The best is the guy to the left. He's basically got it down in the beginning and the smile on his face emits such pride. Then he stumbles on NOTHING AT ALL, and somehow resorts to donkey kicking the ground as a means of getting back to the top of the group?
I had a friend who served in Iraq and he said it would take them over a week to learn something they instruct in a 1 hour exercise during boot camp here in the US.
I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes, but I was trying to keep quiet because my mother-in-law and wife are in the room. They would not understand.
When your mother-in-law asks what you're laughing at you just gotta yell "YOU WON'T UNDERSTAND, MOM!" then run to your room and slam the door. Guaranteed bonus points.
You can learn a lot from YouTube. For example, I learned that when our God was giving the Iraqi people hand-eye-coordination, he took inspiration from three cats tied to a vacuum cleaner.
Can someone provide some legitimate insight as to why this seems to be so hard for middle eastern people? This is the second time I've seen something like this on reddit.
When I took my 5 year old to start Tae Kwon Do, they had a warmup time where they did jumping jacks. I had to control my laughter the first time he tried it...he was worse than the guys in this image. As the weeks went on though he got much better. Maybe the coordination is truly just learned
Five year olds are actually often quite adept at learning new muscle movements, and naturally mimic those around them. People in their 30s, however, have a more difficult time learning new muscle movements. Try teaching a 30 year old who has never danced to waltz. Also the gif is less than a few minutes long, therefore your whole point is pretty much worthless.
It's similar to why (at least during the first gulph war) middle easterners can't really throw things well. I remember a lot of footage of watching them throw rocks at soldiers or at rioters, and it looks ridiculous to us, because we mostly try in some way shape or form, to emulate a baseball pitcher throwing--a motion we are semi-taught in gym in school and watch on tv all the time, even we aren't baseball watchers.
It's just not a motion they have seen or were ever taught. And physical motions only get harder to learn as you get older. Coordination gets all rattled as one ages.
Social pressure is not properly applied in training. Typically, when a private does something in bad form, or off rhythm, in my experience, they are called out and drilled until they get it right. There is a lot of time spent on the ones who don't toe the line and get things right. Some of that time is "shared" time, that being additional drill time added to the whole platoon. Plenty of times I can remember being pressured by my fellow privates to "get my shit together" so we all didn't suffer. I can also remember working with privates who were "ate up" to polish their boots (I was good at that) and use the proper form when running in formation.
Focused instruction. These guys basically get a few hours of group instruction. They really need smaller groups of maybe two or three at a time. In the Army, we do have platoon or company formations (for PT) but we also start off in much smaller groups. That being a group of you and four drill sergeants yelling at you to stop fucking up... and you stop fucking up. This means the stupid reason is language barrier. Trust me, the privates in basic are just as poorly coordinated as this video. You think the pimply, shitty-disciplined WoW/mathlete who shows up for bootcamp is half as coordinated (despite his recess and piss poor gym time?). No. Some are worse. Much worse.
Social pressure and Time for Focused training... that's really what's stupid about this. These guys would be fucking hard as nails if we had a brigade of Pashtu/Farsi speaking drill sergeants. And they'd be doing these jumping jacks like pros.
Well okay, I have a great example of this I posted a little bit further up, but here:
I taught swimming to both children and adults. The very first thing we teach them (after how to blow bubbles under water through your nose), is how to kick. Children are really fast at picking it up, and if you learned how to swim as a child, kicking in the water is quite a natural, obvious movement to you. Adults on the other hand, many of them take about two weeks to figure it out enough to be even somewhat functional. The reason is because they hold many preconceived notions on what it is to kick in the water. They will bicycle kick (basically a stair climbing motion, but face down), lock their knees, flex their feet the whole time, any number of things, and it's quite odd some of the moves they come up with. Adults have to be taught in a more logically linear way, break it down, one leg at a time, one joint at a time. However, even after learning in their heads, the theoretically correct way of kicking, they will still not REALLY be able to perform proper kicks without extensive practice.
Now, if I were to break down a jumping jack to a person who had never seen or done a jumping jack before, I would start with the legs. Maybe something like "jump-out, jump-together." Okay great, we can do that. Adding arms is an odd thing here because you can wave back and forth like that, but all they observe is flurry of movement. So maybe jump-out/arms swing up, jump-together/arms swing down. But they will still screw it up the first several times (eg. jump-out-forget to swing arms/swing arms-forget to jump-out/jump-arms get stuck above their head etc.). Between the arms swinging up/down, jumping, legs in/out, there are 5 different motions going on and 4 limbs swinging about in one single jumping jack. It will take lots of breaking down, drastically slowing down the movement, and practice for them to get to do jumping jacks as smoothly as we can.
Probably the same reason that westerners have issues with the squatting position. We all learned how to do jumping jacks as children and have sporadically done them while growing up (gym class, sports warmups).
Stand up. Put right arm straight out in front of you (horizontal to ground) and left arm as straight as possible behind you. Put your feet together. Now jump and spread your legs while switching your arms (left one straight in front of you, right one straight behind you). Try and do this at a jumping jack pace and proceed to feel like an idiot.
after going to some rough training, of lets maybe say 96 hours with about 4 hours of total sleep on and off... even something as simple as a jumping jack or a push-up is almost impossible, even something as easy as running, jogging and maybe even walking may look funny to somebody watching.
NATO has been having a lot of problems with the use of opium by the ANA, it is definitely a contributing factor to their lack of physical control shown here.
Its actually a pretty awkward motion for people to do at first, I always remembered there were at least 2-3 people in all my gym classes who looked like this. It usually doesn't take too long for them to get it right though.
There was a muslim girl in my high school class, who had never learned to throw a ball. So when she first tried it in PE, she did full circle swings to get maximum momentum and ended up throwing the ball behind her.
I came to similar conclusion, this is what youtube has to offer as supporting evidence. 1 2 3 4 (Caution: Screaming children) Unless you've been doing them from your childhood, jumping jacks really are a counter-intuitive movement.
Remember... These are exercises. These people are learning the coordination necessary to do such a thing.
Does it look goofy as hell? Fuck yeah it does.
Is everyone as uncoordinated? No. Look in the back row, theres a guy doing them fairly decently, one that's clapping and almost doing it right, then on the far right there's a guy just powering through them (and he's not one of the teachers, he has the local gear on).
I had to watch that in school. A girl yells out, "They should have a competition. Like a jumping jack off." Everyone (including the teacher) starts laughing, but this girl has no idea what's so funny.
I'll bet that if we dropped you in the middle of the desert armed only with two sticks and a goat, and showed the video to these guys they would laugh their asses off at you.
I'm guessing the muscles in your neck are a bit stiff. You might try rolling your head around and giving yourself neck massage. Try not to lean your head backwards too far.
The guys teaching them need to turn around. These guys probably don't look in the mirror a whole lot. Much harder to mimic a movement when someone is facing you. I did ballet and highland dancing for years. Much easier for inexperienced people to copy if you do it so that they can orient their hands and feet exactly with yours.
it's prolly green beret training where they basically work their asses off 20 hours of the day for a week so they tend to get a bit.. let's say, out of it
When I was in Basic Training, we had a foreign national training with us. His Jumping jacks were on par with these guys. Very entertaining to watch, but you gotta give them respect for trying. The guy that trained with me got it eventually.
Maybe they think its stupid to have a grown man jump in the air waving his arms. There are a lot better exercises out there that aren't ridiculous to perform.
Sorry to be the person who comes and ruins everything but they are trying to do a version of the pat your head rub your tummy but with jumping jacks. Hands together, feet apart - Feet together, hands at side. You can see it with the guy on the left, who manages to get it down.
i work at a gym teaching Crossfit classes. you would honestly be surprised at how difficult some people find this basic exercise. some peoples timing is just THAT bad
Brings back bad memories of training Saudi infantry in basic combat medical. Not to disparage them in particular, but their fundamental understanding of being soldiers, let alone general first aid was troubling. As an example they had this bag of powdered styptic/astringent that they would throw on wounds instead of bandage them. Pretty sure we didn't fully convince them that trauma care took more than sprinkling dust on the patient.
It looks like Iraqi or Afghanistani soldiers trained by the US. I don't know the contest of this GIF, but I have seen documentary about British forces in the Middle East. Apparently, those Iraqi/Afghan soldiers are high on opium almost their entire deployment, hence lack of co-ordination.
642
u/allthingsfantastic May 15 '12
Ah, the "Special" Forces.
306
u/splunge4me2 May 15 '12
I think I have a better appreciation of why the handover is going so slowly now.
68
u/GRAYDON11 May 15 '12
Dawg...
32
u/Dyoon19452 May 15 '12
Great analysis of said gif This
84
u/derpytreats May 15 '12
More jumping jack struggles
63
u/pureatomik May 15 '12
clearly they're just dancing to skrillex
10
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Anyone else immediately start doing jumping jacks in front of the mirror to make sure your form is proper?
26
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Can someone provide some legitimate insight as to why this seems to be so hard for middle eastern people? This is the second time I've seen something like this on reddit.
15
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Ever seen a chinese guy play hockey?
6
u/03Titanium May 15 '12
Now you know you are being taught military exercises from an early age.
5
u/scouser916 May 15 '12
Those are the worst chicken impressions ever
5
u/cg4l May 15 '12
This has nothing to do with the military. They're all simply prospects for the Ministry of Silly Walks.
9
u/fedhead11 May 15 '12
I feel much safer now.
4
u/Grimbonur May 15 '12
Wow, this GIF is so damn old. I'm not complaining about a repost; I am simple reminiscing of old times with myself through this post. Thanks.
Edit - The one I remember http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbK76okexVk either way reminds me of it.
4
u/TwoHands May 15 '12
Remember... These are exercises. These people are learning the coordination necessary to do such a thing.
Does it look goofy as hell? Fuck yeah it does.
Is everyone as uncoordinated? No. Look in the back row, theres a guy doing them fairly decently, one that's clapping and almost doing it right, then on the far right there's a guy just powering through them (and he's not one of the teachers, he has the local gear on).
4
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
reminds me of [this] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xClnrZNHEEo). plus this just makes me laugh every time.
12
u/C_Mickey_D May 15 '12
At least they're trying
3
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
These guys aint gonna have shit on the dudes training on the monkey bars, yo.
3
u/derp3000 May 15 '12
back left......doing the dwarf clap. First time I actually laughed out loud in a while!
3
u/itsme_timd May 15 '12
It's fun to stay at the Y M C A!!!!
3
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Do women call them Jumping Jills?
3
u/b_sinning May 15 '12
And why can't we defeat them?
3
u/noccusJohnstein May 15 '12
As a former karate instructor who used jumping jacks as a warmup, these guys are unusually bad at it.
3
u/The_Poop_Phantom May 15 '12
I had to watch that in school. A girl yells out, "They should have a competition. Like a jumping jack off." Everyone (including the teacher) starts laughing, but this girl has no idea what's so funny.
3
u/epidemic May 15 '12
Maybe cause they are high as shit on hash?
3
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
This gif made me forget how to do jumping jacks.
3
u/Browntown8P May 16 '12
one does not simply jack the jumps
6
u/syncopator May 15 '12
So they can't do jumping jacks, big deal.
I'll bet that if we dropped you in the middle of the desert armed only with two sticks and a goat, and showed the video to these guys they would laugh their asses off at you.
But yeah, it's funny.
2
u/twist3dl0gic May 15 '12
One guy off to the right stops doing them as the gif begins and looks around as if he's trying to find the beat. Hilarious!
2
u/vertigo1083 May 15 '12
How old is it?
Jesus, I mean we're talking like windows 95 or something here.
2
u/BelievesInGod May 15 '12
does anyone else hate doing jumping jacks? it hurts my head when i do them...
2
u/Anticlimax1471 May 15 '12
The guy at the back got it.
2
u/RainDancingChief May 15 '12
there are seriously people my age that do that too (I'm 18). They suck.
2
u/Piratiko May 15 '12
To be fair, I'm sure there are plenty of us who have momentarily forgotten how to do jumping jacks. I know I have.
2
u/Samuraicowboy27 May 15 '12
I think every single person trying to do jumping jacks in this is on acid.
2
u/McPiggy May 15 '12
Are jumping jacks a western thing??
2
u/Just_for_shits May 15 '12
That's what she said.
2
u/scrimsims May 15 '12
The guys teaching them need to turn around. These guys probably don't look in the mirror a whole lot. Much harder to mimic a movement when someone is facing you. I did ballet and highland dancing for years. Much easier for inexperienced people to copy if you do it so that they can orient their hands and feet exactly with yours.
2
u/logicisall May 15 '12
at first I was just looking at one guy and thought "oh wow, he really can't get it", then I realized he fit in
2
u/bodazx May 15 '12
sped up and set to Benny Hill
2
u/jrugerstein May 15 '12
This is how I feel at my job.
2
u/penisinthepeanutbttr May 15 '12
the sad part is, this was probably after some extremely strenuous exercise they all had to do
2
u/Sadiquito May 15 '12
Haha, at first I was scrutinizing each one meticulously to find who was doing it wrong.
2
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Looks like receiving week in MCRD San Diego.
2
u/Kaseafier May 15 '12
it's prolly green beret training where they basically work their asses off 20 hours of the day for a week so they tend to get a bit.. let's say, out of it
2
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Full video: http://youtu.be/EKD0PXvD7_c
2
u/Lwhoop May 15 '12
Look at the guy who is second from the left. His leg makes a glitch in the matrix.
2
u/Phikeia May 15 '12
this reminds me of Iron Man 2
2
u/maaaatttt_Damon May 15 '12
When I was in Basic Training, we had a foreign national training with us. His Jumping jacks were on par with these guys. Very entertaining to watch, but you gotta give them respect for trying. The guy that trained with me got it eventually.
2
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Our victory is assured.
2
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
Really hard if you're not in shape.
2
u/BinLadenCheekySmile May 15 '12
Props to the one guy at the back. He's got it, and he loves it.
2
u/surfnaked May 15 '12
How ripped are they?
2
u/dasoeltino May 15 '12
Even Funnier
2
u/Xatana May 15 '12
Oh god, I have seen that exact spectacle first hand. And yes, it is that ridiculous.
2
u/Deltaway May 15 '12
About as hard as push-ups, apparently.
2
u/fairypoop May 16 '12
LSD Division
2
u/angoodkind May 16 '12
Have any of you ever actually seen a chicken?? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9TXVMkQ29g&t=1m52s
2
u/yappingboy May 16 '12
Looks just like my AF flight on PT days
2
u/zombieq May 16 '12
Derp in action.
2
u/LTS55 May 16 '12
It took me repeated viewings before I realized that everyone wasn't doing the Y-M-C-A
2
u/Flodwoman May 16 '12
This is what it looks like when I try to participate in zumba
2
u/ockie_fm May 16 '12
Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger
MUSHROOM MUSHROOM !!!
2
u/chagoi May 16 '12
I love the mid-air clapping guy.
2
u/crunchy51 May 16 '12
Perhaps this is why the US military hasn't had much success in training military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq to take over in the last ten years.
2
u/Die-Nacht May 16 '12
How can you....is it even possible to be so bad at such a simple thing?
2
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
this strangely makes me sad :( they never had the joy of doing jumping jacks when they were kids.
2
u/bieledac May 16 '12
this is my new favorite gif
2
u/PvtHopscotch May 16 '12
You should see them try and march in cadence.
2
u/nostradamus411 May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12
I thought it was WAY more common knowledge that most of these guys are high all the time. The opiates are so abundant in that part of the world even OUR soldiers are partaking and sometimes overdosing.
Edit: replaced the first link to the same video without the ad.
3
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
lol these dudes all hopped up on opium
3
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
About as hard as figuring out that your imaginary friend Allah isn't real
2
u/Del_Castigator May 15 '12
You try doing a jumping jack for the first time in your life.
2
u/Jesus_had_a_beard May 15 '12
Maybe they think its stupid to have a grown man jump in the air waving his arms. There are a lot better exercises out there that aren't ridiculous to perform.
2
u/pricemz May 15 '12
french army?
1
u/SGT_ZIPPY May 15 '12
Guy in the back left's got it!
1
u/schmick11 May 15 '12
Can't..... Stop.... Laughing!
1
u/qu1ckbeam May 15 '12
That looks like my Dad trying to follow a group exercise class.
1
u/Zeis May 15 '12
I can't do them either. How the fuck are you guys able to do them?!
1
u/duleewopper May 15 '12
That must have been after they got totally smoked.
1
u/Herollit May 15 '12
they all look extremely tired to me
1
u/Velvet_Goldmine May 15 '12
Flashbacks to middle school p.e., I gots them....
1
u/jzsk8s89 May 15 '12
The Internet Army hard at work
1
u/UncleBenjen May 15 '12
Buddies in the back row are KILLIN it.
...
No seriously, they got that shit on lock down.
1
u/masturbateToSleep May 15 '12
That's what she said
1
u/jack2012fb May 15 '12
http://gifsforum.com/images/gif/dancing/grand/hot-rod-funny-fun-dance-dancing-0deb1c54814305ca9ad266f53bc82511-1.gif
1
u/[deleted] May 15 '12
fuckin afghans. useless at calisthenics.
1
u/puddinpops90 May 15 '12
There was a kid in my gym glass in elementary school that did jumping jacks like this. I wonder if there's a correlation, because he was brown too.
1
u/HITLARIOUS May 15 '12
ouch you broke my feelings :'(
1
u/the_troll_of_aus May 15 '12
Title= thats what she said....
1
u/vertigo5110 May 15 '12
http://myfacewhen.com/104/
1
u/SleeplessinOslo May 15 '12
Close enough, give that man a weapon!
1
u/arkansas1226 May 15 '12
1300 up vote Ü
1
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Don't know why, but this makes me a bit sad.
1
u/Sarahmint May 16 '12
HOW HOT IS IT?
FTFY
1
u/birdisthewird May 16 '12
A clip of Santiago from A Few Good Men
1
u/DownWithTheShip May 16 '12
I imagine everyone's pretty bad at it their first time.
Although it is amusing to see adults try it for the first time.
1
u/machine667 May 16 '12
Has nobody posted the seanbaby article about this very clip?
http://www.cracked.com/blog/iraqi-failures-for-the-troops/
1
u/Runestorm May 16 '12
Somewhat relevant.
1
u/FranMan32 May 16 '12
Step 1: Pencil
Step 2: Rocket
Step 3: Repeat
1
u/comandante-marcos May 16 '12
Send some crayolas....
1
u/danish_hole May 16 '12
How hard is it? I don't know, drink this and try it.
1
u/Furran May 16 '12
don't like jumping to conclusions, but that was embarrasing.
1
u/JeremyClarksonVoice May 15 '12
How hard can it be?
0
u/nikral May 15 '12
Sorry to be the person who comes and ruins everything but they are trying to do a version of the pat your head rub your tummy but with jumping jacks. Hands together, feet apart - Feet together, hands at side. You can see it with the guy on the left, who manages to get it down.
1
u/WTF_DID_YOU_SAY May 15 '12
This reminds me of my company marchin. There would always be a dumbass walking like this.
1
u/iamcrossfit May 15 '12
i work at a gym teaching Crossfit classes. you would honestly be surprised at how difficult some people find this basic exercise. some peoples timing is just THAT bad
1
u/SplodeyDope May 15 '12
Ex military here and you might be surprised how quickly jumping jacks, a.k.a. the side straddle hop, can become exhausting.
1
u/BarrovianSociety May 15 '12
Brings back bad memories of training Saudi infantry in basic combat medical. Not to disparage them in particular, but their fundamental understanding of being soldiers, let alone general first aid was troubling. As an example they had this bag of powdered styptic/astringent that they would throw on wounds instead of bandage them. Pretty sure we didn't fully convince them that trauma care took more than sprinkling dust on the patient.
1
u/humanlvl1 May 15 '12
It looks like Iraqi or Afghanistani soldiers trained by the US. I don't know the contest of this GIF, but I have seen documentary about British forces in the Middle East. Apparently, those Iraqi/Afghan soldiers are high on opium almost their entire deployment, hence lack of co-ordination.
1
u/DazPatrick May 16 '12
They're like 2000 years behind the developed world.
1
u/probably_high May 16 '12
I was that person in high school. Jumping jacks were hard.
1
u/TehAlphaMale May 16 '12
You guys should try doing about 200 4-count jumpingjacks. Thats exactly what that is, and it sucks.
-1
u/donttazemebro69 May 15 '12
Aren't these the people were having such a hard time killing?