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Published: October 24th 2008
Sports Day JHS
Practising the Souran Bushi DanceWell, it's that time of year....when Japanese students get to show what they're made of on their school Sports Day.
Expecting to have some frantic planning to do, I was (pleasantly) surprised when I arrived at school and discovered there were no lessons...at ANY of my schools. Instead, the students were doing their club activities and training for Sports Day.
I remember our Sports Carnivals in Australia, where we would paint ourselves different colours, make strange costumes, sit around with the snacks we'd smuggled in, and could sign up for any event we wanted. Here it had less of a carnival feel, and was more...organised. No costumes, but instead there were different coloured headbands. The students signed up beforehand for different events, and went ahead with them with a grim determination.
I remembered that Sports days were fun......but then I remembered WHY. This is something SO obvious, yet it managed to evade me. They were fun because I was a STUDENT. Teachers don't get to do hurdles, or walk over a bridge made of students, or get to play tug-of-war...There was a teacher's relay but I guess I missed the memo, and by the time I realised I
Sports Day JHS
Watching rehearsals could have a go, it was over. This was at my highschool. I went to the afternoon activities of one of my primary schools, and went to the other scvhool the following morning, only to have the heavens open halfway there, and I arrived to see the oval flooding....That one was postponed, and there were some funa activities for the kids on the following Tuesday morning.
I was blown away by the first elementary school I visited. I had seen them training for it, and was surprised at the focus of these kids. They were put in various groups, and then performed some amazing feats of balance. 17 different poses were drawn up on a large board, and these kids (aged 9 and 10) were seriously working hard to perfect them. The poses were struck at the toot of a whistle, and none of theme were mucking about saying things like 'Haha, I'm gonna try and do a flip off the top of this pyramid aye...' which would be the case in other countries for sure. See photos for details.
I was glad to have a more informal setting in which to speak to the students. I was
running around taking pictures, cheering, and having pictures taken of me all day long. It was better than having them stare at me thinking 'I can't speak English...Too Hard...' and just hang out with them. AT my highschoolm they finished the day off with a performance of the Souran Bushi dance, which is about catching fish...(NOT harvesting rice as I thought). I went to some of the dance lessons and picked it up a bit, as well as making myself a bit more popular with the 3rd years for giving it a go.
Note: The photos are arranged in order of occurrence. Junior highschool, Elementary school with amazing feats of balance and then Elementary school postponed by rain. The video is of the Souran Bushi dance mentioned above.
Enjoy!
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