My sister and I once took a ballet class together at BYU. A couple of weeks into the class, after we’d memorized all the positions and practiced our plies and tendues and arabesques, the teacher asked us to dance one at a time across the room so she could evaluate our progress. I watched as, one by one, the other students—including my sister—deftly moved across the floor, arms and legs moving in perfect form, all grace and poise. The teacher would make comments of encouragement and approval after each student finished: “Lovely chasse!” “Beautiful pas de chat!” “Yes, you’ve got it.” Then it was my turn. When I was finished, the teacher studied me for a moment, looking puzzled, then finally said, “It’s as if there’s a block somewhere and the messages from your brain just aren’t getting through to your feet.”
If you haven’t guessed already, athletic skill is not my forte (the title of this post probably gave that away). As a young girl growing up in Australia, I was picked last for every cricket match, softball game, and hockey team in our PE classes, after which I was always sent outfield where I could do the least harm. I moaned, suffered, and stumbled through the long jumps and high jumps and hurdles required during the track and field unit. I dreaded the volleyball clinics, the gymnastics primers, the warm-up calisthenics. I hated, hated, hated PE—until I got to high school, when, in lieu of having PE classes every other day, we could pick a sport to play every Wednesday afternoon. I chose golf, because we got to ride a bus to the local golf course, and my friend Narelle’s house was on the third hole. Narelle and I would play a couple of holes, lagging behind our classmates until they were out of sight, then we’d sneak to Narelle’s house and watch The Young and the Restless and As the World Turns while Narelle’s mum, who never cared much for PE herself, served us crumpets and jam. Then we’d return to the bus two hours later with our scorecards filled out. It was the best time I ever had playing a sport.
My lack of athletic ability and disinterest in sports didn’t change when we moved to the States or when I later attended BYU. I suffered through Fitness for Life, the above-mentioned ballet class, and a couple of other PE classes, and I had my share of “athletic” dates: occasional games of tennis (always humiliating), cross-country skiing (to date, my one attempt at any type of skiing), snowshoeing, sledding, bowling, and water skiing. I turned down the blind date with the extreme sports enthusiast who wanted to take me four wheeling and rock climbing: it was obvious that relationship was going nowhere. Luckily I eventually married a man who, while he’s athletic and enjoys biking and pilates and the occasional round of golf, isn’t glued to the TV during Monday Night Football and doesn’t care that I don’t have an ounce of coordination. And so I settled, at last, into my nonathletic, sports-free life.
Except that we had children, and some of those children actually play sports. And I have to say, I’ve felt a thrill of pride and awe and a tiny twinge of envy as I’ve watched my daughter charge down the soccer field, my son throw himself into a lacrosse game or race down the ski slope (after he suddenly decided, at around age thirteen, that he could do sports, after all). And I’ve wondered, is being athletic often more a matter of decision and practice rather than talent or skill? Was I really as uncoordinated as I believed myself to be when I was growing up? Or was it more a matter of not really trying, of being held back by my own insecurities and preconceived notions of what I couldn’t do? Would my younger life have been richer if I’d learned early on to enjoy participating in sports, if I’d felt the confidence and strength my peers seemed to feel when they moved their bodies skillfully, gracefully across the tennis court or dance floor?
Now that I’ve turned fifty, and my body is starting to creak in odd places, I’m thinking about these things more. Eight months ago my husband talked me into doing the P90X Insanity DVD workout series with him every morning, and I reluctantly agreed. Six mornings a week, I follow along while a handsome, muscular man named Shaun T. (no, I don’t mean my husband, although my husband is handsome and muscular as well) and his flat-tummied and toned workout team sprint in place and do jumping jacks and push ups and ski hops. And you know what? I’m feeling stronger and more confident in my body than I ever have before. It’s not ballet, by any means, but I think my brain is finally starting to communicate with my feet.
Did you dislike PE when you were in school? Do you consider yourself to be athletic? Coordinated? If you do, has being athletic come naturally to you or was it more a matter of choice and practice? If you don’t, and you’re a sports unenthusiast like me, have you felt that you’ve missed out? What is your favorite sport to play?
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