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A Brief Look into the World of Gymnastics
September 25, 2007 |
In all actuality, gymnastics can be described as an artistic and graceful sport which requires a very special combination of balance, strength, muscle coordination and agility, and is normally performed on a specialized apparatus. Gymnasts are able to perform different sequences of movements that require kinesthetic awareness, endurance and flexibility, like handstands, handsprings, aerials, split leaps and cartwheels.
Just as we know it, gymnastics dates all the way back in time to ancient Greece. The earliest Greeks would practice gymnastics in order to prepare for war. Some activities like running, jumping, wrestling, discus throwing, and boxing actually helped to develop the muscles that were needed for the hand-to-hand combat. There were also some additional fitness practices that were used by the ancient Greeks which included some different methods for dismounting and mounting horses as well as a wide variety of performance skills used for the circus.
Within ancient Greek education, gymnastics became a very important component and it was considered mandatory for all of the students to take it. What is known as a gymnasia, which is buildings that have open-air courts were the places where all of the training took place, and they were able to evolve into schools where rhetoric, gymnastics, music and the subject of mathematics were being taught. It was near this time that the ancient Olympic Games were born.
Greek gymnastics, as the Roman Empire was ascending, was basically turned into training for the military. In three hundred and ninety three AD, the Olympic Games were abolished completely by the Emperor Theodosius. It was at this time that all of the games had become totally corrupt and gymnastics right along with all of the other sports that were popular during this time were declined.
For centuries, it seemed that gymnastics all but been forgotten. During the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries, there were two pioneer physical educators by the name of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and Johann Friedrich GutsMuth that were able to create exercises suited for young men and boys alike, on several different apparatus’s that they had designed. Ultimately, this particular innovation led to what is being considered as modern gymnastics. Friedrich Jahn, as a result, has become known as the father of gymnastics. It was Jahn that was able to introduce the parallel bars, the horizontal bar, balance beam, side horse with pommels, vaulting horse and ladder.
During the early part of the nineteenth century, the educators within the United States followed the suit and took the notion to adopt Swedish and German gymnastics training programs. And by the time that the early twentieth century came about, all of the armed forces had started publishing drill manuals that feature all manners of different gymnastic exercises.
However, as time passed, the military activity strayed away from all of the hand-to-hand combat and moved toward the contemporary weapons that were controlled by computers and fighter planes. Because of this, the modern warfare development, gymnastics training as a means of body and mind connection, which was so very important for the German, Greek and Swedish traditions educationally, started to lose their force.
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