Primary School Body Tricks: Super Powers that go Away

04 Apr Primary School Body Tricks: Super Powers that go Away

Posted at 04:30h in Pop culture by
When I resorted to ‘making monkey face’ at a friend on Skype the other night (big 30 year old like me), it hit me. Can any of us still do an awesome ‘monkey face’, deliver the best bokey, or do any of the antics we regularly did in primary school for amusement?
I don’t know about you, but there were certain things you had to be able to do in primary school. When I think about them, I remember how much fun they used to be. At the same time, I’m sad because I can’t do some of them anymore. It’s like for some, you needed special super powers, and as soon as you passed your childhood years into Form Two, and became too cool to contort your face, you lost them. Dammit!
So I thought, it’s never too late to try again (cue Gloria Estefan’s “If I could Reach”). So let’s have some fun. This is a challenge! I’m going to list a few antics, and as you read, try them. I’m sure there are a few things on this list that you can’t do anymore, and wish you could.
Pull in my nostrils
Remember when you’d inhale deeply so the sides of your nostrils stuck to the centre of your nose? I use to do this on the regular, and it was a source of great amusement for my friends and I. Don’t ask me why, because now I can’t see what was so funny about it. However, now that I can’t do it, I feel as if I’m less of a human being (ok, I’m being melodramatic). Seriously though, I tried it while writing and I swear… getting one side to suck in was easy, but I looked like I was getting a heart attack, trying to get the other one to suck in too. Like how hard can it be to pull in your nostrils? Oh… and talk ‘nasal’ with it. Try it. Can you still do it?
Cokey-eye
I coulda never do this. But I know some pretty good cokey-eyers, including my six-year-old niece who’s a pro at it. I use the same line on her that adults used on us back then. If you do a cokey eye too long, yuh eyes will stay like dat eh (no disrespect to the cokey eye community)! Unfortunately, she doesn’t take the chain up.
Make a fish mouth
This is another one, where I don’t know why we did it, but we did it well. I can still pucker my lips, suck in my cheeks and get my fish mouth on. Does it look as cute or funny as it did when I was eight years old? Hell yes. Ok. Maybe not.
Look like Spock
Ok. So some of you may look at me like I’m weird or something, but the rest of you know how accomplished you felt when you put your hands on your ears, clamped down, and when you released, voila… your ear lobes were stuck to the side of your face. That was a good time to feel really superior to other kids, because they couldn’t do it, and secondly because you looked like Spock from Star Trek, who was definitely an advanced being.
Some people took it a bit further, and did the Vulcan salute (holding your hand up with your middle and ring fingers apart), and when “Little Rascals” came out, some even spent hours trying to wiggle their ears like Alfalfa.
Roll yuh neck and yuh hand at the same time
Primary school girls were famous for this, as were secondary school girls. When someone got you vex, and I mean vex, that was the time to pull the roll yuh head and hand move to let them know that you were serious, you were Michael Jackson bad, and you were not to be messed with. And primary school girls didn’t learn it by sneaking peeks at “Martin’ and mimicking Shanaynay. No, they went home on evenings, and before or after doing their homework, they would get in front of the mirror and practise until they had it down pat.
Meggie
Since I believe in the school of psychology that calls for giving people a chance to actually accomplish a feat, I’m throwing in the meggie here. Firstly, it is the icon of our childhood, and, secondly, because everybody should still be able to do that. If yuh can’t, hmm. No comment.
Flipping your eyelids
This was so gross, but people used to real do this too. The older folks used to say not to do it, because a fly would land on your eyelid and it would stick so. Did we listen? No.
Today, the thought of flipping my eyelids (and I actually started to try while writing, then stopped) makes me think, “Damn, I can’t do this. I’ll mess up my eye”. So, why as youngsters did we feel the need to mess with our eyelids?
That about wraps up some of the ‘special’ things we did in primary school. How many of them are you still able to do? And do you have any to add to the list?

fishmouthWhen I resorted to ‘making monkey face’ at a friend on Skype the other night (big 30 year old like me), it hit me. Can any of us still do an awesome ‘monkey face’, deliver the best bokey, rub our head and belly at the same time, or do any of the antics we regularly did in primary school for amusement? 

I don’t know about you, but there were certain things you had to be able to do in primary school. When I think about them, I remember how much fun they used to be. At the same time, I’m sad because I can’t do some of them anymore. It’s like for some, you needed special super powers, and as soon as you passed your childhood years into Form Two, and became too cool to contort your face, you lost them. Dammit!

So I thought, it’s never too late to try again (cue Gloria Estefan’s “If I could Reach”). So let’s have some fun. This is a challenge! I’m going to list a few antics, and as you read, try them. I’m sure there are a few things on this list that you can’t do anymore, and wish you could.

 

Pull in my nostrils 

Remember when you’d inhale deeply so the sides of your nostrils stuck to the centre of your nose? I use to do this on the regular, and it was a source of great amusement for my friends and I. Don’t ask me why, because now I can’t see what was so funny about it. However, now that I can’t do it, I feel as if I’m less of a human being (ok, I’m being melodramatic). Seriously though, I tried it while writing and I swear… getting one side to suck in was easy, but I looked like I was getting a heart attack, trying to get the other one to suck in too. Like how hard can it be to pull in your nostrils? Oh… and talk ‘nasal’ with it. Try it. Can you still do it?

 

Cokey-eye

I coulda never do this. But I know some pretty good cokey-eyers, including my six-year-old niece who’s a pro at it. I use the same line on her that adults used on us back then. If you do a cokey eye too long, yuh eyes will stay like dat eh (no disrespect to the cokey eye community)! Unfortunately, she doesn’t take the chain up.

 

Make a fish mouth 

This is another one, where I don’t know why we did it, but we did it well. I can still pucker my lips, suck in my cheeks and get my fish mouth on. Does it look as cute or funny as it did when I was eight years old? Hell yes. Ok. Maybe not.

 

Look like Spock

Ok. Some of you may look at me like I’m weird or something, but the rest of you know how accomplished you felt when you put your hands on your ears, clamped down, and when you released, voila… your ear lobes were stuck to the side of your face. That was a good time to feel really superior to other kids, because they couldn’t do it, and secondly because you looked like Spock from Star Trek, who was definitely an advanced being. 
Some people took it a bit further, and did the Vulcan salute (holding your hand up with your middle and ring fingers apart), and when “Little Rascals” came out, some even spent hours trying to wiggle their ears like Alfalfa. 

 

Roll yuh neck and yuh hand at the same time

Primary school girls were famous for this, as were secondary school girls. When someone got you vex, and I mean vex, that was the time to pull the roll yuh head and hand move to let them know that you were serious, you were Michael Jackson bad, and you were not to be messed with. And primary school girls didn’t learn it by sneaking peeks at “Martin’ and mimicking Shanaynay. No, they went home on evenings, and before or after doing their homework, they would get in front of the mirror and practise until they had it down pat.

 

Meggie

Since I believe in the school of psychology that calls for giving people a chance to actually accomplish a feat, I’m throwing in the meggie here. Firstly, it is the icon of our childhood, and, secondly, because everybody should still be able to do that. If yuh can’t, hmm. No comment.

 

Flipping your eyelids inside out 

This was so gross, but people used to real do this too. The older folks used to say not to do it, because a fly would land on your eyelid and it would stay like ‘jes so’. Did we listen? No. 

Today, the thought of flipping my eyelids (and I actually started to try while writing, then stopped) makes me think, “Damn, I can’t do this. I’ll mess up my eye”. So, why as youngsters did we feel the need to mess with our eyelids? 

That about wraps up some of the ‘special’ things we did in primary school. How many of them are you still able to do? And do you have any to add to the list?

 

Check out the rest of this week’s issue (04/04/11; Issue 51):

Look out for a new issue of Outlish.com every Monday.

About Karel Mc Intosh
Karel Mc Intosh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Outlish Magazine. She's also the Lead Communications Trainer at Livewired Group, where she conducts workshops in business writing, social media, and other communications areas. A real online junkie, when she isn't surfing the Internet, she's thinking about surfing the Internet. Find out more about her here or tweet her @outlishmagazine.

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  • TS
    Posted at 14:04h, 04 April Reply

    LOL… i can still do the fish mouth thing, plus take it a step further and twist my lips so that my top lip goes to one side and my bottom lip goes to the other. What about those crazy things we used to make with rubber bands? Like the letter “V”, “man-in-a-jockey-shorts”, “lady-in-a-bikini”…I know its not body tricks but it was cool!

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