If you ever stacked cups in gym class, blame my dad

February 12, 2025 11:19 AM

[S]omewhere between five and eight percent of US adults between the ages of 22 and 35 share the same core memory—and in the ensuing years have asked themselves, their friends, or social media the same question: Why did credentialed educational professionals make us do this ludicrous activity in gym class? I am, perhaps, the person best suited on the planet to answer this question. Because the answer...is my dad.
posted by gottabefunky (43 comments total)

I was just getting ready to post this!
posted by box at 11:35 AM on February 12 [1 favorite]

Speaking as someone who is 39, I have never heard of this and it seems wild. In general, it feels like kids are doing such an incredible variety of weird stuff in "gym" class these days. When I was a kid it felt like they were really phoning it in. Like, "you ninnies know the rules of volleyball, right? OK go play some volleyball." Rinse and repeat with basketball, kickball, soccer, handball, field hockey, and flag football. At no point do I remember being taught rules or technique. Sometimes they'd make us run for a long time. They almost never let us play baseball after about second grade, presumably because they rightly assumed we'd beat the crap out of each other with the bats. Eventually I opted into a dance team, and then weightlifting, both largely because I wanted to stay indoors out of the sun.

My oldest is at a pretty tony private school so I'm not surprised she's playing badminton and pogo sticking and juggling and such. Her school owns a huge fleet of unicycles but she recently discovered they are in poor repair and no longer used, a grave disappointment to her mother as I was very much looking forward to seeing my firstborn attempt to juggle on a unicycle like a party clown. But even my middle kid, who's in our neighborhood public school, is playing sports and games I've never even heard of. It seems like a lot more fun than my childhood "whaddya mean you don't know how to play football? well, you'll pick it up, good luck. see ya in 45 minutes" PE experiences.

I don't know if any of my kids have done cup stacking. I'd bet they have, though.
posted by potrzebie at 11:39 AM on February 12 [8 favorites]

I feel like, if some of my friends and I had had this in PE class, we might have gone on to make fortunes at three-card monte. Woulda beaten the fuck out of square dancing, tell you what.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:42 AM on February 12 [8 favorites]

you were lucky if square dancing was confined to PE, my elementary school had it in music class which meant you did it year round kindergarten through 4th grade.
posted by Ferreous at 11:51 AM on February 12 [6 favorites]

That was a really great read! Thanks for posting!
posted by Ishbadiddle at 11:53 AM on February 12 [2 favorites]

I kind of OD's by the time TFA was getting into the international competitions aspect.

I never heard of this, and it does sound weird AF. But that video of the kid doing the routine in 5s is pretty amazing.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:06 PM on February 12

This is great, thanks for posting! I had heard of this and was just a little to old to have participated but I knew people who did. Wonderful story!
posted by omegajuice at 12:14 PM on February 12

I'm just outside the age range here. Gym teachers at my school totally would have done this. They were forever going to conferences and coming back having discovered made up sports (basketball took off after all, so I guess gym teachers are forever hopeful). We also had to run a triathlon, believe it or not.
posted by hoyland at 12:19 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

That was a really good piece.

My kids are in that demographic, and we had several sets of Speed Stackers (including the green backpack, covered in logos). I will have to send them this link!

(Also, of course: MetaFilter: I know this whole endeavor is silly, that it's worthy of your slight mockery and general patina of confusion. )
posted by wenestvedt at 12:37 PM on February 12 [10 favorites]

At no point do I remember being taught rules or technique.

We were given written tests on the rules for the various sports we had to know. I nearly failed grade eight because I did so badly on those tests. (In fairness to my teacher, that was more because I refused to spend one second studying for gym.)

This sounds pretty fun in contrast.

This is the kind of cup stuff I remember doing as a teen, though not in gym. It was more of a summer camp and/or boredom thing.
posted by joannemerriam at 12:38 PM on February 12 [6 favorites]

I mean, it's better than being forced to play dodgeball with ancient, cracked, rotten, hard and flat volleyballs, which was what my sadistic Junior High PE teacher liked to do. It was exciting because some of the kids had been hit by puberty early, and others had not, which meant the participants varied greatly and unfairly in size and strength.
posted by surlyben at 12:48 PM on February 12 [3 favorites]

I'm too old for this (Generation Earth Ball), but some of my friends' kids were really into it for, like, half of a summer or something. I don't think the people who taught them were as into it as the guy in the article.

I can totally see why it's a compelling gym class activity, and it's neat to hear the story.
posted by box at 12:57 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

joannemerriam, when did you learn that cup rhythm?

Because i think i heard it from Artis the Spoonman long ago as something he learned while collecting juggles and string games as a merchant seaman, and Artis taught all sorts of people, but I’ve never found a known beginning to summer camp/youth group occasions.
posted by clew at 12:58 PM on February 12

I’m too old to have experienced this in PE but this is an absolutely delightful story.
posted by PussKillian at 1:05 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

I’d never heard of this (being too old and I’m not sure if it was a thing in Ireland anyway), but I think no matter what the activity is, it’s always fun to watch someone who is the absolute best on earth at their chosen activity do their thing, so I definitely enjoyed seeing what folks are capable of in terms of speed stacking!
posted by TwoWordReview at 1:13 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

From the next to last picture in the linked article it's clear that the Fox family is, in and of itself, a nested stack of cups!
posted by jamjam at 1:18 PM on February 12 [8 favorites]

I did the same cup-rhythm thing as joannemerriam in the Girl Scouts in the mid 90s.

Once the Girl Scouts get their hands on a cool song or clapping game, the whole USA finds out about it eventually :) The original girl internet
posted by potrzebie at 1:20 PM on February 12 [13 favorites]

Wind sprints and full-contact rugby or swimming or rope-climbing or weights or boxing was PE in my day.
Plus running long 45m circuits around several city blocks (so the teacher could read the paper & have a cup of tea in the staff-room and then jump on a bike and make sure no one was taking short-cuts).
Fittest I've ever been, even though it felt like the PE teacher was super-sadistic at the time (I had acknowledged biggest sadist three years in a row at high-school, it was a relief to have one that did something like tennis or volleyball for variety).
posted by phigmov at 1:25 PM on February 12

I secretly loved folk dancing in middle school. There. I said it. Loved gymnastics, but of course we only had like a week of it per semester.

Was proud of winning the Presidental Fitness Medal until the girly girls called girls who did well cows and dykes. Hated the horrendous bruises from dodge ball. Ditto the 'accidental' misses with a baseball/softball. Hated the bullshit associated with picking teams. Hated having to be down on dirty floors with silverfish and occasional cockroaches. Hated being dismissed late, so there was no time to shower. Hated girls laughing in the changing room at other girls whose boobs were too big or too small. Hated having to take a note from home or otherwise 'prove' you were on your period-and just cramps didn't count. Hated having to sit to one side, so you were sitting view of everyone, and all the asshole boys would tease about being on the rag. Hated the asshole coach that made the girls participate anyway, because it 'wasn't that big a deal."

Amazing how they took an active outdoorsy tomboy and made her someone that hated sports. Stacking cups would have been great.
posted by BlueHorse at 1:30 PM on February 12 [12 favorites]

My daughter just turned 20 yesterday and her school was really into this when she was in 4th grade or so (our town is usually a few years behind trends even in the internet age). And we got into it right along with them; had a few sets of cups including miniatures, carrying cases, and even the timing Matt’s. Of course I had to share this with her (she’s a sophomore in college now) and she got a kick out of it. If you want to learn more, check out the Speed Stacks website!
posted by TedW at 1:42 PM on February 12 [3 favorites]

My PE time was before this, but PE was just games (the parachute was probably our silliest game). I think we did dancing one day a year and gymnastics one day a year. We never just ran, lifted weights, or did any of the presidents' physical fitness testing, never reviewed any rules for 'real' sports, and never took any paper tests. PE like that lasted until 6th grade, then you were in PE (the main activity was walking in a circle while kids smoked - I'm not exactly joking) or athletics.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:51 PM on February 12

I have vivid memories of my younger cousin being extra double into this, and she stacked cups for the family at Christmas that one year, and then she never brought it up again. Might have been Grandpas "can she do that and pour beer at the same time?" Watching her do that speed stacking was one of the first times I felt old and out of touch.

The entire article was worth it if only for this bit: There were rugby fans from New Zealand (riffing off their national team, they called themselves the "All Stacks")
posted by Sphinx at 1:52 PM on February 12 [3 favorites]

Do students still have to endure the public humiliation of being measured against common fitness metrics? Measuring how many pull-ups can you complete, able or not able to run a mile in 15 minutes, standing in front of your class of peers while someone uses calipers to measure how much body fat you have?

I would be thrilled to learn I was the last generation who had to endure that, and that kids just stack cups now.
posted by neuracnu at 1:57 PM on February 12 [4 favorites]

I secretly loved folk dancing in middle school.

I totally lucked out, ended up paired with an excellent dancer, we had a hoot! Got to take a day off for a folk dance conference at the local uni. And that was kinda puppy love. (The only good part of that phase of school, the rest was mostly misery. But getting a partial day independent study in the library in grade 8 was alright.)
posted by ovvl at 2:06 PM on February 12

I was just getting ready to post this!


I was just getting ready to post this!
posted by slogger at 2:23 PM on February 12

I was so very afraid, before I clicked to see more inside, that this was going to be about the parachute and DO NOT DENEGRATE THE PARACHUTE.

Thankfully, the sanctity of the parachute is maintained.
posted by cooker girl at 2:38 PM on February 12 [8 favorites]

How funny! My wife taught with Bob Fox when he became obsessed with and then popularized cup stacking. I found the sport sinister at the time—gamify the making of automatons! I guess I’ve mellowed with age or something, because I can’t spit up the same bile now.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:52 PM on February 12 [3 favorites]

My wife reports that Kit Fox was a good kid.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:53 PM on February 12 [7 favorites]

I was just getting ready to post this!


I was just getting ready to post this!

I was just getting ready to post this!

[somebody else is going to have to knock them down and restack them now]
posted by chavenet at 3:22 PM on February 12 [4 favorites]

My wife reports that Kit Fox was a good kid.

Honestly, if my last name was Fox, there’s no way I could resist naming my child Kit.
posted by fuzzy.little.sock at 3:25 PM on February 12 [10 favorites]

these links aren't too hard to find (one is at the bottom of this page already), but to pull them out so some local historians might appreciate, through the ages on metafilter:

Have you heard of Speed Stacking [2002]

Speed Stacking is Still a Thing [2014]
posted by glonous keming at 3:39 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

This was indeed a lovely read!

I was also slightly too old to do this in school, but was still young/online enough that when it became a Thing, I was very aware of it.

Wonder if I should find some sets for my elementary aged niblings.
posted by itesser at 3:54 PM on February 12

wow, this was great! The whole cup-stacking thing was very slightly after my time, but I was at least aware of its existence. There's a lot to be said about the value of teamwork and strength or resilience, like soccer or basketball, but there's also a lot to be said about athletic pursuits that are more about precision and competing with one's past self, like cup-stacking or bowling or weight-lifting. It's always fun to see people kind of pushing the limits of what can be done, even if it's something fairly trivial in the grand scheme of things. Hell, I look forward to GDQ weeks like so much else of the internet.
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:12 PM on February 12

When I was in elementary school there was a yo-yo craze (I was 'all-school champion'), and I think a few years before that it was hula hoops

Surely that must mean that there's naturally fertile ground for the growth and spread of crazes that involve repetitive but not too demanding physical activities of some sort in that age group in every generation.

And Fox père actually seems to have been aware of that!

I guess that's better than a whole generation being exploited by big business, but I think I'd prefer something much more kid originated and spontaneous, something that grows out kids' implicit understanding of the challenges that await them, perhaps.
posted by jamjam at 4:48 PM on February 12

My wife reports that Kit Fox was a good kid.

I worked with Kit at Runner’s World and can confirm that, along with being a really great writer, he is also a really great adult.
posted by heyitsgogi at 5:59 PM on February 12 [3 favorites]

What a delightful article and lovely portrait of a family! I'm a Millennial who doesn't remember this at all, though I do recognize Rachael's OH MY GOSH! and we had a glow poi fad in my high school that felt very spiritually similar.
posted by capricorn at 8:19 PM on February 12

> being forced to play dodgeball with ancient, cracked, rotten, hard and flat volleyballs

To start our second stack, I came in to post this.

I mean, cup stacking is kinda "dumb" from a certain perspective, but if every millisecond we spent playing dodgeball in grades K-9 were replaced with cup stacking, the world would be an immensely better place.
posted by flug at 8:47 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

What a nice story, and wow how crazy fast some kids can do this! Re: what a weird thing to do, I kinda agree, from TFA:

"Please understand: I know this whole endeavor is silly, that it's worthy of your slight mockery and general patina of confusion. But also understand that my dad created a culture in which German coaches passed strategic tips to Australian competitors. Where Japanese teenagers became pen pals with suburban Texans. Where nerves collapsed faster than the cups. Where kids and adults shrieked with joy over millisecond improvements. Where tension and drama and friendship mingled with the clattering cacophony of sliding and tapping plastic (there really is no sound like the one at these competitions)."
posted by fridgebuzz at 5:45 AM on February 13 [2 favorites]

, but if every millisecond we spent playing dodgeball in grades K-9 were replaced with cup stacking, the world would be an immensely better place.

We used to play a game called bombardment (I think?), which was like dodgeball but there was a neutral zone and it was demoralizing. So I totally agree, speed cups or whatever seems totally fine to me.
posted by Literaryhero at 6:29 AM on February 13 [3 favorites]

clew, I would have been learning it when I was a camp counsellor at the Junior Choir Camp in Berwick, Nova Scotia, around ... 1992 or '93? I'm not sure exactly, but definitely before 1995.

It wasn't the song in the Anna Kendrick video, though it might have been the same rhythm. I don't remember there being as much drumming on the table with your hands in between, and at the end of each iteration, you passed your cup to the next person down the table. We did it at night after the kids had fallen asleep, when a lot of the counselors went to the giant kitchen to play cards and drink, and there was somebody who taught us, but I don't remember who. A lot of the counselors were school teachers so that might have been how it came to us.
posted by joannemerriam at 8:45 AM on February 13 [2 favorites]

... looking forward to seeing my firstborn attempt to juggle on a unicycle like a party clown.

Don't knock it until you've tried it. It's one heck of a workout. I get the cup stacking thing (seriously...) but a unicycle is a lot more work than a bicycle, and the coordination necessary for riding one and juggling at the same time... Your body will appreciate that you did that when you get on in years.
posted by Snowflake at 7:15 AM on February 14 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Ok yeah, we were a lot slow getting this on the sidebar and in the Best Of blog, so yeah, we're not speedstackers :)
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:41 PM on February 14

Here's a More recent video with some history of this weird craze that I swear I found on MeFi a year ago.
posted by mmoncur at 3:07 AM on February 15