History and Origin of Gymnastics
Gymnastics originated in ancient Greece where it was use to get ready for war. The skills and strengths needed to perform gymnastics include running, jumping, tumbling, mounting and dismounting horses were all thought to be great assets to those battling on the war. Gymnastics is performed by women as well as men at many levels, local club, or even college or universities. Some people may not know but, many basic gymnastics events were practice in a form called “gymnazien” which literally meant to exercise naked. Physical fitness was highly valued attribute in ancient Greece and both men and women participated in those exercises. After Greece had been conquered by the Romans, they decided to develop the activities that had been taught and use them for better purposes such as turning it into more of a formal sport. For decades gymnastics has been considered a niche sport reserved for teenage girls willing to sacrifice an ordinary life for gold medals and back flips. Admirable as this is, most individuals don't realize the historical importance of gymnastics in physical culture, as well as its evolving role in the future of movement practice. To really understand the meaning of gymnastics you have to give credit where credit is due and we must give credit to two important men who their names are Johann GusMuths and Friedrich Jahn who decided to take it upon themselves and make war preparations and form what is known today as Gymnastics. People may not know that the FIG which is known as the Federation of International Gymnastics and by the end of the nineteenth century, men's gymnastics competition was popular enough to be included in the first "modern" Olympic Games in 1896. From then on until the early 1950s, both national and international competitions involved a changing variety of exercises gathered under the rubric, gymnastics, that would seem strange to today's audiences and that included for example, synchronized team floor calisthenics, rope climbing, high jumping, running, and horizontal ladder. During the 1920s, women organized and participated in gymnastics events. The first women's Olympic competition was primitive, only involving synchronized calisthenics and track and field. These games were held in 1928, in Amsterdam. There are different types of events for Gymnastics and some of the events are vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor. Also some more events are used for the men such as
