Pages

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

I hated gym class.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...


This may surprise you, but I hated gym class in high school. My main goal was to not break a single bead of sweat so that I didn't have to get a shower.

My freshman year of gym, I was the only freshman in my gym class. How awkward. I didn't know anyone. I still would've hated gym if I knew people.

During my senior year, I had gym first period. How horrible!!!!!! I rarely showered after gym because I rarely perspired. I did the bare minimum. I was the one that always wanted to be the goalie.

The thing was, I just didn't like sports at all. I was not competitive in the least. I wasn't a runner. I didn't play basketball or soccer or anything like that. And I just didn't care at all.

However, I did like my gym teacher. Mrs. Baker was really cool and was always nice to me, even though I clearly did not try my best. Now that I'm a teacher, I can imagine how frustrated she must have been to see me not give a flying you know what about my effort in her class. I know I  get frustrated when kids don't work to their full potential in my music class! And they're elementary kids!

Mrs. Baker never made me feel bad in gym. She never made me think I wasn't good at things or that I wasn't athletic. My hatred for gym had nothing to do with me thinking, "Oh I am just no good at this." It was simply that I didn't care.

It's sort of amazing how in high school, I had no interest in being active (accept for dancing in musicals), but now it is such a huge part of my life. It is my "me" time. When I workout in the morning, I figure shit out. It's the closest I can get to meditation as possible.

A couple years ago, I ran my first 5k. This was right before I started my blog, so I never really wrote about it before. The 5k was in my hometown, so a lot of locals were running it. I trained and had my mind set on running it in under 20 minutes. Well, I did it! I clocked in at 19:51 and I was so proud of myself!


I came in 3rd overall and I was the first woman. My parents came out to cheer me on and I was so happy I could make them proud. Even my Grandma, who is in her eighties, sat on a lawn chair and watched me race for the first time. It was a great day.


And guess who I saw at the end of the race? My gym teacher, Mrs. Baker!!!


I can't believe she got to see me accept my award for 1st woman and 3rd place overall.

As a teacher, I hope I can be more like Mrs. Baker. Luckily, most of my students love to sing, but some of them. don't. I hope when those students leave my room, they know they can sing, and maybe someday they will enjoy it, even if they don't enjoy it now. I don't want them to ever think they are not musical just because they don't particularly like music class.
Did you like gym class?
Tell me about a class you did not like even though you did like the teacher that taught it!

17 comments:

  1. I did not like gym either. However, my track and xc coach were the teachers, so they just made us change, and then we did "recreational walking" because we did sports after school. We could have participated if we wanted...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's interesting. Our athletes had to participate in gym.

      Delete
  2. I love this story! I love that Mrs. Baker was so kind to you in school and that she got to see you years later kicking butt at running!

    I took weightlifting in high school which I liked, but once a week we had to run a mile. I hated running so much and alwayssss complained to our teacher. One day he was like, "Kristina, some people really like the endorphins you get from running. What makes you really happy? That's what running does for some people." And I was like yadda yadda yeah right. Now I see the light and would LOVE if I could see my old teacher again and tell him I get it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is so funny! And now you are addicted to those endorphins!

      Delete
  3. I LOVE THIS STORY!! I can't imagine how proud you both must have been when you saw each other. Awesome!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I can definitely relate to this! I was not very athletic when I was in HS. I took dance, but any sports I did were more for the social aspect. Now I post about my running and my old track coach will comment about how great it is that I love running now.
    A sub 20 5k for your first race ever?! Amazing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not my first race ever, just my first 5k. :) And last...

      Delete
  5. Awww what a sweet story about your gym teacher seeing you win your race!

    It's amazing to me how many runners hated running/gym/sports as kids. That's what I love about the sport: it's so welcoming to late bloomers! I can really relate to what you said about trying to do the bare minimum so I wouldn't have to shower. God that was a pain in the butt. But the worst part was, they barely even gave us enough time to shower before the next class anyway! So annoying.

    I didn't mind gym otherwise, but I was self conscious about it because I'm a very uncoordinated person, which meant I wasn't good at pretty much anything we ever did in gym.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are right, we would barely get enough time! We had something called "the 8 minute bell". 8 minutes is not enough time for a teenager to get a shower hahaha!

      Delete
  6. Ooooh that was back when I didn't have big knee problems nor a pain in my ass haha. Oh too be healthy again...

    I can't believe you were suck a badass in high school!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I hated gym class too which is pretty funny considering. Did you guys have to take swimming? We did, and the girls always tried to get out of it, and like you I had it first period so trying to get ready in such a quick amount of time after was a major pain. After that one gym class I kept signing up for easy ones like bowling and ice skating. Then I kind of liked it because they were no-brainers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No we did not have to swim because we didn't have a pool at our school. We didn't have different activities we could sign up for- everyone did everything. Girls and boys were almost always split up, though. I totally would have signed up for bowling and stuff like that if we could have! Actually, I vaguely remember bowling in the gym!

      Delete
  8. I think I vaguely remember you talking about this before! How cool that Mrs. Baker was there for you...how funny that as adults we still call our old teachers Mr. and Mrs. lol! I can't break that habit.

    I used to fake my period to get out of gym. I'm not sure when I started hating it or why, but it makes me sad. How many girls feel like they have to give up athletics and hate gym!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's just such an awkward time in our lives... I think Mrs. Baker was on the right track knowing that and just encouraged us positively so that when we left gym, we were relatively unscathed and didn't have HORRIBLE memories of it haha.

      Delete
  9. Aww I love that your Gym teacher was there! And hmm, your 5k time is totally crazy fast! Is that your PR?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, and it's the only 5k I ever ran! I did train for it though. Please don't think I can roll out of bed and run a sub 20.

      Delete