Sunday, September 11, 2011

Sports Day at the Junior High (Picture Alert)

A magical time in every school year is the school festival. This weekend we enjoyed the sports day festival. Here are some pictures and videos from the event. 
 Here they all walk out with the flags they made


 Some kind of salute thing to the principal (on the stage)
 Lining up for stretching
Jump-rope with the entire class of 30 or so kids 
 T-e-a-m

These kids swinging the ropes work really hard 
 As you can see
Yep 
 Ye Olde Tug of War
 This teacher has some amazing Tae Chi skills 
 Harness the energy...
 ...and pull! They won.
 The pole around the cone race thing


 Once they get back, they all have to jump over the bar they were running with

 An obstacle course relay
 They had to walk back to back with a soccer ball between them
Then there is sack race where the front person scoots the sack along 
The tire-pushing race 
 Passing off the sash
Climbing under the fishing net
 This is the banner/sign for the sports day
 Getting ready for the cheer/chant portion of sports day. The kids in black are in their official school uniforms.
 Boom. Video
 Another cheer from the 1st year students
The 2nd year students 

 Another race where one student runs across the backs of the others in an unbroken chain
Looks...fun 


 An old fashioned relay race
Ahh...the Mukade race. You may remember when I showed the picture of the giant devil centipede in my first bug post. This is a relay that replicates that giant evil bug.  
 Also reminiscent of chain gangs, the kids are tied together at the ankles and they have to move in time or they fall down and hurt themselves. I am not the safety police, but I will say that I didn't think this was the best idea. Seems like this whole thing would be dangerous right? 

Here you can see the Mukade in action. 
I only saw about 20 girls crying after the race because they had fallen so many times and hurt themselves. All in the name of fun! Overall it was a good day and I didn't get too sunburned.

4 comments:

janemkinsel said...

Loved the pix and narration. I was very interested in the background too, school etc.

Liz said...

Your wrong, Jeff. You are the safety police. You can prevent forest fires, you can help take a bite out of crime, you can stand up against the mukade.

Jen said...

I like the big mountains in the first few pictures. What a pretty place.

Thanks for the pictures.

Anonymous said...

Interesting post, Jeff. It would be interesting to get your perspective on why these particular games are chosen. There is competition but they are low skill games by and large that require team work so all can participate. How does that shape children who as adults will react as remarkably as the Japanese did after the Tsunami?

Dad