To be honest I have always been rubbish at sports. I wasn't always the last picked for teams as I was this height when I was 12 so I was often chosen as goalie in netball where I just stood in the way impressively. However, other than that it was never good. My PE teacher, Miss Tucker (who was lovely and a realist) once remarked that if only I could run as quickly on the tennis court as I did for the dinner queue I might have the makings of an athlete!
Out of the 5 of us siblings. The boys were quite sporty. Helen wasn't but 2 of her children are. But by the time it got to me there was nothing left in the gene pool for me and mine. It was a proud day in the Martin family when our children were put in the bottom set for PE at their High School. As Kieran remarked the bottom set was full of people who were too fat or too clever to be good at Sport. They seemed to spend their PE lessons being smart arses.
My school was far too small to have sets for PE. However by the fourth year (Yr10) we were allowed to choose which sport we did. The table tennis table was in a different room to the gym. So all the people who were too clever or too lazy to be good at sport (I can't really remember any fat girls and I admit I was lazy rather than clever) used to choose ping pong. Somebody would be lookout and we would simply sit round chatting for an hour or so unless Miss Tucker felt the need to look in on us.
Anyway, that is not to say that I don't do any exercise. I walk regularly and I go to Pilates once a week. I have done Pilates for several years and I think it keeps my stiff back moving. My Pilates teacher, Vicki, is lovely and has an excellent sense of humour. During Tuesday's class we were on the floor waving our legs around in some tortuous manner. Vicki said. "if you find this hard then you can lower your leg a little" I didn't need to be told twice and my raised leg was quickly a millimetre above the floor. Unfortunately Vicki was passing and said. "Choosing the lazy way,Frances?" and hoicked it higher again. Later in the class we were doing some complicated stretch during which I had entirely lost the plot. Vicki happened to be passing then. "Arm straight Frances! Ah your such a challenge to me!"
See nothing changes! She would get on well with Miss Tucker!
3 comments:
I do, of course, completely, empathise. As you say I am rubbish at sport, although I did fencing at college and i really enjoyed it and was reasonably ok at it too. Unlike any ball game where I was totally rubbish because of the eyes, or any sport that required speed I was ok at fencing. I was good at yoga before the back started causing problems - oh for the days when I could not only touch my toes, but could get my elbows on the floor. Brian, being sporty, does not really understand how rubbish one can be at sport and tends to ascribe it all to laziness, but I really do think that if I had been any good (I mean vaguely competent, not playing for the school) at anything in PE I would have tried harder and enjoyed it more
I have to thoroughly agree with Helen, anything that involved a ball was a dead loss, but I quite enjoyed some other sports....not running though I kind of wish I did enjoy it, it is so convenient.
My major issue with PE is the level of competitiveness that is tied to it. Many of my memories of PE were other students getting angry at me for failing at a critical moment. This would be particularly noticeable in sports like rounders/cricket where I had skulked to a point in the field where the ball never came, and failed when it actually did.
Still, the utter bile aimed at me for my physical incompetencies (some of which I can blame on asthma, although I'm not sure how hand eye co-ordination could be covered by that), rather put me off sport for a very long time.
Post a Comment