Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Why I will never be a true athlete

When I was a kid, I was about as un-athletic as one could get.  I was always chosen last for any team, and whenever we played a game that involved bases the opposing team would yell "MOVE IN!" when I would approach the plate.  When we attempted vaulting, I vaulted right into the horse with a loud smack.  Then we tried shot put and I lobbed the metal ball directly into the metal volleyball pole.  It was known as the "clang heard around the world".  On top of it all, my glasses were like magnets for all flying objects.  If it was a ball and flying through the air, it always headed straight for my head.  The only thing I succeeded at in PE was running the mile and that was because I cheated and said I had done all four laps (I had only done two...I guess they believed that no one could be that slow.)

Ever since I took my last PE class as a high school sophomore, I have worked hard at avoiding all athletic activities.  I knew that anything I tried would be soon followed by humiliation.

Then I got a little older and decided that I could handle the humiliation.  Embarrassment isn't as scary as it used to be to my 13-year old self.  But because I had avoided all movement, I had also successfully avoided all injury.  Over the past couple of years of attempting various types of exercise I have managed to injure myself in very creative ways.  Yesterday I pulled a neck muscle in Zumba.  A muscle in my leg I could understand.  Or a muscle in my arm.  But my neck?????  Really????  I can't turn my head left or right.  I have to turn my entire body to change my vantage point.  I have an ice pack attached to my neck with a head band.  Only I could manage to break my neck in a group fitness class.

There are people in the class that twist their bodies in all sorts of unnatural ways.  Scientifically, they should just split in two from their dance contortions.  Yet I am the one that ends up unable to move anything but my eyeballs. 

My talents (or lack thereof) continue to amaze me.

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