P.E. Not So Bad But Leave Out The Negative Words

Phys Ed?  I loved it…have great memories of all the activities I did…okay well maybe not so much in gymnastics or dance or badminton…but all in all it was one of my favorite subjects!  This however doesn’t ring true for everyone.  Here’s an article I just read by Debra Viadero entitled “Researchers Say Gym-Class Humiliations Last A Lifetime”.

In her piece, she quotes a woman who to this day still physically feels the scars of anguish during her high school years of gym class.  It almost mimics PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) in many ways.  I don’t think we realize just how vivid and how impactful events like this can be to children during those years and just how those effects can linger throughout adulthood.

So how do we fix that?  Deal with it head on…you don’t suppress it and you don’t ignore it but you face it, deal with it, and become a better person because of it…here’s my story

My freshman year in high school I tried out for the JV volleyball team…not a big deal since I’d been playing since the 7th grade.  I was prepared, in shape, good on skills and assumed that I would be called into the coach’s office and told that I made the cut.  However my meeting was far from it…this coach told me that I wasn’t at the level I needed to be at (truthfully I was better than most of the girls she kept) and that I wasn’t making the cut this year.  My take…she has a personality conflict with me and that was that.  I didn’t kiss up to her like some of the other girls did and I wasn’t going to…but the kicker in all of this was that she told me “I didn’t have a heart”.  I know right!  Who tells a kid that especially since it was out of left field!  As sad and angry as I was, I took everything in stride, picked myself up and played on the intermediate girls team that year.  I completely dominated the games and actually felt bad to a certain extent because I wasn’t playing in a league with other girls of my same abilities.  In fact I really hurt an opponent in one game because she couldn’t get her hands up fast enough to block my kill shot.  I still wasn’t about to give up on my dream of continuing my pursuit of volleyball and the following year I tried out for the varsity team and made it!  I also ended up playing volleyball in college and had the time of my life and made some incredible lifelong friends in the process.

So my advice to anyone who felt as though they were humiliated, belittled, embarrassed, made fun of when they were young is to let go of the excuse, release themselves from that person’s control over all of these years, and to pick yourself up, get back on your horse.  The best and most fulfilling reward to is prove them wrong…and walk away with your head held high.

BTW…I love “Glee!”