Bonnie Prudden
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Bonnie Prudden (Born January 29, 1914) was a leading American rock climber in the 1940s and 1950s, with 30 documented first ascents to her credit in New Yorks Shawangunks mountains. Along with Hans Kraus, she was a pioneering advocate of physical fitness and later developed a form of trigger point therapy called Myotherapy.
Prudden was a tomboy and a hellraiser as a child. Her father had lost the family money in the Great Depression. Her mother was a alcoholic, prone to going on weekend-long binges. Growing up, her escape was in physical adventure. She was a natural climber, and delighted in climbing trees, walls, houses. A favorite escapade was escaping the house by climbing out of her second story bedroom window and traversing a 6 inch ledge. The nuns at her parochial school disapproved of Prudden's activities, believing strenuous physical exercise and muscles to be inappropriate for a young lady.
Professional dancer since age 10 (including a stint as a chorus girl on Broadway), as well as a gymnast, a competitive swimmer, diver, and horseback rider.
Married Dick Hirschland, a mountaineer, in 1935. Their honeymoon ascent of the Matterhorn in Switzerland was her first introduction to climbing.
First climbed in the Gunks in 1936 with her husband along with Fritz Wiessner and Hans Kraus. In the winter of 1937, however, she badly fractured her pelvis in a skiing accident, which was followed by three months in traction and a doctors' prediction: "You will always limp; no more skiing, climbing, dancing. And no children."
Seven years and two children later, Prudden returned to the Gunks, partnering with good friend Hans Kraus.
In 1952, the pair were attempting a new climbing route on the cliff known as The Trapps. After attempting the crux overhang, Kraus backed off, handing the lead to Prudden. She was able to find a piton placement that had eluded Hans at the crux, and went on to claim the first ascent of Bonnie's Roof. After that day, she has stated that she and Kraus always climbed as equal partners, always swapping leads. Bonnie Prudden would be the only female rock climber who climbed at the same level of difficulty as the best male climbers of the day until the 1980s.
Prudden began giving daily afternoon "conditioning" exercise classes for her two daughters and their friends in 1945 when she first realized how little physical activity the public schools were providing. Along with Krauss, she launched the first of many campaigns to improve the public’s awareness about good health.
Using a test devised by Drs. Hans Kraus and Sonja Weber of New York Presbyterian Hospital, Bonnie began testing children in Europe, Central America and the United States. The Kraus-Weber test involved six simple movements and took 90 seconds to administer. In Italy, Austria and Switzerland, the children tested exhibited an 8 percent failure rate. In Guatemala, the failure rate rose to 21 percent. But it was in the United States, the richest country in the world, the failure rate topped out at 58 percent!
Bonnie personally carried her test results to President Eisenhower in Washington D.C. Prudden’s report was not only responsible for the President’s Council on Youth Fitness (now the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, it also was the beginning of a radical change in American attitudes toward physical fitness.
Prudden has written 19 books (to date) on physical fitness, recorded six exercise albums, hosted the first regular exercise spots on national television, had a syndicated television show, and set up many exercise and fitness programs in schools, hospitals, camps, factories, prisons, mental institutions and social clubs.
In 1992, she moved to Tucson Arizona, where she currently resides and runs the Bonnie Prudden Myotherapy Institute. She is currently working on her autobiography.
[edit] Trivia
The climbing route Boston in the Gunks got its name when Bonnie, belaying from the top of the route, was describing the relative positions of Portland (Maine) and New York with her knees. Dick Hirschland called up "I wish I were in Boston!"
Prudden once stated the she wouldn't date any boy who couldn't follow her up a tree. Presumably, Dick Hirschland was a tree climber as well as a mountaineer.
[edit] References
- Prudden, Bonnie (2005) Alpinist #14 (article) Bonnie's Roof
- Schwartz, Susan (2005) Into The Unknown: The Remarkable Life of Hans Kraus
- Watterman, Laura and Guy (1993) Yankee Rock and Ice
