As you could guess, given my physique, sport was not my forte at school.  When I was about 8, I was put on a course of medication which increased my appetite and I’ve just never got my figure back (as if I’d ever look like a 7 year old again).  So from that point on my life was one of being picked last for the cricket team in Primary School and being rather forgetful when it came to bringing my sports uniform or swimmers during high school.

My one memory of primary school sport was getting hit in the neck with a cricket ball.  Usually I’d stand fairly far back when fielding and hope to avoid having to do anything.  Catching and throwing was not my strong point.  Although in terms of my sporting skills it was neck and neck with running and swimming.  I could whack the ball pretty well for t-ball on occasion, so I’m not a complete loss.  But I got hit with the ball twice, the first time I collapsed in shock.  The second time I managed to cup my arms, and be the only one to catch one of the guys that were good at sport out.  In retrospect if they were so good, I half wonder if it was deliberate…  who knows.  In year 7 I was almost at risk of enjoying archery, but got annoyed that the girl I was sharing a target with kept missing, but then took my arrow from the target, leaving me to run up the oval to retrieve hers.  Cow.

In year 11 I changed schools and thought I’d give the team sport thing a go again.  Unlike most Australian girls, I have a passionate hate for netball.  Most of the girls who where good at it were b!tches and/or extremely aggressive.  By then I’d given up on swimming as I hated my body shape (although I hear this is common amongst most teenage girls regardless of size).  I also discovered that I can not get a volleyball to go in the right direction and was hopeless at all forms of track and field sports (including ones that required a bit more weight and strength).  One sport I had enjoyed was hockey.  And much to my mother’s horror I signed up for the team, which also meant 7am winter training sessions and being driven to my game anywhere from St Hilda’s to our home field in Chermside on a Saturday morning.  I often reminded her that I had wanted to do rowing, which had 5am training sessions, which seemed to be a good tactic.

At this school I also got over the not wanting to swim thing and just enjoyed it for the good work out it is, and also it meant I got to do snorkelling lessons.  AND in year 12 we got to actually do some fun stuff like self-defence lessons and finally, for the first time ever tennis.  My mother had forced me to do tennis since I was 8.  I sucked at it, but she persisted as she thought it was quite a social sport and you only needed one other person to play rather than a whole team.  Possibly, if I had played more team sports as a child I would be less individualistic, but that’s neither here nor there.  I had tried out for the tennis team at my first high school only to find that there was only one team, not one for each year level, and that it was already filled with fanatics who played every day and could serve faster than I could see.  It was no place for intermediate players with low fitness levels like me.  However, when it was played with every one in my class in year 12, I could kick the butts of most girls including the ones who were actually quite good at sports, based on skill alone.  It was a minor victory until I only scored a B.  I suspect my teacher may have just assigned marks on some sort of preconceived idea of how good we were at sports or it was like the time that I went from a D to an A in Word Processing because our teacher actually had no idea who any one was and just seemed to randomly choose marks and comments.

Since I left school I’ve dabbled from time to time in other sports.  I tried to go to the guy and aerobics classes at uni, and my Christian group had Friday arvo sports.  Friday arvo sports, however, mostly consisted of the guys playing touch and me and the other girls gossiping on the sidelines.  I think I played once, but didn’t enjoy it.  I also played tennis on occasion with one of my best friends, but again shied away when it came to Christian camps etc as it was mostly boys playing.  Their idea of a game was hitting the ball as hard as possible with no regards for it being in or out.  I think points were awarded on how many balls got stuck in the fence.

When I went to Japan I also had the opportunity to try kendo, a sport which I can’t find practiced in Australia, and I have been told may be illegal as the point of it is to strike your opponent on the head with a big stick and fend them off with a small wooden sword.  It was fun!

Since then I have finally found two activities which I enjoy – yoga and golf.  (I've also learned that watching Union is fun, but that's a whole different topic).  Yoga is awesome in that it is energising and relaxing at the same time.  There is none of the aggression and competitiveness of the sort of sport you learn at school.  If I had know sports could be like that at a younger age, I would have stuck with it and I may have even been a happier person.  Golf I got into a few years back as I figured it was pretty much compulsory being in finance.  So I took a few lessons and found that it was rather therapeutic trying to hit that little white ball as far as it will go.  I wasn’t too good initially, but I have improved after about 3 years of play.  There are times when my faith has not been strong, usually after episodes of seeing that 10 year olds can out-drive me, but I’ve stuck with it for the most part.  I also enjoy the fact that I can do something active with my boyfriend without forcing him to go for long walks on the beach or through national parks.

But I guess this is a very lengthy way of saying that school sports suck.  I don’t know why we aren’t exposed to games that are social, popular with adults and actually enjoyable from a young age.  I have a sneaking suspicion that most sports teachers are highly fit and highly competitive and have never struggled to enjoy sports, but that’s far from the majority of the population.  And they are disenfranchising the vast majority of students from forming good, lifelong habits of engaging in physical activities which they enjoy.  I’ve been appalled to learn in recent years that sport is not compulsory in all schools any more – at all my schools there were a minimum of 2 PE lessons a week and after year 8 we could choose to do HPE (health and physical education) as an elective and get an extra 4 lessons of it per week.  I hated it but it kept me fit.  If I’d had a choice, I wouldn’t have done it at all.  Most kids wouldn’t because most school sports are hard, unfair and embarrassing to all but the fittest.  I am kind of disappointed that I didn’t get to do fun stuff like golf or yoga at school, but I’ve found them now and one day I may even do them often enough to have an average level of fitness.