Physical Training The Old Way
Here is a collection of boys school PE classes, mostly from the fifties or earlier, showing how things used to be done. Boys classes were mostly shirtless, some barefoot, and there was an interesting reason for this: post-war, schools had a responsiblity for checking on their pupils hygeine, nutrition, evidence of diseases like rickets, and checking on general physical development. Official nurses or doctors occasionally attended the line up to push and prod and occasionally send pupils to clinics. This happened even with mixed classes, and in primary schools too. My father says that, at that time, a lot of houses in UK didn't have bathrooms and, in some families washing was infrequent: changing rooms always had a lingering odour of cheesy feet. Perhaps forcing everyone to strip was a subtle way of embarrassing them into better hygeine practice.
Most of the pics are from UK but you will see the famous LaSierra High School in the US, and some examples of other (army) mass training. I have also included a couple of vintage army PT sessions.
I hope that you enjoy this rather different post, and some feedback would be much appreciated either through comments or to gymacrobat@gmail.com - ESPECIALLY if you have pictures not featured here - I would love to add them to the collection.
Those aren't shorts! Maybe this was some sort of show rather than a PE class. Fun, ayway!
This final one is a repeat from the other day, but it has to be part of this collection. LaSierra again - the famous peg wall for developing the shoulders...
If you were around in those days, you either loved it or hated it. Some boys would do anything to get out of PE or at least to keep their shirts on, and if someone forgot their kit they were sometimes made to do PE naked infront of their friends. None of this namby-pamby luvvy nonsense that some school propagate today. Boys were meant to get tough, and most cheerfully trained to do just that. Vive le sport!
My secondary school in the mid 1980's had a quite rigid and strong barechested PE ethic for the boys like me who were there at the time, we got thrown into it from the start, not just in the school sports hall but outside too. We ran the cross country barechested just about all autumn and winter barring severe cold, and when it came to family sports day every summer we carried on the same as we always did PE, boys all got sent out in our bare chests for that too, and I knew quite a few who tried hard to resist it, but failed. A great school if you were sporty and liked yourself, not so great if you weren't and disliked so much stripping off in front of everyone. Like most schools we had to shower together once we were done. All of it was mandatory.
ReplyDeleteBetween 1990 and 1995 I was at a secondary school in Coventry and there was simply no option to put tops on during PE in the gym, our school made it compulsory that the kit didn't even involve anything to wear at all, even when they made us share various gym classes with girls in a mixed lesson. Bare chests only for gym PE was a rule I followed for 5 years from the age of eleven until I was quite a few months past my 16th birthday.
ReplyDeleteIt was crystal clear that large numbers of boys quietly endured it rather than enjoyed it, and the mixing it with girls added further to any body consciousness, hardly surprising really is it.
I also remember how amazingly strict every gym teacher was in making sure everyone got in those communal showers we had, which was a mass of reluctant lads crowding together naked and trying to pretend they were just fine with the set up.