What are the six categories of special sports skills?

At present, there are six categories of special sports skills commonly used in domestic physical education and mass sports, namely ball sports, track and field sports, gymnastics sports, water and ice and snow sports, traditional Chinese sports, and emerging sports.

This classification is mainly clarified in the 2022 version of the compulsory education physical education and health curriculum standards, but there are indeed different opinions in the industry. I have been teaching and researching physical education in primary and secondary schools for 8 years. When the new curriculum standards were just released, I would practice classes with colleagues from various places. Teachers in the north basically suggested splitting water and ice and snow into two separate categories. After all, the three eastern provinces The popularity of ice and snow sports is very high, and the venues from campus to community are complete. It is more convenient for course design to be divided into separate categories. However, the current general classification still combines the two. The core is that both types of projects require exclusive venues, high safety protection requirements, and the logic of landing promotion is highly consistent, so they are temporarily classified into the same category.

We usually arrange the curriculum, and the first courses are definitely track and field and ball games. The basic training of running and jumping does not require special equipment, and the threshold is low. Children often play basketball, football, and table tennis in their spare time, and they will not feel any resistance if they get started quickly. In the gymnastics category, we teach cheerleading and basic skills, not the kind of very difficult competitive gymnastics. After all, safety comes first. Last year, we took the school team to the city to compete in the cheerleading league. When we applied for the event, it was classified under the gymnastics category. Don't tell me, the coordination of children who practice cheerleading is generally much better than those who only practice ball games.

If track and field and ball games are the "standard features" of most schools' physical education courses, then water and ice and snow sports are very dependent on regional characteristics. I went to a sister school in Harbin last winter for exchanges. The playground was turned into an ice rink. Speed ​​skating and curling classes were held directly on the playground. On a day of minus 20 degrees, the children were sweating while playing, which made me envious. Our southern schools do not have such natural conditions, so they can only pool money to build constant-temperature swimming pools and make swimming a required aquatic subject. Now many places have included swimming as an optional test in the high school entrance examination, which counts as a specialized aquatic skill.

What’s interesting is that the six categories include traditional Chinese sports, which is our unique category. In the past two years, our school has offered elective courses such as archery and dragon dance, and more people have signed up for them than basketball classes. There are also colleagues from ethnic minority areas who say they will offer ethnic specialties such as ojia and pearl ball, which are also included in this category. They can not only practice physical fitness but also pass on culture, which can be regarded as killing two birds with one stone.

In addition to these mature sports that have been developed for many years, the new sports that have emerged in the past two years are all classified into the emerging sports category. Frisbee, rock climbing, orienteering, which were popular in the past two years, and pickleball, which suddenly became popular this year, are all included in this category. However, there are also many discussions in the industry, such as whether Frisbee can be considered a ball game? Some people also say that e-sports should be added to the emerging category, but the mainstream view is that the physical activity attributes of e-sports are not enough, and it has not yet been included in the general classification.

In fact, this classification is not static. There are more and more new sports now. Maybe in a few years, the classification will be adjusted accordingly. The core is to make it easier for everyone to choose the appropriate sports to practice according to their own preferences and the environment. Being able to move is better than anything else.