PE - did it promote a life long love of sport or was it ritual torture?

[LuckyMum96]

Just that really, for me it was mixed - too much PE was focussed on the school teams though and not enough on general exercise and activity

Ritual torture, for the most part. I was born in the early 60s. Some of our PE teachers had no interest in those who weren't naturally talented. They were bullies and ridiculed those who struggled. I left school feeling enormous relief that PE was out of my life. By my mid 50s the legacy of decades of a largely sedentary life were very obvious - I was overweight, my knees were struggling, I was getting easily breathless. Parkrun has changed all of that, to an extent. I wish, though, that I'd had more encouragement as a teenager to find some kind of exercise I really enjoyed.

We wore tracksuits for PE - or just black jogging bottoms and a t shirt/ sweatshirt. This was in the 90s. I didn't realise people were still wearing gym knickers 20-30 years ago!!

@Vello

We wore tracksuits for PE - or just black jogging bottoms and a t shirt/ sweatshirt. This was in the 90s. I didn't realise people were still wearing gym knickers 20-30 years ago!!

We had a t-shirt and shorts. Whatever the weather. If it snowed or if it was 25, kit was the same.

My gym knickers were a 90s experience @Vello. I started secondary school in 1991 and they were still pe uniform when I left the sixth form in 1998. I think the communal showers with the teacher observing ended around 1995 when they built a new sports building with shower cubicles.

Loathed it. Broke my arm on the rugby pitch once. My PE teachers were sadistic morons and I've hated all organised sport since.

I do remember one time when I said I forgot my kit and the teacher forced me to do it in my regular school clothes.

This was the day after rain though, so the field was slippery in normal school shoes (as with pretty much every girl my age, I wore ballet flats) so I ended up slipping and hurting my hip.

She let me out the lesson after that, but not after I made sure to glare her out with every ounce of my teenage angst.

To her credit though for every term sport I didn't like I normally had an excuse not to participate so she was probably fed up with me. Not my fault I found hockey and football dull. Was always up for a game of rounders in summer though!

Complete torture and racial bullying for me in the 70s/80s.

My DC have faired better but there's still too much emphasis on team sports. Neither of mine really fit in with the netball/rugby/football set though they both enjoy other sports.

I hated it and totally agree with others about the humiliation of showering naked in front of your peers and the staff. We had to be ticked off on a list to say we'd had a shower and that was intentionally at the opposite end of the changing rooms to where the towels were. We therefore had to queue, completely naked. I have no idea who dreamed it up, or why but that in itself caused me to hate PE.

Loved it except for cross country.

Torture. No promotion of confidence at all. Finally started to enjoy individual sports in my early 20s, but team sports still terrify me and I get so anxious even when playing with family and friends.

Also I started primary in mid 90s and we wore gym knickers until year 6!

Yeah I think I was lucky!

Loved it. Did GCSE PE, A-Level PE and a sports and exercise science degree. Still played netball twice a week prior to Covid.

Neither.
I was terrible at PE, pleased if I didn't come dead last / wasn't the weakest / least able.
I was bullied for everything else but not memorably for anything in PE (primary age).

In high schools we all had showers after PE. It was considered supremely gross if you didn't shower. Different culture!

I found non-school types of exercise I liked when a teenager & have done them ever since.

I am clumsy & have no aptitude for it. I hate getting cold & having to undress in front of people. I tried my hardest & was never good enough.

If PE had been less serious & more fun I might have enjoyed it. By fun, I mean more exercise to music, or other girls not tutting when I was forced to join their team. A couple of times a year we combined boys & girls PE for one massive game of rounders, & it was such a laugh, & the teachers chilled out & didn't shout. But as I was ritually humiliated by sarcastic teachers, & bitchy girls because I kept missing the ball, it was mostly miserable.

I've tried as an adult & still have no aptitude. I see the importance of exercise & I now do brisk walking & the odd youtube workout, alone.

I kept a positive attitude & my DCs did ok with PE, although no one is as clumsy as me so I think they had a head start.

Hated every single fucking second of it.

Gym skirts, aertex t shirts and gym knickers in whatever weather there was.
Coupled with being dyspraxic as hell and bot being allowed to wear glasses (I'm really longsighted). I was doomed from the get go.
And then there was the PE teacher. Who amongst other activities used to stand outside the girls changing rooms 'checking' we had showered properly, making us lift our skirts to see if we were wearing the regulation gym knickers and if we said we had our period (only allowed 1 every 4 weeks, regardless) would expect us to go into graphic detail about it. As in how heavy we were e.t.c.
That particular PE teacher is now serving a very long sentence for paedophilia. I'm not surprised in the slightest.

We had pleated skirts over our gym knickers, I was worried someone would see my sanitary towel, or that I'd leak. We had to be bare legged in all weathers, although never had to use the showers, thank god. And the teachers never came in the changing rooms.
I hated the favouritism for the girls who played on the sports teams, it was all about being good, not about being fit and healthy.
We occasionally played lacrosse, hated hockey, liked tennis and netball and I was reasonable at athletics. It did put me off team sports for life. I was in my 40s before I took up sport again, I play badminton now, swim and walk.

My PE education was just all wrong for me. I hated every minute of it and assumed I was rubbish at exercise. Turns out, I just hated the PE curriculum. My PE teachers now would NEVER believe that I’m the girl in the gym every day, kicking out high impact cardio for pure fun. Love it.

Awful. But although it took many years, I am now a regular runner despite the best efforts of my PE lessons to put me off. I even ran some of my old school cross country course last winter, and enjoyed it. My choice, my pace, decent kit that kept me warm enough, rather than a bloody mini skirt, nylon pants and shitty useless trainers. Makes all the difference.

Ds did yoga for PE last week - I was delighted. If we'd had a bit more variety at school maybe it wouldn't have taken 20 years for me to discover the joys of exercise.

PE skirts and knickers should be burned though. Horrible things.

Torture.
It seemed to be designed to put kids off sport for life!
As an adult I have discovered what exercise I do like and was truly shocked when I discovered I could do the c25k as I generally thought I couldn’t run thanks to school PE.
The teachers at my school favoured the sporty team sports type , humiliated the rest of us and actually laughed at a girl who was just recovering from cancer treatment and couldn’t run fast. Nasty lot! And that was supposedly (still is) the best school in the county.

There are so many comments about PE kit!!

Torture.
Took until I was 40 to realise I can participate and enjoy it even though I'm not very good. I'd been shamed into doing no sport for the previous 24 years.

Torture.

It took me 30 years to discover I preferred to exercise alone at home and watching shit movies. I now weigh less than I did at 18.

Twice weekly ritual humiliation and torture here. It was the start of a very bad relationship with my body and my health.