Writing Project #4: The Definition of Being Athletic:
I do not consider myself to be a sporty person. I am not good at kicking soccer balls, shooting baskets, or running long distances… the list goes on and on. Basically, I’m not good at doing gym class sports and I don’t enjoy them. But I do not think that this makes me an un-athletic person. In fact, I consider myself to be somewhat of an athletic person, but not in a conventional school-related way.
Sports that are played in gym class:
Sports that I like to do:
Soccer
Rhythmic Gymnastics
Basketball
Downhill skiing
Hockey
Ice skating
Running
Canoeing
Handball
Kayaking
Football
Swimming
Volleyball
Tennis
Softball
Sailing
You see, all of the sports that I enjoy doing are ones that can’t be played in gym class. As a result, people don’t know I like them. People mainly define being athletic from what they are able to see you do in school, but since I don’t like most things that we do in gym, people sort of just assume that I am not as athletic as other people who are good at soccer, basketball, hockey, etc.
Also one of my favorite sports is rhythmic gymnastics, which is a mix of
dance and ballet. It is popular in China, Russia, and Ukraine and many people don’t really know what it is (even though it is an Olympic sport), and because of this, some people don’t view it to be a real sport. But, rhythmic gymnastics takes hard work, determination, and practice, which makes it as real of a sport as any other one. And just because people haven’t heard of it, doesn’t make it less of a sport.
Another thing is that there are many different ways to be athletic. For example, some people are athletic in the sense that they are really good at doing certain sports in gym class while they don’t do sports outside of gym class as much. While some people are athletic in the opposite way. I think that both types of people are athletic because exceling at school sports isn’t the only thing that determines how athletic someone is, although some people judge your athleticism based on only that.
I think that gym class is somewhat of a poor way of determining a person’s athleticism because speaking from my experiences of not doing very well in gym class sports, I feel like I am not viewed as an athletic person. And I feel like people sort of assume this just from seeing me attempt to play the few sports we are able do in gym class. But the truth is that just because I can’t really play the gym class sports as well as everyone else in our class doesn’t make me an un-athletic person in all the different aspects of my life. And I don’t think that everybody realizes that the people who seem un-athletic in school like other sports that we can’t play in school (as I showed above in the graph.)
So basically the whole reason that I wrote this story is so that people will stop jumping to conclusions about people based on what they see in school. Just because a person might not be able to shoot a basketball to save their life doesn’t mean that they are un-athletic in general. In order to solve this problem about assuming things about people, everyone should try to keep an open mind about people. I know that we wont be doing these unconventional sports in gym class anytime soon, but it would be nice if people wouldn't “judge a book by its cover” when it comes to being athletic.