PE Life Lessons

One of the worst PE (physical education) lessons I have ever had was when I was five years old. At this point "PE" meant a class of five-year-olds playing games in a sports hall with a couple of teachers directing us. For the most part, it was a good lesson - what made this lesson so terrible was that my teacher decided that I needed to learn how to jump rope and jump ropes, quite frankly, terrified me. While I could hula-hoop with the best and hang upside down from the monkey bars longer than anyone else in my class, jumping rope was a skill that evaded me completely. I would either jump too soon or too late, the rope would get tangled up in my feet and I would fall over. I tried to explain this to my teacher but what ended up coming out was; “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” She, of course, still wanted me to try and I, being a sensitive child, burst into tears. At this she finally got frustrated, declared that if I was going to act like a baby then she would treat me like one and walked away, leaving me standing with the jump rope handles in my hands and tears streaming down my face.

Years later, when I had mastered the jump rope, I remembered that lesson and realised what a little fool I had been. I was so convinced of my inability to do something that I refused to even try. I realised that no matter how silly I might have looked trying to improve, it would never match up to how silly I was in obstinately refusing help. Had I let my teacher coach me through it instead of crying, I might have learned to jump rope when I was five.