Georges Hébert

Georges Hébert was a pioneering physical educator in the French military who developed a system of physical education and training known as "la méthode naturelle" and a more wide training program known as Hebertism. Hébert combined the training of a variety of physical capacities with the training of courage and ethics.

Early life

Hébert was born in Paris in 1875, which in historic terms was five years after the traumatic Franco-Prussian War and with the ferment of the start of the French Third Republic. Hébert's father was a breeder of horses for transportation vehicles in Paris, and through his father's interest in horses, Georges Hébert enjoyed attending equestrian performances in circuses when he was a child. The development of motorized vehicles ended his father's business, and his father subsequently moved to New Orleans where his family owned a bookshop. Adventure literature and access to travel spurred on Hébert's interest in a career in the navy.

Training in the French navy

At age 18 Hébert entered the Naval School in 1893 and completed the Naval School in 1896, and then he "navigated the seas" to the countries in South America, the West Indies and North America until 1903.
His ranking at completion of the Naval School was sixtieth out of seventy-two graduates.
During his extensive travels, Hébert was impressed by the physical development and movement skills of indigenous peoples in Africa and elsewhere, writing:

"Their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skillful, enduring, resistant and yet they had no other tutor in gymnastics but their lives in nature."

Hébert witnessed another example of this physical competence when he saw that French farmworkers could "outrun and outlive athletes" during the First World War.

Rescue efforts following the volcanic eruption on the island of Martinique

When he was 27 years old, as an officer in the French Navy prior to the First World War, he was at the island of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea.
On May 8, 1902, the town of St. Pierre on Martinique fell victim to a catastrophic volcanic eruption from Mount Pelée. At the time of the major volcanic eruption, Hébert was on shore leave about 30 kilometers away. His own ship the "Suchet" had already left port to head for St. Pierre, so he boarded another ship in order to reach St. Pierre to help survivors. Hébert helped coordinate the escape and rescue of some seven hundred people from this disaster. This experience had a profound effect on him, and reinforced his belief that athletic skill must be combined with courage and altruism. He eventually developed this ethos into his personal motto, "Être fort pour être utile".

Hébertism

Hébertism as known today is the fruit of a lifetime's work. There are significant differences between Hébert's early books and the later volumes. His later ideas best represent the complete evolution of his thought.

Predecessors

In addition to his observations of the natural movements of indigenous people, Hébert's method synthesized various influences, including but not limited to:

The work of his predecessor Francisco Amorós, who published in 1847 Nouveau Manuel Complet d'Education Physique, Gymnastique et Morale, which already encompassed a full range of practical movement skills.
The work of German Prussian gymnastics educator Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, which was also an influence on the early physical training of the United States Marine Corps.
The classical representations of the human body in Graeco-Roman statuary and by the ideals of the ancient Greek gymnasia.
The "naturist" lifestyle principles of his friend Paul Carton, a French physician.
The influence of Georges Demenÿ, a French inventor, chronophotographer, filmmaker, and gymnast who emphasized the progressivity and the scalability of the training.
The founder of the modern olympic games, Pierre de Coubertin, who was among Hébert's early supporters.
The French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
Early development

Hébert's reform of physical education consisted of replacing the gymnastic methods which were in vogue with "natural" or "utilitarian" activities. From 1904 to 1912, Hébert "test-piloted" his training system on one thousand Marine fusiliers at the French military school in Lorient, with a turnover of half the population of soldiers every six months, and in 1908 he also tested his method with 800 adolescents from 14 to 17 years old at a school, and then with about twenty instructors and fifty girls in 1913 at the "College d'athlètes".
As a sidelight, as an "accomplished gymnast," in 1904 Hébert performed in an acrobatic act on a fixed bar at the amateur circus of Ernest Molier, known as the "Cirque Molier."

"Collège d'athlètes" ("Athletes' College" physical education training center)

In March 1913 a large government-sponsored physical education conference was held in Paris. The conference was called "Congrès international de l'éducation physique". The sport exhibition also included contemporary art, including the sculptures of Auguste Rodin.
There were gymnastic demonstrations from many nations around the world, and there was an outdoor demonstration by 350 males, aged from seven to twenty-two, who were trained in the method of Hébert. The performance of those trained by Hébert received public acclaim. His training method had been the result of "rigorous, long years of observations from four work sessions per week... multiple measurements, individual sheets to note progress of each and of a statistical treatment which... birth to the first serious rating table to assess the progress made." In 1912, a committee had been set up to found a national physical education training center. Following the demonstration of Hébert's students at the Paris sports conference, in April 1913 the committee appointed Hébert as director of the newly formed training center which was called Collège d'athlètes, located in Reims, in north-east France.
The training center was officially inaugurated by the President of France Raymond Poincaré in October, 1913. The Collège d'athlètes was funded by the Marquis de Polignac and was built inside the Pommery park which he had previously opened in 1910. It took six months to construct the training facility, which included an oval running track, an indoor gymnasium measuring 40 meters by 20 meters and an outdoor swimming pool, along with boxing rings and fencing halls.

The 3–10–15

Most of the philosophy of Hébertisme can be found in the first seven chapters of Volume 1 of "La Méthode Naturelle".
It can be summarized by the "3–10–15" approach to fitness:

3 main components for training

Physical training: Heart, lungs and muscles, but also speed, dexterity, endurance, resistance, and balance.
Mental training: energy, willpower, courage, coolness, firmness
Ethical behavior: friendship, collective work, altruism
10 families of practical exercise

walking
running
quadrupedy
climbing
jumping
balance
lifting and carrying
throwing
defence
swimming
15 principles for training
Continuity of work and exercises.
Alternating opposite efforts: fast/slow, intense/relaxed...
Progression of the intensity of efforts during the training.
Initial warmup before training and final cool-down after training
Individualization of efforts – i.e. adaptating the difficulty to each one's level
Working with flexibility, relaxing inactive muscles—relax your mind
Proper posture and sufficient breathing
Complete freedom of motion even in group work – avoiding collective or synchronized movements
Cultivation of speed and skill.
Correction of individual weaknesses
Taking advantage of open air and sun, obtaining the hardening benefits of the elements.
Allowing the group to express joy and happiness
Cultivation the qualities of action – i.e., courage, willpower, cool headedness, firmness – by the execution of difficult exercises for example while seeking to control the fear of falling, of jumping, of rising, of plunging, of walking on an unstable surface, etc.
Cultivation of altruistic behaviour – i.e., altruism, collective work, mutual aid.
Cultivation of self-improvement via healthy competition.

The ten families of movement were ideally to be performed in the following conditions: "the movements should be continuous, at a rapid and sustained pace and progressing over rugged terrain in a natural environment." The exercises were to be performed in "near nudity" which improved physical endurance by being exposed to the elements and it also allowed for the trainer to more easily see how a movement was being performed in order to correct it.
Hébert wrote:

Expansion of Hébertism

Hébert's full "holistic" teaching approach consisted of six modules: intensive use of the Natural Method physical exercises, daily manual crafts, mental and moral culture, intellectual culture, esthetic culture, and naturist modalities such as nutrition, hydrotherapy, and heliotherapy.
In an interview a few months before Hébert's death, he explained the difference between Hébertism and the "Natural Method." He said that "the natural method is not Hebertism and it should not be called so." He pointed out that the "natural method" is "as old as the world," and that "Hebertism is something else." Hébert said that "it is the philosophy that must emerge from this natural method to encourage the individual to put at the service of others what he can derive from his physical and virile training. This therefore goes far beyond the framework of a physical culture to become a true education, an essential linking of the physical and the moral."

World War I

Hébert was wounded in November, 1914 when he went into combat with a company of fusilier marines at the Battle of Diksmuide in Belgium during the First World War. He was shot in the left arm which left his arm severely disabled During World War 1 his training center, "Collège d'athlètes," was destroyed during frontline fighting and most of his "natural method" coaches had been killed in battle.