Yes – totally agree with you there. I was much the same in PE – asthmatic, skinny, no good at team games, & then our PE teacher decided to allow a small number of us to go & do weight training instead. I never became the sort of chap whose neck was thicker than his head or anything but it was great to do something I didn’t suck at, out of the glaring gaze of those who thought football & cricket were the be-all & end-all, to get out of the rain & not be ill for once, & week on week to see myself getting stronger, doing more reps faster, & so on. Very much empowering.
Yes, why can’t there be yoga? dance? tai chi? Why this obsession with sports, which not everybody cares about anyway? I think having some level of compulsory activity is probably a good idea, but the way it’s regimented is just daft. 100% agree with you on group showers, that was always a terrible idea
Chubby, eczematic, borderline-autistic, awkward boy teen here, Fucking hated PE with a vengeance, PE teachers a lot more. The whole thing seemed designed to humiliate me. I had quite a severe skin condition through most of my teens and they still insisted on the whole rigmarole of a parents note every time I wasn’t going to do it, then treking all the way across the school to far about on the side lines with them in the freezing rain when I was too sick and sore to participate, which was quite often in the last years at secondary school. I don’t exercise properly to this day.
Another angry woman 
Yes – totally agree with you there. I was much the same in PE – asthmatic, skinny, no good at team games, & then our PE teacher decided to allow a small number of us to go & do weight training instead. I never became the sort of chap whose neck was thicker than his head or anything but it was great to do something I didn’t suck at, out of the glaring gaze of those who thought football & cricket were the be-all & end-all, to get out of the rain & not be ill for once, & week on week to see myself getting stronger, doing more reps faster, & so on. Very much empowering.
Yes, why can’t there be yoga? dance? tai chi? Why this obsession with sports, which not everybody cares about anyway? I think having some level of compulsory activity is probably a good idea, but the way it’s regimented is just daft. 100% agree with you on group showers, that was always a terrible idea
Chubby, eczematic, borderline-autistic, awkward boy teen here, Fucking hated PE with a vengeance, PE teachers a lot more. The whole thing seemed designed to humiliate me. I had quite a severe skin condition through most of my teens and they still insisted on the whole rigmarole of a parents note every time I wasn’t going to do it, then treking all the way across the school to far about on the side lines with them in the freezing rain when I was too sick and sore to participate, which was quite often in the last years at secondary school. I don’t exercise properly to this day.