Sports Day

The Sunday of the school festival weekend, we had Sports Day. I took a bunch of videos of the events, but for some reason, they aren't uploading. I guess I'll only post the pictures then. The Sports Day started with this weird Japanese stretching song. It reminds me of the military. I guess because it's so uniform.

During the day, I sat by the score board. The Judo team was in charge of monitoring the score. Below are some pictures of the Judo team.

I think the first event was the homeroom jump rope competition. I have a really good video of this, but unfortunately, it's not uploading. One of the next events was this thing where there were wooden poles. The students would run to the poles and try to pull them back to their side.

Here is Ms. Oishi talking with a student.

This was the 3-legged race.

This was a relay race.

The red team lost the relay, but they are cheering on their team member by surrounding him.

This was a really strange relay. They had to dive under this net, and stick their faces in some powder substance.

This was the club team relay. Here is a member of the table tennis club. Most of the teams ran in their sports uniforms, and used things like tennis rackets as their batons.

Also, the red and blue team had a dance competition, but unfortunately, I only took videos.

School Festival - Sports Day

When I was an elementary school student in America, we had sports day. I always looked forward to it every year. There were such events as the potato sack race, the three legged race, and relays. However, once we entered junior high and high school, there was no longer a sports day. I wish this event had carried over into later school years because I think it is a good event to bond students and teachers together and also create lasting memories.

I was really excited to see sports day in Japan because I wanted to see how the events differed from America. There were quite a few different events such as a mock cavalry battle and events involving wooden poles. Also, at midday, there was a dance contest between the two teams. Actually, I didn't really understand how the two teams were made. In America, I think the competition was between grades or homerooms. I can't remember, but in Japan, there were two teams composed of students from all three grades. I hope next year's sports day is just as exciting.

Sports Day

Firstly, I would like to apologize for the quality of these photos. I took them with my iphone, so the quality isn't so good. The second graders had a homeroom sports competition in the gym. The girls played volleyball, and the boys played dodgeball. I couldn't believe it, but dodgeball is not the same at all in Japan. I had trouble understanding how you play, but basically, I think it is this. There is one ball, and people pass the ball in order to get people out. People are allowed on the outside of the other team's area in order to throw the ball. It's so strange. I thought the game would be the same, but it is completely different.