Sports initiation and training.

Sports initiation and training.

 

Sport, which powerfully attracts young people, is a particularly effective means of training for educators. By implementing with vigor, sometimes with violence, the whole acting human being, it gives the opportunity to develop to the highest point the physical and moral qualities which are necessary for the man of action.

Sport is not an end in itself. Its value is assured only by the qualities it confers on its followers. The educator, at school or in sports societies, therefore has the duty to direct the practice of sports activities, and, if possible, to take part in them. He will not lose sight of the two following principles :

- the practice of sport must be, on the one hand, preceded by general physical education, on the other hand, authorized and supervised by a qualified doctor;

- the examination of the exterior attitude of young people during sports exercises, as before and after these exercises, makes it possible both to know in which direction the educator must make his moral action felt and to judge the value of the education given.

A distinction should be made between sports initiation and sports training.

The initiation given to children will above all be an education in skill and coordination of gestures ; but it will be advisable to moderate in them the excesses which emulation risks provoking.

Sports training, with the search for yield that it implies, will only begin when the body is sufficiently trained and when the student knows how to give his maximum effort without exceeding the limit of his forces.[5] .

 

2 ° The Different Sports.

 

Sports include :

A. Individual sports :

a) Athletics ;      

b) Swimming;    

c) Combat Sports ;      

d) Apparatus ;     

e) Outdoor Sports.    

B. Collective sports: sports games.