Why PATHS Atlanta? A look at the physical health of the population, martial arts schools and more, will help answer this question.
The Physical State
In America today, and in much of the modern world, many of the most common and most costly ailments that afflict the population are the result of a lack of proper exercise and health regimens. Most jobs in our time have lost any significant exercise benefit and are very stressful and taxing on the mind and emotions of the worker. Obesity, hyper-tension, diabetes, and myriad other stress, diet, and fitness related issues are the bane of our time.
Due to lack of proper or complete physical education in the schools and the growing dominance of television and video games as leisure time activities, these maladies are reaching further into youth than ever before.
Modern sporting activities provide little help, as they single out the most able at an early age and tend to exclude the rest because of the high emphasis on competition. Even for those included they may do more harm than good due to their lack of balanced activity and high risk of injury due to repetition and trauma.
Martial Arts schools today
The commercial martial arts, dance, or yoga schools available today often are forced to dilute or otherwise alter their programs due to the constant need to increase profit and are unlikely to collaborate with other disciplines to tailor programs suited to individual needs. Meanwhile, traditionalists and those not primarily concerned with profit teach their arts in relative obscurity in a society that no longer has the framework to support their efforts.
Our goal at PATHS is to begin re-establishing that network in a modern context, to allow teachers to work together to improve the health of the community as a whole and provide much broader access to these arts in a non profit driven and non competitive atmosphere.
Our goal is to Help
Many useful and valid traditions have already disappeared due to political upheaval and inability to adapt to a modern industrial world. Our research will help preserve and adapt the ones that remain. The enormous need for ways that the general public can reconnect their bodies with their minds is evident on every newscast and government report citing the rise of obesity and other sedentary and stress related diseases.
Our hope is that PATHS can be a strong contributer to the battle against this rising tide, and help the next generations build a better connection between mind and body… to find a path to wellness and wholeness in our technological and sedentary times.
