Some people hated gym. I was one of them. I've found that despite their degrees, gym teachers have a "one size fits all attitude" that can be dangerous. For that reason, the "good old days" weren't.
I vividly recall being paired with an extremely overweight young lady and we were to count for one another for 100 sit-ups. The poor girl broke into a sweat after two. Her face turned bright red and her breathing was a series of gasps.
Intelligent people do not instruct severely overweight people to do things which are beyond their capabilities. Gym teachers do to illustrate how offended they are by obesity. That doesn't give them the right to torture people. Rather than begin this poor girl on a walking regime (increasing distance and intensity over time) -- he was going to do it in one day.
I counted all right 1- 2- 3-10-11-20 etc. I never forgot that -- I wasn't going to be party to his cruelty. I think she ended up doing thirty, if that. But I swore she did the whole hundred.
So no, this film shows an ideal that didn't exist in the real world. Gym was for the most part sadistic in the late '60s.
Unfortunately, films like that inspire sadists to greater glory. "Sporty" people do not understand why everyone isn't interested in them. Case in point : (true story, by the way) I have a relative who trained for the Olympics. So this relative has competed all over the world and is actually well known.
Talks about nothing but sport -- eating for sport, training for sport, who is who in sport, where next competition for said sport will be held etc. This relative thinks of nothing else. EXTREMELY BORING. But to each their own.
Gym forces such boredom on people who would prefer to exercise their brain. Or as another relative put it, "This relative reminds me of a beautiful horse running in a field -- nice to look at, but completely brainless. " That's actually an accurate assessment. There was never time left to excel in academics.
It really depends on what people value. I never placed a high priority on sports.
Some people hated gym. I was one of them. I've found that despite their degrees, gym teachers have a "one size fits all attitude" that can be dangerous. For that reason, the "good old days" weren't.
I vividly recall being paired with an extremely overweight young lady and we were to count for one another for 100 sit-ups. The poor girl broke into a sweat after two. Her face turned bright red and her breathing was a series of gasps.
Intelligent people do not instruct severely overweight people to do things which are beyond their capabilities. Gym teachers do to illustrate how offended they are by obesity. That doesn't give them the right to torture people. Rather than begin this poor girl on a walking regime (increasing distance and intensity over time) -- he was going to do it in one day.
I counted all right 1- 2- 3-10-11-20 etc. I never forgot that -- I wasn't going to be party to his cruelty. I think she ended up doing thirty, if that. But I swore she did the whole hundred.
So no, this film shows an ideal that didn't exist in the real world. Gym was for the most part sadistic in the late '60s.
That's the point. To show the ideal that the culture was aiming for.
Unfortunately, films like that inspire sadists to greater glory. "Sporty" people do not understand why everyone isn't interested in them. Case in point : (true story, by the way) I have a relative who trained for the Olympics. So this relative has competed all over the world and is actually well known.
Talks about nothing but sport -- eating for sport, training for sport, who is who in sport, where next competition for said sport will be held etc. This relative thinks of nothing else. EXTREMELY BORING. But to each their own.
Gym forces such boredom on people who would prefer to exercise their brain. Or as another relative put it, "This relative reminds me of a beautiful horse running in a field -- nice to look at, but completely brainless. " That's actually an accurate assessment. There was never time left to excel in academics.
It really depends on what people value. I never placed a high priority on sports.