Yoga, hip-hop ... this is P.E.?

In middle school, Jacob Haren thought physical education was short on variety and big on boredom. Now, Jacob is a high school freshman at a campus that's embraced "new P.E." In addition to team sports, students learn yoga, choreography, Pilates, and synchronized swimming. They even take part in a mini-triathlon in order to pass the class.

"It's a lot better than having to just run around the field. It makes it more exciting," says Jacob while taking a break from tinikling, an energetic Filipino folk dance that blends the basics of jumping rope with rhythm and fancy footwork.

Despite a decade of advocacy by supporters of more variety and less competition in physical education, Jacob's experience isn't typical in American public schools. In fact, physical education as a whole seems to be getting less emphasis across the country.

At stake, teachers say, is a generation of children whose P.E. classes will teach them either to love or hate exercise. And as obesity rates skyrocket among kids, a commitment to fitness may be more important than ever.

In the old days, "unless you were a really good athlete, you didn't like P.E.," says Holly Guntermann, an award-winning physical education teacher. Now, the goal is to turn kids on to physical activity "so they'll be able to continue and do it as an adult."

At Ms. Guntermann's school for Grades 1 through 8 in the southern California mountain town of Idyllwild, plenty of new P.E. concepts are at work: There's less emphasis on team sports and more on keeping kids moving. Guntermann never wants to see students waiting to bat in softball or standing motionless in the outfield – even the perennial children's game "Duck, Duck, Goose" is verboten because only two players get to run around at any one time.

"Everything is done in small groups. If you're going to play a soccer game, it's three on three in a very small field, so everybody's involved," she says. "It's more of an individual physical education now than physical education for the masses."

Here at Westview High School in Poway, an upscale suburb north of San Diego, new P.E.'s focus on variety is on display. Students like Jacob rotate through four types of activities each week, instead of the traditional approach of spending six weeks on a single sport. "If you don't like it, you can move on," Jacob says.

And one day a week is spent in a classroom learning about topics like nutrition, fitness, and exercise safety.

During a 90-minute class on a sunny May morning, freshmen students took part in tinikling, line dancing, and aerobics. They choreographed dance routines to hip-hop music and practiced synchronized swim routines. Those who play on the school's athletic teams favored simplicity – jumping rope.

At the end of the semester, all the students will run 1.5 miles, swim six laps in the 25-yard pool, and bike three miles.

"Kids aren't getting bored. They're staying fresh and being exposed to a lot of different things," says physical education teacher Paige Metz, whose program was honored as the best in California by a state association of P.E. and health teachers in 2005. The more activities the students learn, Ms. Metz says, "the more likely they are to find something that they like and are willing to do throughout life."

It helps, of course, that Westview High is in a wealthy school district that can afford a giant pool, extra equipment, and proper teacher training. But Metz says the "bells and whistles" aren't mandatory to make physical education work. Without them, "you can still do a program that stresses health and fitness."

The key is making sure students have plenty of activities to take part in, says Charlene Burgeson, executive director of the National Association for Sport & Physical Education (NASPE). "It's a turn-off when there's a one-size-fits-all approach and when there's very limited variety."

Organizations like Ms. Burgeson's enthusiastically support new P.E., and there doesn't appear to be any vocal opposition outside of critics who think schools are becoming a bit too wimpy. But Ms. Metz estimates that significantly fewer than half of schools are on board.

Educators say a variety of factors are to blame for the slow pace of reform: an intense focus on academic testing, lack of teacher training, financial woes, and the lure of tradition.

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