Physical education in the Soviet Union--a follow-up
This is a follow-up to this thread (which I read about in Mean Ol' Mr. Gravity)--it does not seem to have been revisited. I actually happen to have some inside knowledge of how PE was organized in the Soviet Union, so I thought I would share.
Soviet children had to meet a certain level of fitness to get a passing grade in PE class. This included pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, a 60 meter sprint, the high jump and the long jump, rope climbing, and a tennis ball throw. Both boys and girls were expected to do all of the exercises, though the expectations were different for girls--incline pull-ups (reverse rows) were substituted for strict pull-ups, and knee push-ups were allowed, and standards were a bit lower for running and jumping. In order to get a grade of 5 (A) in PE, you had to do a certain number of reps in each strength exercise and make a certain speed in the speed exercises--the standards were set at the national level. These standards increased progressively each year--the 60 meter dash was replaced with a 100 meter dash, 400 meter runs were added, and so on.
If the school had access to a ski track or an ice rink, the PE classes moved outdoors for the winter. You would lug your cross-country skis to school twice a week and go into the woods for the duration of the class, and do your 1 or 2 km race. You practiced for a while and then did a race to get your grade for the course--that was the exam. In warmer areas without snow, other sports such as bicycling and swimming were practiced outside.
As you can see, the focus was mostly on track-and-field stuff and body weight strength. This was basic physical education, not a system set up to feed gymnastics and Olympic lifting training. For these more specialized sports, kids were recruited. My sister and I were both recruited for a basketball team. I was approached by a volleyball recruit on the subway later and explained that I was already playing basketball. I remember recruits coming in to test shoulder flexibility for swimming. Smaller stature kids with natural flexibility were drafted into gymnastics. All of the training was done on an extracurricular basis--I had to commute to basketball practice, and in the summer, there was sports camp where you did nothing but sleep, eat, and train. Regular, non-sports summer camps also ran some track-and-field competitions, and they gave out medals to top jumpers and runners.
In about 4th or 5th grade, one could take a test for a GTO badge ("gotov k trudu i oborone", or "Ready for Labor and Defense"). This fitness cert required passing higher benchmarks than those required for an A grade.
Primary and secondary schools in the Soviet Union were run on a centralized model, in contrast to the school district-level management and funding you find in the US. So all of the children had to meet the standards, and the schools received the funding to equip gyms. There were no school varsity teams for sports like soccer or hockey--the funding went to equipping gyms and to finance more specialized extracurricular training.
Sports received thorough TV coverage. Olympic lifting championships were on TV constantly, and you got to see the entire competition beginning to end. Everyone knew what the snatch and the clean and jerk referred to, and events such as the shot put were no mystery to the Soviet public.
Oh, and they taught us how to shoot. There was a shooting range in the basement of the school, and everyone got some target practice. The GTO requirements for older kids included good marksmanship. Teenage boys received more training, but both boys and girls knew how to handle a rifle.
And we still lost the Cold War. Go figure.
