Physical Education lessons

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Thread resurrection. After two years it deserves it.

It was traumatic for me.

Aside from the whole "not an athletic bone in my body" issue. PE really got bad when puberty started and we were forced to take communal showers.

I was self-conscious about my body to one extent, but I was also curious about the body, so I understand now how I might have stared inappropriately at others in curiosity. That started a chain of jeers and harassment that left me emotionally scarred for much of my teenage and young adult life.

hate em

PE... urk!! !

You don't force people in wheelchairs to do cross country running, so why did my school keep me in PE which was mostly ball games despite my lack of depth perception. I was constantly ridiculed, always fought against getting a 5 (never got something better than a 4). Just because I am not able to react in time and to correctly estimate distances.

The only sport I ever did any good in was soccer. But aside from soccer... PE was hell. I only managed to injure myself or make everyone laugh at me for weeks. I skipped PE a lot as a child. In football they mixed genders and I always got flattened. Tennis, I sprained my wrist. Basketball, I tripped over my own laces a few times. The worst was when we had to attempt weight training, I nearly crushed my hand near the bench press. I didn't know what a bench press was until I was shipped off to the hospital. Even though I did well in soccer, I never passed, and I never talked or told anyone my plans once I would get a hold of that ball. I was never picked to play first, often the dregs the team. The fat kids got picked more than me. When I was manipulated to join a exersize club with my sister and her friends for the first two weeks (they were free), I hated every living second of it. That torture was only last spring.

I always just kind of stood there in PE. I couldn't do half of the exercises, as I wasn't actually shown how, then the teacher'd get all frustrated when I tried and did it entirely wrong, lol.

I was the kid in dodgeball that would not move out of the way when the ball came at her. I would just turn and let it hit me in the side or something where I thought it would just hurt less. That way, I could sit down the rest of P.E. and not have to worry about it. I always brought a book with me to read while the rest of the class failed.

45 years ago and seems like yesterday... Runty, uncoordinated and afraid of the ball--every ball. It took me much, much longer than anyone else to learn a particular skill. If I did manage to master it, we immediately were yanked to another sport and I never had any moment of triumph where I could savor doing something adequately. Except distance running, which I was ok at, but no thanks to Nazi PE coaches, just something I did on my own. So here I am at 60, still runty and uncoordinated, but also still running. It is my joy, all other life is just preparing to run. And most of the jocks of my youth are overweight, have had triple bypasses, and stuck reliving their glory days in the long past.

Am I the only one who loved PE?

I guess so

I echo many of the sentiments expressed in this thread. I, too, was one to be picked last for softball, I was afraid of climbing ropes and the like, was afraid of getting hit by the ball in ball games, I was clumsy and not particularly strong or agile. What I did enjoy in gym class, were the running trials; Cooper tests and the likes, which tested speed and stamina. I was better at sprinting short distances than lasting a lot of laps, though. At the school I attended in the last two years of primary school, physical education was very poor, it had been reduced to a weekly match of softball. In those days, I had the reputation of being a jinx for whatever team I ended up on. I kid you not when I say that - but for twice in two years - every team I was on would simply lose. I guess I set back the team because I was so unskilled, bad at batting and not good at calculating when would be a good time to run.

I'll also say that it's even worse to be bad at football in the Netherlands than it may be in other countries, particularly countries where foot ball isn't that popular. Here in the Netherlands, football is about the only sport that has credible Dutch representation in international sports. This is why about 80 percent of all boys in Dutch schools are actually in a (semi-professional) football club; those who do not enjoy football, like me, are kind of viewed as weird. It also means that, when I was in a particularly good humour in my last year of secondary school, and decided to just enjoy the football game we had to play then, I was unable to enjoy it, because almost everybody else had years of practice in football, and I simply didn't stand a chance against them. It was unfair.

I do find it a bit surprising that so many on the spectrum seem to be bad at PE or didn't enjoy it. Though I can recognise myself in the general geeky/nerdy nature that's common among us, I would not immediately have assumed that we're most of us clumsy, or physically inept. But perhaps those on the spectrum who WERE good at PE and are more athletic than the average, aren't the ones who regularly visit internet forums.

I liked Phys Ed but it was often laaaaaaaaaaaaaame. Seriously. Our gyms were woefully underequipped and didn't have very many cool things to do.

Baseball was laaaaaaaame. Soccer...super lame. They had a strange rule that the defencemen could not go past the center line of the field. So there me and another player were, standing in the back part of the field with the goalie, while all the action took place above the center line. LAAAAAAAAAAAAAME.

They had a cool game called "Snowball" which seemed to be a cross between soccer and 'american football' but had a few strange but entertaining rules.

I LOVED Floor hockey, but I hated field hockey. Field hockey sticks are heavy and unwieldy and the balls are a pain to get where you want them to go on grass. Especially if the field is lumpy.

Basketball is alright. I was actually not bad at it...if people ever bothered to pass to me.

Our Grade 2 PE teacher was actually a drama teacher. So that year we got to do very little PE. Just a bunch of lame boring drama crap. Like the "stuck in a box" thing. The invisible box.

In Grade 8 and 9 there were some lame dances we had to learn. The Hussle. The Tennessee Wigwalk. BUnch of other useless crap.

I also hated PE, because it was usually games. Games require assimilating too much information - the position of the ball, the position of the other players, your own position in relation to both of the above and to the goal/net, remembering the rules of the game, remembering strategies... I couldn't analyse my situation and determine an appropriate course of action fast enough. I can do things quickly or well, but not both.

Nowadays, I just go to the gym, and that suits me down to the ground. No throwing or catching of balls required, no teammates, and lack of coordination isn't really an issue.

Ye Gods! That actually sounds worse than having to play softball week after week.

Too sum it up in a sentence, I've attempted to be hit by a car to get out of PE.
So yeah.
PE is what I hate.
EMZ.

Then I'm sorry you still have a couple of years of PE classes left. Without exception, I always received a lowly 6.5 grade for PE (on a scale from 1 to 10), yet my average was still an 8.4... Recently, I've sometimes wondered how high my average would have been if it weren't for PE.

I was terrible at everything in PE except for things that required flexibility. I enjoyed showing off how flexible I was since it was the only thing I was actually better at than the other kids. I usually spent most of my time in PE hiding in the bleachers.

My freshman year of high school I was hit in the face with a soccer ball I only recently got over my soccer ball phobia thanks to that...