From: jim.speirs@canrem.com (Jim Speirs) To: dannys@iis.ee.ethz.ch (Danny Schwendener) Subject: Let's Throw a Fun Fit Summary: Some exhilarating ideas to do fitness training with cubs Article #R140. ============== Let's Throw a Fun Fit Linda Florence The Leader, April 1990 Sneaker Day kicks off Canada's Fitweek May 25-June 3, 1990. Is your community featuring Fitweek activities? Take the opportunity to tie in. Enjoy exhilarating physical activity and raise the profile of Scouting in your area. Perhaps you can design a special Scouting physical challenge for the public--a nature walk with fitness stations where everyone has a chance to exercise heart and lungs, stretch, flex, and use all their muscles, for example, or a well-designed obstacle course that gives every part of the body a workout. You might combine the fun with drug abuse awareness displays as well as literature on Scouting and how to join. Biking, hiking, swimming, canoeing --Scouting offers energy- burning physical pursuits more than just one week a year. Still, Fitweek provides a natural theme for a group or family event in late spring, and you may be looking for ideas to appeal to various age groups. With the Commonwealth Games still fresh in everyone's memory, it might be fun to adopt an international theme for a day of track and field events and team games such as volleyball. An international theme is a great way to get Cubs interested and started on the World Cubbing Badge or an opportunity for them to showcase World Cubbing Badge work they've already done. Keep colony running, jumping, and skipping events non-competitive by having Beavers work towards personal bests only. Rather than competitive volleyball, play a cooperative game such as blanket ball, where everyone works the blanket to volley the ball back and forth over a low net or rope. Then again, you might just want to emphasize the sheer fun of physical activity. Let your imagination run wild and throw a "Fun Fit". Here are a few suggestions to get you going. Land of the Hoppits Introduce your Beavers to a strange imaginary land and its creatures. If one of your leaders is very fit, he or she can both spin the tale and lead the action, but you might find it easier to give the storyteller a buddy to keep the Beavers working. Briefly describe a wondrous place where the sky is pink, the sun green, the earth orange and yellow, the lakes and ponds red, and the strange-looking plants blue with shocking pink stems. As you introduce the interesting creatures that live in this land, you (or your helpers) also introduce the movements Beavers make whenever a creature's name comes up in the story. Following the lead of the storyteller or helpers, they keep moving that way until a new creature is named to signal the start of a new action. The story may go something like this. Many curious creatures lived in one little corner of this wondrous land. Flappits (Jumping jacks) flitted around the pink sky. One-footed Hoppits (hop on the spot on one foot) and Two- footed Hoppits (hop on the spot on two feet) hopped about the orange and yellow earth. Flippits (breathe in and bend knees in a crouch, breathe out and return to standing position while making a breaststroke action with the arms) flipped and flopped in the deep red ponds. Generally, the creatures were happy. The Flappits found plenty of green nuts and berries to eat. The One-footed Hoppits liked to nibble on blue leaves and green berries. The Two-footed Hoppits preferred snacking on shocking pink plant stems, and the Flippits enjoyed a liquid diet of deep red pond water. Every once in a while, however, the Flappits wished they could be Flippets and the Flippets yearned to be Flappits flitting free in the pink air. The Twofooted Hoppits got tired of pink plant stems and wanted to be One-footed Hoppits, while the One-footed Hoppits started thinking pink stems looked much more appetizing than blue leaves and green berries and wished to be Twofooted Hoppits. And so, life went on, with all the creatures happy most of the time and only occasionally wishing they were something else. Then, one day, everything changed. Suddenly, into the small world of the Flappits, One-footed Hoppits, Two-footed Hoppits and Flippits appeared a brand new creature--a Joggit (run on the spot). The Joggit jogged around the orange and yellow earth, singing at the pink sky, sipping from the deep red pond, and nibbling on green nuts and berries, blue leaves, and pink stems. The Flappits, One-footed Hoppits, Two footed Hoppits, and Flippits were so astonished to see such a creature that they stopped dead in their tracks and then flopped to the ground to take a well deserved rest! And believe me, you and your Beavers will want one, too. Hop, Step & Jump Power Cubs play in sixes, Scouts in patrols. Ask teams to line up behind a take-off line and give the first player in each team a "power stick" (baton) to put extra spring in his steps. Running in relay, each team must try to reach a goal in the fastest possible time with a hop, step, and jump. The goal can be a tree or any other marker a considerable distance away from the take- off line. On signal, the first player in each team runs up to the take-off line and does a hop, step, jump combination. As soon as he stops, he becomes the new takeoff marker, and the second player runs up, grabs the "power stick", and launches himself into a hop, step and jump to cover as much ground as he can. Successive players follow, and the team continues until they reach their goal. How many turns did each player have to take? What was the team time? Challenge them to a repeat round where they try to best their record. All Aboard Beavers, Cubs, and Scouts can have fun with this one. Choose a fairly large playing area (adjust for the age of section members) with a tree, chair, hoop, or tree stump in the centre. Organize the players (12-20 is a good number at a time) into four teams and assign each a corner of the play area. Give each corner a name (e.g. North, South, East, and West, or anything else you care to choose). When a caller dashing around the play area calls out the name of a corner, the players in that corner race to the centre to get onto the tree, stump, or chair, or into the hoop. The aim is to get all players on. You can assign a time limit (e.g. 3 seconds) if you like. When time is up or all team members are aboard, the caller tries to climb on, too. If he is successful, the team is a winner and any member may become the new caller. Increase the challenge for older members by calling the name of two or more corners at the same time. You'll be amazed at the gymnastic talents that emerge when the object is to make sure you get everyone aboard. The Twig Race For this fun patrol challenge from Scouting (U.K.) magazine, you need a smooth spar 3 to 4 m long and 10-12 cm in diameter for each team and a twisty course with lots of tight turns and occasional obstacles to get over or through. If you have a treed area adjacent to your playing field, you can design the course by running a string path through the trees. If you don't have enough trees, use stakes and your imagination for other obstacles. The object is for patrols to race their "twig" through the course against the clock. The challenge is not in the weight of the log but the difficulty in getting it past all the tight bends. At least two members of the team must be in contact with the twig at all times. The clock stops when the last Scout in the team crosses the finish line. Before you start the clock and Scouts running, set the scene with a story that explains the race. You can make it anything you wish, but the British Scouts heard that the original race took place on Christmas Eve in the time of Ivan the Terrible (mid 1500s). It seems Ivan sent his serfs out in the snow to gather firewood. Because it was bitterly cold, these poor servants did not want to linger in the forest any longer than they had to. Working in pairs, they picked up the largest branches and logs they could carry and raced back to the warm castle with them as fast as they could. Quick Thoughts Three-legged Soccer: For older sections, try a soccer game in which the field men are two players tied together at the leg as if for a three-legged race and the goalies are two players tied back-to-back at the waist. Make the playing field smaller than for a regular game. Players may kick with their combined leg or their free legs. Iron Scouts: Design a triathlon challenge variation (e.g. running, biking, skipping) for any section simply by choosing three appropriate activities and course sizes. Obviously, the challenge will be different for Iron Scouts, Iron Cubs, and Iron Beavers. Use your imagination. If you have enough space (i.e. you are holding your fun fit at a Scout camp or in a park), you can plot a wide and varied course for the challenge. If not, establish a track on your playing field. The triathlon may require players to race around the track twice, ride their bikes around the track three times, and pull a leader in a wagon around the track once, for example. Choose-a-Move: In a soft grassy area, set up a fun challenge for Beavers and Cubs. Hold a "no-legged" round where they must figure out a way to move quickly from start to finish without using their feet (front rolls, log rolls, hands and knees), and a "four-legged" round where they must figure out a way to cover the distance using both hands and feet (frog hops, cartwheels, crab walks, etc.). Encourage them to keep experimenting until they find the method of locomotion that gets them there fastest. Tag-Along: Any vigorous tag game is a good fitness activity. Chain tag gets everyone moving quickly and keeps them moving because tagged players join hands with IT to become chasers, too. Play a running version first and then try a round with everyone hopping or skipping instead. Be well prepared with lots of nutritious high energy foods and juice drinks to fuel up and cool down your young athletes. And remember to tell the Leader about your great fun fit day--how you organized it and what you did. Send photos, too. We very much want to hear from you.