Sports Festival Practice

Today was a fairly unproductive (but enjoyable) day at work. At YJHS, I introduced myself to one class of first years. I didn't get to meet any other classes because half of the day was dedicated to Sports Festival practice. The Sports Festival is basically the same thing as field day, but they take it much more seriously. Time is taken from academic subjects to prepare for it, which I don't entirely understand or appreciate. However, I did have a good time watching the kids practice.

For the Sports Festival, the entire student body is divided into three teams: red, blue and white. From what I could tell, each team had students from each of the three grades. The students and teachers rehearsed all the marching on and off the field, along with the foot races, cheering competition, and tug o' war game. Each event had exciting music to accompany it. I'm pretty sure I heard the theme from Sailor Moon during one of the relay races. The rules for tug o' war are a little different than when we played it in elementary school. Instead of lining up at the rope, the kids lined up parallel to the rope and a distance away. When the starting gun went off, the kids had to run to the rope to start the game. It was kind of an interesting approach.

I especially enjoyed watching the cheer practice. Since the cheers were done by large groups with varying ability levels, they stuck to chants and clapping as opposed to dancing. Each team had a few male and female head cheerleaders. The head cheerleaders stood at the front of the group and led the chants, demonstrating the gestures for the rest of the team. Unlike what you would see in America, the male students were about as enthusiastic as the female students. For the blue team, the head cheerleaders had a dance routine to go along with the chanting, and the male cheerleaders were even using pom poms. That made me laugh a little. I thought it was especially funny that one of the more troublesome male students in one of my English classes (a loud kid who insists on calling me Angelica) was a head cheerleader. I had kind of assumed that he was a slacker, but he seemed to take his job as a team leader very seriously.

All in all, today was a fairly relaxing day. I'm interested to see the Sports Festival, but a little sad that I have to go to work on Sunday in order to see it. Fortunately, Monday is a holiday, so it balances out. What's funny is that it seems to be the Board of Education that insists on us going; my English teachers didn't realize I was coming until I told them so. I'm okay with it being sort of a last minute surprise as that means they're less likely to make me participate in a relay or something (fingers crossed). If I'd had time to learn one of the cheers, I would've been up for joining in that, but I'd rather avoid running if possible. I guess we'll see what happens. In any case, come Sunday I'll be donning my athletic clothes and slathering on the sunscreen.