0
0
The development of productive forces associated with the development of metals, the division of labor between farmers and pastoralists, and the emergence of private property led to the decay of the tribal system. Military chiefs and clan aristocracy began to pay more attention to military and physical education in their environment. In the words of F. Engels, war and preparation for war were given the character of regular functions of people’s life.
Physical education became increasingly military in orientation. Social life was concentrated in the “men’s houses” which had youth houses. These forms of tribal organization were created with educational purposes. Much attention was paid to the military and physical training of youth. The so-called “secret unions” included all men of the tribe and clan. The transition from one age group to another was still accompanied by initiations. As the clan system was dissolving, the role of the secret unions gradually changed. They turned into religious communities protecting the interests of clan and tribal nobility.
The educational value of men’s houses and youth houses gradually decreased. The emergence of military and clannish aristocracy, its provision with better weapons, as well as the availability of more free time for the nobility and their neglect of physical labor led to the division of physical education along class and class lines. The nobility strengthened its authority and power with various military-physical training and victories in competitions.
Ordinary members of the tribe and clan were gradually excluded from participation in public life, physical exercises and games. Their destiny became hard physical labor and service to the aristocracy. Under these conditions, the relationship of physical education to labor was lost to an increasing extent.
During the dissolution of the tribal system and the formation of the first class slave-owning formation physical exercises and games as a means of military physical training of the aristocracy were increasingly conducted in the form of public public public contests. In the area of the Aegean Sea on the island of Crete and on the eastern coast of the Peloponnese in the city of Mycenae, excavations have revealed images of various games, exercises, and contests.
In the epic poems “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” by Homer, the competitions of the Greek tribal aristocracy in running, wrestling, fistfighting, javelin and discus throwing, archery and chariot races related to the 7th-9th centuries B.C. are described in detail. Ancient Germans, inhabitants of Oceania and Indian tribes (Aztecs, Incas and Maya) developed physical exercises and games in the same direction during the collapse of kinship relations. The Maya had a popular team game with a rubber ball. Its essence is that one team tried to throw the ball into a ring on the wall (pillar), and the other – to protect this ring. In Ancient Peru, physical education extended mainly to that part of the youth who later joined the military estate.
