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Original poster

PE Memories

117 replies

amygarden · 27/05/2019 19:50

DD has confided that she is starting to hate sports because of her secondary PE lessons.

What are people's own memories or experiences - did PE inspire you to love sports and exercise or promote fear and loathing?

OP posts:
Frith2013 · 27/05/2019 19:57

I imaginr our PE teacher is out of prison by now.

NaughtToThreeSadOnions · 27/05/2019 20:03

@frith2013 did you go ti the same school as kit harrington and nigel slater??

Just i remember a user with a similar name did, and i'm curious about your comment

indigo13 · 27/05/2019 20:19

Crap. No memories of actual sporting activities just unflattering shorts, rushing in the changing rooms, hassle, mean teachers, feeling like a tosser if you weren't the best. The only competition girls cared about was for who had the smoothest legs 😩

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General education
User12563356 · 27/05/2019 20:20

I hated it so much. Would still hate it now, its just not me.

ShakeYourTailFeathers · 27/05/2019 20:21

Freezing my bollocks off in a tiny netball skirt in January. Being made to be Goal Keep just because i was tallest.

Longed to be Wing Attack so i could run about a bit and warm up...

User12563356 · 27/05/2019 20:21

Lol exactly what indigo said tbh!

ReganSomerset · 27/05/2019 20:23

Urgh. Worst lesson on the timetable. Just very embarrassing, hated the whole charade. And had a weird teacher who used to smack us all on the backside with an inflatable bat as we left the changing rooms.

TheInebriati · 27/05/2019 20:23

I loved sports, hated P.E. I was on the school hockey and athletics team.

Happilyacceptingcookies · 27/05/2019 20:26

Horrible memories. Doing aerobics to Moloko. Being in the special group that can't do a handstand or headstand. See through white t shirts and awkward bra or no bra age. My mind can't bear to recall swimming lessons.

NannyR · 27/05/2019 20:27

I hated it. The humiliation of being the last to be picked for teams week in week out and my experience of pe teachers (based on a sample of 4 or 5, so not tarring all pe teachers with the same brush) was that they were particularly mean. School pe didn't inspire me to enjoy exercise, if anything it out me off it.

Original poster
amygarden · 27/05/2019 20:28

Sadistic PE teachers and horrible kit seem to be a common issue.

I loved playing sports such as rounders, tennis, running outside of school but as soon as I was exposed to the over-competitive PE environment I hated it. Think this is what DD is struggling with at the moment.

OP posts:
lljkk · 27/05/2019 20:33

Actually it did inspire me. I used to lie (to coach) about running the full 4 laps. Got bored of that. If I had to run a mile 2x/week, I would run properly. Naturally I was dead last every time & everyone had to wait for me to finish to leave the field. But I was honest with myself (& proud of self, too), learnt not to care what they thought. A friend (who like most the girls had previously lied) was inspired to start running the full distance with me, too.

So I was lousy at all sport but I found my own standards to find my own satisfaction in exercise. Fitness has been an important part of my adult life & that decision to run the full distance for real was the start of being like that.

SallyWD · 27/05/2019 20:38

I absolutely hated it. I was useless at all sports. It was humiliating. I'd be very anxious about it each week and often forge letters from my mum to get out of it.

Jigglyguff · 27/05/2019 20:41

I hated PE the only good thing about it was when THE APPARATUS came out.

PE Memories
EggysMom · 27/05/2019 20:44

I hated PE. I was not a sporty person, did no sports in my spare time, I was an academic. I was also a goody-two-shoes which meant I didn't get or fake notes from my Mum to get out of PE, much as I hated it. I just kept my head down and got on with it.

The only time I enjoyed PE was when I was 15/16 and we could choose our activity. It was the era of Jane Fonda, and a group of us would do her aerobic workout. It was indoors, and it was solo - nobody cared how good I was, nobody was relying on me.

wevraver · 27/05/2019 20:45

I hated it.

Everything was competitive. Think of normal adults exercising: they don’t run to “win” the marathon or 10k. They don’t do cycle races to “win” the race. They don’t swim to swim faster than the lady in the next lane. They don’t lift weights to achieve a new world record. Very very little (outside of team sport) exercise we do as adults is competition based, and even those who play team sports seem to do it for the fitness, fun, social aspect and camaraderie more than the competition. We exercise to de-stress, feel fit and strong, for our mental health, to stay in shape and be healthy.

This isn’t the focus of school PE at all, it’s all about being the best and winning. That just isn’t realistic for the majority of us, and in fact puts most people off sport and exercise for many years, maybe even for life.

JellySlice · 27/05/2019 20:47

PE memories? Mostly humiliation.

isthatabloborwhat · 27/05/2019 20:48

I LOATHED PE in all its forms.

The teachers were sadists, the changing rooms were a bullies' paradise, we were forced to go outside for PE in the freezing cold and rain and wet, slippery mud and forced to stay indoors in a stinking gym whenever the weather was actually nice.

You never ever got picked for anything that you even faintly liked or were a little bit good at, and had to either stand there like a lemon and watch the teachers' pets got all the coaching and praise, or be stuck at the back of the field somewhere being goal defence (or some other stupid title), so whenever your team scored you were nowhere near the action, and when the other team scored it was your fault.

The only thing I was ever good at was the trampoline, and we did that about once a term, if that, and you'd be lucky to get two goes. The rest of the time you had to stand guard around the trampoline and step nimbly out of the way of your classmate when they fell off it

Stupid bloody ball games and stupid bloody bats.

And what in God's name is the point of a medicine ball anyway?

blameitonmyjuice · 27/05/2019 20:50

I am dyspraxic - I hated it , felt like a fucking clown in the circus . I used to end up with an upset stomach in class and shaking in the corridor , changing room etc . Didn’t help that I ended up being sexually assaulted too , on the walk up to the football fields (unsupervised , 100 of us ages 12-18 sent up there every Monday) . I was taken out of class at age 14 and haven’t really exercised since.

MyNameIsCharlesII · 27/05/2019 20:51

Yeah hated it too. The only thing I ever enjoyed was a few weeks in yr10/11 when we did aerobics. That was amazing. It was the competitive nature of most of the sports we did that put me off. I wasn’t any good so it was less embarrassing to pretend I wasn’t interested.

I’ve done no actual sport since I left school in 1995.

Frith2013 · 27/05/2019 20:51

@naughtbut yes, I did.

blameitonmyjuice · 27/05/2019 20:57

I remember we got different PE from the boys - they got football, rugby, hockey, climbing , American football, running, squash, athletics ...

Girls got dancing, chair dancing, gymnastics, aerobics , netball and volleyball.

Girls and boys were never allowed to do PE together - at all . Even sports day it was separated by sex .

SouthWestmom · 27/05/2019 21:00

Running through the showers naked in a line with towels above our head

m0therofdragons · 27/05/2019 21:00

Gym knickers with my name embroidered on them Envyput me off sport forever!

tectonicplates · 27/05/2019 21:01

Hated PE.

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