Tenderfoot Fitness requirement

[Kudu 186]

Every campout is like a game in the season, where we try to get better, learn from our mistakes and increase our skills. When the Super Bowl comes, you want to be at the top of your game, be the best you can be, because you are going to need all those skills to have a great trek.

 

That is a good analogy for Patrol Cooking at summer camp as well.

 

My only concern is that since I didn't meet either BP or Greenbar Bill face to face, I'm not sure if this competition is considered Parlour Scouting...

 

The Tenderfoot fitness requirement is a classic example of Parlour Scouting.

 

The best way to deal with bad Scouting is to read the requirement carefully and then interpret it in the "no stumbling block" way that Ed suggests.

 

By the way, Beavah's recommendation of simply tying a rope to a tree appears as an illustration in Scouting for Boys as one of the best ways to provide the kind of exercise that boys actually crave.

 

Baden-Powell established Scouting as the game-based opposite of school ("education" vs. "instruction"). All Parlour Scouting requirements (from Tenderfoot pull-ups to the three [3!] Citizenship Merit Badges) are created by shortcutting the "Aims of Scouting" with school techniques that boys have hated since time immemorial.

 

Physical and military drill was the reason that Baden-Powell abandoned his early approach to Scouting as a game that could be used freely by any existing youth organization. This is why there is no real trademark on the basic elements of Scouting that existed when it was a free program, including the word "Scout" and associated terms such as "Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, etc."

 

Associations like the YMCA and Boys' Brigade ignored the distinction between education and instruction and made the same mistake as the BSA makes now. To reverse the use of such physical and military drill in the name of "Scouting," B-P established his Boy Scouts Association as a separate organization.

 

For those who are interested in how Scouting should reach the "Aim" of physical fitness (and how you might fulfil the Tenderfoot fitness requirement by practicing Real Scouting), here is an excerpt from Baden-Powell's Aids to Scoutmastership:

 

II. HEALTH AND STRENGTH THE VALUE

of good health and strength in the making of a career

and in the enjoyment of life is incalculable. That is pretty obvious.

As a matter of education one may take it to be of greater value than

booklearning and almost as valuable as Character.

 

We in the Scout Movement can do much by giving to the boys some of

the training in health and personal hygiene which is so essential to their

efficiency as citizens.

 

...

 

With only half an hour per week in the ordinary Scout Troop meeting it

is not possible for us to give formal physical training, but what we can do

is to teach the boy to be PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE TO HIMSELF FOR

HIS HEALTH-how to secure it and keep it; also we can teach him a few

exercises that will help him to develop his strength if he will practice them

in his own time; and we can interest him in outdoor activities and games

as being not only amusement for him but of practical value in making him

sound, strong and healthy for life.

 

Health of body involves health of nerves and health of mind. Here our

character training meets the physical.

 

BE FIT!

 

...

 

There is much talk of developing the physical training of the rising generation

on a much more general basis, and in this direction lies a tremendous

opening for our work.

 

But I want to warn Scoutmasters against being led by this cry on to the

wrong tack.

 

You know from our chart on page 17

[ http://inquiry.net/images/sm023.jpg ] how and why Character and

Physical Health are two of our main objects in Scouting, and also the steps

by which we endeavor to gain them.

 

But bear in mind physical health is not necessarily the result of physical

drill.

 

The physical training given in the Army has been carefully thought out,

and is excellent for its purpose. It is suited to the more formed muscular

system of the man, and soldiers improve tremendously under this intensive

form of training.

 

But it is often artificial, designed to make up for what has not been naturally

acquired.

 

God didnt invent physical jerks, The Zulu warrior, splendid specimen though

he is, never went through Swedish drill. Even the ordinary

boy, who has played football and has kept himself fit by training exercises

between whiles, seldom needs physical drill to develop him afterwards.

 

It is good open-air games, hiking and camping, and healthy feeding

coupled with adequate rest which bring to the boy health and strength in

a natural and not an artificial way.

 

Nobody will disagree with this. It is quite simple in theory, but in its

practice we find some few difficulties to overcome.

 

...

 

ORGANIZED GAMES

 

One of the objects of Scouting is to supply team games and activities

which can promote the boys health and strength and help to develop his

character. These games have to be made attractive and competitive, and it

is through them that we can inculcate the elements of pluck, obedience to

rules, discipline, self-control, keenness, fortitude, leadership and unselfish

team play.

 

Examples of such games and practices are climbing of all sorts, ladders,

ropes, trees, rocks, etc.; stepping-stones and plank-walking competitions;

hurdle racing over staves supported on forked sticks; Spottyface for

strengthening the eyesight; ball throwing and catching; boxing; wresting,

swimming, hiking, skipping, hopping fights. relay racing, cock-fighting,

folk-dancing, action songs and chanties, etc. These and many other activities

open a wide and varied program of competition for Patrol against

Patrol, which an imaginative Scoutmaster can apply in turn to develop the

physical points required.

 

Such vigorous Scout games are to my mind the best form of physical

education, because most of them bring in moral education as well, and

most of them are inexpensive and do not require well-kept grounds,

apparatus, etc.

 

It is important to arrange all games and competitions, as far as possible,

so that all the Scouts take part, because we do not want to have merely one

or two brilliant performers and the others no use at all. All ought to get

practice, and all ought to be pretty good. Games should be organized

mainly as team matches, where the Patrol forms the team. In competitions

where there are enough entries to make heats, ties should be run off by losers

instead of the usual system of by winners, and the game should be to

find out which are the worst instead of which are the best. Good men will

strive just as hard not to be worst as they would to gain a prize, and this

form of competition gives the backward man most practice.

 

We in the Scouts can show every boy, town or country, how to be a

player of games, and so to enjoy life and at the same time to strengthen his

physical as well as his moral fibre.

 

...

 

DRILL

 

One hears a great many people advocating drill as the way to bring

about better physical development among boys. I have had a good deal to

do with drilling in my time, and if people think they are going to develop

a boys physical strength and set-up by drilling him for an hour a week,

they will meet with disappointing results.

 

Drill as given to soldiers, day by day, for month after month, undoubtedly

does bring about great physical development. But the instructors-

these are well-trained experts-have their pupils continually under their

charge and under strict discipline, and even they occasionally make mistakes,

and heart-strain and other troubles are not infrequently produced

even in the grown and formed man.

 

Furthermore, drill is all a matter of instruction, of hammering it into the

boys, and is in no way an education where they learn it for themselves.

 

As regards drill for Scouts, I have frequently had to remind

Scoutmasters that it is to be avoided-that is, in excess. Apart from militarist

objections on the part of some parents, one is averse to it because a

second-rate Scoutmaster cannot see the higher aim of Scouting (namely,

drawing out of the individual), and not having the originality to teach it

even if he saw it, he reverts to drill as an easy means of getting his boys

into some sort of shape for making a show on parade.

 

At the same time, Scoutmasters occasionally go too far the other way,

and allow their boys to go slack all over the place, without any apparent

discipline or smartness. This is worse. You want a golden mean-just sufficient

instruction to show them what is wanted of them in smartness and

deportment, and a fund of team spirit, such as makes them brace themselves

up and bear themselves like men for the honor of their Troop.

Occasional drills are necessary to keep this up, but these should not be

indulged in at the expense of the more valuable Scout training.

 

All The drill we require in Scouting to set our boys up, and get them- to

move like men and not sheep, is a few minutes silent drill at the beginning

of a meeting or an occasional game of OGrady says. Although we do

not want to neglect drill altogether, far preferable is the drill in fireman-

ship, trek cart, lifeboat launching, bridge building, and other sets of exercises.

These demand equal smartness, activity, and discipline, but the

point is that each boy is using his head in doing his own particular share

of the work for the success of the whole team. Moreover, competitions in

these are of highest interest to the boys as well as to the onlookers. An ulterior

point is that they can breed morale and fair play.

 

It should be the thing for the boys never to bear envy or to mention

unfairness of judging or of the opponents tactics when their team is defeated,

and whatever disappointment they may feel they should only show

cordial praise for the other side. This means true self-discipline and

unselfishness, and it promotes that good feeling all round which is so

much needed for breaking down prejudices.

 

I know a very smart regiment in which the recruits received very little

drill; when once they had been shown how to hold themselves they were

told that as soon as they could do it habitually they would be allowed to

go out and take their pleasures and their duties as ordinary soldiers. It was

"up to them to smarten themselves up instead of having deportment

drilled into them for months. They drilled themselves and each other, and

passed out of the recruit stage in less than half the ordinary time.

 

Education as opposed to instruction once more! The result was obtained

by putting the ambition and responsibility on to the men themselves. And

that is exactly the way by which, I believe, you can best produce physical

development among boys.

 

But, after all, natural games, plenty of fresh air, wholesome food, and

adequate rest do far more to produce well-developed healthy boys than

any amount of physical or military drill.(This message has been edited by Kudu)