27.01.2013
Anyone who knows me knows that I love words. I love playing with them; I love the pretty patterns you can make with them and the infinite nuances of the English language. I volunteer at my children's school with children who are struggling with reading because I can't bear that they should go into adulthood ill equipped to use our wonderful language, let alone enjoy it.
But here's the thing. I've realised that I am an illiterate and the realisation is a hard one to acknowledge. Baroness Susan Campbell (Chair of UK Sport and the Youth Sport Trust) said recently that children are leaving school "physically illiterate".
She said, "They can't catch, throw, jump or run - the fundamental basic movements of every sport.... With literacy you learn in stages – letters first, then words, then sentences. In P.E. it's the same. You learn to move, then to string the movements together, then to play mini games".
I am one of those children. I don't have the basic building blocks and no one told me that it was possible to learn. I've always joked that I can't run, jump, catch, throw, kick or connect any kind of bat with any kind of ball. I assumed that I was the kind of person who simply can't. I am only now, in my forties, realising that I was utterly failed by P.E. at school. Of course there were girls who had some innate skill at things that didn't come naturally to me, but I didn't have to be good enough to win prizes, only to join in and play for fun.
From the teachers who practised that barbaric ritual of team picking, to those who made a habit of throwing the ball at me when I was dreaming away in the back of beyond, I was failed. By the time I was 14 I had figured out that, if I bunked off on Wednesday P.E. afternoons, no one would know or care. I won't tell you what I did with my Wednesday afternoons but it was more fun that the regular round of casual humiliation and vicious sarcasm. Oh, okay, I was mostly in the library. Mostly.
On Twitter this week someone posted that they couldn't understand people who don't exercise. I tried to explain that exercise simply has no positive associations for us. We don't think it will make us feel good, we think it will lead to failure and humiliation because that is what we've learned. And what on earth is an Endorphin high anyway?!
At the beginning of all this I thought that I just wanted to get fitter and had no interest in team sports or games. But I realise now that I do want to learn to catch and throw, to kick and to connect a ball with a bat (or racquet, or whatever you call it). I don't believe what they say about old dogs; surely I can learn enough to catch up on some of the fun I've been missing?
My running buddy tells me a lot of my problem is psychological and I'm sure she's right. She also tells me that muscles have memories and that's one reason activity like running gets easier over time. But my muscles have no idea what I'm doing or trying to achieve; they're growing new memories to replace the old, painful ones. And I'm trying, very slowly, to build the belief in myself that physical activity is connected with fun and laughter and feeling good about myself, not bad.
Sorry if this isn't my usual jokey style. I think it's better to laugh at yourself before someone laughs at you - an attitude that was good defence at school. But suddenly it isn't funny anymore.
Time, I think, to get even...
