe , † April 12, 1935 in Vienna ) was an Austrian doctor and movement researcher. He was best known for his research into the specific modes of locomotion of humans.

"You can see movement with your eyes and hear it with your ears, you can only understand it if you practice it."

Life

The family came from Tyrol and belonged to the 2nd line Castel Brughier, 1st (Bohemian) branch, 1st branch (Fideikommiss Klösterle). His father was Maximilian Theodor Johann Ernst Graf von Thun and Hohenstein, 1857 - 1950, his mother was Gabriele Sophie Maria Princess Lobkowitz , 1864 - 1941. Max Thun Hohenstein grew up with his younger brother Felix and his sisters Johanna and Marianne in their parents' castle in Lissa up. The rural surroundings, animals, especially the handling of horses he was taught early on by his father, and fencing lessons were decisive for his childhood and youth and later became the basis of his research. The relationship with his mother - she was the highest-ranking lady in waiting for the Archduchess and later Empress Zita - was difficult throughout his life. Later, in the Vienna years, it was Adolf Loos who tried to mediate. Max attended the grammar school in the Jesuit college in Kalksburg near Vienna and then studied medicine, contrary to the fierce resistance of his father, who had chosen him for military service. First in Innsbruck , then at the German Karl Ferdinand University in Prague , where he received his doctorate on May 18, 1914.

During World War I he served as a cavalry officer (first lieutenant in the dragoon regiment Prinz Eugen von Savoyen) and then settled as a general practitioner in Prague, but soon turned to movement research. The physical culture of the then extremely popular Dane Jens Peter Müller had already made a strong impression on high school students - his books could be found in every library, even in that of Franz Kafka . In 1926 he moved from Prague to Vienna, where he found more understanding for his work. His teaching became part of the cultural awakening on the threshold of the 20th century, the modern age. He practiced like a specialist in movement therapy (there was still no student council), gave lectures at home and abroad, showing the movements he was talking about in an almost artistic way, wearing only a pair of swimming trunks.

In 1928 he founded the "Scientific Society for Natural Exercise Care", within which in 1932 the "Central Institute for Gymnastic Education" was set up. Julius Tandler invited him to courses; medical and cultural figures were interested in him, including Alban Berg and Egon Wellesz . His lectures with demonstrations filled the great hall of the Vienna Konzerthaus . They were so well known that the writer Soma Morgenstern wrote a feature section for the Frankfurter Zeitung about them. Karl Kraus mockingly called him “the biologist” and saw in him only a mentally deranged person. His lover, Sidonie Nádherná von Borutín (1885-1950), married Max Thun on April 12, 1920, but returned to Karl Kraus on December 20, 1920. The marriage was divorced on November 24, 1933. For the people he was simply the "monkey tuna" because he had a very close relationship with animals and usually carried a monkey with him. He died in 1935 at the age of forty-eight of septic angina in Vienna.

In an obituary in the “Wiener Zeitung”, Otto Stoessl recalled Thun's resemblance to Adolf Loos and called them both “teachers of a European culture in a transition country.” For his successor, Alois Weywar, he had answered the question of the century, the question of the species Movement of man.

research

It all began when Thun-Hohenstein had suffered a riding accident that left a restricted movement in the shoulder . Due to his aristocratic origins, he knew that a horse that had been weakened by illness could be made productive again by moving it well in its gaits . So the thought occurred to him: "If I were a horse, I would know what I had to do, I would have to move in my gaits." But the implementation of the intact innate locomotion, which is the prerequisite for the healing effect, is only natural for animals, for humans it has been largely buried by the erection and the associated cultural overlaps, but also by civilizational impairments. Since it is automated in early childhood, it also remains unconscious and so it could not be used as a therapy. So in 1923 he asked about the innate locomotion system of humans during a sports doctor course at the University of Physical Education in Berlin. But the question already turned out to be new. Professors August Bier and Rudolf Klapp , both surgeons, were of the opinion that he would have to answer them himself. As early as 1905, Klapp had developed a creeping procedure with which he treated children and adolescents who suffered from scoliosis . But this happened within the framework of the usual therapeutic gymnastics and did not consider the question of innate unadulterated locomotion.

Thun now tried to research the evolution of the species-specific locomotion of living beings, starting from the protoplasm, from the archetype of circling, to rolling and crawling and walking on all fours to upright position, in order to then follow the locomotion of humans with that of the Compare vertebrates. The gaits of the horse are closest to those of humans. Leonardo da Vinci already demonstrated the identity of the diagonal support change in trotting horses and striding people. Our walking, running, and hopping correspond to step, trot and gallop in the horse. He had his students practice it first on all fours, also facing upwards on their stomachs, as children also prefer to do, since they instinctively try out everything that is innate in their movements, only then in the upright position. Thun-Hohenstein developed his crawling on hands and knees in agreement with Klapp, but it goes beyond his method, since in addition to strengthening and correcting the body, it classifies the practitioner in the basics of locomotion. In this way he becomes aware of his innate movement and can develop it again with practice. This practice forms the basis of the straightening.

“If, in terms of development, we go back from the upright posture to the horizontal movement with four points of support, we gain a natural basis for the later re-erection through the comparative study of the horizontal movements, initially of our quadrupeds, on our own body. All other possibilities, from the earth, over the water to the air, are given from this foundation. "

- Maximilian von Thun and Hohenstein : (outline of natural movement theory)

Exactly practicing the quadruped gait - not so much through scientific analysis, but rather through observation on his own body using the sense of movement, i.e. an internal examination of the movement - that its laws are also valid for the upright gait, that it is the conscious quadruped gait . The ability to straighten up lies in the ability of the person to bend back. This middle orientation, being able to bend forward and backward equally, enables him to walk upright. It contains a 180 ° radius of consciousness, which is the basis of his intellectual history. He enthusiastically called it the "dance center". The ability to bend back is the movement that distinguishes humans from animals. They enable him to move on three levels: in a quadruped gait with the belly down and up, and in the upright posture. As a result, he has a total of 44 gaits at his disposal, a wealth that no other living being has.

The histologist and zoologist Hanns Plenk sen. wrote in “The human being and his position in the whole of nature”: “If we try to bring the peculiarity of the human form within the mammalian organization to as concise a formula as possible, we will find such a formula in the perfect erection and in the size of the brain .... Both are closely related, since the completed erection is means and reach and control of nature of the human being ... The ingenious gymnast Dr. Max Graf Thun-Hohenstein therefore rightly emphasized that humans have the unique ability to 'straighten up mid-level' ... "

Thun-Hohenstein recognized that locomotion does not take place through the limbs, but through a twisting of the spine. This pushes the body forward until a reflex occurs that triggers the step. He called it the "success extension". So as not to tip over, put the limbs on one side, which have already stretched along with you, on the ground. By wrestling the spine, the body pushes itself forward again until a reflex occurs and the limbs on the other side are called. When walking upright, straightening the knees and lowering the heel of the supporting leg is important to maintain the upright position. Movement is therefore a whole body movement. In addition, Thun-Hohenstein has established a determination rule in eight points , according to which every gait can be determined and thus differentiated from all other gaits. They are:

1. the type of weight transfer or stretching
2. the type of support
3. the longest stretch and free leg sequence
4. the presence of a levitation
5. the degree of erection
6. the optics of the foot sequence
7. the acoustics of the foot sequence
8. The track

Grave of dr. Max Thun-Hohenstein Cemetery Vienna-Hietzing

But Thun-Hohenstein was not the only one who did pioneering work here. In Russia, Nikolai Alexandrowitsch Bernstein , who devoted himself to research into human locomotion in the 1920s, took the view that research into locomotion is the focal point of movement research. Even Margarete Streicher , with Karl Gaulhofer founded at the same time the "natural gymnastics" in schools, pointed out that the adequate stimulus to the full development of the fish swimming, for the bird to fly, to the mammal locomotion on the Landing, since the movement of every living being corresponds to the developing movement of the embryo in the womb that continues after birth. Through Thun-Hohenstein's analysis and definition of this life movement, it was found again, unadulterated, like the movement of animals, and thus made accessible as a healing movement.

The zoologist Wilhelm Marinelli , another contemporary of Thun-Hohenstein, showed in his main work on "Comparative anatomy and morphology of vertebrates" how environmental locomotion creates the shape of animals and thus proves the formative principle of locomotion, as well as in what evolutionary depths of human existence is the foundation of the natural historical roots of physical education. He could no longer write the second part of this work, which should have dealt with the “comparative-functional anatomy”, i.e. the movement system corresponding to the design system. This was fulfilled through Thun-Hohenstein's research.

In 1931 he answered the question raised seven years earlier in a comprehensive lecture in the great hall of the military casino in Vienna. Along the platform ramp he had notice boards placed about the individual gaits, because, as always, he spoke freely and did gymnastics at the same time. His shoulder was healed by then. The paralysis resolved itself on a canoe trip from Passau to Vienna through appropriate exercise and closeness to nature. After completing research in the biological field, he began to work with geometric shapes. He discovered that some corresponded to the static, others to the movement.

His early and sudden death, however, interrupted this continuation and also prevented his research results from being written down, which are therefore only transmitted in newspaper articles, smaller essays and pamphlets. He died in 1935 at the age of forty-eight of septic angina in Vienna. His greatest admirer and supporter, the art historian and publicist Max Ermers (1881–1950), with Adolf Loos founder of the settlement movement, gave the funeral oration at the funeral on April 15, 1935, in which he emphasized the merits of the deceased, which ultimately led to reconciliation had led with the father. The grave is located at Hietzinger Friedhof in Vienna.

Reception and further development

In 1928, Ermers wrote in “Das Weltbild”: “Thousands fill the halls when he - a tall, sinewy, aristocratic figure - with his monkeys, stowed in handbags or miniature cages, comes to preach the new gospel in body and soul .... “The great interest shown in Thun-Hohenstein's work in the interwar period could no longer be aroused after the war.

Max Ermers had to emigrate, returned in 1949, but died a year later. Hanns Plenk senior (1887 - 1962), from 1932 President of Thun's Scientific Society, wrote the foreword for a book that he wanted to write with Alois Weywar after his death. A stay in Persia interrupted the joint work. When he returned to Vienna, the documents had been lost due to embezzlement by a member of the society.

Alois Weywar (1903–1997), who got to know Thun-Hohenstein in 1927 during one of his lectures, became a student, assistant and also succeeded him. During the war he was a disabled sports teacher in a war hospital and in a PoW (prisoner of war) hospital. After the war he completed further training as a qualified assistant for physical medicine and worked as a physiotherapist and disabled sports teacher, among others, in the Vienna XX Accident Hospital, including the Stollhof special ward ( Lorenz Böhler ), Cantonal Hospital Zurich (Böni), Schwäbisch Hall deaconess institution (Jäger, D. Bruns ), Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Spital, Vienna. He achieved outstanding success, especially in the treatment of leg amputees, by applying Thun-Hohenstein's theory of innate modes of locomotion. In addition to several writings, he has laid down a comprehensive presentation of his teaching over many years.

When he gave Hans Groll (1909 - 1975) to read the chapter in which he described the movements of the trunk and limbs in detail and thus developed the shape prepared in the genetic makeup based on the movement , he was impressed and said that Here locomotion on land is being researched and it is a new branch of physical exercise that must not be mixed with anything else. However, he died shortly afterwards and sports science ignored Thun-Hohenstein's findings.

Stefan Großing published the manuscript in 1996 a few months before Weywar's death in the series of publications in the string archive of the Institute for Sports Science at the University of Salzburg. She received archival material from Thun-Hohenstein even after his death. It was later given to the National Library by Großering.

Horst Tiwald , (1938 - 2013), University of Sports Science in Hamburg, heard about Thun-Hohenstein through an article by Alois Weywar and then regularly invited him to courses in Hamburg. He remained interested in Thun-Hohenstein's teaching for life, incorporated it into his own research and passed it on to his students. Like Bernstein's work, he saw it as fundamental to the development of a “transcultural movement research” that was important to him.

Christa Gierer studied structural engineering before she trained as a yoga teacher at Susanne Schmida's yoga school and taught there. Afterwards long-term collaboration with Alois Weywar and Horst Tiwald . She continued Thun-Hohenstein's research by recognizing the upright gait not as the conscious quadruped walk, but as the internalized quadruped walk.

In 2020, Karl-Heinz Steinmetz and Rupert Klötzl and Christa Gierer founded the “Austrian Society for Organic Movement Theory - Gestalt Gymnastics” to continue the legacy of Max Thun-Hohenstein.

Works

• "Outline of natural movement theory", pamphlet, Vienna, 1927. (In the anthology by Alois Weywar: "Dr. Max Thun-Hohenstein. A biography", Vienna, 1989)
• "Gymnastics and sport, popular education and earning a living", "Austrian workers, gymnastics and sports newspaper", Vol. 5 No. 3, Vienna 1928, Austrian National Library 608.239-C Per.
• “The Secret of Grace”, Modern World, Vol. 10, No. 6, Vienna 1928, Austrian National Library 600.190-D Per.
• “New ways of gymnastic popular education in Austria”, in Die Zeit, vol. 1, no. 3 Vienna 1934, Austrian National Library 641.310-B.
• “Movement Physiology and Movement Therapy of Humans”, Zentralblatt für Chirurgie, Vol. 62, No. 13, Leipzig 1935, Central Medical Library in Vienna
• “For Adolf Loos”, contribution to the commemorative publication for Adolf Loos' 60th birthday, heavily shortened. Guest book of the house on Michaelerplatz, edited by Burkhardt Rukschcio, Vienna, Löcker Verlag, 1985, Austrian National Library 1,244923-B.
• 15 pamphlets, Austrian National Library, 1,541.480-C, New Cat.

literature

• Valerie Baumgarten: “The estate of ideas from Dr. Max Thun-Hohensteins ". Neue Freie Presse, Vol. 72, No. 25361 A, Vienna, 1935 ÖNB 393.928-DL Per
• Alfons Clary-Aldringen: "Count Max Thun and the monkey", in stories by an old Austrian. Ullstein 1977, ISBN 3-550-07474-3 .
• Max Ermers: "An aristocratic gymnastics revolutionary". The worldview. Vol. 5, No. 17, Bock u. Herzfeld, 1928, ÖNB 607.993-D
• Max Ermers: “Aside from Karl Fränkel: woodcuts on the natural theory of movement by Dr. Thun-Hohenstein ", ÖNB 568.030-CWstBB 75.651
• Adolf Freunthaller: “Afterimages from the lectures by Dr. Thun-Hohenstein ". World University, Vienna, 1927
• Christa Gierer: "Affen-Thun or Teacher of a European Culture", Movement Education, Vol. 53, Issue 1, Salzburg, 1999
• Käte Göbl: “The Count and his little monkey”, memories of Thun-Hohenstein, Neue Illustrierte Wochenschau, vol. 46, no. 12, Vienna, 1955, ÖNB 469.992-D per
• Stefan Großering: "Monkey tuna or gymnastics on all fours", life and work of the doctor and gymnast Dr. med. Max Thun-Hohenstein, Series of the Streicher Archive, Vol. 5, Salzburg 2000, ISBN 3-901709-08-8 .
• Arnold Habison: "The school of the body according to Count Thun's system". Die Bühne, Vol. 5 No. 187, Vienna, 1928, ÖNB 607.127-C Th
• Julia Haller-Singer: “An approach to dynamic posture based on primitive motion patterns”, Archives of Physical Medicine, Vol. 31, New York, 1955
• Clarisse Meitner: "The animal as a teacher of movement". Moderne Welt, Vol. 10, No. 6, Vienna, 1928 ÖNB 600.190-D Per
• Soma Morgenstern: "A count who dares to dance", Frankfurter Zeitung and Handelsblatt, 72nd volume, No. 535 of July 19, 1928, pp. 1-2
• Prince: "The teaching circus". Der Tierfreund, Vol. 84, Volume 1, Vienna, 1929 ÖNB 394.734-BC Per
• Bernhard Rudofsky: "About walking", Domus 124, 1938
• Otto Stoessl: "Memories of Max Thun-Hohenstein". Wiener Zeitung vol. 233, No. 122, Vienna, 1936 ÖNB 1005.524-D Per
• Alois Weywar: “Contributions to organic movement analysis”, with an introductory contribution by Max Thun-Hohenstein, Verlag Ingrid Czwalina, Ahrensburg b. Hamburg, 1983, ISBN 3-88020-108-0 .
• Alois Weywar: “Dr. Max Thun-Hohenstein. A biography ”, Vienna, 1989
• Alois Weywar: "Walking, running, hopping", the innate locomotion of humans according to Dr. Max Thun Hohenstein, Series of the Streicher Archive, Vol. 2, Salzburg 1996 ISBN 3–901709–02-9.
• Mike Wilde: “Natural Movement ” , series of publications by the Institute for Human Movement Anthropology, Vol. 8, Hamburg, 2003
• St. Großering:  Maximilian Thun-Hohenstein. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 14, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2012–, ISBN 978-3-7001-7312-0 , p. 328 f. (Direct links on p. 328 , p. 329 ).

Web links

Commons : Maximilian von Thun-Hohenstein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Gestalt gymnastics. Christa Gierer. 
• Horst Tiwald on the Internet. Museum for Transcultural Movement Research on the Internet. 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Frankfurter Zeitung and Handelsblatt, Volume 72, No. 535 of July 19, 1928, pp. 1-2
2. ^ Pamphlet, Vienna 1927. (In the anthology by Alois Weywar: "Dr. Max Thun-Hohenstein. A Biography", Vienna 1989
3. ↑ Hanns Plenk senior, Handbook of Biology. Man and his position in the whole of nature. Physiological Human Anatomy, Konstanz 1954, pp. 6-7.
4. ↑ Hietzing Cemetery, Maxingstrasse 15, 1130 Vienna, Group 55, No. 205.
5. ↑ "An aristocratic gymnastics revolutionary". The worldview. Vol. 5, No. 17, Bock u. Herzfeld, 1928, ÖNB 607.993-D