Source: www.pinterest.com
Who was known as the “father of gymnastics?” A) John Alfreid B)Reilly Hafford C)Freidrick Jahn or D)Andrew Lawrence. Well if you didn’t know the answer was C, then you should read this blog post to learn more about who invented gymnastics. For this blog post, I was interested in learning about when gymnastics actually started, and who the people were that really “invented” the sport. The source is History of Gymnastics. The author is unknown, but it’s reliable because it comes from a website that has information from all different sports. I just focused on gymnastics and when it officially started and who invented it.
There was never a specific year that gymnastics started, but the time that it became a sport was in the “late 18th century to the early 19th centuries. The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) formed in 1891” History of Gymnastics. As a matter of fact, the horizontal bar, parallel bars, pommel horse, beam, and vault that gymnasts use today were all invented by two men named Johann Friedrich GutsMuth and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (the father of gymnastics). I think it’s so interesting that these apparatuses were designed around 300 years ago and the gymnasts still use them today. Some of them have been updated and changed to be more safe, but for the most part all the apparatuses are the same design and structure. The boys were taught how to perform certain activities using both strength and technique. The old version of gymnastics that was used in war was solely strength to get the men stronger, but when the real sport of gymnastics was born, it required a lot of strength and technique. The beam is a four inch surface that is usually four feet above the ground, and the women were required to do a variety of tricks and flips on the beam without falling. The old equipment was made of hard wood and if a gymnast ever fell, they would get splinters, bruises and even bleed. Today the beam has been modified and there is a soft “coating” around it, but obviously it still hurts if you fall. I couldn’t imagine ever doing gymnastics on the old beams because they’re so hard and different from today’s modified versions. In 1896, gymnastics was included in the first modern Olympic Games. You would think that Greece would win because that’s where gymnastics was invented and practically taught to students, but it was actually Germany that took home almost every medal in the competition. This surprised me because in Greece, gymnastics was part of education at one point, so I thought that all the best gymnasts were from there, but it was really Germany.
Future Research Question: Was womens or mens gymnastics more popular?
When you wrote about how old gymnastics was I found it really interesting because I never realized how old the sport really was. It reminds me of other older sports because you could never really guess how old they were! Next time you write your blog post, make sure to not write in first person.
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