i had a really terrible leg break in 5th grade and never had to run the mile after that! but before that i ran about an 8 minute mile, and was extremely flexible. even at my current weight i can reach over a foot past my toes! i really loved gym class until high school, when kids start to get mean about your size.
lucky for me my high school had a 'walking' class. and my teacher was a professional sumo wrestler that couldnt go on the walks with us, so as long as we all showed up at the same time we could just skip class.
I have vivid memories of being the last person on the track, by a longshot. I think my mile time was over 16 minutes... and I felt like I was going to die!
The barhang. OMG the barhang. I still can't do it! I was the only one in my class that couldn't, back then. It was humiliating.
When I was in high school I used to hate swimming days. Not because I didn't like to swim, but because I hated the hassle of having to do my hair afterwards. So almost every Wednesday my "mom" would write a letter saying that I couldn't swim because it was my TOM I'm sure my gym teacher must've known better but she never said anything.
I remember hating my gym teacher because she was a bi.... Gym went from being fun in elementary school to being a pain in the *** in middle school. I was practically tortured, I hated it. I was slow, I wasn't flexible, I was self-conscious, and I had begun developing stretch marks despite not being a single pound overweight.
I remember pushing myself to complete...the mile I think?...as fast as possible just so I wouldn't be the last person on the track. I pushed myself so hard that my breathing picked up to a ridiculous pace, my face was beat red, I was dripping sweat, and I had to go to the nurse's office. My Mom ended up having to pick me up because my heart rate took forever to come down.
I missed the days of playing under a multicolored nylon parachute during gym class...that was fun.
They didn't have the presidental fitness test when I was in elementary school , and in high school I was exempt from gym because I was in the band ! Yay ! BUT, we had the same gym teacher for all 8 years in elementary school and the male teacher always wanted us to "climb the rope". A rope hung from the rafters of the 3 story gym and everyone had to try to climb to the top. Extreme humilitation, I never could get over a couple of feet. There were boys(and girls) that would shimmy to the top and then drop down to the thin mats below. I can't believe that was even close to safe.
I almost didn't graduate high school because of gym. I hated it. I failed it a few times in grade school/jr high for not dressing. In high school there were times I didn't have to take it because of marching band, and times I could take it after school with the other band/choir people (I still almost never showed up), and that one quarter I joined my school's ROTC just so I wouldn't have to take gym, but my freshman year I had to take regular PE. It SUCKED. It wasn't the teachers either, it was just gym class. I can't believe that during those awkward formative years where just about everybody hates something about themselves (or just plain hates themselves) that they make us throw on shorts and thin shirts (or swimming suits if it's a swim day) and parade in front of the other students showcasing our athletic skills or lack thereof. There HAS to be a better way to keep physical activity a part of a teenager's life.
At any rate, I didn't hate gym because I wasn't athletic. While there were others who were more athletic and better than me, I was strong, built for short but intense bursts of power and speed. All through jr high I was the 3rd fastest sprinter in my class, I maxed out on the leg press my freshman year of high school when most of the GUYS couldn't press more than 175 or so. And I loved sports, played softball and soccer until my self-consciousness got the better of me. But people still laughed because, "here comes the big girl". I also developed way earlier than most of my classmates, and that made gym a nightmare, especially changing in front of other girls. I am STILL an expert at undressing and redressing without showing one inch of indecent skin. My worst gym class moment... Had to be one of the times I was dressed to take gym after school with my band friends. One of my friends (a guy) who had probably never seen me in shorts before since I never wore them said "Wow, you have HUGE legs! Like weight lifter legs!" I know he totally meant it as a compliment, he was really into strength and power lifting, but still... That was when I stopped going to those after school classes and almost failed high school. If I hadn't transferred schools the next year to a school with different PE requirements I would have been held back so I could obtain the correct number of PE credits to graduate. Whats crazy is, until he said that, I actually thought my legs were one of my best features (short tho they might be).
ETA: The only thing I liked about gym was when the coaches let us play tackle football. Everybody wants the big girl on their team for tackle football!
Last edited by Latchkey Princess; 05-07-2012 at 03:34 PM.
I did EVERYTHING in my power to get out of Gym class. I had a lot of sprained ankles and stuff.
But one of my most embarrassing stories is: we were playing kickball and I went to go kick the ball and totally missed it. I ended up falling and really hurting my shoulder. Plus it was in front of the guy I liked (who happened to be one of the most popular kids in the school.)
Last edited by imnotperfect24; 05-07-2012 at 04:43 PM.
I didn't have a traumatic experiences in high school. That was a piece of cake, you could take a semester of bowling or country line dancing. I was overweight but so were a lot of other students. However, my elementary experience was interesting. Mr. Andrews was a stereotypical gym teacher who used to count out for you during the fitness test with numbers followed by the phrase tubby tubby. So my two pull ups went " one tubby tubby, two tubby tubby. He also made derogatory comments to all the overweight kids. I remember one girl, Tina, got the worst of it. I guess he was under some misguided delusion that the teasing would make us lose weight when the opposite happened. Anyhow, when I was 15, I remember running into him and he was overweight and standing outside of McDonalds smoking.
Did anyone else hate volleyball? I could not for the life of me serve or whatever it is - I just didn't have that coordination. I got so nervous when it was my turn I used to mess up the "order". When we would all switch positions I would run away to some other spot so that it would never be my turn lol
I got in trouble for not finishing a mile in under 17 minutes. My teacher actually yelled at me and told me if I loved myself enough I wouldn't be shoveling food into my mouth and would excercise more. She didn't have a job for long after that :-)
Oh PE class. lol The bane of many a persons existence. Middle school was worse for me than H.S., especially since I was only in one semester of high school before going to home school.
In middle school, the mile and the pacers were the worst. Running from one side of the gym to the other to see how many times you can do it, all to really lousy music, and I had an undiagnosed heart condition so my heart would flip out every time I would run and I wouldn't know why. Plus we had a tough female couch who was quite hard on those of us who aren't very sporty.
High school was way easier. I had a guy teacher. I had already...developed... by then so things were...tough. I wasn't overweight, but I was a 32DD so running was distracting to the guys, so they would hoot and holler. My friend and I would always cheat...on everything physical. Instead of running four laps, we ran 3 and the teacher marked us for four, when we played volleyball my friend and I would sneak into the area behind the courts and play texas hold em. (it was really funny when the teacher found us, and joined the game). One time, I didn't want to even walk the mile, so my very adorable very large guy friend just carried me. Usually the teacher would just let us all hang out in the gym and my friends would play seven minutes in heaven in the heavy drapes lol.
Home school PE was...awful. My grandmother was my teacher so her idea for my pe class was....Dancing with the Oldie...oh Richard Simmons, you still haunt my dreams. lol
Did anyone else hate volleyball? I could not for the life of me serve or whatever it is - I just didn't have that coordination. I got so nervous when it was my turn I used to mess up the "order". When we would all switch positions I would run away to some other spot so that it would never be my turn lol
Me!! I had horrible upper body strength until a few months ago. I could not throw or serve anything for my life in high school! It was the soccer, kickball, etc. that I was good at.
Ironically my upper body is now stronger than my lower body
At first I was going to write mostly positive things...in high school I remember it was FUN on the days we got to do Tae Bo in gym class. Other days we'd walk a mile each way to the all-boys school down the road (in the gross gym shorts and baggy tshirts...fun...?) But my coach was nice and really encouraged us. My school didn't do the President's Fitness Test.
....but then I started to remember some of the not-so-fun times.
In middle school I remember a coach (might have been a substitute coach) fussing at me and calling me out in front of all the other students during volleyball. She was talking (so we weren't playing yet) and I had my arms crossed. So she was fussing at me; asking how I was going to play volleyball with my arms crossed.
I remember walking the track a lot in Elementary School...and I know the students were working towards a goal of some sort...but I can't remember what the goal was. Every time you went around the track you got a marker line drawn on your hand.
I'm sure my gym teacher must've known better but she never said anything.
