I was taking photos of Vikes children’s summer camps couple of weeks ago and noticed how wide is the range of athletic abilities of the kids of the same age. Boys and girls, who are about ten years old, are particularly different.
At the Boulder rock climbing gym at Stelly’s Crossroad, most of the boys noticeably struggled to climb much higher than about twice their own height. I must say, I clearly remember that I was the same at that age – any sort of climbing was not my strong suit. (Come to think of it, I might still be the same now…) However, some girls from the same age group literally walked up the climbing wall, all the way to the 50-foot-high ceiling. Clearly, girls have an advantage in terms of power-to-mass ratio!
Interestingly, things were just the opposite in the soccer camp. With very few exceptions, little girls were quite unbalanced when striking the ball – from the kendo background, I could clearly see that their weight shifted to the back foot as they ran up to the ball and also during the defending drills (for the older girls). On the other hand, most of the boys could kick through the ball quite confidently, keeping their balance throughout the motion.
Correction (few days after): now after looking at the photos, I can say I was wrong about the soccer: boys and girls look about equal – most are quite clumsy. Image below is an exception – this little dude was amazing!
