games and recreation

When I was a kid I hated gym class. From first through twelfth grades, I was the Anti-PE. And in retrospect, its no wonder.

The thing is, when it comes to physical exertion, there are several activities I dread: running, hauling, and team sports. Running and hauling hurt, and as any archive-reader will know, I'm of the opinion that pain is your body's way of saying No. I carried a 4'x8' (1.2m x 2.4m) sheet of half-inch MDF about a city block today. These sheets generally weigh about 80 lbs (36kg) and catch the wind like a sail (which, naturally, pushed me backwards). By the time I put the damn thing down my hands were blistered and raw and my arm was tingling. Hauling just isn't fun. I don't understand the appeal of the "world's strongest man" competitions because frankly, all they're doing is heavy labor that nobody in their right mind would do for fun--and only the winner gets paid!

Anyway. Team sports. I despise team sports. I just do not have the enthusiasm for any activity that involves running after or hitting or trying to gain possession of...a ball. Maybe if it involved swords or oranges or something, but certainly nothing so pointless as a ball. What always made it worse in school was the teachers' constant attempts to get you "into the game"--to get you to look like you gave a damn. Yes, i was one of those girls in softball--standing in the outfield, chatting with the other apathetic outfielders about how cute the batter looked in his little gym shorts, and occasionally glancing up as a ball sailed three inches over my head and over the fence. They always told us we were graded on participation, but as there were about 80 students in each class, we figured out pretty early on that "participation" meant "attendance."

Thing is, though, I enjoy a lot of physical activities, but I always hated gym class because they never offered us the option of doing any of them. We always had to line up with tennis rackets and whack a ball over a net or line up with basketballs and try to make a lay-up shot or simply run around in circles for an hour and a half every day. When I was in school, I was a dancer. I have the knees to prove it. I also spent about four hours a day, five days a week practicing (okay, i was in the school color guard. I didn't go to Julliard or anything.) It always struck me as funny when my gym coach would accuse me of being lazy because i couldn't be arsed to chase other children around the football field until i was winded. I always wished they would offer you the option of taking ballet or gymnastics or yoga or something. We got the choice of jock- PE or Marine Corps ROTC, and i figured the former was slightly less likely to get me shot.

When I was really little, PE frequently involved group games that involved a lot of squealing and giggling. Back in the day we played Red Rover (i've heard it was recently banned in schools as too many children were getting broken arms and concussions from it), London Bridge is Falling Down, and one i never quite got on with, Mother May I. For anyone who's never heard of it, Mother May I is played by a medium-sized group of children who all know each other's names. One caller (the "Mother") is at the front, and the other children face him or her from a line a specific distance away. One by one, the Mother orders each child to take a specific number of steps toward or away from him/herself, frequently in a forceful or threatening voice. At which point the called-upon child must remember to ask, "Mother, may I?" and wait for a response before proceeding. The Mother may then choose to respond by saying "Yes you may" or "No you may not" and the child must behave accordingly. If the child fails to ask if he may move, or if he moves too few or many steps, he is thrown out of the game. The first child to reach the Mother wins, and becomes the Mother for the next round.
As an adult, it occurred to me that this game is based upon the notion that all mothers are, in fact, senile. Did your mother ever holler at you to clean your room, even threaten you with punishment if you didn't, then show up in your partly-cleaned room ten minutes later and ask why you weren't downstairs doing your homework? That's kinda the premise of this game. You are given a direct order, made to ask if you are permitted, and then are frequently told you may not do as you were told. Huh?! Its like the conversation, "Go do your laundry." "Do I have to?" "Not a bit. You stay right there and play your video game." I just don't get it. Is the game intended to encourage obedience or sass? If a kid ever responded to an instruction with "mother may i?" to her own mother, she'd be smacked for givin' her attitude. Yet this game has been around for probably centuries in one form or another. It resembles Simon Says in that you're supposed to wait for a specific word or phrase before complying, but i never liked that one either on account of the fact that the teacher usually played Simon or Mother and they barked orders at you like a friggin' drill sergeant. After a while I really wanted to miss a command and wait for them to say "You didn't ask 'mother may i', you're out!" just so i could look incredulous and say "So, what, you're encouraging me to question authority now? Well I'll be damned. And in public school."