P.E was far from my forte in high school, which my teachers repeatedly made clear on my reports at the end of each term. I'd be super excited to see my 'A' for effort, but couldn't fathom my 'D' for attainment. Was it really possible to try that hard and still be that terrible at every sport I attempted? The trying lasted for a couple of years, but it wasn't long before my friends and I acknowledged that we had no talent for sports whatsoever...and since our teachers already knew this they were content to ignore us for the hour we were required to be in their class.
I think the one occasion that I actually managed to impress my P.E. teacher was on a week that I had a note from my Doctor excusing me from participating. The teacher told me to make notes about the rules of badminton so I didn't waste the entire hour, along with the girls who already wore eye liner and had all mysteriously forgotten their trainers. At the end of the lesson I handed her my notes, all six pages of them. She was so surprised that someone had actually taken the task seriously that she rewarded me with three points for my house; points I remember well, since it was the one and only time I would receive any whilst standing inside the gym block.
With such a history it never crossed my mind that one day I'd actually be taken seriously whilst performing an exercise. Certainly I never imagined that I'd be the one showing people how to perform a movement correctly, or that someone would consider me an athlete. With such a history I've surprised even myself. After months of volunteering to teach a strength class at our local YMCA, and weeks of studying biology and anatomy for the first time in a decade, I just passed my exam to become a certified group exercise instructor. It's weird to see my name on a certificate which includes the word 'exercise'. It's left me wondering if I've had talents lying dormant for all these years, but I think it's probably just further proof for the adage 'those that can't do teach.'
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