I think phys. ed. fizzled for me...permanently...the first time we played a team sport. Remember how the team captains, those gods and goddesses, would issue decrees from on high concerning who was invited to join their team and who was not? Thus would the pecking order be re-established and proclaimed publically. Oh, it might vary at the top from time to time: the more strategic of the captains would immediately choose Hercules Adonis instead of his best friend Bob. And the middle ground was a mishmash of uninspired picks who would contribute little to the team but at least wouldn't actively court defeat.
But then we'd inevitably get down to rock bottom. Two kids left, both of them paralyzed with embarrassment and fear, each fervently praying that he wouldn't be last one out.
I wasn't always the last kid chosen. I won't lie and say I was. In fact, one phys. ed. period in grade eleven I was the kid chosen first. By my best friend and team captain Craig, that was...and I rewarded him by going 3 for 4 with three runs batted in. The baseball accomplishment was just the icing on the cake, though, because quite often in my oh-so-scholastic, oh-so-unathletic life, I was that sad-ass specimen chosen last. And there are worse things, too, than being chosen last. Ever been assigned to a team because neither captain could accept having you even though there was no other choice? Mortifying doesn't even begin to describe it.
I hated phys. ed. I managed to pull down B's and even a couple of A's in it...and let me tell you that the A's were most emphatically of the "A for effort" sort. Other kids, the ones who could bench-press four of me, would coast through the class--it more often than not representing their one slam-dunk A--and wind up with a B or a C. I learned pretty quick to keep my marks private.
Gym was the place where I had to confront my worst fears. I couldn't sit out, much as I wanted to, because although I was weak, unco-ordinated, and about as flexible as your average iron bar, I wasn't actually handicapped. It just felt that way.
I still have vivid memories of trampolining. You had to do a somersault. Pretty simple thing to accomplish...Karen Cockburn, our silver medallist in Athens, could do one in a coma. So there goes little Kenny, and without further ado he's smashed his knee into his nose and provoked a blood-flood.
The next year, when it came time to do that particular exercise again, little Kenny mounted with much trepidation. One spotter who really should have known better...when little Kenny's on the apparatus, you better damn well pay attention...wandered away and little Kenny promptly sailed off the end. Nothing much hurt that time, at least externally. Inside, though...
Looking back and assessing my individual physical skills in public school, it wasn't all doom and gloom. My endurance was almost off the charts...there was a time I could do a 3 km run at a perfectly respectable pace and hardly break a sweat. And outside school, it wasn't at all uncommon for me to put in 40 or 50 km of cycling in a day. I turned out to be a halfway decent hitter in baseball, after much training and gnashing of teeth.
But my balance was iffy and my eye-hand co-ordination was practically non-existent.
Grade eleven, before I'd befriended Craig. There was a super-athletic badminton whiz named Chris who actually asked me to be his partner in doubles. You could have knocked me over with a shuttlecock.
Well, Chris picked me to challenge himself. Without ever saying as much to me, he made it clear that he would retrieve anything not fired directly at me (and even a few things that were). I felt terrible every time the both of us would miss the damn birdie, but he never put me down and he'd cheer me on those few times I managed to return a serve.
Anyway, I asked if I could use a tennis racquet instead of what I found to be an impossibly long badminton racquet. If I ever managed to thwock the shuttlecock, it nearly always hit on the handle. After what seemed like weeks of begging, the phys. ed. teacher relented and let me try a tennis racquet. We won every match that day, and a few of the points scored were mine.
Sorry, I got caught up in the memory riptide there for a second.
It's like I have physical dyslexia. I'm nearly incapable of making my arms and legs move in a fluid, controlled manner. I'll get so caught up in making my arms do whatever it is they're supposed to be doing that I will forget my feet. At dancing I am simply hopeless even now, and you should have seen it in high school...it was a regular laff riot.
I said all that to say this.
I've committed to an Aquafit class on Saturdays with Eva, to improve my flexibility and give myself a much-needed workout. Today was my first time.
The class takes place in the deep end of the pool. Wearing a float belt, you're supposed to follow the instructor as she jumping-jacks, scissors, and shadowboxes her way around the perimeter.
I got a workout, I'll say that. But I didn't get the workout the instructor prescribed and I sure as hell didn't get anything like the workout the rest of the (overwhelmingly female) Aquafitters got.
For one thing, I found it extremely difficult to stay in one place. We'd jog on the spot for 45 or 60 seconds, and I'd suddenly be six feet away from where I started. Whereas everyone else stayed rooted as if by magic, I'd drift off madly in all directions. I just hope everyone else was paying more attention to their own routine, because I felt like a cockroach on a wedding cake.
For another...and this sounds truly ludicrous, but I swear it's true...I'd often and repeatedly forget to breathe. Isn't that insane? Eva had to remind me three or four times...and those were just the times she saw. Fish out of water? I was a cow in water.
Still, I'm going to go back. Gotta get that "A for effort". But I don't think that in my case, "A" will ever stand for "athlete".
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