P.E. Dropout

I would consider myself an “expert” at a handful of things.

Eating appetizers. Watching Netflix for extended periods of time with limited bathroom breaks. Kardashian family trivia. (If my boss is reading this - marketing!)

And quitting P.E. classes.

All the signs were there from the beginning. My first soccer game (age 5) began with me running halfway down the field, bursting into tears, running to my mom, and begging her to let me quit. In fourth grade, I purposefully smacked my forehead against the metal base of a basketball hoop (...multiple times…) in hopes that the goose-egg on my forehead would grant me a pass to sit out for the day.

In college, I attempted six different P.E. classes. You are only required to pass two of them in order to graduate, but I had to take a few shots to get a touchdown. Or whatever.

HESS 245 - Introduction to Golf

As the self-actualized young freshman I was, I knew a successful backswing was the key to becoming CEO someday. (This is a lie. I picked golf because I wanted to get my P.E. credits done and over with, and the only classes left were bowling, running, or golf.)

I stumbled through two weeks of practice on the outdoor putting green at the rec center, and dropped the class when I found out I’d not only be required to go to a real golf course for our first test - but that I’d be required to purchase and wear bermuda shorts for the occasion.

HESO 253 - Orienteering

For my second semester, I set my sights on eking out a P.E. credit with orienteering.
Orienteering is possibly the least P.E.-ish form of P.E. there is. It involves tromping through the woods with a compass and a map - the point being to navigate quickly from point to point, following a course with just a number of paces and cardinal directions.

If you know me in person, you’re well aware that I have a comically bad sense of direction.

Beyond my basic lack of skill reading maps, the thing that made orienteering particularly difficult for me was that if you don’t read your company right and veer two degrees more to the right, or lose count of your paces - you have to go back and start over from the waypoint before it. (Impossible!)

So while my classmates crunched around going 248 paces at 124° southeast, I was stumbling through an expanse of woods cursing under my breath and wondering which of my friends would show up to be part of the civilian search party.

There was one course that led me through the woods of Dorothea Dix park, into the encampment of a homeless war veteran who introduced himself (I’m not kidding!) as “Lieutenant Dan” and offered me a cigarette. By the time I made it back to our starting line, the class had been over for 45 minutes and a TA for another class had been stationed to wait for me.

I never went back. (If I’d sent my teacher an email saying I’d gotten lost on the way to class, he probably would have believed me.)

HESS 230 - Online Pilates

“Maybe I’ll enjoy physical activity if I can do it from the comfort of my dorm room so nobody can see it!” I thought to myself, and then proceeded to just NEVER log in for online pilates class.

It took me until my senior year of college to successfully complete two P.E. classes needed to graduate. (And if we’re being honest, the primary reason I excelled in Yoga was because I aced the written test where we had to correctly spell the sanskrit names for each pose.)

The moral of the story is: If I am running, you should be, too. There is a man with a knife or a mountain lion behind us. Or a taco truck in front of us.