New Beginnings and New Expectations/Beware of Flying Objects

I am so excited to again be teaching K-4 Movement and PE at OWS.  My name is Matthew Smith, and this is my PE blog:

By now students in Grades 1-4 are starting to realize how expectations for them have risen with their grade level.  And I must say right up front that this year's Kindergarten classes are already making an outstanding impression with their focus, range, and willingness, so I am establishing high expectations for them as well.

The K-1 Grades will spend the next few weeks exploring things they already in some ways know, but things we want to define more clearly and to learn to observe the body more clearly.  We'll spend time rolling and crawling (in more ways than you might imagine) and falling and sliding; walking, running, leaping, jumping, hopping, skipping, galloping; and understanding how all those things are different and how the body does different things to coordinate and integrate and differentiate all the above.  I might choreograph a cumulative little ditty that takes us through the motor development from fetal position, through rolling over, reaching, scooting, crawling eventually running and leaping, and spinning... I have high expectations for these Kindergarten classes!

The 1-4th Grades started the year with team-building exercises, emphasizing awareness (of space, others, equipments/obstacles), communication (verbal, visual, touch), and trust.  Grades 2-4 will use Ultimate Frisbee drills and games to advance their team building.  The 2nd Grade will do some additional non-frisbee team building first, and will play games that drill the skills, not competitive games.  The 3-4th Grades will be assigned teams and will keep the same teams throughout our Ultimate Frisbee unit, developing a rhythm and familiarity, but good sportsmanship is a must.  Some students in 4th Grade will get the opportunity to be Team Managers, mostly giving them the opportunities to influence team mechanics and chemistry, and correct the imbalances of my team assignments.  Managers manage for one week, then a new Manager.  If this "pilot" works, we will repeat it throughout our team sport units (but probably new teams in every new sport), giving all students opportunities to Manage.

Until Next Time,
Go Bobcats!

Volleyball

Volleyball is a fantastic team sport that requires no physical contact with other players, but is nonetheless physically demanding.  Moving to the ball, positioning the limbs, jumping, sliding, and not to mention the timing and coordination of contacting a moving ball with a moving body.  Furthermore, students learn that the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection, so geometry becomes part of the game to keep the ball moving in the intended direction.  The ball bounces up to ~60% of it's original height, so students experience elasticity and must regulate and modulate applied force accordingly.  Lastly, volleyball requires a team effort that can not be successful without communication, trust, and focus.  I myself played Jr Olympic volleyball in HS and club volleyball in college and I always look forward to sharing my personal favorite ball game with students.

The younger classes will use a variety of balls and balloons to develop and coordinate skills and will also translate the skills to a racket game (probably pickle ball or badminton, TBD).  The older students will stay focused on the volleyball equipment and will more comprehensively learn the rules, rotation, and game play.  They are starting with very soft balls, but will gradually toughen their forearms until they are ready to bump a regulation volleyball.

Tail Tag, Fox Tail, and Wrestling

Students in Kindergarten are beginning 3 weeks of rehearsals for their Cultural Parade, but the 1st-4th grade students have all learned Tail Tag.  In Tail Tag, students wear a belt into which they tuck a flag.  That flag is the tail.  There are a variety of versions, but all versions require that one or more students try to take the tail of other students.  It is a tag game without actual tagging.  This no-contact game may seem a counter-intuitive introduction to the very full-contact activity that is wrestling, but it requires the students to start thinking about protecting the space behind them; protecting their backs.  It is also a litmus test to be sure that students carefully listen to and follow instructions.  When students demonstrate safety and responsibility in the task, then they advance to Fox Tail.  To date, about half the classes have made such progress.  Fox Tail wears the same belts and keeps the same flag as a tail behind a student, but instead of students having run of the gym, they are confined to a single small mat.  Retreat is no longer an option and there is nowhere to hide.  One student faces-off against another student, and while remaining on their feet, and without grabbing the other body, the students attempt to reach around the opponent and pull the tail from the belt.  Although there is no grabbing (no closed hands), arms and hands push and manipulate each other trying to solve the puzzle that is trying to solve them in return.  A student who captures the tail returns it, the tail is tucked again into the belt, and a high-5 or hand shake resumes the game until time expires.  Later versions of the game will allow a student to lie face down with the flag beneath the belly.  The partner/opponent then must try to roll that student onto her/his back to get or at least expose the tail- an amazing way to explore and exercise core muscles.  Yet another version does away with the tail altogether and the student lying tries to stand-up while the other student tries to roll her onto her back.  Some of the classes that can successfully and safely accomplish all the above will then move onto wrestling.

Wrestling is an almost universal developmental experience among young primates and indeed among many other young mammals (puppies, cubs, kittens, and ferrets all wrestle).  Wrestling and running are probably the first two activities that humans ever organized into sport.  Running, wrestling, swimming, and climbing are activities that allow and encourage natural functions of the human form, and that is why I am excited to offer an introduction to wrestling this year in PE.

For safety, we will not go so far as executing take-downs or tackles (although some students may earn the chance to learn and slow-motion practice) and there is a zero-tolerance policy toward horse-play and inattention.  Because of such high expectations and such low tolerance, this is generally a very safe unit of study.  In years past, I have always had more bumps, bruises, or injuries during Tag Games than during Wrestling.  But also because of the expectations and tolerances, and also because of the many uncertainties about the activity itself, I tend to contact more parents during wrestling than during any other activity.  I am also at your disposal for any and all questions and concerns that you may have, so please do not hesitate to email me or schedule a conference.

Enjoy the Warming Weather,
Matthew Smith

Hockey; Recognizing a Winner

Open Window Students in K-4 have been practicing floor hockey.  There are a variety of skills to coordinate in hockey.  The youngest students and those newest to the sport had their hands full (literally) handling and controlling the hockey stick, and manipulating the stick to maneuver a puck.  Students learned that a hockey stick is not at all dangerous when left to it's own devices, but that a careless student with a hockey stick can be very dangerous indeed! On the other hand, a student who carefully handles the stick and controls it as an extension of self will have the most mastery of the puck and the most consistency on the court.  Some players preferred to forego control and focus only on power shots, but those players generally spent more time in penalties, caused more painful accidents, scored fewer goals, passed less accurately, and developed and coordinated fewer skills.  The Kindergarten and 1st Grade classes in particular did an excellent job and proved that they could safely engage in an intense, equipment-heavy sport.  Those youngest classes have already moved-on to Tail Tag and Fox Tail and the 2nd-4th grades are finishing their tournaments today.

Most games have been "scoreless".  Many students opt to keep score, but officially the score is always 0-0 so that the focus stays on skill development rather than scoreboard argument. Students are often very concerned about who wins and who loses, so we define winners as those who learn something new, improve a skill, and/or have fun.  Students only lose is they lose sight of what matters.  If a students stays focused on the skills, the teamwork, the play, and the action, that student has a perspective appropriate for a class or lesson.  If a student loses that perspective and instead focuses on the numbers or the score, then that is the loss.  The lesson and the development are lost, so that student lost.  In class, winning is almost never about the scoreboard.

Happy Spring,
Matthew Smith

February Fitness and the Truth About Stretching

During the last 2 weeks before Mid-Winter break, students reconnected to their cardio-respiratory fitness.  The 2-4th grades learned fitness circuits; spending just 2 minutes at one station doing one exercise before quickly moving onto the 4 more stations to do 4 more exercises, yielding up to 10 minutes of non-stop exercise for the full body.  By keeping the movement going from one thing into the next, students keep their heart and respiration rates elevated.  By switching exercises every 2 minutes, no one muscle group gets over-burdened.  These dynamic efforts also encourage students to engage their personal determination and to find mental strategies for toughness and perseverance.  Many students enjoyed using medicine balls and weighted bars to increase the burden of their labors.  The 1st graders students spent this time rehearsing their Penguin Dances and all classes enjoyed at least one obstacle course.  Kindergarten enjoyed several obstacle courses and lots of matwork.

PE also introduced stretching.  Stretching is one of the most mis-understood parts of active lifestyles that it is worthy to examine it in some detail here.  Stretching is simply pulling unwanted tension from muscle fibers.  This is usually accomplished by tensing antagonistic muscle groups (to stretch the muscles on the front of my thigh, I engage the muscles on the back of my thigh), by using hands or straps to pull, or by using partners or even gravity.  So when should we give our muscles this pull, for how long, and why?

•  Before Exercise
• This is completely dependent upon what type of exercise.  It is beneficial to warm-up or loosen-up before exercise, and this should include moving through the range of motion that the exercise will demand.  For running, this would include some ankle and toe articulations, hip and knee flexion, rotation in the lower spine and pelvis, and even swinging of the arms, but actually stretching the muscles causes tiny tears in the fibers.  Those tears will impair the performance of the muscles during the run.  If, however, the exercise is ballet or gymnastics, figure skating or Tae Kwon Do, then the range of motion used is far greater and warming or loosening that range of motion may indeed require stretching those muscles.  In general, however, it is safer to think of the activity before exercise as loosening the range of motion rather than stretching.
• During Exercise
• During the course of repetitive tension and relaxation of muscles, it is possible for muscles to fail to relax.  Sometimes this tension is a shrugged shoulder or tight muscle that wastes a little energy but does little harm.  Sometimes, though, a muscle very important to the task or exercise seizes, very tense, and cramps.  Often, the antagonistic muscle groups (generally, those on the other side that execute the inverse or opposite movement) can not alone overcome the tension in the cramped muscles, and a manual pull is needed to relax the muscle fibers.
• After Exercise
• Remember those tiny tears in the muscle fibers discussed above?  Similar damage happens to our muscles during exercise.  Exercise is indeed somewhat traumatic.  It is because our bodies want to reduce the trauma that they then rebuild themselves a little bit stronger after exercise- so that future efforts will create less trauma. Since the damage is done during exercise, adding a stretch to the end of your workout does not really create any new damage, and will not impair the workout.  Indeed, the benefits of stretching after exercise seem to include
1.  improved gas transfer, moving CO2 (and toxins) out of the muscles and out of the body
2. better re-hydration
3. maintained or improved range of motion
4. release of unnecessary tension
5. decreased recovery time, and more
• There is evidence that holding a stretch for any less than 30 seconds does not give muscles sufficient time to benefit.  Stretching is also fairly ineffective if breath is held (remember, one job of stretching is to boost gas transfer and toxin removal), so we hold every stretch for at least 5 deep breaths.

Next in PE: Hockey!

Stay Healthy; Breathe Deeply,

Matthew Smith

Grounded; Capoeira

The Kindergarten and 1st grade students have been studying and practicing groundwork and rolling.  Students started with log rolling (a simple lateral roll with straight legs), barrel rolling (knees tucked under chest into a little ball rolling laterally), and wheel rolling (a lateral movement from Capoeira that goes from bear crawl to crab walk to bear crawl to crab walk repetitively).  The rolls were frequently coupled with reviews of quadrupedal movement, and were later put into complex partnering rolls like surfing (one student log rolls while another student seal crawls or "surfs" across the log roller or the "wave"), monkey rolling (1 student log rolls toward another student, who monkey jumps across the log to then roll toward another student, repeating the whole process).  Many students learned somersaults and used them within some of the complex roll games above.  Just a few students were able to learn and execute wheel somersaults (with a partner, each holding the others' ankles, students somersault one at a time).  Some of these movements will be used in the upcoming performances.

The 2-4th grade students have been studying Capoeira.  Thanks to January's cultural event and Capoeira assembly, all students now have some exposure to the Brazilian blend of dance, martial art, music, and culture, but for those who might have missed it, Capoeira is the product of Afro-Brazilian slaves and their descendents.  The lineage can be traced directly to hip-hop/break dance in everything from the movement vocabulary to the playful, circular battling.  Capoeira allowed us to take all that we had learned as quadrupedal movers and all that we learned in ballet, and look at it from a different perspective.  We are also using Capoeira to strengthen skeletal muscles and cardio-aerobic systems, improve flexibility, expand range of motion, stabilize, mobilize, and balance the body, to move rhythmically, and to boost awareness of self, space, and a partner.  Capoeira, like rolling, is also what introduces us in PE to tumbling (our next lesson set after a fitness/conditioning/stretching set).

Lastly, I myself suffered a bicycle crash on my way to school recently and have a large bruise and a larger abrasion on my left hip.  I have been sharing my own healing process to teach active recovery versus passive recovery, and to teach the students that sometimes a wound or injury may limit activity, but it doesn't always have to eliminate activity.

Stay Healthy, Stay Safe,
Matthew Smith

Stability vs Mobility, and Balance to Boot.

Since the dominant exposure to ballet in the USA is a December trip to the Nutcracker, it is an excellent time of year to study "old school" (roughly 400 years old!) dance in PE.  Ballet is an excellent opportunity to think on the move and to: fine tune our bodily awareness and spatial awareness, apply rhythm to movement, study alignment, improve posture, strengthen muscles, contrast fast and slow movement, and to better understand balance, stability, and mobility.

Let's contrast stability with balance.  For our PE purposes, and contrary to popular speech,"balance" is not achieved by standing easily on one foot, unless it can be as easily done on the other foot.  "Balance" is the achievement of equilibrium on both (or more) sides.  A baseball pitcher, for instance, develops one arm to throw strikes but will very likely be unable to even throw to the catcher with the other hand.  The pitcher's development is therefore unbalanced.  It is more productive to consider the achievement of easily standing on one foot as "stabilizing on one foot".  The human body has over 700 skeletal muscles, many of which are used as (and informally called) stabilizers.  It is not really common to refer to any of the skeletal muscles as "balancers".  To strive for balance, we will consistently do all of our dancing to the left and to the right; we will rotate clockwise and counter-clockwise; we will stabilize, leap, and turn on one foot, and then the other.  Think of the balance you used in chemistry labs- balance is the achievement of equilibrium on both (or more) sides.

We speak of a sense of balance (we have many more than just 5 senses), formally called equilibrioception, a sense from our vestibular system.  But stability comes from proprioception- our sense of our bodies' relative position in space (the sense State Police test on erratic drivers)- and a strong, balanced, smart development of bones and muscles.  Stability is also the flip side and enabler of mobility.    

If the baseball pitcher does not stabilize the feet, ankle, and core, the throwing arm has no anchor, no power, and the movement will not satisfy its intention.  If the dancer does not stabilize one leg, she will collapse to the floor when she tries to lift her other leg, pirouette, leap, or even walk.  Some parts of the body are designed for mobility, some are designed for stability.  In ballet and in PE, we will try to maximize both.

Keep Moving,

Matthew Smith