To move is to be alive

To move is to be alive!" - What does this mean?

*As living beings, it is our basic instinct to move. Movement, exercise and play gives us a sense of freedom, a feeling of lightness and a greater engagement with the physical and social world around us. When we move, we are constantly navigating through the forces and the space around us. Universally, this space around us has a 'quality' and 'quantity' to it. 

As we understand and use this space, the way we move, stand, sit, bend, gesture, can itself be a form of communication and has a quality to enhance our verbal and written communication. We understand the vastness of the space around us, the uprightness and the horizontal, miniscule and the mighty,  by moving and navigating through space. We begin to understand and realise that between these polars lies a state of balance. As we move, we naturally observe and understand the rhythm and patterns around us. While we move and observe, what we see around us makes an impression inside us. We also learn to express our inward feelings through movement and by moving we can also change how we feel inwardly. Years of reading, learning, observing and experimenting has revealed to us that robust movement, along with many other things, lay a strong foundation to healthy development and learning readiness.

At Yellow Train, we continuously strive to engage and develop the movement faculty in every child. The movements incorporated are based on their developmental age and also integrated with what children are learning as part of their curriculum.

Physical Education in Primary years:

The primary grades attend Physical Education lessons twice a week. It is focussed on building social and pre-game skills, and sportsmanship.A lot of emphasis is on movement, rhythm and collaborative games. While Grades 1 and 2 play a lot of circle games where the entire class play together, grades 3 and 4 focus on team games, where there is still a sense of togetherness. 

Bothmer Gymnastics:

* "Enjoy your work with the children!" were the indications and words of encouragement given to Fritz Graf Von Bothmer by Rudolf Steiner as Bothmer embarked on his new career teaching the physical education lessons to students in the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, Germany. 

Bothmer Gymnastics is introduced to children Grade 4 and upwards. The children, initially are introduced to a lot of collaborative games, which is an extension of their sports lessons and then they are slowly introduced to various movements based on the indications from Bothmer Curriculum and indications from the children. When children enter Middle School, a lot of importance is given to the form and the gestures in the movement and it really meets the student well.

Waldorf Olympics:

In Grade Five, the children do the Greek mythology block and as a culmination of the block, it is a tradition among Waldorf schools to hold “The Waldorf Olympics”, which is loosely based on the Olympic games that were held in ancient Greece. This is the first inter school sports event that the children will participate in. The children train in the disciplines of style running, long jump, discus, javelin, greek wrestling, marathon and relay throughout the year. The event is judged based on the grace with which the child performs and it is not about competition. It is an inclusive event and every participant gets a chance to display their ability. It is an event that celebrates the effort and the earnestness of the child.

Physical Education in Middle and High School:

In middle school, with the onset of puberty, the children spend 3-4 hours a week in the physical education lessons. Having spent many years learning to collaborate, cooperate and develop their pre-game skills, the children are now ready to meet competitive sports. They are introduced to various structured sports like Hockey, Basketball, Football and Throwball. They participate in Track events and various field events. They represent the school in various inter school competitions and are now ready to face the world with grace, respect and in the true spirit of Sportsmanship.

Dance:

Dance is the movement of the body in a rhythmic way, for the given music, in a given space. Along with other movement arts, Dance is also encouraged and practiced at Yellow Train as part of the curriculum. Children are taught different dance forms from around the world from tinikling, circle dances from different cultures and local traditional dances. It helps children work with their gross motor skills, fitness, self-esteem and confidence in a truly enjoyable way.

* inspired by www.waldorf-resources.org