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For anyone excited by the outdoor gym illustration:
The dangerous playgrounds of 1900s through vintage photographs
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/dangerous-playgrounds-1900s...
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31855163
> On the other hand, maybe those rough-and-tumble recreation areas of yesteryear served as an early life lesson that the world was a harsh and unforgiving place.
If that's the best argument in favor, I'll stick with the current playgrounds. Kids got seriously injured when I was growing up. One of them broke his leg. At least one broke an arm. Smaller injuries like getting scraped up and having bruises were very common. I don't think the cost-benefit analysis worked out in favor of dangerous playgrounds. Most of the arguments in favor apply equally well to having kids jump out of moving vehicles.
Reminds me of Action Park, which wasn't for softies (at least 6 people died).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Park
Documentary:
The wikipedia article is pure gold!
> The Bailey Ball was an Alpine Center attraction developed and tested, but never opened to the public, as a result of those tests. It consisted of a large foam sphere in which a rider could be secured, and then rolled downward. The plan was to do it on a track with PVC pipe as its outer rails, and one was built alongside a ski trail.[11]: 16:25
> The designers neglected to take into account the tendency of PVC pipe to expand in heat. During the first test, with a state inspector present on a hot summer day, the ball, with a man inside testing it, went off the track as a result of the pipe expanding and bounded down the adjacent ski slope. It continued through the parking lot, across Route 94, and came to rest in a swamp. After it came to a natural stop at the bottom, the inspector left without saying anything and park management abandoned the project.[11]: 16:25 [43]
That last picture of a climbing frame from 1942 wasn't much different from ones I played on as a kid in the 1970's: https://www.alamy.com/stock-image-1970s-historical-young-chi...
(Not that exact one, but a similar model in my part of Hampshire).
Yeah, we didn't have exactly those in the 80s, but more with planks and ropes (think low-level tree houses).
I've not had a good look at playgrounds the last few years (none where I usually go for a walk), but the ones in my childhood weren't as tall like in the last pictures, but tall enough that I sprained my ankle when jumping down... one day before my first day at school.
A few of the ones I visited when my daughter was in the correct age range (about 10 years ago) all have soft tarmac substitute around them that looks like it's made from recycled rubber (this is on top of changes to the actual equipment).
Yes it seemed to change around the 90s in the UK.
My local roundabout was a flat metal thing 3 ft off the ground with only tarmac to cushion the fall, and the slide must have been 18 ft tall. The monkey bars were more than tall enough for an adult, again with the same tarmac.
And the tarmac was ancient with loose gravel, so you got stones embedded in your grazes.
Them were the days!
Have you seen a terrain park at a ski hill?
The simple stuff has always been known. To run well you must wear a top hat.
However, that climbing picture reminds me of my childhood school. I'm just old enough that all my school equipment used to be telephone poles constructed into very high, and very dangerous obstacles which routinely resulted in broken arms. Children really are missing out these days.
I’m surprised that climbing got an exemption from the apparent “wear a top hat at all costs” rule.
The jungle gym was the grim reaper of my schoolyard.
My local park had a hang-by-the-hands-only zip line about five feet above irregular brick ziggurats. No soft surfaces anywhere. It was so insane.
One of the interesting effects of such toys is that it helped kids form a clear picture of what they were capable of. I have a fairly accurate estimate of how high I can drop down from, how far I can jump etc.
Let me introduce you to the SomethingAwful RIPline: a DIY amateur zipline which could accelerate children to 65mph. The vertical drop was 143 feet. Had anyone ridden this thing they would have been pasted.
A concussion is just a sign of weakness leaving your body.
If you want a US book on exercise from about the same era, you could do worse than read what Walt Whitman wrote.
Examples: https://whitmanarchive.org/published/periodical/journalism/t...
Cool hardback book of excerpts: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whitmans-Guide-Manly-Health-Trainin...
My favourite quote:
“In robust training for this life, which is itself a continual fight with some form of adversary or other, the aim should be to form that solid and adamantine fiber which will endure long and serious attacks upon it, and come out unharmed from them, rather than the ability to perform sudden and brilliant feats, which often exhaust the powers in show, without doing any substantial good.”
I love the hats on the drawings. Really dates it.
I have misfortune of having a last name that while not frequently used in English, has an unfortunate meaning ("cowardly"). Seeing this in the title, does "By Craven" refer to someone with that name, or to someone considered cowardly by those doing the exercise?
It was edited by someone called Craven, possibly a nom de plume. Still looking for more info.
Some evidence in a Gutenberg copy: 'Edited by "Craven"' (name in quotes in the original) and that name below the editor's preface. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/69080/pg69080-images.ht...
EDIT: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:John_William_Carleto...
> John William Carleton
> English writer, editor and army officer, published under the pseudonym "Craven"
Ironically, in South Africa ‘Craven Week’ is an annual week long elite school rugby tournament - and it’s the place where talent scouts go to find tomorrow’s rugby stars for club and national rugby teams. It takes a lot of talent and guts to be selected for Craven Week.
I think most people who hear the name, if they think anything, would just think of "wes craven"
In the UK it would be John Craven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Craven
For what it’s worth, I think yours is a dope name.
You must really hate GRRM.
Not really, as even though it's a fictional world, it harkens to a time when the word was common. Outside of fiction, I had never heard the word used until recent years, when it's become en vogue to use the term in political "discourse", a use I do despise.
Why do you think it came into the collective vocabulary recently? ASoIaF basically reintroduced it.
It does contain the word Raven which is pretty cool. C. Raven.
The chapter on Indian clubs is very interesting. I didn't know they had been adopted by the British Army at one point.
For some reason, the illustrations really gave me the JoJo vibe. Does anyone else feel this book may have inspired Araki to create JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Phantom Blood?
A good portion of the book is devoted to horse riding.
Anyone else (mis)read the title as "Walker's Manly Excuses"?
As it stands, the actual book disappoints me.
The running part is amusing, basically taking small jumps, seems like it would kill your feet though.
> It is important to be able to swim in a jacket and trousers.
This explains why I never made it to the Olympics. I bet Phelps practices in a tuxedo.
I'd argue knowing how to swim with clothes is more important than without, if you have to pick one. Though I'm guilty myself of not living up to this, I also think everyone capable of swimming should also regularly jump into the water with various levels of clothes on, in various temperatures, just to have the skill fresh if needed. (Even if you never fall into the water, you never know when you will witness e.g. a child do.)
Swimming lessons (here at least, but I'd hope it's universal) include swimming in clothes. Not quite jackets, though.
where are you from? I've never heard of swimming lessons with clothes here in France, so I'm curious where it is common.
Here in the UK, 'water safety 2 award' [1] includes swimming in clothes.
So if parents send a kid to swimming lessons for a few years, they'll end up doing it some time around age 10. (There are several different sequences of swimming awards, so it's no the second thing you learn despite the 2 in the name)
[1] https://www.swimming.org/learntoswim/swim-england-water-safe...
Australia's the same - if you're a pool regular child looking to get the certificates (lifesaver, bronze medallion, etc) you'll be swimming in clothes, diving for weights, towing others by their chin to the poolside, treading water, etc. at age 12 or so.
Out of the pool you're in the ocean daily as a kid, this is where we were before and after school [1], body boarding in a wet suit.
Netherland. All children are expected to at least get their 'A' and 'B' swimming diplomas, and both include swimming with clothes.
I'm surprised France doesn't have that. It sounds like an important survival skill to me.
Part of one of my merit badges back in my youthful boy scouting days was being able to demonstrate how to turn a pair of pants (jeans iirc) into a temporary life jacket.
Seems like a good mechanic to understand for worst case scenarios if a person is on/near water with any frequency https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/outdoor-survival/how-t...
I did a swimming lesson and we had to wear clothes (pyjamas).
Raw sewage was commonly dumped into any available body of water. Which was why he recommended avoiding ponds at all costs.
This sort of thing was why every large homeowner brewed their own beer - the alcohol from the fermentation neutralized some? enough? who cares, drink more? of the pathogens. Reading books from the Victorian (and earlier) eras gives me the impression that everyone back then was suffering from chronic, low level infections their entire lives.