We’ve all look forward to that one class in the day when we don’t have any tedious books or stationery to bother with. Be it a good memory or bad, gym class has always been an inseparable part of school life. Whether you were victimized as a scapegoat or an ace athlete, the gym class became something to look forward to by breaking through the mundane school regimen. Gym class is a timely ritual, taking place at least 4-5 times a week in one’s school life. This ritual involves wearing sacrificial robes, aka gym clothes, after which thousands of merciless and hapless children are subject to treatment made by their gym instructors. Some have to make sacrifices of their various body parts, which are severely hurt in the process. Along with this is the mental trauma and disintegration of the normal human mindset, along with inculcation of a violent streak among school kids with games like dodgeball.
Jokes apart, gym classes are actually the best time for some, and an equally dreaded time for others.
Just like the Pythagorean Theorem from Algebra class, there are a few activities from gym class as well which we would rarely see or use outside of that class.
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Activities Seldom Seen Outside Gym
Here’s a list of the top ten activities or games one would seldom observe outside the gym:
10. Stretching Exercises
This is in reference to the weird, unique and uncanny stretches all of our gym instructors have forcibly made us try atleast once in our lives. Thank goodness there are no glass doors in gyms, else all of us would be caught in the most hideous and funny postures possible! These exercises are forced onto the poor school children, who derive no real benefit from them except a bunch of giggles, cleverly suppressed by the gym instructors and coaches.
9. Badminton
I know all you hardcore badminton players would be raging mad at reading this, but honestly badminton is a game very few of us would actually play outside of gym class. Undoubtedly, all the claims of the “sharpening of reflexes” and “improvement of agility” will hold true, but it’s mostly just a sport for ageing agony aunts and romantic cheesy songs from Bollywood movies. What’s more, the gym instructors would force you to play badminton atleast once in a while, but the real reason would probably be that he would consider leaving the more technical sports to the more agile players. Just saying.
8. Gymming equipment
Gym equipment is something that we would rarely ever find outside gym class, unless we actually go to a supplies store. All those irritating ropes, jackets and whatnot will not even be found in a professional gym. Only heaven knows where and for what purpose these tyrannical gym instructors get these fancy gimmicks.
7. Kho-kho
Kho kho simply is a game where the sitting team and the running team chase each other, yelling “kho” everytime a person is caught! What fun it used to be. However, the dark side of this thrilling sport is that it isn’t actually a sport. Merely a fun game which gym instructors think would be good to bide the gym class time. Especially so when the gym instructor is too tired to do anything himself.
6. Skipping Ropes
Girls jumping ropes in concentric circles and a variety of patterns is a characteristic feature of every gym class. There is always one girl who can jump rope the best, the other girls around her marvelling at her talent. However, skipping ropes do not have much scope beyond this. They do show in the movies how strenuous training is undergone by athletes, but sometimes one fails to understand how jumping ropes can help so much.
5. Weights
Weights and measures are basically further kinds of gym class equipment which would rarely be found outside the same. Unless you happen to go on a weight loss expedition and join a gym for the same, these weights would never be encountered.
4. Pole vaults and long jumps
How many of us would actually see children in the park jumping over long ditches with the help of electric poles? Not many, right? Olympics aside, the sport of pole vaults and long jumps does not have many takers. Understandably, many of the athletes themselves would have excelled at this sport in gym class which would have got them where they are today. But the rest of the mediocre population has simply no use for this sport.
3. Handball
Nicknamed for literally every modified game of catch, handball is essentially soccer. This is another one of those oh-so-innovative games which gym instructors came up with due to lack of anything else to do. One takes the ball, kicks it around but with the added advantage of kicking up the ball into your own hands. A delight at times when you play well, but not of much use otherwise.
2. Obstacle Courses
The most dreaded of all gym exams, the obstacle course! This involves strategically positioned high barricades which run along tracks to prevent you from reaching the finish line. Some of the most dangerous things one has to face in gym class, and subject to high number of injuries. These courses do in a way teach us how to combat the obstacles of life in order to reach your destination, i.e by jumping over them. You may fall flat on your face in the process, but do not give up hope!
1. Dodgeball
This game is the most recent and clearly evident form of “survival of the fittest”. Involving merciless brutality and sheer violence, it basically sets up a frame of children wherein some students need to avoid being hit by a ball, i.e dodging the ball. What happens in the process is too painful to elaborate. Irrespective of whether you get hit by a ball or run into someone while dodging one, it is in your karma to get hurt. Dodgeball is definitely not a piece of cake, more so a piece of cow dung cake. Especially for the poor souls who get so severely bullied in the midst of standing in the gym, waiting to get battered by a ball. In my opinion, dodgeball should be banned from gym class and even otherwise, as it serves simply no purpose!