to think that an adult woman's physical fitness might have a lot to do with....

[HidingInTheHonsCupboard]

....what her periods were like as a teenager, and her gym teachers attitude towards them if they were awful?

Inspired by the thread where an employer asks whether a heavy period is a valid reason for being off work - and vivid recollections of regularly standing dizzy and humiliated in front of a class of giggling girls as the vile teacher exclaims loudly "you can't STILL be on your period, and if you are, light exercise will help --you faint again". shudder*

Hated school PE. I was good at all the alternative sports, including being a keen sailor, but I was short-sighted and timid.
I do remember being mocked and yelled at in swimming when small by a teacher, and I got angry. So I swam the entire length underwater very fast, got out unobserved and went back to the changing room.
Oblivious to the panic of the teacher when she couldn't see me, because she assumed I was as crap at swimming as at gymnastics and running and was looking in the wrong place. So there was a whole pool search going on for my poor, drowned corpse.

I don't think that physical fitness has anything to do with what you were like as a teenager. I loathed PE and Games at school with a passion-and PE teachers who never seemed to think it possible that they were not a fun subject.
I am very fit now. I run most days, I dance, cycle,ski (when I can afford it), swim, play tennis and lots of walking. (I still hate team games)
Forget about school games teachers and get fit now.

I am going to admit on here that I got to adulthood without being able to swim.

I started school swimming lessons in infants school in a building riddled with ants, no heating and instead of using the disgusting toilets, the girls used to openly urinate on the changing room floor. I had a skin condition which meant I hated taking off any clothes and the bitch of a swimming teacher would stand arms folded on the side of the pool, all the other dc lined up beside her shivering and turning blue while she barked 'we'll stand here all day until showy catches the hell on and manages a simple width without crying'.

I avoided swimming as much as possible and in the end point blank refused to do it.

DH taught me to swim at university. I cried. A lot. Mainly with fear.

I am fit though and exercise daily. Mainly because it makes me feel emotionally/mentally well.

I think it's an ingrained attitude amongst the types of women who become PE teachers. With more observations nowadays I thought it might be different for dd but it isn't and as I have a ds I think it's definitely a girls school/woman pe teacher thing too.

Me:
She was definitely a lesbian looking back, suits and lace up shoes and man's haircut
Huge legs in her short skirt during assembly
She ridiculed and humiliated
Same gym kit as described before
Very nasty to the girls with bad periods
Very nasty to anyone remotely pretty
Stood at the showers to make sure everyone went in naked (unless they had their period when they could go in with a towel). What a good look she had.
One girl who had a period every three weeks, she threatened to check because she thought she was lying.

I do think that nowadays there probably would have been an investigation.

dd:
The teacher is loud and shouts like a sergeant major - frightens dd
Has ignored medical advice
It isn't as bad and the school isn't sporty but dd still thinks it's humiliating and dreads the others giggling at her because she is every bit as hopeless at it as I was.

The culture of humiliating in academic subjects is not allowed so I don't understand why it s allowed in PE.

DD and I are both slim, fit, and very healthy. Many of the girls who were brilliant at pe whom I grew up with grew up fat, unfit and generally unhealthy so I really don't think there's a correlation between school sport and adult health and fitness.

As far as I am concerned pe at secondary schools does more harm than good and in a compulsory context should be restricted to 1 period per week. The day I left school I vowed that I would never be forced to catch, throw or hit a ball ever again. It was the one thing that made me hate my schooldays.

Disagree entirely. Why on earth should your experiences at school colour what you do now? You're an adult. I hated PE at school. I was at an all girls' school so we did very twee sports like aerobics (yuck) and - even worse - dance (shudder). I have horrible memories of forcing my pubescent body into a leotard and pretending to be a flower. At 15.

As an adult I can choose what I do. So I cycle and swim which is a lot more "me"

Because for some of us cumbria81 they were absolutely dire and I got so worried because of games afternoons that I developed migraine on Monday/Tuesdays - flashing lights, excrutiating pain, sickness - and looking back - that would have been in Y8 I am quite certain it was connected to the dread and fear of what would happen.

It certainly is a reason for some people.

I never developed a love of any kind of physical activity after being humiliated every time I tried, so I stopped trying,and never built up exercise as part of my daily life.

I joined a gym last year, every time I went I felt like I had in school, was expecting humilation (never got it!) but thought people's kindness was hidden disgust as my gym teachers words always felt more truthful. I went a few times trying to break out of that mindset but now my membership is up, I won't be rejoining, I worked out it had cost me roughly £24 per visit! whoops.

I now do Just Dance every evening with the children, we go on long walks, I do thegarden... my fitness is improving without fear of humiliation.

It IS an excuse, but its a valid one sometimes.

I hated pe at high school full stop. ds1 has recently started at a club held in
my old high schools pe hall ( he goes to a different high school) and I start to hyperventilate just walking in to the hall! I hate it. memories of that damn bleep test they used to make us do. why????

limitedperiodonly I am laughing my head off at using up catching luck! I know exactly what you mean.