It's time for Calisthenics
Jan. 22nd, 2011 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgCalisthenics (CT for my convenience) is a type of cult for young girls, with a broad doctrine of fitness, flexibility, deportment, co-ordination, teamwork, singing, dancing and theatricality. It kicked off in the 50's and I got my turn in the mid 70's, following in the footsteps of my three sisters. After a fashion, as you will find out.
If you don't believe me, see what the web site has to say:
Children of all ages thrive on the variety and challenges offered in the many facets of Calisthenics - a combination of controlled exercises and gymnastics, marching, singing, simplified ballet, folk and modern dance. It combines the best aspects of sport and art.
Art = sequins and fake tan.
Sport = brutal discipline.
It had everything.
I could only find one CT picture of myself in costume, which was some kind of Spanish folk song and dance number. I'm on the far right:
I wasn't short, I was just young. Memories of that time are sketchy, except for a deep bitter hate for the cute-as-a-button perky blue-eyed blond in the feature spot. I think her name was Melanie, and she got all the solos. Not that I was ever solo material, but she was *always* the special one *pout*.
There might be more pictures that only exist as slides. I hope so, because they represent hundreds of Mum-hours of labour. I was dressed one year as a green monkey in a full body faux fur suit, just the thing for an end-of-year competition concert. We sang the Abadabadabadaba song which I'm proud to say included the lyrics "happy and gay". Ah, those were the days. I learned sympathy for characters in suits.
I was a daisy in a tutu and appeared in the 1977 Christmas Pagent. CT was a good source of warm relatively disciplined sequin-covered bodies for festive events. I remember St John volunteers trying to force cups of water on me along the route, and a lot of waving.
Mum made all these costumes from scratch, and most of them featured hundreds of hand-sewn sequins, beads and braid literally encrusting little bodies. It never occurred to me before, but the mothers also had to deal with the very real probability that their children would grow during the period of costume development. Some of them required serious engineering effort.
Every mother was expected to make their child's costumes, just as every mother was expected to make cakes for the cake stalls and paint the backdrops for the production numbers. That was some serious pressure. I remember the utter shame dealt out to those few mothers who dared to outsource.
There may not be much evidence of me left, nor can I find a trace of Eldest or Middle Sisters' efforts (they may be hiding in the slide drawers), but London-Based Sister was in the right place at the right time with print film in the camera, and with the added bonus of being in the State Team there were some newspaper photos as well.
Here's a look at the bright and shiny side of CT. The costumes, makeup, sets, singing, dancing, hairspray, fake tans, painfully tight hair (with fake hair buns if you didn't have enough of your own), drama, tears, and brutal brutal competition. There were trophies on the line here people! Think Glee but more Cheerios and Sue Sylvester than New Directions.
But it wasn't all fun. Oh no. We had to march in unison. This is a newspaper shot in which LBS is the one being positioned. Damn look at those legs:
Marching drills taught me to count to 16 in a very specific manner:
ONE two THREE four
FIVE six SEEEEVEN eight
Nine Ten
ELEEEVEN twelve
THIRTeenfourteenfifteenSIXteen
And repeat. A lot. Marching was OK. It was educational to learn that the outside of a pinwheel had to move faster than the inside.
There were elements of gymnastics:
I couldn't do that from a standing start. Well, I did it once, and once only. I could push up from the ground or walk my hands over my head and down a wall, but being bendy like that wasn't my thing, and I was afraid that I'd land on my head. I was mocked for my fear, because that's how things were done. I could do a reasonable cartwheel, and was actually quite flexible in certain directions, but stubbornly rigid in others. Funnily enough the application of shame and shouting did not improve the flexibility of my 5-year-old self, but I did learn early that my pain was nothing unusual now-get-on-with-it.
My memories are hardly trustworthy; there must have been some kind of appreciation for injury, although bruises were standard issue and ankles an inevitable casualty of war. I wasn't injured per se, just put together wrong. I would grow out of it, if I worked hard and had discipline.
There were elements of ballet, known in the trade as plastic arts. LBS in her peak was crowned Miss Graceful:
I had trouble keeping my balance on one foot. I was taught to clench my toes as hard as I could to try to grip the ground, and got by at the lowest level. I wonder if that was bad advice for my toes.
Theweapons training clubs and rods classes were interesting, and I fared a little better there. The rods were hollow rods of iron the length of the child's arm to mid chest (or something like that). Heavy long things with sharp edges. One spun these around in tight formation with other small children, preferably without dealing or receiving a concussion or eye removal. There was often blood on the floor. No action shots, unfortunately just this:
The children were "encouraged" to stand up straight. I was a "slacker" because one shoulder was droopy (this is visible in the Spanish picture), so I learned to hold that shoulder rigidly. To present the illusion of correctness I had to stand and move in confusingly non-symmetrical ways. I'm pretty sure that was bad for me.
And repeating me-being-adorable because I can, this:
This was considered A Sign that I must join CT as soon as I came of age, which was some time before I turned 5.
The costumes Mum laboured over did get recycled to a certain extent, and some remains can still be found in Youngest Niece's dressup box. I got to wear my Spanish dancer costume in a "Children From All Nations" school Christmas production. Other folk costumes were cannibalised for all sorts of occasions, donated, loaned (and never returned grrr), and here's BB getting good use out of LBS's snow cape for an unbeatable toga party appearance:
Obviously kids still go to dance schools and put on shows and force mothers into slavery, but I don't think there's anything quite like Calisthenics.
Thank heavens.
If you don't believe me, see what the web site has to say:
Children of all ages thrive on the variety and challenges offered in the many facets of Calisthenics - a combination of controlled exercises and gymnastics, marching, singing, simplified ballet, folk and modern dance. It combines the best aspects of sport and art.
Art = sequins and fake tan.
Sport = brutal discipline.
It had everything.
I could only find one CT picture of myself in costume, which was some kind of Spanish folk song and dance number. I'm on the far right:
I wasn't short, I was just young. Memories of that time are sketchy, except for a deep bitter hate for the cute-as-a-button perky blue-eyed blond in the feature spot. I think her name was Melanie, and she got all the solos. Not that I was ever solo material, but she was *always* the special one *pout*.
There might be more pictures that only exist as slides. I hope so, because they represent hundreds of Mum-hours of labour. I was dressed one year as a green monkey in a full body faux fur suit, just the thing for an end-of-year competition concert. We sang the Abadabadabadaba song which I'm proud to say included the lyrics "happy and gay". Ah, those were the days. I learned sympathy for characters in suits.
I was a daisy in a tutu and appeared in the 1977 Christmas Pagent. CT was a good source of warm relatively disciplined sequin-covered bodies for festive events. I remember St John volunteers trying to force cups of water on me along the route, and a lot of waving.
Mum made all these costumes from scratch, and most of them featured hundreds of hand-sewn sequins, beads and braid literally encrusting little bodies. It never occurred to me before, but the mothers also had to deal with the very real probability that their children would grow during the period of costume development. Some of them required serious engineering effort.
Every mother was expected to make their child's costumes, just as every mother was expected to make cakes for the cake stalls and paint the backdrops for the production numbers. That was some serious pressure. I remember the utter shame dealt out to those few mothers who dared to outsource.
There may not be much evidence of me left, nor can I find a trace of Eldest or Middle Sisters' efforts (they may be hiding in the slide drawers), but London-Based Sister was in the right place at the right time with print film in the camera, and with the added bonus of being in the State Team there were some newspaper photos as well.
Here's a look at the bright and shiny side of CT. The costumes, makeup, sets, singing, dancing, hairspray, fake tans, painfully tight hair (with fake hair buns if you didn't have enough of your own), drama, tears, and brutal brutal competition. There were trophies on the line here people! Think Glee but more Cheerios and Sue Sylvester than New Directions.
But it wasn't all fun. Oh no. We had to march in unison. This is a newspaper shot in which LBS is the one being positioned. Damn look at those legs:
Marching drills taught me to count to 16 in a very specific manner:
ONE two THREE four
FIVE six SEEEEVEN eight
Nine Ten
ELEEEVEN twelve
THIRTeenfourteenfifteenSIXteen
And repeat. A lot. Marching was OK. It was educational to learn that the outside of a pinwheel had to move faster than the inside.
There were elements of gymnastics:
I couldn't do that from a standing start. Well, I did it once, and once only. I could push up from the ground or walk my hands over my head and down a wall, but being bendy like that wasn't my thing, and I was afraid that I'd land on my head. I was mocked for my fear, because that's how things were done. I could do a reasonable cartwheel, and was actually quite flexible in certain directions, but stubbornly rigid in others. Funnily enough the application of shame and shouting did not improve the flexibility of my 5-year-old self, but I did learn early that my pain was nothing unusual now-get-on-with-it.
My memories are hardly trustworthy; there must have been some kind of appreciation for injury, although bruises were standard issue and ankles an inevitable casualty of war. I wasn't injured per se, just put together wrong. I would grow out of it, if I worked hard and had discipline.
There were elements of ballet, known in the trade as plastic arts. LBS in her peak was crowned Miss Graceful:
I had trouble keeping my balance on one foot. I was taught to clench my toes as hard as I could to try to grip the ground, and got by at the lowest level. I wonder if that was bad advice for my toes.
The
The children were "encouraged" to stand up straight. I was a "slacker" because one shoulder was droopy (this is visible in the Spanish picture), so I learned to hold that shoulder rigidly. To present the illusion of correctness I had to stand and move in confusingly non-symmetrical ways. I'm pretty sure that was bad for me.
And repeating me-being-adorable because I can, this:
This was considered A Sign that I must join CT as soon as I came of age, which was some time before I turned 5.
The costumes Mum laboured over did get recycled to a certain extent, and some remains can still be found in Youngest Niece's dressup box. I got to wear my Spanish dancer costume in a "Children From All Nations" school Christmas production. Other folk costumes were cannibalised for all sorts of occasions, donated, loaned (and never returned grrr), and here's BB getting good use out of LBS's snow cape for an unbeatable toga party appearance:
Obviously kids still go to dance schools and put on shows and force mothers into slavery, but I don't think there's anything quite like Calisthenics.
Thank heavens.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-22 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-22 03:41 pm (UTC)And, btw, I attended the 1977 Christmas Pageant and must have seen you dance/march past!
no subject
Date: 2011-01-22 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-22 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-22 05:29 pm (UTC)I love these photos! *snugs*
no subject
Date: 2011-01-23 09:51 am (UTC)I do have another fashion history post on the boil that explains why I started to wear scarves.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-23 10:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-22 07:16 pm (UTC)I did jazz ballet. Mum had to buy a leotard and some stockings. If she'd had to sew...it would not have ended well for anyone. (Mum tried to make me costumes sometimes for parties, teaching me a deep appreciation for costumes I could easily construct myself from ready made clothing)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-23 11:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-26 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-03 12:14 pm (UTC)