Our school-issued gym shorts were laughably short - picture the ones Apollo Creed wore in that homo-erotic beach training scene in Rocky III, but hike them up a few inches. They were baggy as well, regardless of size, and the heavy fabric lining at the distal ends caused them to droop. Our PE teacher would have us seated on the gym floor, usually to be scolded on our subpar levels of “hustle” and “pep”, and with some precise angulation it was usually possible to catch some fleeting glimpses of girls panties.
This was literally the only thing I enjoyed about gym class.
I love how dodgeball has become a “predatory” sport, and thus banned. I was picked on through most of elementary and through junior high, but I RULED at dodgeball. Couldn’t throw real hard or accurate (or catch real well for that matter), but I was usually one of the last players out there, due to my awesome dodging ability. Which is funny, cause in pretty much anything else, I could barely get out of my own way.
Dodgeball is still OK in England, even with the little ones I teach, so long as the ball is aimed at the legs. My year 6s (10/11) love it but they’re a very competitive lot.
Fuckin’ pin dodgeball in elementary school was the shit. As was the v-sit reach, as I was one of the very few males who wouldn’t get a negative score. lol
Two things that made PE fun: weights and sprint sports. That is all I did for the four years (2004-2008) of my life in PE.
We’d do complexes for warm ups, then we’d do one lift (originally it was bench, squat, c&j, and snatch, but turned into bench, squat, push press, and dead lift) a day. After that we’d do a sport that involved sprints and good amount of physical and mental strength: basketball, wrestling, dodge ball, capture the flag!, &c.
What made it really fun? Was that everyone did it. There was no slacking, we governed ourselves.
For me, PE was a drag all the way up to 10th grade. I was the tiniest, least athletic sissy in the class. I couldn’t climb the rope, couldn’t bat, never got picked for teams, etc. Then after a couple of years of lifting (9th and 10th grade), I suddenly became “athletic”. By my senior year not only did I hold dip, chin, and bench press records, I also kicked ass in the obstacle course, climbed rope the fastest (without using legs), and finally did an iron cross on the rings.
Was never in PE, always played sports so we had our own training. If we had it in grade school I sure as hell dont remember it. Dodgeball always looked fun, we just played king of the mat in off season football. Whoever could be the last one standing on a big gym mat. Good times.
we didn’t play dodgeball but played a lot of bullrush. until the tackle variety was banned.
the only thing i enjoyed was when we did the same street running circuit 3x a week for a month or so and had to log our running times. graph them and stuff. we didn’t have to show our log to others - just the teacher to check we were doing it correctly. that was the only time it became about self improvement rather than competition. i think he even gave small prizes to those who had improved the most or got the most significant PB. i almost got interested in running because of the buzz i got out of seeing self improvement. but i think that teacher went away so it was back to caring about who was first past the end line… since i wasn’t athletic then i didn’t bother trying since i didn’t have a hope in hell (I thought) of beating the kids who were.
i know some kids thrive on competing with others. for those who don’t i think focusing on self improvement can help. also taking things like bodyweight into account for strength sports etc. like how they use sinclair in weightlifting so you can compare males and females (based on the percentage they got of world record or something like that). i think it can be more inspiring for kids who are smaller or female or whatever anyway.
Dodgeball with a basketball in the mix was brutal but fun.
We had a low ceiling side gym in HS that we would sometimes sneak the trampoline into and try to reach the rafters and hang on. One day we talked some asshole into trying to reach the rafters. He was sucessfull, but to make it interesting we all stood to one side and moved it out from under him and walked away laughing our asses off. We left him up there for a good five minutes by himself lol.
In archery one day I learned how not to retrieve a target full of fifty arrows. Don’t just start yanking, the target will fall forward, hit the floor and snap every single fucking one of them lol.
I was a pretty good athlete, short, strong accurate arm. However I hated school so much I refused to join any school team ever. This created a bit if friction with my folks and some PE teachers believe me but my parents were cool about it in time. I played hockey and baseball OUTside of school since I was four but never for a school team, how fucked up is that? lol. I blame the Catholic school system.
I also have a confession, I stole a football in grade seven.
If I sucked at sports I would have hated it like everything else about school.
My only advice to any new PE teachers is this. Perform some feet of strength or endurance to acheive instant respect from your students. One year we had a teacher who was a former wrestler who was built like a fire hydrant. We had been bugging him since the first class of the year to see how far we could push him so one day we talked him into a pushup contest. He buried all of us, he stopped at seventy and jumped to his feet no sweat lol. Instant respect for the rest of the year from us idiots big time.
competition. any PE activity without some aspect of competition sucked by-in-large, those with competition were good, even if it was just competition with one’s self
I spent ages 4 through 9 living in England (Exeter and later Margate) and in PE class, if you’d forgotten your shorts and plimsoles then you had to play in your underwear. Not even as punishment, but just to keep your trousers clean…but it still ended up feeling like it.
I loved PE. My PE teacher was my baseball coach one year and my football coach was my teacher another year, so me and a couple of guys from those teams pretty much had the run of the place. I have fond memories of terrorizing the class during softball and flag football. I was such an asshole back then.
We had an older teacher one year and my buddy pushed him into the pool as a joke during the last week of school and he got expelled PLUS the teacher also pressed charges against him. My buddy literally dropped off the face of the Earth after that.
There was a second gym at our school that was smaller and attached to the girls’ locker room. If no one was watching during class, you could just open the door, walk in and watch all the chicks change from inside one of the stalls! It was awesome, and I admit, I rubbed a few out in the girls’ locker room.
My baseball coach was this older guy as well, and during volleyball I used to always dome that fucker in the head from across the gym and then pretend like it was an accident.
But I think my favorite part about PE was when I was in grade school and we would play kickball. We’d play on the blacktop, but there was this big field that started in short centerfield and took up most of the outfield and the grass kinda slowed the ball down. But if you could really kick the shit out of the ball right down the left field line, that fucking thing would stay on the blacktop and roll all the way across the entire school until it stopped in these bushes. Easy home run. I used to play soccer, so I was one of the kids who kick it really far and I always aimed right down the line, even though the other team always put a bunch of players over there and three foul balls was an out. If I kicked it just right, sometimes I could make it through the defense all the way across campus and they’d have to run forever to get it, while I skipped around the bases laughing my ass off.
Occassionally, not having pussycake PE teachers that said didn’t allow all the other pussycakes kids let a little rain OR even gasp, shock horror! SNOW get in the way of going outside & playing football (soccer)instead of staying inside & doing something really ghey like dance or basketball etc.
That + perving on all of the girls of course. Though, sadly perving opportunities were greatly dimminished around the age of 13, given the imminenent arrival of boobs & boners, which of course lead to single sex games (no homo!). [/quote]
Soccer is gay, and I’d rather two step any day before I play soccer.
Occassionally, not having pussycake PE teachers that said didn’t allow all the other pussycakes kids let a little rain OR even gasp, shock horror! SNOW get in the way of going outside & playing football (soccer)instead of staying inside & doing something really ghey like dance or basketball etc.
That + perving on all of the girls of course. Though, sadly perving opportunities were greatly dimminished around the age of 13, given the imminenent arrival of boobs & boners, which of course lead to single sex games (no homo!). [/quote]
Soccer is gay, and I’d rather two step any day before I play soccer.[/quote]
Rather a predictable insult BC, I thought you were a lil smarter then that.
It seems to start getting silly when we see the World Cup and guys are diving and crying, looking for a referee to eject an opposing team member.
It just boils the blood of so many of us because it seems like such a sneaky, underhanded thing to do.