When they filmed the movie ‘Van Helsing’ in Prague they needed one hundred couples who knew how to ballroom dance. Everyone thought this was going to be difficult to set up, but it turned out that literally every extra they hired could waltz. Back in Soviet days, the country didn’t have a lot of money for sports equipment, but every school had a record player. They taught the kids ballroom dancing for the Physical Education requirement.
Not just Soviet days. Today, it’s expected (although not mandatory) to attend a course on ballroom dance and etiquette around the age of 16. It’s usually not in school PE classes, but evening lessons in dedicated ballrooms or community centers with professional lecturers.
There are also similar courses for adults commonly available. It’s considered a fun hobby for couples.
We went to dance classes all throughout I think eight grade and learned a few of the classical dances. Waltz, Foxtrott, Cha-Cha, Tango. That’s Eastern Germany in the early 2000s.
Dance classes in a normal German secondary school? Wow, we never had that. We had a private dance school for couple dancing in town, it was popular at about age 13.
It wasn’t in school, it was an after school thing at a dancing school. It was relatively affordable - I think it was at least in part paid for by the ministry of education - and we all went there together after regular lessons. I never heard of anyone not attending.
To graduate from my (American) high school, you needed a given number of gym points, and you were given one gym point per day of gym class. But, I learned, you earned one and a half gym points per day of dance class! I figured this was a great scam: I already hated gym class, so I’d get my points out the way faster.
Fast forward a couple of months, and I’m working harder than I ever was in gym class, I’m enjoying myself more, and I’m hanging out with girls in leotards first thing every school day. There was literally no downside.
My elementary school PE did a couple weeks every year where we did square dancing and line dancing. I guess that’s the southeastern US coming in. Sometimes we did some other more traditional English dance where the boys and girls would be in rows facing each other where there were some set steps and then the couple at one end would dance down between the lines to the other end, there would be more steps and then the next couple would move, and so on. It was like something out of a Jane Austen movie.
I learned square dancing in high school in Ohio. I was the only boy in a class of all girls, because I had broken my wrist and couldn’t play basketball. I would love to tell the story of how this helped me get girls, but I was much too big of a loser to take advantage of the situation.
No, really. He hated seeing his employees dance to jazz (the popularity of which he blamed on ‘the Jews’, because of course he did), so much so that he pushed to have “proper” dances taught in public schools, dances that were old-fashioned even in his time.
I mean I also got publicly humiliated by my inability to run far or fast so often it fucked with my head. But we had 6 months of learning to dance before returning to the shame gauntlet
Ah so, it’s not only Finland where the point of Physical Education is to humiliate all the joy of athletics out of the vast majority of generations of people.
Except the up and coming hockey players the washed up sportsman/woman who was hired to teach as a sort of social program gives all their attention to. Guess those have different sports abroad.
But really it seems so efficient that the state makes schools focus on competition, subsidize competitive team sports heavily, and hire subsidized people from professional sports to further the subsidized hobbies of the maybe future professionals.
The end result is billions in subsidies and that most people who can’t hack it professionally just quit sports alltogether in their teens or even earlier.
I just quite can’t see how are they actually trying to go public health first with which the tax expenses are excused.
Yeah I get what my schools were going for. And it was private school, so while taxes pay for actually a worse version by all accounts, my parents paid for mine.
Like, they tried to have a variety of things within budget. We did calisthenics, we did sports like basketball, flag gridiron football, and even occasionally some international football, we had American classics like dodgeball. In high school we even did pickleball and weight lifting.
But at the end of the day I got winded after a few meters of running and so running a mile (1069m) as is something most people were expected to be able to do was an exercise in me exhausting myself and slowly trudging along after everyone else finished. Fortunately I’ve always been really strong for my exercise level so for strength type stuff I regained some of the dignity I lost being lapped by fat smokers.
The thing is, nothing will ever make running something I’m willing to do if I can help it. I get the runners high and still hate running. And it would be an expensive disaster if schools did my preferred cardio of bikes or hikes. But also they didn’t even teach us proper running form. They just assumed “people know how to run, and the weird nerd won’t be athletic anyways”. Fortunately I’ve become fairly athletic in adulthood (though I fell out for a year and a half and am now hurting getting back into it)
When they filmed the movie ‘Van Helsing’ in Prague they needed one hundred couples who knew how to ballroom dance. Everyone thought this was going to be difficult to set up, but it turned out that literally every extra they hired could waltz. Back in Soviet days, the country didn’t have a lot of money for sports equipment, but every school had a record player. They taught the kids ballroom dancing for the Physical Education requirement.
Not just Soviet days. Today, it’s expected (although not mandatory) to attend a course on ballroom dance and etiquette around the age of 16. It’s usually not in school PE classes, but evening lessons in dedicated ballrooms or community centers with professional lecturers.
There are also similar courses for adults commonly available. It’s considered a fun hobby for couples.
I was lucky enough to go to a summer camp where we learned dance.
I think a lot of my fellow americans would benefit from learning etiquette and dancing.
We went to dance classes all throughout I think eight grade and learned a few of the classical dances. Waltz, Foxtrott, Cha-Cha, Tango. That’s Eastern Germany in the early 2000s.
Now I’m imagining Mel Brooks doing a black-and-white German Expressionist scene of nine year olds in tuxedos and gowns doing the tango.
Dance classes in a normal German secondary school? Wow, we never had that. We had a private dance school for couple dancing in town, it was popular at about age 13.
It wasn’t in school, it was an after school thing at a dancing school. It was relatively affordable - I think it was at least in part paid for by the ministry of education - and we all went there together after regular lessons. I never heard of anyone not attending.
To graduate from my (American) high school, you needed a given number of gym points, and you were given one gym point per day of gym class. But, I learned, you earned one and a half gym points per day of dance class! I figured this was a great scam: I already hated gym class, so I’d get my points out the way faster.
Fast forward a couple of months, and I’m working harder than I ever was in gym class, I’m enjoying myself more, and I’m hanging out with girls in leotards first thing every school day. There was literally no downside.
Clearly, the system working as intended.
My middle school in the us made us learn to waltz in gym class. I’m ass at it, but it was fun.
My elementary school PE did a couple weeks every year where we did square dancing and line dancing. I guess that’s the southeastern US coming in. Sometimes we did some other more traditional English dance where the boys and girls would be in rows facing each other where there were some set steps and then the couple at one end would dance down between the lines to the other end, there would be more steps and then the next couple would move, and so on. It was like something out of a Jane Austen movie.
I learned square dancing in high school in Ohio. I was the only boy in a class of all girls, because I had broken my wrist and couldn’t play basketball. I would love to tell the story of how this helped me get girls, but I was much too big of a loser to take advantage of the situation.
You can thank Henry Ford’s bigotry for that.
No, really. He hated seeing his employees dance to jazz (the popularity of which he blamed on ‘the Jews’, because of course he did), so much so that he pushed to have “proper” dances taught in public schools, dances that were old-fashioned even in his time.
What the fuck man I got told off for six years because I didn’t know how to jump rope
I mean I also got publicly humiliated by my inability to run far or fast so often it fucked with my head. But we had 6 months of learning to dance before returning to the shame gauntlet
Ah so, it’s not only Finland where the point of Physical Education is to humiliate all the joy of athletics out of the vast majority of generations of people.
Except the up and coming hockey players the washed up sportsman/woman who was hired to teach as a sort of social program gives all their attention to. Guess those have different sports abroad.
But really it seems so efficient that the state makes schools focus on competition, subsidize competitive team sports heavily, and hire subsidized people from professional sports to further the subsidized hobbies of the maybe future professionals.
The end result is billions in subsidies and that most people who can’t hack it professionally just quit sports alltogether in their teens or even earlier.
I just quite can’t see how are they actually trying to go public health first with which the tax expenses are excused.
Yeah I get what my schools were going for. And it was private school, so while taxes pay for actually a worse version by all accounts, my parents paid for mine.
Like, they tried to have a variety of things within budget. We did calisthenics, we did sports like basketball, flag gridiron football, and even occasionally some international football, we had American classics like dodgeball. In high school we even did pickleball and weight lifting.
But at the end of the day I got winded after a few meters of running and so running a mile (1069m) as is something most people were expected to be able to do was an exercise in me exhausting myself and slowly trudging along after everyone else finished. Fortunately I’ve always been really strong for my exercise level so for strength type stuff I regained some of the dignity I lost being lapped by fat smokers.
The thing is, nothing will ever make running something I’m willing to do if I can help it. I get the runners high and still hate running. And it would be an expensive disaster if schools did my preferred cardio of bikes or hikes. But also they didn’t even teach us proper running form. They just assumed “people know how to run, and the weird nerd won’t be athletic anyways”. Fortunately I’ve become fairly athletic in adulthood (though I fell out for a year and a half and am now hurting getting back into it)
We got line dancing -_-
Just as the Lord Jesus commanded to Noah
Every kid in Scotland is taught how to ceilidh. Some of us even learn to enjoy it!
Street clothes or gym shorts?
Is this where I subscribe for more Van Helsing facts?