The Workshop of Sports History (Idrætshistorisk Værksted) - a ground for traditional games

It has been in existence for 15 years. The task is to collect, study, reintroduce, and revitalise traditional games from the European area. Its main attraction is a 7 hectare activity park, which was inaugurated in June 1999 and welcomes all kinds of visitors. Fifty permanent installations give access to public experiments with the old games. The workshop also stages thematic courses in old games, selected from a total repertoire of 150-200 different traditional games. The aim is to inspire a distribution of traditional games into all kinds of leisure and sports life.

The workshop is a field laboratory where the potential role of traditional games in modern society is studied.

Main concerns are:

• conditions for revitalisation
• possibilities of incorporating traditional sports into sport programmes
• transformation of traditional games in the process of modernisation
• adaptation to selected groups, cultures, and institutional contexts
• contributions to a renaissance of cheerfulness in sports

The methods are those of experimentation, practical application and participation.

Last year the centre had 12.000 visitors. Considering that there were only three part time employees, that the budget for PR is very low, and that the opening period was only half a season, it was a good result. 20.000 visitors are expected this year. At the workshop the traditional games are received with enthusiasm and as something very exotic.

The effect, in a wider sense, is the outcome of 15 years’ work, the activity park being just a reinforcement. During that period of time ”traditional games” have become part of the curriculum in many school sports classes. They have become part of the sports programmes for many special groups: the elderly, pre-school children, disabled and refugees, and they have become an almost inevitable subject in the training of teachers for P.E.

In the long run, "traditional games" will hardly be seen as "traditional", but those games that are easily adapted, and fit to accentuate certain aspects of P.E. will be used in the general repertoire as just another exercise. Here the actual criteria for selection are likely to direct the interest to the "less sportive", "more social and playful" dimensions of past and present movement culture.

Introduction

Almost twenty years ago I attended a conference in Lamego in Portugal (*1). The conference was on sports history and I expected the presentations to deal with modern sports in their early childhood around 1900.

To my surprise and pleasure I found people from the most peculiar and remote places in Europe gathered to demonstrate and discuss sports before sports: popular games or traditional games. Already the name was a problem. "Popular Games", I learned, in some areas would have communist connotations not desired by the more national romantic oriented groups, who would prefer to call the activities "Traditional Games".

Among the participants I met Dr. Roland Renson who presented two methodologies. The methodology behind a large collection project which was called the Flemish Folksports File (*2) and the methodology connected to a complementary animation- and revitalisation project named "Vlaamse Volkssport Centrale" - The Flemish Folksports Centre (*3). During my talks with Dr. Renson I expressed the opinion that Denmark had no tradition of old games. But he urged me to make a biblical approach after the motto "search, and thou shall find!"

Very enthousiastic about what I had seen, but somewhat sceptical I went home and started the research. Soon I had found 400 games in about 1600 variants(*4), so Dr. Renson and the holy bible proved to be right. These many games gave a great deal of new insights and understanding. Historically it had to do with the organisation of the human body in time and space, and the changing standards for feelings such as shame, embarrassment, desire and laudability. The actual perspective was comparative: In their contrast to modern sports, traditional games gave a new understanding of this field.

Writing games’ books has the same quality as reading cookery books: There is not much taste in it. So I soon understood why an applied dimension was necessary:

• The traditional games lead to a lot of pleasure and joy. The research results deserve sensual presentation
• The sensual presentation makes humanistic science visible. Pedagogically it is an excellent way to demonstrate what otherwise may often be a big secret to the public: What is the use of sports research?
• It offers a new approach to sports museums, which are often quite boring halls of fame or dead exhibitions of old requisites. In my opinion the important thing to bring to a sports museum is the fugitive movement of the body. That is what is normally neglected, and that is where animation and workshop methodology brings you as close as possible. 
• Through bodily experience of standards and contexts for movement in the past, it is possible to enrich body culture in the present and qualify the debate on sports in the future.

The Workshop of Sports History

These considerations led to the construction of a Danish workshop of sports history and to the formation of a staff of animators, which was named "The play-gang". A van was bought, and an ambulance service for groups dying to play was started. We divided the service in two: One stressing the sensuality, and good experience with traditional games and one that completed these qualities with a pedagogical superstructure reflecting history and animation methodology. This project started around 1985 and continued till now (*6).

Rapidly the volume became about 100 events a years, involving 5-6000 participants. And of course it led to further understanding of the old games, but also to a lot of compromises in the name of decent pedagogic. I shall only bother you with two major findings here: Games are not inherently amusing and full of meaning. Games are dialectical and it all depends on the intentions of the participants. If they intend meaning and playfulness, they can fill the play with playfulness and meaning, and the play can help them do so. If they don’t, there is no play.

A considerable deficiency for the project was the lack of a suitable home ground. Five years ago fund raising for the creation of a park was initiated. This was a difficult job, as there are and were no projections of national pride or heritage connected to traditional games in Denmark. Neither was there any political prestige to gain, as the total costs were estimated to be only half a million, which is not enough to secure immortality for a local mayor. Consequently half of the construction budget had to be based on loans, the mortgage of which is a terrible strain on the annual budgets.

But the park became a very nice area. It was placed on a former so-called agricultural desert, which was without any particular recreational value except for a splendid view over the coast of Zealand. Now the landscape has been transformed, and fifty more or less permanent installations each provided with an easy-read instruction poster have been established. Besides the fifty installations, there are fields for innumerable invisible games, i.e. games based on rules and not tools, but there an instructor or animator is needed. In the park four kinds of activities are offered (*7):

1. Self-service, where spontaneous visitors, singles, small groups and families, guided by posters, can practice the traditional games on their own.
2. Adventurous events for any kind of group: team building, picnics, company excursions, pre wedding celebrations ("Polterabends"), children’s birthdays, and on the whole a wide range of celebrations.
3. Training courses for all kinds of pedagogues, who want to enlarge their repertoire within the field of P.E., maybe in a historical or other cross-disciplinary framework. The courses are often planned in co-operation with the actual group and can last from two hours to several days. But there are standard courses: ”Viking games for wild boys and girls - are you a chicken or a Viking?”; ”What time is it Sir Fox?” - games for pre-school children; ”Grandpa’s games” - for the elderly; ”Games of the seasons” etc.
4. Special events, holiday celebration with tournaments in a range of exotic games, local championships, or demonstrations of local games by visitors from unknown, remote places in the world.

Authenticity

Fundamentals and authenticity are ambiguous in the field of traditional games. A majority of the old games found in Europe today are the results of traditions reinvented, that be for political, tourist, folklorist, museum or physical reasons.

If the point of departure is a particular game as once played by a particular group in a particular region, the adaptation leads to many compromises, and it is necessary to have very clear ideas about the purpose. - Even when authenticity in the above sense is not the main purpose, modified versions of traditional games as pedagogical tools or just as contemporary amusing pastimes can be corrupted by economical needs or just by the need for public interest. At the workshop there is an enormous interest and demand for Viking games. Most of the documented Viking games, however, are physiologically or socially completely unfit for actual use (*8) But many of the games documented in the Middle Ages (*9) are likely to be older than the first source. Consequently we abstain from evidence and comply with the demands of the wild youngsters by means of three criteria: A real Viking game should seem violent, but be harmless, and we should have a qualified hunch that it goes back to the Viking age.

Ten goals for the park can be pinpointed. I shall do that and also present some of the modifications and compromises that are the consequences of the actual efforts. I shall also try to evaluate each one, although it is somewhat premature. The park has been open only half a season

1. The ground is meant as a place with equilibrium between communication and activity. The mix of ritual and real interchange between different genders, abilities and generations are meant to be the main issue. This means that the information about the rules of each activity is sparse. Instructions about how to compete, to score and to win in a game are not very elaborate. So you will always have to decide, discuss and agree on your own specific organisation and regulation of a competition. Thus the level of competition, the stress on results is relative; each group does it their way.
2. There are no presuppositions about what to achieve, or how many games to play. The seriousness about results and achievements should always be suspendable in favour of more important tasks: a drink in the caf, talks about and interactions with family and children not related to the games.
3. The ground is meant as a museum, first of all for the fugitive movement, but small paragraphs about the origin and practice of a game can be found on the instruction posters. Many visitors particularly children are indifferent to this. But just as many find the information interesting, especially when having practised a game for some time, information is required, so there is a balance, as the instruction posters do not leave space for a whole novel.
4. Modern sports are extremely sophisticated phenomena to understand, and there is a need to engage history to realise what are the basics of sport, and to realise that sport is changeable.The park is meant as an immanent commentary to the teeth clenching drill characteristic of modern sports training, - to the differentiation after disciplines, ability, age, and gender, - to the early specialisation of children, - to the expulsion of the elderly etc.It is difficult to convince more conservative representatives of the sports system that there are needs for recreational physical activities not already taken care of. The park, however, has made it evident that this is the case. It is designed mainly for adults, but if the adults play and have fun, are involved and use their fantasy, also the children feel good. The park has proved that you can be physically active together with the whole family.
5. Once the road was the most important playground, (and maybe it still is, but we do not want to look at it that way), so the argument for new areas for local active recreation is strong. In many kinds of land- and townscapes there is a glaring need to create close range movement landscapes for the spontaneous activity of heterogeneous groups. Where the poverty of the environment is excessive and the bad consciousness conspicuous, you will find very expensive playgrounds for kids, where they can ride beautifully coloured psycho-hens and do almost nothing else.The park is meant as an inspiration to furnish open areas at clubs, stadiums, schools, parks, and other private or public open grounds. This has emerged as a major function. A great number of visits to the park have the purpose to bring back new inspiration.Modern open-air life finds itself in an ambiguity between extreme expeditions and romantic nature sentimentality. 
6. The park is meant as an inspiration in the planning of massive out-door life. On the playground a lot of people can have an exciting time in the open without destroying the nature they experience, and old games have proved to be an amusing and ecological recreational outdoor activity.
7. The park is an opportunity for tourism. The use of the place for course activity, as a local playground and for training activities makes it work regardless of tourist visitors and it represents a kind of authentic quality for the tourists. The possibility to bring about activity and inspiration to tourists and excursion guests reversibly is an extra quality for the area.As a public place to visit spontaneously and without special guiding, however, the games available must fulfil two criteria: They must be visible, and they must be harmless. Visibility is a major problem, because the constituents of a lot of traditional games are limited only to the rules. Tourists are not ready to organise APrisoner’s Base@ (a kind of tag-game) just because a poster says they should do so.Also the demand that the games should be absolutely harmless forms at certain bias and in fact creates a false confirmation of a rather romantic view on the old games. As the visitors are not specialists, and it often takes a lot of time to be skilful in a certain game, we have made many of the games easier than they were. Bowling fields are shorter, and throwing distances are optional. The "Palet sur planche" or the "Palet sur Terre" have throwing distances demanding a week or more just to learn to hit the target, not to mention preventing the quoits used from rolling away. Consequently half the distance is recommended, but the throwing line is moveable, so people can tentatively do what they find suitable. We can have no animal fights, no public wrestling or fist fighting, and also many rural games of strength and agility must be ruled out. Instead we can try to encourage some drinking and frivolities normally abandoned by modern sports asceticism.There is a risk that the park should develop into an ordinary amusement park. Particularly Nordic Protestants fear that things cannot be cultural or educational if they are amusing. What should be taken into consideration, however, is the fact, that many of the old games had their origin or their zenith on the market place. Only religion took the body and the physical exercises to a universe of penetentia and purification.
8. The park is meant as a source of inspiration for the local communities. A need for social content in a good life, whether in the dormitory towns or in the countryside community can be spotted, and the tools, the fields and installations in the park are easily copied. We have felt a strong interest from old craftsmen who want to copy things for local purposes. As a result of a strong concentration of sports facilities during the last 20 years each member of the family will need car transportation in order to reach hall, pool or ground, and always at different times during the week. A new decentralisation is not realistic, but if only a small percentage of the activities could be moved back to the places where people live, a lot in time and transportation would be saved, and both children and environment would be better off.
9. The park forms a good opportunity for the elderly. In Southern Europe, locally, you find a culture of elderly men gathered around a bowling or a pin game and forming a meaningful culture of their own. In Northern Europe people in the third age want to (and should) be active. But the ordinary sports disciplines very often demand amounts of force and mobility no longer present. Particularly the male gender can no longer practice football, handball, badminton etc. and will often be left to gymnastics. Gymnastics, however, has developed into very feminine forms, with which males are not always too comfortable. Alternatively an increasing number of elderly choose golf, but, looking at the old games, lots of less exclusive possibilities well suited for an elderly local culture are available. The workshop tries to raise an interest in that aspect and many sports associations in fact pay attention to this area. About forty different games at the Workshop are accessible and can be practised from a wheel chair, but still there is a long way to go.
10. Finally school sports have showed an enormous interest in the workshop. It offers physical activity, there are interdisciplinary possibilities, and it gives the students and pupils a unique opportunity to reflect on modern sports as something historical and relative. Furthermore the public school sports teachers are often in a dilemma: Modern sports often split the class in two: Those sports minded and wanting to engage standards from the clubs, and those having decided that sports are not their cup of tea. Both parties become frustrated: The one group because they have to modify and restrain themselves, and the other group because they know they are a drag on the skilled ones. For the school sports teacher, traditional games seem to offer one solution to this dilemma.School classes are normally guided, and can be exposed to activities that are not offered to tourist visitors. Particularly for the 10-14 year old boys there is a lot of challenge in different games of combat, strength and agility.

Conclusion

Scientifically the actual situation of the old games is confusing. It is hard to say, what can be studied and what direction the experiment is going to take.

I think it is impossible to study traditional games at the workshop. This can be done only in the proper anthropological context of the games. Meaning and significance of a game is a question of spirit, only understandable in the culture in which the game is embedded, and the spirit of the workshop represents a new culture.

What can be studied and compared are two different kinds of reception. The reception I had, when I found the game in a local and to me exotic context, and, on the other hand, the visitors’ reception and adaptation at the workshop.

Almost without exception, the visitors find traditional games amusing and interesting, but it must be taken into account that the games are selected, modified and concerted for pedagogical use. Exercises, which the visitors might find distasteful or the physiologists might find health damaging, are ruled out.

During their visit, the public very seldom will get any deep understanding of the Aoriginal@ spirit in which a certain game was practised. What they get is a bodily experience, which is new compared to experiences in the traditional context and compared to experiences from modern sports. At first they often engage in games with some kind of familiarity, stilts or nine pin bowling. But as soon as they feel comfortable, they will go on to more exotic activities forgetting time and space.

On top of a pleasant experience, with a scent of feelings faintly remembered from childhood, an understanding is growing: This is something new: Different from visits either to museums or to amusement parks, different from public park and garden life, from sports life, and from ordinary open-air life.

This understanding is often expressed with a conviction (even stronger than mine is) that traditional games have a great future in everyday recreational leisure life anywhere in any group.

Last year the centre had 12.000 visitors. Considering that there were only three part time employees, that the budget for PR is very low, and that the opening period was only half a season, it was a good result. 20.000 visitors are expected this year. At the workshop the traditional games are received with enthusiasm and as something very exotic.

The effect, in a wider sense, is the outcome of 15 years’ work, the activity park being just a reinforcement. During that period of time Atraditional games@ have become part of the curriculum in many school sports classes. They have become part of the sports programmes for many special groups: the elderly, pre-school children, disabled and refugees, and they have become an almost inevitable subject in the training of teachers for P.E.

In the long run, "traditional games" will hardly be seen as "traditional", but those games that are easily adapted, and fit to accentuate certain aspects of P.E. will be used in the general repertoire as just another exercise. Here the actual criteria for selection are likely to direct the interest to the less sportive, more social and playful dimensions of past and present movement culture.

References (*):

1. Second alternative European course under the aegis of the Council of Europe Information Centre for the Planning an Implementation of Sport for All: Traditional sports and folk games, 13-24 July 1982, Lamego, Portugal. 
2. Renson, R. & H. Smulders: ”Research Methods and Development of the Flemish Folk Games File” In: International Review of Sport Sociology. Vol. 1 (16) 1981. 97-107.a: Renson, R. et. al.: ”Applied Sport History. The Flemish Folk Game File.” Institute of Physical Education. K.U. Leuven, Belgium s.a. [1984?]. 14p.
3. b: Smulders, H.: ”Folk Games in Flanders. From Research to Action.” Institute of Physical Education. K.U. Leuven, Belgium s.a. [1983?]. 14p.
4. Møller, J.: ”Gamle Idrætslege i Danmark” (Vol. 1-4) DDSG&I/Idrætsforsk, Kolding 1990-91. 507p.
5. a: Eichberg, H.: ”Bewegungsmuseum: Museologische berlegungen zur Frhgeschichte und Etnologie der Krperkultur” In: Lammer, H.: Das Deutsche Sportmuseum. berlegungen und Skizzen. Academia 1991, p57-100.
6. b)Møller, J.: ”Nogle anvisninger vedrrende opbevaring af gammel idræt” In: Centring 4 (1983) 4 p169-176
7. Møller, J.: ”Traditional Games - The Danish Project” In: Amador, R. & al.: Luchas, Deportes de Combate y Jogos Traditionales. Madrid 1997 p. 771-786.
8. Møller, J.: ”Idrætshistorisk Værksteds plan for en International Idrætslegeplads.” Idrætshistorisk Værksted 1996. 30p.
9. Cf.: Bjarnason, B: Nordboernes legemlige Uddannelse i Oldtiden. København 1905, 145p.
10. Cf.: MS 264 Bodl. lib. ”The Romance of Alexander”, which gives more than 50 illustrations of games and pastimes older than 1344.