Sport . . . for this Art Student?

By Molly Richards (she/her)

Who would have thought eh? You may be surprised that I was once a very sporty individual despite the audible crackling of my spine. This week I am abruptly reminded of the fact that I move a lot less than I once did. What went wrong? I suppose nothing I didn’t know. I knew I was destined to sketch hunched over a desk when I signed to my degree four years ago. What I didn’t really consider was how little sport I would do in those following four years. You only realise what you’ve lost when it’s gone. For example, I realised I can’t even touch my toes when I was once able to grand battement my leg up to my nose each week in ballet. I wouldn’t exchange the skills I’ve learned drawing and designing however, and absolutely wouldn’t like to relive the beep test. Forgot the beep test? I doubt you’ve forgotten that ominous and torturous beep and the subsequent fear of dropping out first. It would materialise some random Wednesday to torture us. I am yet to meet someone that actually enjoyed that damn awful test. If you did, why? I will not speak any more about that trauma.

In high school we had a routine, go to school, go to extracurricular activities, and then go home. I was lucky to play netball, swim, dance, and even ski during the winter. Since moving out and studying, this routine has changed dramatically.

Nowadays, the closest I get to sport of any kind is the race to finish every single one of those papers I’ve overcommitted to. Can you count dancing at the rave as a sport? Feels like one. Or even running late to work on a Sunday morning? Sport Saturday for me has transformed into work Saturdays and independent study. Not to mention that hike home with the weekly shop. I’d say speed walking home before your bag breaks under the weight of milk and instant noodles will get the heart rate up faster than cricket. As a side note, I’ve never really understood cricket. I did however find the all-girls social cricket day quite fun, not that we really had much care for the rules. I rather enjoyed hitting the shit out of a ball. Watching cricket, however, has always been more boring than golf for me.

Speaking of golf . . . Now that’s a sport I’ve always been properly shit at. Don’t get me wrong, I love mini golf. I’m still crap but at least I can watch my ball go up a gondola and zip down a miniature mountain. Granted, once it took me upwards of 20 strokes to get that bloody ball in the hole. Back in the first years of high school, I thought that it was crazy how little everyday sport I did. What would year 9 me say now? In primary school, there was no day I wouldn’t play outside, running like a headless chicken. Fun fact about me, I would often unicycle during breaks. Yes, I was super cool. Before you think I am a complete clown, we had a set time everyone in the year was able to learn. We even learned how to juggle; in hindsight I think they were training us for the circus.

I digress, if you like me have found yourself outside the realm of sport in your early adulting life, I’ve got some suggestions. Before you pull me up for not actually following my own advice, I did join social netball two weeks ago. A bit of backstory; netball was my favourite sport growing up. I’ve rolled my ankle more times than I can count. I played defence, makes sense as I’m a terrible shot, so GA and GS were out the picture. Nevertheless, the first game of social netball pointed out that despite the fact I was an A-team member back in the day, I wouldn’t make the team now. Who would have thought? Not to mention I was sore all over for a good day. That day made me curse my flat for all its stairs.

Still, social sport is a good idea, it’s a bit of fun, no pressure about winning or losing. No training necessary and no over the top parents yelling from the side line. Alternatively, the gym is a good place to start for some much-needed exercise. I, however, found that unbearably boring. I prefer yoga. Yoga is no joke. As a former ballerina, I was reminded how difficult it is to stand on one leg. I recall my first yoga class being once during P.E. in high school. I always thought yoga was calming and relaxing. Not to say it isn’t, however, on this occasion our instructor at the school was far from zen. It’s probably because none of us were all that good at maintaining our seriousness, much less the poses. Ironic really, I think he regretted ever agreeing to teach that class. I’m not sure whose bright idea it was to ever think that a group of teenagers would be able to do poses like upward dog without laughing. Or saying, ‘what’s up, dog?’ Guilty.

Still, I suppose moving is necessary. Don’t let your phone’s step count bully you. Or how about this: When you’re hunched over your desk drawing or whatever as a studious artist, remind yourself that you look like a piece of macaroni. Check that posture at the very least.

By Elizabeth Chan

I hated P.E.

It didn’t matter whether I was in Malaysia or the Christian college somewhere in East Auckland, I utterly despised it. I deeply loved my high school days and still often reminisce about them, but if someone asked whether I would want to re-live those days, I would hesitate because I know I would have to attend P.E. I already wasn’t the sporty type and because I loathed P.E. so much, I never saw myself exercising regularly in the future like some gym junkies I know.

However, if I could turn back time and tell my younger self something, I would tell her not to be discouraged by those hellish torture sessions named ‘Physical Education’ or P.E. for short, because personal exercise is way different than P.E. She would probably never believe a single word I say because P.E. was just that traumatising, but here’s why nobody should ever be discouraged from exercising, even though they weren’t sporty enough or just detested P.E.

The Dark Days on the Battlefield

Some may think I’m being dramatic, but that’s exactly how I would describe P.E.: a battlefield. While most would have a classmate(s) as their high school bully, mine was my P.E. teacher.

During P.E., she would berate and intentionally bring students down by giving them punishments like extra pushups. If she’s on a power trip, which happened way more often than it needed to, she would scold students in front of everyone and even pause the entire P.E. session just so she could have an audience to witness her scolding that particular student. Think of it as a modern-day beheading. We were the criminals and she the executioner. Basically, she was the dictator of our school.

Most of her targets were students who were “not sporty enough” or not fit enough, which is honestly ironic since it was her job to improve students’ fitness as a Physical Ed teacher. Meanwhile, her star pupils were those who were “sporty and fit enough” and kept their mouths shut even when they knew her teaching methods were cruel and extremely unethical.

I fell in the first category of not being “sporty enough” and eventually got my handful of humiliation when I became her new target.

Each P.E. session felt like we were in a military camp where she was trying to train us up to be Olympic gold medallists, except that I would always come back exhausted and sore because she didn’t even give us proper warm-ups and forced us into sports like basketball or football immediately after. The only P.E. sessions I did look forward to involved swimming because I loved swimming. Unfortunately, they never lasted long because autumn would come and then it got too cold.

After I left high school (my graduation got stolen by COVID), things just kept getting more unfortunate in my fitness life. I began to develop eczema on my hands and feet due to temperature and I couldn’t go swimming anymore, because swimming pools are filled with chlorine water and eczema sufferers cannot touch chlorine because it would dry our skin out.

Perhaps if I get super filthy rich, I could have a swimming pool with an alternative for chlorine that would suit sensitive skin, but until then, I needed to exercise because my restless leg syndrome started to get even worse.

The Difference between Exercise and P.E.

The main difference between personal exercise and P.E. is the fact that you’re able to take things at your own pace. What this means is that you won’t have anyone in the background barking orders and you won’t have to follow anyone else’s training regimen or schedule (unless you pay for a gym instructor). This ultimately means you’re the boss of what you want to do, which is why I find personal exercise so much more invigorating because I get to do things in my own time and decide what kind of exercises to do.

One other toxic thing my former P.E. teacher does is that she has an extremely biased view on what she defines as sports. She views sports such as basketball, cricket and football as sports that are worthy enough to be called “sports”. Meanwhile, dance, Pilates and yoga do not fall under her definition of sports. In this sense, you can already guess our P.E. activities were quite limited and suffocating since she only favours “sporty” students who engage in her version of sports while the rest, such as myself, who enjoyed dance and Pilates were left out.

So, when I began my personal exercise that included all the fun things P.E. teachers never include like standing

Pilates, kickboxing and weightlifting, I actually really enjoyed exercising and it significantly helped with my restless leg syndrome (RLS).

Restless leg syndrome is, as the name denotes, when your legs feel restless. The feeling of restless legs is extremely uncomfortable and irritating because I can come back from a really long, hard day exhausted and ready to go to bed, but my legs would still feel like moving. Unfortunately, there is no cure for RLS and I inherited the syndrome from my mother’s side of the family. However, exercising helped significantly with that; whenever I did some weightlifting, Pilates, or cardio, it helped eliminate the uncomfortable feeling before going to bed.

With a diverse world of exercise and sports out there, I recommend Googling what sort of exercise targets the areas you want to work on, like leg exercises for me since I was and still am dealing with RLS, or you can go with researching exercises that were once what you may have aspired to do or something similar, like opting for adult ballet lessons or Pilates if you didn’t get a chance to do ballet when you were younger.

So, to my fellow readers, do not be discouraged if you had a traumatic P.E. experience like me, make sure to research first if you are new to finding your own exercise and make some time for exercise even after a long day of uni!