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It does not matter what grade or what school you attend, every Japanese school as an Undokai, which means sports day. From kindergarten to high school, every school has one. It would be more accurately called 'relay day' because the students do not really play sports, they play games and have races. The students had been practicing for sports day for at least a month so I was very excited to see what all the practice went to. I was soooo excited for my sportsl day. I even got to participate in one game...jump rope....with the rest of the teachers. We were not very good.

Undokai

Casey Lary
2006-02-20 15:42:28

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It does not matter what grade or what school you attend, every Japanese school as an Undokai, which means sports day. From kindergarten to high school, every school has one. It would be more accurately called 'relay day' because the students do not really play sports, they play games and have races. The students had been practicing for sports day for at least a month so I was very excited to see what all the practice went to. I was soooo excited for my sportsl day. I even got to participate in one game...jump rope....with the rest of the teachers. We were not very good. The students killed us! Let me give a rundown of the Undokai and maybe it will all make sense:

I. Opening Ceremony
The school is broken down into 2 teams, the red and the white team. You can tell who is on which team by the color of the number on their shirt. The first year students wore red shorts, second years wore blue, and the third years wore green. Each team had male and female cheerleaders. The cheerleaders had the craziest hair designs. Many of them went before school to get their hair done.

Jumping around will surely prevent from pulling a muscle!male cheerleaders wore more 'traditional' costumes. I did not recognize any of the boys because they all had their hair slicked back, which I called the "Elvis" hair. Normally they all have their hair covering their eyes and I can't see their faces. It was quite a change from normal school days! They were the favorite part of my day because they did the coolest stuff. For the opening ceremony all the students (about 800 at Kabe SHS) march around the field (really a dirt court) and line up facing the audience (i think all of kabe came to watch the sports day. There were many people there). The two head male cheerleaders go to the principal and the team that one the previous year gives back the flag. After that they do a group "stretch" if you can call it that. Stretching in Japan consists of ...