Did you (do you) suck in gym?

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Let's just say that 40 years later I still have nightmares involving gym class. It was a given that I was going to be terrible in sports but the worst experiences I remember is them teaching us square dancing and some odd torture called 'tumbling'.

I detest gym. Fortunately next year will be the last year I have required gym.

I hated gym. I wasn't any good at it. I was the slowest and clumsiest kid in my class. Once I didn't have to take gym anymore, I stopped taking it. The girls in my PE gym classes were also very nasty to me. I never did get why they had to teach gym in high school. Isn't that what extra circular sports teams are for?

Oh yeah. I can totally relate to the volleyball incident cited, seeing as how that happened to me as well back in 7th grade. Overall, junior high was a nightmare, maybe its the hormones but I do recall so many of the kids in that age group (12-14) as being just over-the-top mean vicious little sh***s. Gym class was the worst, like being thrown to the wolves. We got to pick what sport we wanted to play, (one per quarter of the school year), but it was usually either football/volleyball to choose from. Or basketball/badmitton. And of course the dreaded dodgeball. Oh how I hated that one, like that scene from "Freaks & Geeks" but with more violence and none of the humor. Needless to say I faked illness a lot on the days I had gym. Elementary school I recall playing a lot of kickball, which I was so-so at. Still got picked last for teams most of the time.

HS was better, we had more to choose from and actually had some interesting sports, such as archery, which I loved; tennis, karate, yoga--I guess some of the gym teachers at the HS I went to were a little more progressive than most, for which I was eternally grateful.

In elementry school, gym was my best subject. But then I was also the "pet" of the gym teacher. My mom says it was because I was allowed to be active in her class (I had severe ADHD and was like a little tornado) and she was able to see my good side. She also says that maybe she was just a saint. She was one of the few teachers who was actualy nice to me and when I socked another kid because I thought he was saying mean things about me, I didn't get in trouble. I think she knew what was going on. She even arranged for me to "assist" her in teaching younger kids as an excuse to get away from the toxic enviroment of the classroom. She knew of my special intrest in animals and even asked my parents if she could take me to the local zoo. They said yes and I had a blast. That lady was a saint.

My P.E. wasn't/isn't that bad. My fitness is somewhat above average, but I'm no star player. I'm less good at games with a lot of handwork (volleyball, basketball, etc.) but not too bad at them. I'm considered good but not great at soccer, football, and the like.

The only problem is that I get the feeling the P.E. teacher has no idea what he's doing. One day it'll be basketball, the next rope-climbing, then volleyball. It's as if he's got no curriculum or goals at all.

I sucked at it. I've never been interested in sports. It didn't help that no one ever explained the concept of sports to me, or showed me how to play the games or told me what the rules were. They just made fun of me because I didn't know how to play volleyball or baseball or whatever it was. I was unable to hit the ball with a bat. I'd be on some base and they would start yelling at me to run to the next one, but I didn't know which the next one was, so I'd run in the wrong direction, and the taunting and laughing would start. I was the last to be picked for sides or teams, and whichever side got stuck with me was vocal in their disapproval.

In high school, I never took a gym class for those reasons. I mentioned this in another post, but you probably haven't read it, so I hope you don't mind if I tell it again - it's relevant to the topic. The PhysEd teacher in high school was a stereotypical jock, who took great pleasure in making an example of boys who weren't good at sports. He made one poor kid stand up by the wall while the other boys threw medicine balls at his head. They broke his glasses and gave him a concussion. I could have been that kid, but I wasn't going to put myself through that for anyone or anything.

As mentioned in another post, this was in a small town, population less than 2000. If it was that bad there, I can't imagine what a lousy time I might have had if I'd grown up in a city!

I always hated PE. PE teachers never actually look at what's going on, so kids can be all kinds of cruel, and the teacher never sees it.

One thing that drove me nuts is that they never seemed to actually tell us how to do anything. We were expected to just know.

This isn't an actual PE story, but similar. Our 4th grade class was being rewarded for something, and the "reward" was that we got to miss science class and go outside to play kickball.



Can you believe it?
What the hell kind of reward is that?

Anyway, I kicked the ball, fairly far, and went running around to the different bases. No one had ever taught me how to play kickball at any point in my life, but I observed, and I was pretty sure I was doing the right thing. Well, apparently what I did was unforgivable, and I was despised for the rest of the year by a girl named Noel, for making our team lose. To this day, I have no idea what I did wrong, because no one would tell me.

That was pretty much my experience with every sport. At no time will anyone ever explain the rules to you, but they'll treat you like a jerk if you ask, and just roll their eyes, saying, "What? How can you not know how to play ----?"

I could not handle gym class for various reasons related to Asperger's, so I got an accommodation that exempted me from taking the course throughout all of high school.

If by "gym", you mean "PE", then yes, I'm crap at PE and I hate it.

No, not in any way, gym is the reason why I stayed in High School, I used to be the best climber in class, I used to climb the ropes in the gymnasium at times as well as doing interval training.

We just played football (soccer) and sometimes ran laps. Well, I say "we" but I rarely participated. While the rest of the class were on the field tiring themselves out and working up a sweat, I and a few others were lieing on the grass, looking at clouds.

Until the teacher noticed us and made us run 5 laps, which we didn't do of course. We ran around the corner and then sat down for a bit.

For grades K-8, I was the fat kid and really sucked at PE.
Most of the my now-former-and thank-goodness-don't-remember-me-classmates,
{in grades 5-8} were big fans of the hip-hop genre of music
and used the conventions of hip-hop to pick on me in PE class.

In High School, no one had to take PE class
because there was a gym that was only
used as rehearsal space for my high school's
Christmas pageant. There was no, until 2008 post-graduation, a PE teacher.

Speaking of grades K-8, I am due for an invitation
for a K-5 reunion in 2011, if there is one. {I'm praying there isn't!}

YES. Organized sports were the death of me. The sweating, the constant interaction, everything happening so quickly...it was just too much for me to process.

In grade 4, I remember having an intense fear of dodgeball as I always got hit hard by the ball: calling it the "100% sure to be injured game".

In high school, gym was made an optional credit for me as the teachers knew that I had issues with it in the past. I decided to try it anyway...and ended up in a rather nasty verbal fight with my gym teacher. She thought I wasn't trying hard enough with the team sports...but I was trying, there was just too much for me to process and I was overwhelmed.
This after she attended a session on Aspergers.

Oy, that brings it all back.

Did I? well...

First gym class where there was locker room and showers, I vanished the first day, the second I came late after the room emptied, grasdually found coping mechanisms.

No upper body strength. Forget rope climbing and pushups and pullups

Jumping Jacks are stupid and embarrassing and require coordination I lack.

Enjoyed shooting a basketball in an empty court, Frisbie but I won't run after it. Soccer was not too bad - a bit more solitude is possible - but as a team player I am not.

A bicycle and a reasonly underpopulated road - great.

But I do't do sport, don't watch sport, and nobody but gym teachers ever wanted me to.

I can still feel that horrible feeling of knowing that P.E./gym class was soon. I could not understand why everyone seemed so excited about it. To me it was confusing. The concept of group play/sport has always been a challenge for me. What am I supposed to do? Run? Stop? Wait for a signal that I don't understand? What? HELP!! ! That was gym class for me. At least in kickball I could kick the ball. But when it came to basketball---UGH!! ! I honestly had great difficulty in making a simple layup. I can not to this day coordinate the jump with the shot. I would have to stop in place, then jump, then try to make the basket---very awkward. In baseball I was quite bad at batting. Once in gym class when we played baseball outside on the old high school field, I nailed a line drive---straight into the pitcher's privates. He fell down moaning in agony. He was lying on the ball. I ran around the bases while the others ran up to him. Well, that was in the late 1970s. And to this day, he has no children. I have often wondered if I permanently hurt him that day.

Thinking back on sports in gym class, I think it is that too much is going on around us that contributes to making us with autism not so good at it. It can be very overwhelming with the noise, the bright gym lights, the whistles, all the running to our left and right, watching out for the flying ball, etc. When you add this to our coordination awkwardness, well, you have a gym class nightmare for us.

One sport I was good at was bowling. Bowling was good for me because I didn't have to worry about someone stealing the ball away from me. There was no time restraint for rolling the ball---roll it when you are ready. And, it is definitely more solitary. Even though I bowled on leagues growing up, I was still able to be in my own little world on the lanes. Typical etiquette on the lane is that we take turns. When one is on the lane, other bowlers on adjoining lanes wait. So, there isn't all the overwhelming action going on beside us like in contact sports.